Letting Kiana think to herself for now Lucius proceeded to the next step. He injected more Hell energy into Doyle, this time double the dose that he had given the man before. The hell energy entered the man's body rather smoothly this time.

"HNGNGNGNN!!" A strange grunt came out from the man's mouth when this was done and it could not be identified if this was due to pain or something else.

Since he had already been infected by the hell energy and his body transformed up to a certain extent, Doyle had an easier time talking up all the hell energy. Also unlike the Bore Shrew's, he was not malnourished.

Lucius was able to skip the feeding step due to this and noted it down for future.

'Make sure that the subjects are well fed before beginning the procedure… manual feeding might become troublesome…' Lucius noted.

For about a minute, no change could be seen in Doyle, as if the calm before the storm. But soon his body started to twitch and spasm again.

~DENG~

~DENG~

~clang~

He moved around, struggling to pull his limbs, but all that caused was for them to hit the metal table and create a lot of noise. The unevenly grown muscles became a bit more smooth and grew more.

An hour passed like this and his body had grown about one size bigger. While Doyle had not grown any taller, his mass itself had increased by quite a lot. If he were a skinny man before, he was now a buff bodybuilder.

"Looks like the body has grown enough to accommodate the latter changes now… only to wait for them to come…" Lucius muttered.

Surely, about fifteen minutes later, the body of Doyle started to transform again. This time his skin darkened to a more maroon shade and teeth popped out from the corners of his lips. 

In addition to that, small horns started to grow out from the sides of his head while his nails fell out. His finger tips then started to darken until a hard shell like layer covered them fully, replacing the nail and the first segment of the finger entirely.

These changes were slower than before and it took two more hours before the rest of the spikes started to appear on his body. Spikes came out from his arms and upper torso like some insect. 

Looking at this, Lucius narrowed his eyes as it was a bit unexpected.

'Hmm… I don't think I've seen a Lost that looked like this before…. Even Keith was different from the normal ones. Is this due to the presence of Aether or just the innate differences in the humans of this world?' Lucius wondered.

There were a lot of things Lucius was getting to learn and he was only getting more and more interested. 

"Let's see if there is a difference now or not…" Lucius muttered to himself as he activated Nexus again.

Gift Name: Acid Touch

Description: The user can produce acid from his hands and touching things with this would result in those objects being corroded by the acid. 

Rank: Rare

Type: Emission

Evolution: Possible

Evolution Requirements: 12x Aether crystals, 4x Blast beetle rune crystals, 100 liters of sewage water.

Other Owners: Doyle Smith, Ava Dirk,… (total: 1247 people)

Hell Energy Corruption: Lesser

Info: The creature will have increased physical strength that can be increased further with the use of hell energy. The creature will also have slightly higher intelligence than before and can understand commands.

Corruption level: Lesser

Corrupted Gift: Locked

(Corrupted Gift: Corrupting Touch)

Other Owners: None

The information that had appeared in front of Lucius surprised him again. This time the corruption was different from Minor and was at Lesser instead. 

'So this is the next level of corruption… though I wonder what the other ranks will be…' Lucius thought to himself.

But that was not all, as the info about the corruption had changed as well. Not only was the strength of the Lost higher, but it also had higher intelligence than before. Lucius knew that those who became will lose all semblance of humanity and become mindless creatures, only living to satisfy their instinctive desires.

Only those Lost that grew further would have better intellect and were also the ones who could command the other Lost. Lucius had seen some Lost that were perhaps stronger than even the Barrom Clan's elders. 

They were called as the General Ranked Lost and were a nightmare on the battlefield. Lost that had managed to grow to this level were no less than humans in intelligence and could even communicate.

Not only was their physical strength massive, but they could even use magic! 

But that was not the most terrifying feature of them, rather it was their ability to command a literal army of the lost. A Single General Ranked Lost could easily lead an army of over a million Lost and decimate their enemies.

These General Ranked Lost were one of the Trump cards of the Great Barrom clan and there were only a few of them in the entire clan. It had taken these Lost hundreds of years to reach this level and they actually had quite a respected position on the clan as well.

So far to Lucius, Doyle seemed to be at the average level. But he could only determine the actual limit after several tests.

"Hopefully, he can take commands better than the bore shrews. At least him being human previously should make it so that its brain automatically understands what those words mean, unlike the Bore Shrews that needed to be trained like animals." Lucius said to himself.

He observed the former human for a while before standing up from the chair.

"Is it done now?" Kiana who had been silent all these hours, asked.

To her, the entire process was rather fascinating. While she could not estimate the strength or power of the thing in front of her. From its size, she could at least tell that it would be stronger than what it was before.

Lucius nodded his head upon hearing her words.

"Even if its not completely done, it should be close," Lucius replied.

"What are you doing?" Kiana asked, seeing that Lucius had picked up what was a small knife from the table.

"We need to see how tough this thing is, don't we?" Lucius stated.

"Ah, I see…" Kiana replied and watched attentively.

Lucius brought the knife close to Doyle's arm and slowly moved it over it in a cutting motion. 

"Okay... Good… resistance to general cuts…" Lucius muttered before increasing the force.

If before he was simply stroking the skin with the knife, now he was actively trying to chop it. But instead of piercing the skin, the knife was stopped by the thick maroon skin that had gained a shell like texture.

"This is almost like steel armor, isn't it?" Kiana said upon seeing the effect.

"Mmhmm… but the question remains how strong it is," Lucius said before lifting the Knife up high and holding it in a stabbing posture.

~clang~

Lucius brought the knife down and it hit the skin of Doyle. It managed to pierce into it slightly, but there was no blood coming out from it. Lucius raised his brows and pulled out the knife before taking a pair of metal spreaders and pulling the cut part apart.

"Huh, even after getting pierced, it did not reach its flesh. Just the tough armor like skin is this thick." Lucius said upon examining the cut.

'This is definitely far stronger than the common Lost I've seen in my past world. While there were some classes of them that were more defensive than others, they were made to grow that way. This one just did so on its own…' Lucius compared.

Kiana on the other hand, seemed shocked.

"This level of defense…. Isn't this already at the level of a Rare ranked gift?" Kiana said upon seeing the condition of Doyle.

"Perhaps it can be considered that way. But there are more factors we need to check. I think their gift is still intact within them and they should be able to use that as well. I've already seen it in the bore shrews and their gift only got strengthened." Lucius spoke.

"There are more features?!" Kiana was now truly overwhelmed.

What Lucius had done was basically double or even triple the power of a person. Not only did their body increase in toughness, but their gift was also said to have become enhanced. She could only wonder how strong the raw physical power of the Lost would be.

But she saw Lucius staring at Doyle with a hand on his chin as if deep in thought.

"What are you thinking?" Kiana asked.

"Hmm… we need to find the actual limit of this thing. If it ever goes out of control, we need to know how to kill it and how much will be needed to do it." Lucius replied.

Kiana's eyes went wide as she finally realized that there was still a chance the thing in front of them might not work as they wanted it to.