The clue

Deep underground somewhere below the mountains…

-...That… Primitive monkey!

/Bang!/

Kars slammed his hands into the cavern wall making the entire cave tremble. The area he hit was now cracking.

-Ka-Lord Kars! Please restrain your power! If the cavern collapses…

/Putchi!/

-Lord Kars!...

Kars pouced his subordinate and without a single drop remorse, completely absorbed him, never did he even bother to know his name.

-... Lacking… I need more energy.

-Esidisi, Wamuu… I will complete this in your name. First I need to recover. It's shameful but the best course of action might be to wait… Wait until that Human disappears, I refuse to believe all are like him.

/Tap… Tap.../

-Unfortunately… That will not happen. Said a man with an elderly voice.

-Hoo? And who are you to talk with me like that? Said Kars without turning back.

He was still confident in his strength. So he wasn't going to get defensive at just anyone.

-It seems you aren't taking me seriously…

/Smack!/

-WHAT?!

In a moment, Kars who was watching the man from far away got hit in the chest by an invisible force, creating a hole in his stomach.

-How?!

I didn't even see the attack! What was that? It felt as if a fist hit me…

-Are we on the same page now? Said the man in the shadows.

Kars squinted his eyes, in order to see who the man was.

-Oh! Pardon me.

The man stepped out of the shadows. He was a very elderly-looking man, the best way to describe him would be "a walking bag of bones".

-An old dying human? Said Kars

-Unfortunately, that's right on point. And that's also the reason I came to you here.

-Huh. As if you could have anything to give me apart from your dying body. I normally wouldn't even look at a bag of bones like you, but with my current condition, I can't choose.

If you looked closely at Kars you would see that his arms and legs were of different colors and sizes, showing that Kars took them from other people and had yet to fully adapt to the body parts.

-You don't even let me finish… I will say it nevertheless.

-I came here with a deal, I think you recognize what this is, right? He said as he passed a photo to Kars.

Kars looked at the photo for a second before his eyes opened up.

-Impossible! There can't be!

-And I say it's true.

-Care to listen to my deal?

-... Kars just disappeared from his location and placed his blades into the old man's neck.

-Your life is worthy of such an exchange, right?

-I think you dont know your current situation. Let me show you just how weak you truly are.

From behind him, a humanoid shadow appeared. It punched Kars directly in the face.

/Crunch!/

How?! Again this human hit me before I realised! What is happening with Humans! First, it was that mutant man, and now this bag of bones?!

-Care to hear my deal now? I promise it will be advantageous for both of us.

What a humiliation…

-Fine!...

…

It had been a week since the fight.

I was back in Italy, within my laboratory, on an island close to Venice.

There were many machines and equipment scattered around the room, many clones were working with insulating clothing. Even if I am strong, I can't keep the germs away from the experiments.

In front of me was a table, above the table 4 open books, one of them was the Hamon codex, the other was a written collection of all research I acquired from the Pillar man, the third one was the research papers from the scientists who worked with the Pillar men' tissues and organs. Lastly, we had my agenda, where I was writing all of my findings.

I looked forward towards a massive, glass cylinder. inside it was a brain, it was none other than Santana's… A clone of his brain to be exactly.

This wasn't the only clone, if you look around the laboratory you will find at least one clone of each of the Pillar men.

But how did I acquire these clones? Well, nothing that a bit of stimulation to the selected cells can't do. The Pillar men cells are so tenatius that if you give them a bit of nutrients and a suitable environment, they will do their best to reconstruct the original body.

At first me and the other scientists thought that this would end in the cells creating a new entity. But that wasn't the case. It kept replicating until a new body was made. Yet it was a vegetable with no brain activity.

It took a very long while though. Regenerating, or should I say, creating complex cells took a while. Even with the Pillar men inhuman regeneration.

But with this, we had a near infinite supply of bodies to work with. My greatest curiosity was to try using the mask with the stone in these dead clones. But I decided to wait.

-Start experiment number 1010.

/Wuonnnn/

The machine started to make some sounds, and from the ceiling of the glass tube, a series of mechanical arms descended.

-3...2...1… Do it.

The mechanical arms drilled into Santana's clone head, spilling a large amount of blood everywhere.

-Discharge… 3 Units.

The body started to convulse a little.

-5 Units

It trembled even more fiercely, some patches of skin started to burn.

-7.2 Units

Lastly, the body glowed with golden light and turned into ashes.

-It lasted longer this time…

I was trying to mimic the effects of the mask by outside forces by injecting Hamon directly into specific sections of the brain. But progress has been slower than I thought.

-Humm. The Hamon test isn't going smoothly. How is the pure stimulation test going? I asked a clone.

-It couldn't go better! We managed to awaken several hidden abilities of the clones, just as we managed to suppress some abilities. But the origin of how the brain can transform life energy has yet to be found. Said the clone

Kars notes only explained the areas involved in the operation, from how they work together to how they end up transforming a Human into a vampire. And how it evolves their race. But it doesn't say how the energy itself transforms.

Perhaps the energy never transformed. A researcher said that the mask might "eat" the life energy. And then the body, now transformed, would generate this energy in the vacuum created by the mask.

But I know this isn't true due to Kars notes. But the overall idea that the energy doesn't transform, it is replaced still exists. But that wouldn't explain how Kars still kept his abilities when he became perfect.

On one side, I had experiments using Hamon, on the other, it was experiments using purely biological and mechanical means.

-If only we could find out how the brain does it… Perhaps it isn't the brain after all. I said

-That 's unlikely. If it isn't the brain then, what? There is a very miniscule chance that it might be somewhere else in the body, but that wouldn't make sense. But the possibility of it being something related to the spirit hasn't been crossed out yet. Replied the clone.

-Excuse me everyone, John, it's Julietta. Said a clone

-Who?... Ah yes the little vampire girl!

I saw her a few days ago in the ruins, but I didn't have the chance to talk with her.

Many years ago, Speedwagon came to me for help saying she had gotten severely ill. Eventually, I found out she had pneumonia, due to the terrible living conditions in the ruins. Even with her enhanced body, she couldn't really cure a disease that had stayed with her for so many years. It was a miracle she lived so long in the first place.

But the cure for it was rather difficult, since it was caused by a virus. So at the time I had to set an entire group of clones to work on a vaccine while using multiple means to keep her alive.

Since she is here and well it all worked out in the end. Her body was incredibly resistant(compared to normal humans), and as such, she recovered quickly.

But I didn't meet her afterward. I was too occupied with training to even ask, but Robert would tell me a bit about her and so on. He always said she wanted to meet me, but because of the circumstances, we never did.

Never in a moment have I raised the proposition of researching her… I will be frank. I actually forgot about her…

/Knock knock knock/