In the Daybreak’s rec room, Luxinna was watching the collection of anime Martynov returned to Rem. She was drowning in the epic word game of No Game No Life, specifically the part where the empty-headed angel got blown up by a supernova, when Cytortia and Melody came to her.

“Hey, Tree-hugger,” Melody said. “I heard about your fuck-up and I bring pizza.”

Cytortia glared at Melody’s non-existent tact.

“Hey, why can’t hide our mission from her,” Melody shrugged.

“Rem sent you here,” Luxinna paused the modern-day masterpiece of Japan.

“More like he sent Cytortia to cheer you up, and she grabbed me to help,” Melody propped down to the sofa next to the elf. “Got to love how we decorate the place.”

Cytortia nodded. Like their club, the Daybreak came far. They actually have a bar made of rosewood, several comfortable sofas, and awesome lightings. The television set was downright awesome. Rem needed to ask Martynov to send some of it by mail through Madam Marmel but the game consoles are worth it.

They heard Ehto had a plan to add his own touch to the Horizon Dawn’s multimedia, but they believed that was a future project.

“I don’t need your help,” Luxinna argued, but Cytortia shoved the pizza onto her lap.

“I spent an hour piecing this recipe through the internet,” the goddess growled. “You will eat it.”

The elf grumbled, but took a bite out of herbal ham pizza topped with goat cheese.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be utterly impaired around meat product,” Melody asked on her way through second slice.

“I order that from Acropolis's local butcher shop by mail,” Cytortia said, taking a piece out from her personal plate of spinach pizza. “Just because I decide to go vegetarian didn’t mean I can’t cook meat.”

Silence occurred while the group munched on. Alas, Melody was the default tension scissor.

“Okay, so Lux fuck-up, and let a psychopath overly eager Lesbian rapist with drunk on excessive sadism and history pedophilia off the hook.”

Luxinna sunk into the sofa, but Cytortia quickly come with the verbal fire-extinguisher.

“To be fair, I wouldn’t call Kakia ‘off the hook’. Lux creamed her so badly even an Alchemist can’t get her running again in time-scale that matters.”

Melody leered at Cytortia, “You can.”

Cytortia’s mouth hung open before she admitted the obvious, “Fine, I can, but I have a freaking cheat code which rewind time.”

“Cy,” Melody breathed with exasperation. “Illma, Wayward, Sol Grandy, Orwell, PALISADE — the folks we run into are hardly ordinary. Given how Rem is grilling Promtus about this Melosov guys, I won’t be surprise is he got Kakia running again.”

Luxinna growled.

“Okay, I spar with you enough to know what you are thinking,” Melody said, checking the elf with a point. “You want to finish her, and you are mad at Rem for blocking that motion.”

“Incorrect,” Luxinna grumpily answered.

Cytortia raised an eyebrow.

“Mel, you are useless. She wasn’t mad at Rem,” Cytortia glanced at Lux. “I know you are mad at yourself.”

“Oh, come on. I am fine!”

“Lux, you cannot beat yourself up for every mistake.”

Luxinna looked at Cytortia in outrage, “Can’t beat myself up? Really? For all I know, Acrisius is cutting another 10-years-old virgin open in a blood ritual to get that bitch back on track.”

“Lux, Nu Wa teach me most of the ritual magic known and unknown through-out Phantasia,” Cytortia said. “And while there are forbidden blood-rites which dictate sacrifice of comely, young virgin, those were more for taming a cannibalistic eldritch spirit then healing. The one that could fix the damage you gave her requires the Elixir and Unicorn blood.”

“Exactly. The bastard could issue a Unicorn hunt and it will be on me for failing to nip the disaster at the bud,” Luxinna palmed her face. “I fuck-up so hard.”

Melody shrugged, “To be fair, I don’t think you should take the complete blame. Who would have known Kakia has those records?”

Luxinna answered that one with a frustrate sob, “Us, Diary-cow, we have been collecting information for months.”

Melody rolled her eyes at the nickname, “Can you please stop with that nickname?”

Luxinna eyed Melody’s abundance asset with malice, “Then remove those two annoying melons.”

The demoness laughed, stretching herself straight to show off her chest, “No freaking way. Why can’t I show this off as a proud owner? Jealous much, wash-board?”

Luxinna’s vein throbbed, “Mine is perfectly normal. It is yours that looks like they belong to a mutate cow. With those two lumps of meat, how is your weight doing?”

Melody smiled twitched, “My weight is fine. Aren’t you supposed to be the one who should be worried? You chow down enough food to feed an entire family.”

Luxinna hollered, “My body burned a lot of calories, Mel. My engine simply operates better. You should know, because I still hold the lead in our sparring match. How are you doing, Runner-up?”

