Having seen the change, Lucius now understood why or how his Hell energy had increased.

"The two Lost are now acting as an extra storage for the hell energy. Whenever my hell energy gets filled in my soul space, the extra amount will be transmitted to them. And if I want to use that, it can be withdrawn at a little cost.

In addition to that, my own hell energy capacity can also be increased steadily." Lucius analyzed.

He pondered over it for a bit and thought that this was most probably correct.

'I'll figure the rest out eventually anyway as time passes…' Lucius thought to himself.

And just as he finished thinking about this, he heard the sound of footsteps coming from far. Since the basement was mostly empty, any sound that was made in there echoed in every direction.

~Creak~

The door of the lab opened up and in walked Kiana with a guard who held onto the shackles of a prisoner, who was also gagged and had his face covered with a black cloth. Kiana stopped him just at the door and spoke.

"This is enough, I can take it from here," Kiana ordered.

Even though the guard was standing right at the door, his view of the two Lost was blocked by the other equipment that was kept there. Plus it was dim in the lab anyway and made it harder for most people to focus. 

"As you wish, Miss Kiana." The guard said before taking his leave.

Since Lucius was sitting on a chair, he was not seen by the guard due to it being behind one of the upturned tables. The guard didn't mind this and simply went back to do his work. There were many criminals in this building and it was his job to ensure that none of them escaped.

~clang~

~kacha~

The door of the lab was locked as Kiana kicked the prisoner to walk forward.

"Here's our next subject," Kiana spoke.

"Can I see the report?" Lucius asked.

Kiana handed the document she had in her hand to Lucius, who then started to read it.

"Hmm… I see. An uncommon ranked gift and an average killer…" Lucius muttered.

The prisoner in front of him was actually a common bandit who had killed several people in the past year and was caught recently by the guards about a week ago. He was supposed to have been executed already, but since there were a lot of other criminals ahead of him in the judgment queue, his verdict was left up to Lucius.

Lucius was happy with another test subject even if he had no rare ranked gift.

'Testing it on uncommon ranked gift will be a new experience. But first… let's see how our subject actually is…' Lucius thought to himself before squinting his eyes and used Nexus on him.

The Aether and Hell Aether started being consumed as a string of words appeared in front of Lucius.

Gift Name: Scaled Skin

Description: The user can make scales appear on their skin, which increases the defense of their skin, preventing cuts and scratches.

Rank: Uncommon

Type: Physical 

Evolution: Possible

Evolution Requirements: 5x Aether Crystals, 1x Basalt Armadillo Rune Crystal 

Other Owners: Cobain Jowls,… (Total Owners: 5842)

This was actually a gift Lucius had seen before but had not gotten the chance to use Nexus on. It was owned by one of the soldiers that accompanied Gabriel and Lucius had seen him use it before during a spar.

Back then, Lucius was still conserving his Aether for only the most important bits and thus had not used it on that soldier but now that he used Hell Aether with Nexus, he could see the name of the guard at the front along with the number list of the rest.

Overall, there were a lot of people with this gift, but it was still lower than that of a common ranked gift. The requirements to upgrade it were also quite low, requiring just 5 Aether crystals and the Rune crystal of a Basalt Armadillo which Lucius knew was an E ranked rune beast.

Thinking about this rune beast also gave Lucius another idea.

"Hmm… I might get to test out the evolution of a gift after its owner has been transformed into a lost soon as well." Lucius muttered to himself.

The Basalt Armadillo lived in the iron mines of the Land Of Etara and were not really that hard to find. The closest mine was only a hundred kilometers to the south, and Lucius could easily go there and come back within a day.

"We should get started." Lucius said, gesturing to Kiana.

Kiana nodded and kicked the prisoner.

~thud~

The prisoner fell to the ground and let out a grunt, but it could not be clearly heard. Kiana then pulled on the chain that was attached to the collar on the prisoner's neck and pulled hard.

This tightened the collar that was on the neck of the prisoner, making him suffocate. A few seconds later, the prisoner was knocked out and Kiana stopped squeezing the collar.

"This does make things easier. I'd have knocked him out upstairs if it were not easier for him to walk down here himself." Kiana commented.

"Hmm… this is a bit inefficient indeed. I'll think of some other ways, though we may need to modify the basement even more." Lucius replied.

"Just give the word and we'll add it to our list of tasks. I'm sure the workers will be fine with more work as it just means more pay for them." Kiana stated.

"Indeed. Though we will need to widen the hidden exit to the basement later as well." Lucius spoke.

"That shouldn't be a problem hopefully with the stone meld gift." Kiana replied.

Since the basement was used for storage, there was actually a secondary entrance to it from the alleyway behind the building. The guards used to use that to push the carts filled with items into the basement.