Serum

“Mmm…”

“Oh?”

Pandora glanced to her side. There, Exos’s body shifted in his seat, a low grunt escaping his mouth. 

Her eyes turned momentarily cold before she spoke. 

“Dirk. Exos is up.”

“...”

Dirk was quiet for several seconds as Exos turned lucid, looking at his surroundings. 

But eventually, Dirk left his trance, returning to the real world and glancing at the dwarf in the passenger seat beside Pandora. 

“...”

Exos was silent as he looked around, seeing Pandora’s beautiful face and staring for a few seconds longer than he should have. 

Then, he turned, seeing Dirk gazing from behind. 

After that, he closed his eyes for several more seconds, processing everything that had happened. 

“Where are we?”

“Driving. Our destination is the Dark Kingdom.”

“Oh…”

“Now, how about you tell us exactly what happened to you?”

Pandora’s voice seemed concerned, but there was a slight hint of hostility that she could barely control. 

She had discussed with Dirk on how they would handle Exos. Seeing as he was now bound to a Key Artifact, losing his trust by being openly hostile wasn’t a good plan. The Key Artifact was useless unless it was being used by someone. 

If they locked Exos up, keeping him caged until they needed him and the Artifact, then the Artifact wouldn’t be able to unlock its seals and would be useless even when Dirk and Pandora had the power to use it. 

And if they turned Exos into an enemy, then that came with several other issues like him threatening their lives with the power bestowed to him by the Artifact. Since it was the Key Artifact of Earth, killing him would likely be impossible by anyone who couldn’t overwhelm him with absolute power. 

So not only did they need to keep him as a friend, but they needed to deepen their relationship. They needed his trust. 

They also needed to bring him with them, first to keep him within their control, and second to grow his power and allow him to undo the Artifact’s seals himself. 

What used to be a duet between Dirk and Pandora had turned into a small group project. The three of them would need to travel the rest of the world and attain the other Keys. 

The only blessing here was that Exos wasn’t incompetent. He was an accomplished enchanter who had pioneered biological, magical, and mechanical Augmentations. He pursued strength as much as the advancement of his craft, so along with the boost in power granted by the Key Artifact, he wouldn’t be a burden. 

Pandora listened intently to the details of Exos' changes.

When Exos started to explain what happened to him though, they were quickly surprised. 

“You two were looking for the Artifact this entire time, right?”

“...How did you know?”

Pandora narrowed her eyes. She could think of several ways Exos could deduce that information, but she was still a bit wary. 

He scratched his head. 

“When I merged with the Artifact, I could see its more recent memories. It remembered seeing Dirk when he first appeared near it on the battlefield. I can only assume that you guys were looking for it in the first place if you had deliberately gone to find it. It also remembers you being impossible to catch, even with its magic.”

“Hm.”

Dirk smirked, somewhat appreciating the compliment since it had come from the Artifact that he also couldn’t catch, even given their advantageous circumstances. 

Pandora barely held back a scoff. Still, she was glad to know that Exos was likely aware of everything that had happened on the battlefield, including her own hostility. 

But if there was anything she was good at, it was manipulating people’s emotions. She could play the part of the perfect princess as well as the most heinous devil, eliciting whatever response or impression she wanted from those she interacted with. 

Unlike with Dirk, gaining Exos’ trust wouldn’t be difficult for her. 

“So you know the general situation. We are indeed looking for Artifacts like the one you now have. That was the first one we followed a lead to. But more importantly, what kind of changes occurred within you? I can’t imagine that the bonding process gave you nothing.”

“No. In fact, it gave more than I could ever imagine.”

Exos could barely seem to withhold his excitement as he let out the details. 

“Just by merging with it, I’ve learned so much about the Earth Element. It’s like everything I’ve comprehended up until now was filled with massive holes and gaps. Not only has all that been filled in to its utmost, but everything I thought was correct has now been perfected, and I’ve even glimpsed deeper into its nature. However, the Artifact was limited as soon as it bonded with me, and the comprehensions I know only rose to the Tier 6 level. I also need to assimilate a lot of the knowledge, which will take some time, especially in regard to my enchanting. But even at this moment, I’m far more powerful than I was.”

“...That sounds wonderful.”

Pandora almost shuddered in agony and rage hearing about everything that had been given to Exos, and more importantly, taken from them. 

But she held it down. Surely it couldn’t get much worse than this.

“Oh, I also gained a new Stigmata. It's the Artifact itself, specifically as it manifests with its armor. It's exceptionally powerful. I doubt anybody even a level above me could ever kill me in a fight. Plus, it acts as the perfect conduit for magic. It's even integrated with the Augmentations of my body, enhancing everything about my constitution.”

“Haha! How amazing!”

Pandora laughed, but Dirk could practically taste the utter madness within that threatened to burst forth. He was pretty sure Pandora was doing everything she could to not kill Exos where he stood. 

It was just a good thing the target of her anger didn’t notice. 

Knowledge and the armor. Those two things were the primary benefits Exos received from the Artifact. Everything else was minor details that Exos himself didn’t even completely understand yet. 

Now, Pandora had a good read on just how powerful Exos was. But to her great displeasure, he was likely just as, if not more powerful than she and Dirk. This would only get worse as he got used to his power. 

So they needed to advance their power, and quickly. Pandora decided that it was time to stop holding back her own. She had spent enough time solidifying her power level. 

But first, they needed to reach the Dark Kingdom. 