Melody’s fist clenched, “Funny. If your body operated better, we would be seeing your chest-growth. All those intakes and hardly any go where it matters.”

“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh,” The cold laughter echoed around the room and sent a shivered down the demoness’ and the elf’s collective spine.

“It must be nice, right? I wonder why my body hardly burned any calories. I try to drink extra-milk and made several concoctions every day, but the size remains so constant. You two must have a field day with those C Cups and humongous F Cups. It must have been comforting to rest, knowing the protein and fat are in a hefty supply. After all, you aren’t a vegetarian. Should I be expecting you to grab a boyfriend soon? Maybe ask Hikma to take you out on the date, or ask a cute boy for a trip to a café. For you two it should be easy.”

Melody (F+ Cup) and Luxinna (C Cup) turned their attention to Cytortia (barely past A Cup) who emitted the murderous aura that shouldn’t be possible with her True Magic. The former goddess's green-eyes were devoid of light.

“Cy,” Melody quickly spoke in self-defense. “I heard tofu is an excellent source of Protein.”

“Even then, those are just a lump of meat,” Luxinna utterly left her funk to stop the second coming of carnage alchemist. “What did Rem say again? The flatter they are, the closer it is to their heart.”

“Bullshit,” Cytortia called her out. “People hit on Shyme all the time and she is A-cup. Me? All I get is tumbleweed. A date is delusion for me, nevermind a boyfriend!”

“…” Melody was silenced. Truthfully, she was quite popular with boys. Sure, she didn’t have any personal friends, but she got admirers.

“Nobody ask me out too!” Luxinna tried to salvage the situation.

“Because you were stuck inside the forest for ages!” Cytortia snapped back. “And don’t use that excuse. I know some cute cadet ask you out for a drink after yesterday training!”

Luxinna’s train got mercilessly unrailed.

“But you can always ask people out yourself,” Luxinna tried to salvage the situation. “Rem won’t reject you.”

“Rem! You think Rem has a romantic bone in his body? Asking him out just felt weird! Why don’t you show me how to do it then?”

Luxinna thought about it. Yes, Rem was an okay decent guy, but he put so many guards and just too professional. Luxinna thought of Rem as her older brother, but that meant he wasn’t among the dating material.

“Well, there is Hikma. I mean Hikma is pretty popular with women,” Luxinna argued.

“Of course, he is popular with woman and he is dense as lead around them,” Cytortia yelled.

“Then we have Ehto who is dead serious on robotic maid,” Melody glanced into the distance. “The surrounding boys are horrible dating material for all the wrong reasons.”

“One too nice and oblivious. Another feels like an army than a man. And the final one is an astral AI,” Luxinna sighed. “The romantic prospect of this organization is horrible.”

“Well, mission succeed,” Melody verbally patted herself on the back for hauling the elf out of her funk and lifted a game console. “Hey, anyone wants to play this thing? I believe Rem said he got a special edition of something called Devil May Cry 5.”

“Is that a game from Earth?” Luxinna mused. “I heard the stuff they imported from there is mostly a niche novlety.”

“I am more amused about this Guilty Gear,” Cytortia stated. “Rem’s and Hikma’s world are just weird.”

That night tested their friendship in more way than one.

…

Inside an isolated lab protected by curtain and layers of defensive seal and barrier, Melosov was admiring his vast array of surgeon tools. The man’s emotion dropped from the reality comprehensible to most humanity and anyone who believed his good mood from those cheerly cordial tones were the kind who would sooner get their kidney stolen by the Fair Folks.

“Before we formally start, let me voices my complaint,” Melosov switched on a handheld drill. “You are a disappointment.”

The woman on the operating table attempt to rise, but several Mana suppressors, paralytic injections and seals kept her perfectly still. Melosov even took the liberty of impairing her voice box before the operation.

“That aside, let me perfectly clear. Although my distaste for you as a human being is unarguably immeasurable, this isn’t personal. It would be if the Penelope — who is a way better specimen than you by the way — is permanently damaged by your shoddy self-control. Thankfully, she is physically and psychologically intact, so this operation isn’t about her.”

The unrepentant sadist glared at Melosov. She would spit at the scientist if not for metal gag. Melosov ignored the glared of the thousand sun and put his rubber glove.

“Oh, shove your fury,” Melosov checked the crimson fluid as he connected the tube to the unfortunate patient’s vein. “It is the truth, Kakia. For all your bravado and boasting, you are just one of the many S-rank in Phantasia. Sure, you are the top .02% but a .01% of a 100 million is still ten thousands. Phantasia total population comprised over 9 planet’s worth of people. We are way past the 30 billions mark a long time ago. If not for the Mandatory Recruitment Order and the status quo obsession with gate-keeping knowledge, you won’t be that special. Look at how we arrive here, getting an S-rank sample to vivisect isn’t even that hard. A little of luck and some persuasion skill is all it took.”

