After the brutal training session that left his blood feeling like it was on fire, Lin Fan was submerged in a special restorative bath for two hours. The liquid healed his wounds, but the memory of the pain still throbbed deep in his bones. The base had an unused machinery tuning room, and since Lin Fan had shown some aptitude, he was housed there. It was filled with materials, tools, and a vehicle bench he was free to use. Shelves of technical manuals lined one wall. A surveillance camera was mounted in a corner, but Lin Fan paid it no mind; he had expected to be monitored around the clock. In the current year, 687, Cerulea was still a relatively young planet. It was in a period of transition, moving towards a ‘new era’, and its technology was still far behind what one might expect from a sci-fi setting—closer, in fact, to that of old Earth. Mechanic talents were divided into three trees, each containing over twenty talents across five tiers: basic, intermediate, advanced, expert, and master. These talents were the very core of a character's class. Learning a class unlocked the first talent, and subsequent ones required talent points. Talent points could be obtained in three ways: leveling up, completing special quests, or mastering a skill. Lin Fan decided to save his two talent points. They weren't his main concern right now. Many new players spent them immediately, but he knew from experience that talent points became exponentially harder to acquire in the late game. They had to be used wisely. Outside of training, Lin Fan was largely left to his own devices. He poured every spare moment into the machinery, determined to accumulate enough experience to escape this prison. Time slipped by. Lin Fan continued to assemble and enhance machines, his proficiency growing with each project. Soon, his assembly perfection rate consistently surpassed ninety percent, rewarding him with massive amounts of bonus experience. Though assembling the same machine repeatedly yielded diminishing returns—eventually offering no experience at all—the base’s armory was a gold mine. It provided Lin Fan with an endless variety of schematics and materials to work with. He kept a low profile, remaining quiet and docile. Gradually, the organization’s intense scrutiny began to relax. They had high hopes for him, but Lin Fan knew that standing out was a death sentence. He focused on accumulating experience, deliberately avoiding leveling up even when he could. Before long, the research team lost interest. The level of skill he displayed was easily matched by any trained logistics personnel. He had failed to meet their lofty expectations. They observed him for another month before officially writing him off as a failed experiment. Deciding not to waste any more resources on him, they ceased the 24/7 surveillance. This small change allowed Lin Fan to breathe a little easier. As the organization’s attention shifted away, only two people continued to keep tabs on him: Dr. Aris Thorne and Kaelen. Dr. Aris Thorne’s requests to dissect him were still being denied, but Lin Fan knew it was only a matter of time. His time was running out. As for Kaelen, Lin Fan had become his favorite punching bag. Since recovery pills were plentiful and the researchers held a twisted belief that torture could stimulate growth, Kaelen was given free rein to indulge his sadistic whims. Slowly, Lin Fan grew numb to the pain. With little else to do and no one to talk to, he channeled all his focus into studying machinery. The sense of accomplishment he found in crafting became his only solace. One day, a squad of armored guards entered the tuning room and began moving a large portion of his materials. As Lin Fan watched them in silence, a figure approached him. "You have let the organization down. From today onward, your resources will be cut by eighty percent." The speaker was test subject Praetor. “I heard you were my predecessor,” he sneered, gesturing at a half-finished device on the bench. “With all these resources, is this garbage all you can make?” “You are a failure. I have been chosen to replace you.” For some reason, the mere sight of Lin Fan seemed to infuriate Praetor. Lin Fan remained silent. The organization cared only for results. Since Lin Fan wasn’t delivering, his privileges were being stripped and diverted to the more promising Praetor. However, since the research lab had no dedicated maintenance personnel, Lin Fan was allowed to keep the tuning room. His new duty was to perform routine maintenance and repairs. A few guards watching the scene murmured amongst themselves. “Brainwashed lab rats. Just tools fated to be sacrificed.” “I’d rather die than end up like one of them.” “Shh, they can hear you.” “What does it matter? They’re brainwashed. It’s not like they understand.” To them, the test subjects were less than human. Lin Fan walked away without a word. In the months he’d been here, Lin Fan had pieced together a mental map of the entire facility and learned the staff’s routines. The Chimera Laboratory, commanded by Freya, was an underground base with three floors. Built for secrecy, it wasn't particularly large and was hidden deep within an uninhabited forest, its supplies delivered by airdrop. Sixty armored guards patrolled the facility. Every so often, the organization would send a new batch of memory-wiped test subjects for experimentation. While there were a dozen other Chimera laboratories, this was the main one. After Lin Fan and Praetor, the Genesis Foundation had produced another seventy-six successful test subjects. Most had been transferred to other facilities, but Praetor and nine other exceptional subjects remained here, formed into a new squad, awaiting their first orders. Lin Fan had settled into a rhythm. Outside of his brutal training, he spent every waking moment in the tuning room. The workshop had become his sanctuary. The guards gradually stopped noticing him altogether. When he passed by, their eyes would slide right over him as if he were part of the scenery. This was exactly what Lin Fan wanted. He worked tirelessly, gaining as much experience as possible and memorizing every blueprint he could get his hands on. Experience from assembly and enhancement was tracked separately. When he could no longer gain experience from assembling a particular machine, he would start enhancing it. He was always careful to restore the machine to its original state afterward, keeping his true abilities a secret. Through endless practice, he mastered both [Basic Combat] and [Basic Shooting], which unexpectedly unlocked a passive ability called [Grinder], granting him a permanent +100 to his Health. He also unlocked the sub-class [Agent], bringing his character level to 4. His efforts paid off. [Basic Assembly] and [Basic Enhancement] reached Lv. 4, while [Basic Combat] and [Basic Shooting] rose to Lv. 2. Mechanics were a resource-intensive class, a fact that normally limited their growth. But here, Lin Fan had access to all the free materials he could ever want. He had worked his way through almost ninety percent of the machines in the armory, accumulating a staggering 600,000 experience. Without monsters to hunt or missions to complete, only a Mechanic could farm so much experience in such a short time. "Give Dr. Aris Thorne the green light. He has asked repeatedly. He may dissect Wraith," the Magnus’s voice said, crisp and clear over the line. “You rejected him so many times.” “The organization has invested enough resources in him. We must get something in return,” the Magnus stated plainly. “The only value that piece of trash has left is to be recycled. That is Wraith’s fate.” “What are the results of Praetor and his team’s training?” the Magnus continued. “Very promising. I see great potential in them.” “Very good. Send them to the Night Owl base. I have already dispatched the Night Owl squad to receive them. They will arrive in two or three days.” “That’s the day I visit my sister!” “You don’t need to accompany them.”

Chapter 4: A veteran's second chance