……

…

Like the time it took to reach the Dwarven Haven, the drive to the Dark Kingdom took around three weeks. 

And in that time, Dirk had traced just about all the runes associated with developing his Mana Heart. 

Just doing that represented a high level of magical comprehension, one that he was surprised to have reached. Dirk had spent a long time improvising and developing his own magic, forcing him to comprehend the secrets of his elements and find applications for them in the form of techniques. 

Most of his magic came in the form of elemental manipulation, like Stealth, his lightning body amplification, and even his Mana Sight. 

He very rarely learned new spells anymore. However, all the self-teaching had led to him having an exceptional ability to learn new things about his elements. 

And now, his Mana Heart technique was guiding him down a path of elemental comprehension. After stepping foot on it, Dirk found it surprisingly easy to follow along. 

Of course, he hadn’t been comprehending the runic pages of the technique in full, just tracing them. But to trace them at all required a certain level of understanding. After all, you needed to be able to see something in order to trace it. And unlike books, runic pages had information so deep that you weren’t guaranteed to be able to comprehend what you were looking at. 

Either way, Dirk was beginning to see what Pandora had meant when she said that their Pure Souls were the best for absorbing elemental comprehensions. He was very aware of his soul and the Mana Dimension, allowing his comprehensions to flow far smoother than otherwise. He could see things others couldn’t. 

He was thinking that, unlike in the past, maybe this advancement wouldn’t take so long. Of course, he couldn’t give a good estimation before he really dove in deep. 

But those three weeks were extraordinarily valuable. Tracing all those runic pages would set him up in the future, laying the groundwork for what would hopefully be explosive growth. 

However, he wasn’t the only one who had been working hard. 

Exos brought them no small amount of surprises. 

Dirk and Pandora knew Exos was an enchanter. His enchantments allowed his Augmentations to work properly, bringing together the mechanical body of a limb and the mana crystals within it, forming a cohesive whole that could operate alongside the physical body. All of this required enchanting, but they didn’t realize just how complex Exos’ works were. 

They first got a glimpse of it when he brought out a prototype he had been working on. 

It was an arm, but instead of the current arm he had equipped, this one wouldn’t just connect to his shoulder but replace everything up to his chest and shoulder blade. It was meant to be a direct upgrade, but he hadn’t been able to get very far since he had been running low on funds. 

Exos had to not only order all the parts of his Augmentations to be forged by someone, but had to buy custom potions that allowed him to carry out the augmentations. That wasn’t even considering the mana crystals needed to both power the limbs and create the enchantments. 

His projects were expensive, which was why he had accepted Pandora’s sponsorship so easily despite her being a Vampire. Money and resources were the two things he needed the most. 

At least it was in good hands. When Dirk saw the prototype arm, he couldn’t help but gawk. Exos even brought out diagrams for his enchantments. 

It was his pride and joy, something Dirk likened to a grimoire. In his hands appeared a huge magic book filled with large pages covered in enchantments and runic formations. 

They were all enchantments that he had personally created. In fact, it could be likened to an entire enchanting language that he devised himself. It was rooted in complexity, and after hearing some explanations, Dirk realized that Exos was basically coding magic with these enchantments. 

It was like he created a computer language. When Pandora took a look at everything, she too thought of that. Of course, she knew much more about technology than Dirk, so she was able to make better judgments. 

But even in her eyes, it was shocking how closely Exos’ enchantments resembled computer code and software. Which, when considering the items he was enchanting, was only appropriate. 

The Augmentations required a slew of instructions that made them no different than a program. Otherwise, there was no way Exos could make them operate just like normal limbs. Even Earth had only just started to do such things, and from that ability came the Supersoldier programs that brought deep cybernetic integration. 

But Exos had pioneered a similar path all by himself through magic. 

In short, he was a genius. 

And that genius seemed to flourish under the influence of the Key Artifact. 

With his newfound knowledge, Exos worked tirelessly throughout the three weeks of their drive in order to reconstruct his understandings. This effort was primarily directed toward enchanting, making his work jump in complexity by several magnitudes in a short time. 

Of course, this was aided in two external ways. First were Pandora’s resources. With a treasure trove of mana crystals and equipment, Exos had no inhibitions and started nothing short of an entire project within the truck. 

And secondly, Pandora actually gave Exos knowledge on computer science from Earth. While she wasn’t an expert on that particular topic, Pandora was no less of a genius who knew all kinds of things from Earth. 

So she gave this applicable knowledge to Exos, opening up a whole new world to him and giving him all sorts of revelations and inspirations. When he wasn’t discussing or learning things from Pandora, he was in a trance, utilizing everything he knew to refine his enchanting language. 

Dirk found it amazing that she would do such a thing, because if Exos wasn’t already a monster after getting the Key Artifact, he would become one with futuristic knowledge. She was making him even more dangerous. 

But perhaps that was part of gaining his trust, in which case, Pandora was doing exactly what she needed to in order to succeed alongside Exos in the long run, and she was doing it perfectly. 

It was only unfortunate that Pandora was also the only one not to improve by leaps and bounds throughout that time. But she didn’t seem to mind. 

Well, at least not outwardly. When it came time to sleep, her stress seemed to rear its head, and her coping mechanism seemed to be alone time with Dirk and his tasty blood. 

It was a bit embarrassing to Dirk since Exos was also there being a third wheel, but she didn’t seem to care as she glued herself to him when night came. 

And that was how all three weeks passed, and by the end, they were rolling into the Capital of the Dark Kingdom.