The Mark

Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Caen instead preferred to fire back at Isona with his sarcastic comment, "See Isona? You are even annoying him like you annoy everyone here." A soft grin brightened his face.

"How could this be? Big sister only wished to love little brother and caress him," Isona said with a pout. "It must be your trick! You filled the ears of little brother with lies related to sweet and innocent me."

"Sure. Whatever you say. We both know the truth," Caen said as he rolled his eyes.

"Little Brother, did I do something wrong?" Isona asked Lucifer with a cry-like face.

Caen felt like vomiting as he saw such childish acting of Isona. Even Dion felt like slapping his face with his palm. On the other hand, Vega didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry at Isona’s tactics. At Least she was bringing a good fun impression to this place before Lucifer.

"I don’t like anyone touching me," Lucifer answered grimly.

So many people had touched him, but none had the touch like his parents. The doctors, the scientists, they all touched him to use him. After he was out of the facility, it remained the same.

First, the waiter touched him to throw him out in disgust simply because he wanted food while looking poor. Then the enemies who touched him during battles.

He had never received affection in the last five years. He felt that it was better than getting fake affection like he was about to get now, at least.

- : Training Room

- : Training Room

- : Training Room

Lucifer was at the base of Variant Uprising, being overwhelmed by new faces, but he was still the old him. He didn’t get close to anyone, nor did he let anyone get close to him.

"Caen, take Lucifer to guest room number Seven. I’ll send new clothes for him there as well," Vega told Caen.

"But... I can do it," Isona told Vega, who simply refused.

"I don’t think the little guy feels comfortable with you. Let Caen escort him. He’s tired. We have plenty of time to get to know each other," Vega answered Isona. "Until then, you stay with Dion and me. We have work to do."

"Sigh, alright," Isona replied as she gazed at Caen with jealousy.

"Don’t worry, little brother. We’ll meet again," Isona told Lucifer, smiling gently before she stepped back to Vega.

"Come." With that, Caen started walking away while gesturing for Lucifer to follow behind him.

They again went inside the lift, which took them to the lower floors. Even though Lucifer was underground, he didn’t feel like he was in danger. He was calm and composed, but he was also ready to take action if he needed to. He hadn’t lowered his defense.

The door of the lift again opened, this time on a different floor.

Unlike the previous floor, this floor seemed different. It didn’t seem like a big arena. Instead, it seemed like a proper complex with long corridors.

Many decent paintings were also hanging on the silver walls making the place seem more -like.

"This is the floor where you’ll rest. Don’t worry about anything. We have personal chefs who will bring food for you here. Also, you’ll get anything you desire as well. Moreover, this whole floor is only for guests," Caen told Lucifer as he stepped out of the lift.

"At the moment, only you’re our guest, so this whole place is for you," he added. "Let me show you around."

Lucifer calmly followed after Caen, walking through the corridor.

"This room is the dining room. It’s for joint dining in case we ever have a large number of guests. Since you’re the only one, you don’t need to come here. You can eat in your room. But if you want to eat here, no one will stop you either."

"This room here is the garden. We have a proper garden here which is quite big too. If you ever want to take a walk, you can do so here. There are also a few cute birds inside who you might like."

As Caen walked with Lucifer, he kept showing him around each of the rooms. He showed a massive dining hall and a garden which seemed bigger than it should have been. The garden was filled with many rare flowers, plants, and even trees.

There was also a fountain and a pond inside the garden.

"This here is for training," Caen said as he showed Lucifer the third room, which seemed pretty strange. The room had nothing. It was an entirely empty room with walls of stone that had strange markings on it.

"You might be wondering what this is or why we need training? Since you’re new to being a Variant, you probably don’t know about it. Since you’re a part of our family, I’ll tell you," Caen said.

"As Variants, we awaken our power before we turn ten years old. From that point on, we are able to use our powers. But even then, we can’t use our full potential."

" Even though we can use our powers, we are only able to use a fraction of them. And since our powers and their grade is fixed at the start, the only way to get stronger is by increasing our efficiency of using our powers to their best," he explained.

