There was a heavy feeling pressing down on every part of his body. It was as if he was underwater. Deep underwater, to the point where not even sunlight could reach him.

  That wasn’t all. Xander could see a series of constellations glowing in the darkness around him. It was an odd sight, since he didn’t recognize any of the ones that he saw, but he knew what each one represented.

  They were pathways. Infinite in number and crisscrossed to form an endless web of lights and lines.

  Yet there was one light that was brighter than all the others. A light that gave him a sense of belonging, of comfort. It was as if it was a piece of himself that he hadn’t known he’d lost.

  A mental nudge caused the blinking star to flash, and the sight of a blue gecko with glowing spots appeared before his eyes. Suddenly, its limbs were ripped off, and it was covered in cuts, bruises, burns and other injuries, only for all of them to heal and disappear while the small lizard returned to perfect health.

  The gecko faded away, and the glowing light was all that remained, though the lines connecting it to several other lights were now lit up, and he could feel that there was something there.

  Ten lights were connected to the one that he had just examined.

  Upon inspecting these lights as well, he saw several creatures in full view, and several that were partially hidden, as if blocked by a thick fog.

  “Are these the paths that are open to me?” The words escaped Alexander's mouth before he realized that he had spoken. They felt right, however, and he wondered how he knew this.

  “It’s fascinating, isn’t it Lord Mar?” the sound of a young woman’s voice rang through his mind with a gentle chime. “The healing properties of the Millennium Starlight Gecko have so many uses. Having them serve as the base of one’s evolutionary path almost seems like a waste given what they could do if cultivated properly.”

  The faint image of a woman with a passing resemblance to his fiancé, Katie, nearly took shape, but faded away before his mind could fully grasp it.

  A flood of information followed, covering all the relevant facts pertaining to the means of harvesting the genetic material he would need to continue along the various paths of evolution he now had access to. This included the multitude of ways that the genes belonging to the other mutated creatures could be used, even beyond the standard means of evolutionary mutations.

  “What is this?” A sharp pain pierced through his head the second he spoke again, and he felt like he was forgetting something, even for all he now remembered.

  Before he could attempt to recall anything else, however, he felt a rising sensation all over his body.

  The stars and constellations surrounding him dimmed, and the world was filled with the blinding glare of fluorescent lighting.

  ----------

  It took several minutes for Xander to come to terms with what he had just experienced. It was always clear to him that the time he had spent in stasis was long, but now it seemed that the time that he remembered wasn’t the only time that he had been awake.

  The problem was that he didn’t know how many years he was missing, nor how many times he’d been put into stasis. At least a thousand years had passed since he had last been awake, but now it was clear that he had lived a life before waking up to this one.

  Possibly even more than one life, forgetting things over and over again, but regardless of that, his memories from before his first freeze never left.

  “I can’t deal with this right now.” He stood up from his bed and stretched. He’d been given some time to center himself after the guards keeping watch over him had barged in when he’d woken up. Apparently, he’d been out for another day, but was feeling significantly better than before. “I can figure out just what I’m missing when I have more information on the here and the now. Best to check in with Lady Wrathmor before she calls for me. I don’t doubt that she knows I’m awake now”

  Dressing in the uniform he had been given, Xander stepped outside as he tucked in his shirt. All around him, several others were dressed similarly or were wearing the armored uniforms or robes that the soldiers and scholars had. The loose-fitting clothes were comfortable, and tougher than any material he’d ever worn before, while also being soft and smooth as silk.

  The emblem of the Malicent Kingdom could be seen on the back. It reminded him of a dress uniform used by the military, though the lack of markings indicating rank and any other identifiers made it seem relatively plain.

  “Ah, Alexander,” Gerome, who seemed to have been waiting for him, greeted Xander from where he stood outside the building that Lady Wrathmor had been using, “Good to see you up and about. Did anything interesting happen while you were unconscious?”

  Xander’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Was something supposed to happen to me?”

  Gerome opened the door and ushered Xander inside. “Not necessarily, but sometimes those that undergo their mutation get hints regarding what they need to continue growing. Given that we don’t have the full sequence for your evolutionary path, I was hoping that you might have seen something that would lead us in the right direction.”

  With a sigh Alec pinched the bridge of his nose. “Honestly, I did see something,” his voice was quiet, but Gerome seemed to hear him just fine, “but I can’t recall what that creature was called. I might need to look at your records to find it.”

  Xander looked at Gerome from the corner of his eye. The scholarly man just smirked but nodded his head. The unspoken deal regarding the information Xander wanted access to was agreed upon. Though Xander knew he would need to be more careful.

