Panic Inducing Tests

Stepping through the portal, she saw the flower.

The Lotus was now the same colour as it had been when it was sitting in the pond.

Multiple workers were pouring energy into the flower while hundreds of spells flew around the room. The room seemed a lot bigger than the last time she was there.

'Huh. This is... panic inducing.'

She thought while walking through a closed door into a room where the main scientists were observing the flower from behind a thick glass wall.

Looking to the corner of the room, she saw countless machines under a label called 'extractionators'.

'Jep. Very, very panic inducing.'

Taking another look at the scientists while floating around the room, she thought.

'These guys... they seem older?'

Not knowing how much time had passed since she entered the flower, she floated through the lab trying to find any hint of a date, calendar or clock.

Passing through a rather suspicious room filled with small yellow containers, she ignored it for now and continued her search.

'These guys have been busy.'

Turning around and walking on everything but the floor and in every way except the right way up, she skipped through the lab.

'Can't lie, I missed this place a bit. I forgot how many colours existed!'

She thought with an imaginary smile.

Finally finding a calendar in a room belonging to a half naked woman, she looked at it.

'Excuse me. Have to check the date real fast.'

Reading through it, she was surprised to see the current date.

'Year... 8088? Month... Metal? Day... 3. Twoday.'

She rubbed her head.

'What?'

She opened her strained eyes as if she had just been splashed with lemonade.

'Are these people dense? What is 'Month: Metal' supposed to mean? The calendar system is so weird compared to the last time I checked it.'

Floating out of the room, she thought back to the last time she saw this world's date.

'Back then it was the year... 80 something something. The month was 'Winter', it didn't make sense but at least I knew what season it was then. Is Metal classified as Winter then?'

Sighing, she floated through the facility.

'I don't remember it being 8088 specifically so I can guess that at least a year has passed. Considering how the room became a few tens of times bigger and a bunch of those weirdly named machines, I'd say at most 3, maybe 4 years have passed?'

Throwing the thought aside as she did not know nearly anything about architectural buildings underground nor about magical extraction devices from other worlds, she walked back to the Lotus room.

'I am going to make a wild guess. My soul is still there, just the last one.'

Thinking about it she decided to experiment.

Turning away, she was about to see how far away from the flower she could travel, but she stopped as she saw the scientists do a quick experiment on the flower.

Taking a needle, one of them punctured a transparent petal.

She froze.

'Nah. My soul can't still be inside there. I'd die.'

The needle was removed after taking some strange liquid substance from the flower.

'Yeah. I'm fine.'

*Slam!

The door was kicked open as every scientist in the facility seemed to suddenly materialize in the room.

She started to lightly sweat.

'The hell?'

Each of the scientists was celebrating like 6-year-olds who got a bike as a present. Some were crying.

Listening in on the conversations, she understood a bit but not everything as she had left her study on this language halfway done.

'"Amazing... You... Promotion... Great... Fantastic... Empire... Power... Fluid... Normally... Rot... Get... Test... People... P... Series..."

Is what I got from that.'

The people around seemed prideful and on the verge of tears as if they had spent their entire lives getting that small amount of liquid.

'The man holding the needle got a promotion I guess and people are happy. Something about the Empire gaining Power and it Normally just Rotting away. I guess the liquid would have Rotted away under normal circumstances.'

She tilted her head while looking at the liquid.

'It just seems like juice to me...'

'Also. What was that about Test and P-Series?'

She followed the man who was holding the needle like a divine gift from God.

'I wouldn't be that excited about a small needle of juice.'

Entering a room, there was a guard that seemed rather confused.

He was instructed to take off all his armour.

The man with the needle said something about 'Happy' and 'Strength'.

The man sat down while listening to the doctor.

After every word, he nodded and seemed rather happy to be, in the man's words: Chosen.

First off, they placed all the juice in a jar before closely examining it.

For an hour.

The guard meanwhile remained excited.

For the entire hour.

Almost no words were spoken.

At the end of the hour, when a certain wandering soul started playing patty cake with the wall, the examiner man who had carried the needle said something like: 'Safe', 'Guards', 'Paladins' and 'Inject Now'.

The fluid was placed back in the syringe.

'What was the point of that!?'

She silently cried out in her mind.

The man was stuck to the chair and the syringe injected the fluid.

Into his heart.

'Aren't these people scientists! Don't you have to shove those needles into your arm or something?!'

She asked as she didn't quite remember herself.

The guard went limp.

A minute passed.

'These guys just straight up committed murder. Where are the police? Damn.'

A few moments later, however, the man moved.

'Nevermind. These guys just straight up paralyzed someone. Where are the police? Damn.'

The guard opened his eyes. He looked at his hands.

Gripping his fist, he slightly smiled before saying something to the syringe man who started wildly celebrating.

The guard stood up and ripped off the restraints tying him to the chair before examining his body.

Although it was difficult to see, his body became much stronger and more muscular.

He also seemed to grow in height.

Before he was a bit taller than the observing soul of the Dragon Slayer here but now he was easily taller than her.

The man who had been holding the syringe told him something else about tests before running out of the room.

Not wanting to stay there for some reason, she followed the man as he dashed rather quickly.

'I don't get it. At most he is as powerful as one of the zombie elves or the information gifting kid. What's so cool?'

The man entered a room that was decorated with dark and golden metals.

Arriving near a bed, tears started falling as he grabbed the hand of the old man who was on the bed.

'"Something... Something... Success... Years..."

Okay. Why say that to this random old dude?'

She thought.

As the old man opened his eyes and looked at the one beside his bed, she realized a small something.

'Oh. This dude is familiar. Weirdly enough. I haven't met any old people in this world yet. I don't think at least.'

The man spoke.

'"Really?... I... Christopher Winters... Proud... Son..."

Wow. How heartwarming. I think?'

She looked at the man beside the bed.

'So this was your father's work? Why waste your life on it? Don't you have better things to do?'

The man started crying as the old man closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

'I don't know if my theories brake the mood or anything, but... the old man was the one I remember seeing when I first got here. So if this guy who looks just like him is his son, are the others, who just looked a little older, also just other scientists' children?

Don't kids have dreams to do something other than following their parents in this world? How weird.'