"A Variant who can utilize ten percent of his A-Grade power is certainly weaker than a Variant who can utilize eleven or more percent of the same power."

"And the only way to increase your efficiency is by using your powers regularly to make your body more comfortable with them," he added as he walked inside the empty room.

Lucifer also entered behind Caen.

"But most of the Variants in our family are pretty strong. If they just used their powers randomly, they would destroy this whole place in the end. That’s why we made these training rooms on each floor. These rooms are made with the help of some of our most intellectual and able Variants. These rooms aren’t normal, as you might have guessed already."

"These are much more resistant to powers. Here, you can use your powers, and the damage would be much less."

"And after the training session, our Variants daily repair the rooms that suffered most damage so that the rooms are ready for another session the next day. You can also train here if you ever want. Don’t worry about destroying the room. We will repair it later," Caen told Lucifer.

"Why don’t you give it a try? I heard you have Super Strength. Go ahead and punch the wall," he let out, smiling.

Curious, Lucifer nodded his head. He also wanted to try if it was true.

He walked closer to one of the walls and packed his fist. Since Caen had said that he could use as much strength as he needed, he didn’t want to stay behind. But at the same time, he also didn’t want to expose his entire strength.

He had decided to only use fifty percent of what he could use.

After deciding, Lucifer packed his fist and punched the wall.

Bam!

A small fist landed on the wall, making the whole room vibrate. Cracks developed on the wall, but it still wasn’t broken. The wall had mostly taken the attack.

On the other hand, if it had been a different wall, it would have been broken already, shattered to rubble.

"See? The wall is more resistant. But I’ll still advise you not to attack at the same place because it is only resistant but not impervious to attacks. Change your targets regularly," Caen informed Lucifer about the limitations of the wall as well.

- : Something Of His Own

- : Something Of His Own

- : Something Of His Own

Lucifer couldn’t help but shake his head in disappointment. This wall was actually useless. If it could only take his attack at fifty percent, what if he had used full strength?

And even this fifty percent wasn’t actually fifty percent of the S-Rank strength. It was only fifty percent of what Lucifer was able to use, which was only a fraction of his potential already.

Also, if the wall couldn’t take his strength, what about his Decay?

Curious, he shifted his gaze between his hand and the wall.

As Caen had said, he didn’t use his decay on the already damaged portion of the wall. Instead, he moved over to the side.

He slowly raised his right hand.

Caen already knew what Lucifer was trying to do. He was also curious about it. They hadn’t actually tested the wall against Decay. Was it actually going to resist or get destroyed right away?

Without taking much time, Lucifer placed his fingers on the wall, letting his Decay take full effect.

The outcome was somewhat according to his expectations. The wall started slowly getting destroyed. Under his strength, the wall didn’t resist this ability of Lucifer.

Without doing much damage, Lucifer removed his fingers.

"It seems like the Decay of yours is too much for the defense of the wall. But don’t worry, you can practice that ability on other things," Caen chimed in, feeling like Lucifer might be disappointed.

What he didn’t know was that Lucifer was actually much more relaxed now. If the wall had resisted his ability, he would have felt much worse since that meant this place was capable of stopping him.

"Anyway, you can start practicing here if you want. I’ll send someone to repair the wall," Caen said. "Let’s leave. I’ll show you other places."

Caen and Lucifer stepped out of the place.

Just like the previous floor, this floor was also very big. It had tens of rooms, but only a few of them were shown to Lucifer since the rest were just bedrooms for guests that weren’t here.

After a tour that lasted for close to half an hour, Caen finally brought Lucifer to his bedroom.

Opening the bedroom, he revealed the place.

"This is where you will stay. There’s an attached bathroom. You can take a shower inside as well. As for clothes, you don’t need to worry about them. We have someone who will deliver you the clothes. Also, I’ll regularly check up on you to see if you need anything or not. If you want anything or find anything lacking, you can tell me then."

Caen said a lot of things about the room and what to do later, but Lucifer didn’t place much focus on them. He instead gazed at the room, which seemed like a room at a seven-star hotel. It had everything a person could need. It was just like a room for a king, completely unlike what he had at the facility.