  Petty tricks like this wouldn’t work on anyone with any political training. It was only effective against those that sought knowledge and didn’t care about things like national secrets.

  I’m glad that I seem to be reading him right. If Gerome was any more interested in the security of his kingdom, rather than finding new genes, I might already be in a cell somewhere deep underground.

  The thought nearly sent a shiver down his spine, but Xander kept calm while he and Gerome reached Elyria’s office. With a gentle knock, the two were welcomed inside.

  Elyria Wrathmor sat behind a massive desk, and Xander could see that she was up to her neck in paperwork. Thanks to the language download, he could barely glean that they were logistic reports and battlefront summaries.

  Behind her, Nicholai was going over more papers and handing the to her after checking them over. The tension between the cousins seemed thicker than before, but Xander mentally shook his head. It wouldn’t be good to get entangled in another mess when he still had to sort out his current situation.

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  “You seem to be in good health,” Elyria said after giving Xander a glance, “but there’s little time to get you accustomed to your new state of existence. I’ve already sent out the fodder to where they need to go. You will not be going with them and will instead be heading out to another set of ruins that was found nearby. Though still a few days away by truck. It’s unlikely that it’s directly related to the one that we’re inside right now, but it would be better to get it checked over sooner rather than later.”

  This was something of a relief, because Xander knew that the wouldn’t get the answers he was seeking on the battlefield. At least not right now, when he was still much weaker than the people he’d be fighting.

  “While you’re traveling, spar with a few of the soldiers and scholars. It would be good to get a sense of just how combat capable you are, now that you’ve undergone your first mutation.”

  Nodding at her words, Xander noticed Nicholai rolling his eyes from behind her, but didn’t say anything before turning and heading out with Gerome.

  “That was quick...” the scholar muttered when they were nearly at the entrance. “I guess the war is taking more of a toll on the young lady than expected.”

  Xander bit his tongue to stop himself from asking about the war. Such a thing had not been in the information he had managed to get from the people he’d previously spoken to.

  “Well, enough with the politics.” Gerome smiled and directed Xander toward another area of the camp. “We don’t set out for more than a few hours. Given your mutation, I think you can go a bit harder with the sparring than most, so let’s go test out your new abilities.”

  Seeing the wide pearly white smile on Gerome’s face made Xander shudder. He decided that he didn’t like where this was going, and that he was likely going to regret waking up when he had.

  ----------

  The sparring grounds were an absolute mess when Xander and Gerome arrived. Several soldiers were sitting to the side with injuries, covered in blood and bandages. It looked more like a bloodied butcher shop than a fighting ring.

  Two combatants were hammering on each other, one bare chested man, one woman with a sports bra covering her chest, both were letting out bestial shrieks and growls. Their bodies were still entirely humanoid, but there was an otherness to them that Xander couldn’t put his finger on. He only knew that it must be a result of their mutations.

  Besides that, the scene brought back more than a few memories from before he’d gotten work with Sage Pharmaceuticals.

  “Gruesome, isn’t it?” Gerome spoke after a few minutes of staring.

  Xander simply nodded. “Yeah. But less so than it would be if you didn’t have the means of fixing them up afterwards. I assume that the brutality is a result of both necessary preparation for the real world, as well as a vent for the foreign instincts and bio-chemicals that are now pumping through the body due to their mutations.”

  Gerome’s eyebrows rose, and he gave Xander a second look that he assumed meant the scholar was having second thoughts about him.

  ”… You weren’t a scholar before you were frozen, were you?”

  Xander shook his head. “No. I just had the opportunity to learn a few things. Things that were needed in order to survive a few events in my life. The fact that they helped me make progress in my evolution was a miraculous bonus.”

  The memories of the genetic sequences and pathways that had been unlocked upon gaining his first mutation flashed through his mind.

  “I might know more when I undergo a few more mutations. We’ll have to wait and see.” Xander went silent after this. Simply watching the fight going on in front of him.

  “Inherited memories… We’ll have to see what we can get from you… You know that this will make your life more difficult, don’t you.” Gerome’s words were not a question. Xander could tell that the older man was aware of his capabilities.

  Shrugging with feigned indifference, Xander whispered his reply, “Better to be honest now, than to be captured and interrogated later.” Left unsaid was the fact that he wouldn’t be giving them anything for free, but he didn’t think that Gerome would care about that.

  Xander’s knowledge, once unlocked, would be far more valuable than anything that they currently had. Exchanging lesser knowledge for ancient knowledge, without having to expend the resources needed to keep him alive through interrogation, would be far cheaper.

