"Number 23! You're ranked first again! What is it now? A hundred weeks in a row? We should celebrate!"

A young boy came running with a bright smile, his laughter echoing down the hall as he approached a black-haired youth emerging from the training facility. The latter was drenched in blood, none of it his own, and his dark eyes were utterly devoid of emotion.

Through the slightly ajar door behind him, the cheerful boy caught sight of the scene inside: more than a dozen bodies strewn across the floor, each marked by deep lacerations and grievous wounds. The air was thick with the scent of iron and silence.

It was clear what had just occurred, yet neither of them so much as flinched.

"Number 99, you again."

Number 23 wiped the blood off his face before heading to his room. Number 99 followed closely behind, his smile not showing any sign of disappearing. Once in the room, Number 23 slowly disrobed himself and entered the showers, completely ignoring the other young boy who fiddled with his clothes.

"You've broken a record never seen before in the Lab! Killing so many people without even bearing a single injury! How did you do it?!"

"..."

Number 23 didn't answer as he completed a quick but effective shower. Compared to the other lab subjects, the young boy was given a private room with state-of-the-art training and cleaning facilities. Not that Number 23 cared. All of his accomplishments were simply for one thing… to survive another day.

"So what's the secret?"

But Number 99 wasn't going to back down. He kept pestering Number 23 until he finally sighed and said:

"I don't know how, I just know how to take them down with the least amount of risk."

Although all test subjects in the Transcendent-making programme were given basic combat training, Number 23's skills were innate and mostly self-taught. The first lesson he had, Number 23 mastered the basic forms of combat. In the second lesson, he was showing signs of fine-tuning his body to better suit the combat style. And by the tenth lesson, Number 23 surpassed any instructor the laboratory could find.

Not only that, his aether integration far exceeded that of his peers, and it was evident that Number 23 would become the best Transcendent to emerge from the laboratory.

"Damn, did you come from a family of assassins or something?"

"No," Number 23 replied while moving towards his library. He picked a random book and lay down on his bed, intending to ignore the noisy young boy who intruded on his room. "I was an orphan picked up by the lab, weren't you?"

"No, I volunteered for this programme."

Number 99's words forced Number 23 to shut his book. With a furrowed brow, he asked: "You volunteered?"

"Yes, not everyone here is an orphan, you know? Yes, there are definitely many whose parents died during the Transcendent War, but there are others from influential families who aim to become Transcendents… like me!"

"..."

Number 23 looked at Number 99 as if he were crazy. The artificial Transcendent programme was one with a high mortality rate. Over ninety per cent of the kids who joined were likely to fail, and even if they did survive, there was no guarantee that they would all become Transcendents. And if they did become Transcendents, they would join the never-ending Transcendent War, eventually becoming yet another fatality to further their country's cause.

So Number 23 always assumed that those who joined were orphans with nowhere else to go.

"You had a life outside of the lab and chose to come here?"

"Life… Hah, well. I guess if you could call what I had out there a life, then sure…"

Number 99 shook his head and let out a defeated smile.

"Although I came from an influential family, we are still second-class citizens compared to Transcendents. They were given the gift of aether, while we slave on the ground cleaning their shit. My family owns a business specialising in that."

Number 99 continued to explain his life story, and Number 23 listened in with great interest. For the first time in his life, he was learning about the world outside the white four walls.

"Because he'd seen how powerful and influential Transcendents are, my father is obsessed with bringing one into the family. He'd even hired a Transcendent to give my aunt his seed, but she wasn't able to give birth to a Transcendent. In the end, they pinned their hopes on the artificial Transcendent programme, even funding it secretly."

"And you joined because of that?"

"Well… yeah."

Number 99 laughed while scratching the back of his head.

"Embarrassing, isn't it?"

"..."

Number 23 didn't reply, and he fell deep into thought. Then he raised his face and spoke expectantly to the young boy.

"Number 99… Could you tell me… what life is like outside?"

Number 23 was an orphan who had no ties to the outside world. All of his life, he had lived within the confines of the lab, being treated like a prized pig that was awaiting slaughter. Nevertheless, within the cage, Number 23 grew curious. Curious about what the world was like, and what he could expect when he finally emerged as a Transcendent.

"Of course! I'll tell you all about it!"

Elated that he'd finally managed to befriend the stoic young boy, Number 99 leapt with joy. However, he scratched the bottom of his chin and said:

"Now that we're friends, we should call each other by our names! Our real names, not the numbers those scientists assigned to us."

"Name? But I don't have a name."

"Ah, right… You didn't have a family…"

Number 99 let out a bitter smile, realising that he'd accidentally hit a landmine. But, ever the merry chap, he turned the awkwardness into a smile and continued:

"Then just call me by my name! Once we get out of here, I'm confident we can find a good name for you!"

"Your name? What is it?"

"Heh, my name is Nixon! But everyone calls me Nix!"

❖❖❖

For the next few months, Number 23 and Nix were inseparable buddies. While the disparity between their strengths was apparent, the lab technicians didn't bother to separate the pair, fearing that it would give a negative influence on their prized subject.

During this time, Nix taught him many things, mainly common sense and history. Number 23, once a mindless machine, was slowly learning how to be human, or rather… what it means to be human.

At the same time, Number 23 continued to show his tremendous potential, even going so far as to defeat a low-ranking Transcendent while he was still a little older than ten. Everyone in the lab was already referring to him as the wonder kid who would one day become one of the most powerful Transcendents.

But Number 23 didn't really care for the accolades.

He was more interested in hearing Nix's stories, particularly about the exploits of some heroic Transcendents.

"Titus the Pyromancer is one of the most famous up-and-coming Transcendents we know! He once fought against three Transcendents to save his lover, like a true Knight who defends the damsel in distress."

"Hmmm… So amazing?"

"Yeah, and I hear he's marrying her this fall! Truly a match made in heaven, don't you think? Hah, if only he were part of our Empire. I hope we don't have to face him on the battlefield one day."

Nix continued to tell stories about heroes and legends that Number 23 had never heard about.

"Are you still thinking of continuing this programme? While your test scores are good, there is no guarantee that you'll survive the next injection."

"..."

One of the ways the lab aimed to create the perfect Transcendent was to inject aether directly into the test subject's bloodstream, allowing their bodies to accumulate the foreign energy. Most humans would explode, but a select few with enhanced physiques or unique talents could survive the injection. But even then, there was a limit to how much aether could flow through their bodies.

Number 23 was one of those select few.

For some odd reason, no matter how much aether they poured within his body. Number 23 would absorb it like a sponge. So much so that the lab technicians were worried they didn't have enough aether to satisfy Number 23's body.

But for someone like Nix, a regular human with a somewhat enhanced physique, there was a hard limit on what he could absorb.

"I have no choice… While I have enough aether in my body to do supernatural things, I'm not considered a Transcendent. My family needs a Transcendent, that's why they sent me on this programme in the first place."

From the beginning, Nix's goal was clear. He was going to become a Transcendent or die trying. Perhaps that's why he was living his life joyfully, as if he knew that he was living on borrowed time.

"You're also being too negative about me! I believe I can receive the injection at least one more time. Who knows? Maybe my aether capacity might even surpass yours?"

"..."

Number 23 let out a wry smile but didn't speak afterwards. Little did he know that this would be one of the first regrets of his life.