Kakia attempted to murder Melosov with her sole remaining eye.

“The Queen, on the other hand, is a real prize. I don’t get you folks obsession with Hidden Vault. Sure, there would be some stuff in their that might tip the war or get more stupid S-ranks to sign-up, but those are old news. Think about it. Penelope is the product of a century of genetic immersed in special magical contract, counting her, only three such line exist and one of them already burnt out because those daughters of idiots.”

Melosov lifted a saw, switched it on and started working on Kakia. Cutting up her skin and flesh as blood and bile began flowing from the table.

Kakia tried to scream, but without her voice-box no sound came.

“Oh relax, the reconstitution of the body is much worst,” Melosov noticed Kakia’s confusion. “Wow, you don’t know a thing. Well, I always have this passion to teach, so let me educate you a little.”

Melosov produced an intricate Mana engine from under the table and began connecting it to Kakia innards. He gazed carefully. It appeared he need to rearrange some organ. The man sighed and began his gruesome work. Even Kakia who enjoyed gored and pain could only internally scream when she saw her larger intestine being cutaway and replaced with machinery in a gruesome surgery.

And yes, it transparently clear there was no anesthetic.

Nereo didn’t even break his stride from the mini-lectured even as he began grafting the cybernetic where Kakia’s stomach used to be. The pain she experienced defied any words.

“The main difficulty to break into the S-rank is the exercises of balancing. The total power-level must surpass 25000, but we run into… what does kid this day call it? Ah. The chicken and an egg problem. The best method to raise power-level in early stage is hyper-focus on increasing you muscle-power or raising the qualities and your number of Mana circles or expanding the energy stock. But at some point, they ran into logistic problem; the growth slows. The reason is obvious — the dilemma of hyper-specialization. For MAG intense build, the body is too weak to handle the Mana. For END, STR and DEX, it is that their growth plateau at maximum saturation, and the internal Mana-resistance became so high, consolidating Mana Circles become much harder. This is the burden facing every S-rank aspire.”

Kakia didn’t listen. She was in too much pain, but Melosov continued his lecture any way as he activated the machanism to suck the overflowing amount of blood. Nereo wasn't even bother an eye at the blood lost, he meant to replace them with alchemical anyway.

“Thus, the best method to hit S-rank is to increase every aspect of your stat together, but that means conscripting to the growth rate that makes stupefy snail blushed. The real breakthrough is understanding the key prospect that makes all this possible — Mana. Two-years researching this subject revealed Mana is an energy carrier not a storage. It is the fact that somehow elude multiple studies, traditions, and researches. My hypothesis with how the understanding of Mana become stymied in this mud is because the vast majority obsession with the god’s ability to consume power from atmospheric Mana. The classic bandwagon of seeing the answer instead of understanding the concept.”

Melosov sneered as he replaced the helpless Kakia’s kidney, “Since the world-strongest race of man-children become so strong by wielding power in such a way, then it should be correct, isn’t it? Yeah. That is how people delude themselves into believing government is a foundation not an offshoot of civilization and right to bear arms is for paranoid morons hanging in the countryside.”

Kakia wanted to cry out in pain.

“Oh sorry, minor gripes of mine. Back to our short lecture, my calculation showed that assimilation of the body to Mana itself would allow nearly everyone to hit S-rank in a much faster period. Further experiment also showed that Mana is also adaptive. It consistent adjusts itself to best suit the person ability. My conclusion is that reconstituting this evolved Mana with your body will allow you to reach unseen power-level. Now, you might be asking why aren’t I am S-rank with this knowledge. Truth is, I simply don’t have the time or desire for that burden. The only thing I seek is intellect. While the power to protect myself is necessary, I already took precaution in case of the worst-case scenario. Given the fact, you are still confused like a deliberate chicken. I guess you didn’t use that method to hit S-rank. If I may guess, it is the same old piggybacking off an inheritance manual popular with the Divine Fist. What a disappointment.”

Nereo injected a jab of purple serum into Kakia, and using a heated device to sear shut her wound. Yes, it was as agonizing as it sound.

“Now, we finish remaking your internal-organ to best support further modification. I know this might disturb you, but this is just a beginning ”

Kakia’s mind bricked from the revelation that this hell was just a warm-up.

“Relax. I only need to mod your respiratory system and Mana Circles with my specialized reactor system, inject this nifty serum to strengthen your muscle structure and fixed your broken bones with a mutagen that changed them to bio-steel. You will be up and running in no time Kakia, after a little brain surgery.”

Nereo’s voice turned into a whisper, “Afterall, you are the surest bet to lock one troublesome piece of the board. You must last long enough to buy time against the elf.”