  A sickly hiss filled the air, followed by a pain-filled scream, cutting off what Gerome was about to say. His mouth snapped shut as the ring was cleared. One of the fighters was covered in melted flesh from where his opponent had spewed some sort of corrosive venom at him from several feet away.

  “Hmmm,” Gerome seemed to examine the still standing fighter. “It seems like one of our guards managed to gain a new mutation. That girl shouldn’t have that ability. She must’ve gotten one of the newer scholars to implant one of the newly discovered gene-mods into her.”

  The Gene-Sequencer did not sound happy, and Xander felt a chill spread through his body upon seeing the man’s turn fully red.

  “Hey!” A voice called out from the other side of the arena. “You’re one of the popsicles, aren’t you?”

  It was one of the soldiers that was calling out to Xander. The man had no apparent injuries but seemed to be fidgeting where he stood. His hands grasped at nothing, and his breathing was heavy.

  “Get in the ring. I want to see what you’re worth.” The man jumped over the short wall that made up the boundary of the arena.

  Xander looked around, seeing that he had the eyes of all the other soldiers and the few nearby scholars pointed directly toward him.

  Even Gerome was giving him an expectant look.

  So, with a sigh, he unbuttoned and pulled off his coat and shirt, baring his chest just like the other fighters. The main difference being a few circular markings that seemed to line his back and chest. A result of his gene-mod, but one that didn’t stand out too severely.

  His opponent grinned with a hungry growl. A smile spread across his face, showing sharpened teeth, while his hand flexed, causing his nails to pop off and be replaced with wicked claws.

  “May I ask your name and what stage you’re at?” Xander inquired, both to learn more and to keep himself distracted from the pain he was about to feel.

  “Name’s Lark, Pre-Evolution 3rd gene-mod.” With that said, the ferocious soldier leapt forward, fangs bared and reaching for Xander’s throat.

  He ducked out of the way, only to receive a swipe to his side. Blood splashed across the ground, and he forced down a grunt of pain to not show any weakness.

  His opponent grinned at him, only to pause and stare for a moment, rather than following up on his attack. Xander didn’t have to look down to know what he was staring at.

  A tingling sensation spread across his flesh where he had been cut up. It was accompanied by a slight glow from the markings on his torso, and a minor sense of fatigue.

  To everyone else, it was apparent that Xander’s body was rapidly regenerating. A feat that, if he was right, was something that only the most extreme and unique gene-mods granted as a mutation ability.

  Flexing his body in a manner that he could feel pull several of his muscles beyond their safe limits, Xander launched himself forward and landed a punch on the still stunned soldier's face.

  There was a sickening crack and several crunches from where both his fingers, and the soldier’s nose, were broken.

  The difference between them being Xander’s fingers jerking back into place within a few seconds, while the soldier screamed in rage and stumbled forward.

  The continued back and forth went on for several minutes. With Xander taking several glancing blows, but returning fire even harder, and causing more damage to build up in the man across from him. More blood painted the ground, almost all of it from him, but that wasn’t the issue.

  I can’t keep this up much longer… Xander’s mind raced as he realized that his vision was going blurry. His gene-mod was obviously great, but it was sapping his stamina far more quickly than usual. There was also the possibility of backlash if he went too far.

  The instinctive knowledge of his new abilities meant that he could tell that he would need to eat what was basically his own body weight in nutrients before he could do something like this again. A feat that would be difficult until he could get the gene-mod he knew would let him eat more.

  “Let’s finish this,” he muttered and threw himself forward. The other man was teetering on his feet, likely from a confusion thanks to the multiple strikes Xander made to his head.

  The more bestial man barely got his guard up to protect his face, only for Xander to shift his lunge and land an elbow into his solar plexus. With a strangled gasp, the soldier fell backward, blood gurgled up from his mouth even more than it had when Xander had taken out several of his teeth.

  Stumbling back from his downed opponent, Xander staggered back to Gerome, who was looking at him with an appraising gaze. The Gene-Sequencer’s eyes traced up and down his body, looking over the now much dimmer spots that were running along his body.

  “That was pretty decent, for a man without a battle enhancing mod, going up against a man with 3 of them.” Though he tried to hide it, Xander could sense the wariness in Gerome’s voice.

  Xander ignored this, too tired to bother with polite reassurances.

  “Get someone to carry me to our transportation, and as much nutrient and calorie rich food as you can. I’m going to pass out.”

  With that said, he did exactly that and fell face first into the dirt.