Chapter 702  Two weeks later


    Two weeks later.


    Aron stood calmly inside one of the physical labs on his ship, his eyes fixed on five medipods positioned before him. Holograms hovered over each pod, displaying streams of data being collected in real time.


    Inside the pods, five bodies lay motionless, sustained by a constant supply of nutrients directly administered to their systems. The pods were designed to keep the bodies alive while preventing any activation of brain function, ensuring that consciousness remained completely dormant.


    Although the bodies in the pods outwardly resembled the various races of the Proximians, the similarities ended there. Internally, their structure was much closer to Aron’s own physiology than to that of the Proximians or even humans.


    {I think that’s enough observation. We should start the final etching,} Nova suggested, materializing beside him, ready to move on to the next critical step in their experiment.


    "Sure, let’s do it," Aron said, stepping closer to the nearest pod. Immediately, runic sentences began to materialize in front of him. With each passing second, the complex runic script grew longer and more intricate, with hundreds of symbols and words flowing together seamlessly.


    For two hours, Aron worked tirelessly, constructing an extraordinarily detailed runic sequence. When he finally finished, he opened his eyes and asked, "Are there any mistakes?"


    {None,} Nova responded, having meticulously monitored and cross-referenced every symbol against the simulations they''d run beforehand.


    "Good," Aron said, a smile forming on his face. The relief was evident; a single mistake would have meant starting over from scratch, wasting two hours of intense concentration. The satisfaction of knowing everything was flawless allowed him a brief moment of reprieve before moving on to the next crucial step.


    He then began to gradually reduce the size of the runic script, scaling it down from occupying the entire room to fitting within the confines of the medipod in just a few seconds. But he didn’t stop there; he continued minimizing it further.


    “Alright, I’m going to rest. Let me know when everything is done,” Aron said as he started leaving the lab. Nova immediately locked the door behind him, securing the lab and preventing any disturbances during the final stages of the process.


    .............


    The three tree folks monitoring the room exchanged knowing glances.


    Although their actions might be seen as spying, they were fully aware that the other side was well aware of their presence. They had previously made it clear that they could observe any location with mana within the star system. As a result, they came to the conclusion that the other side knew of their surveillance but chose not to interfere or show any concern.


    They reached this conclusion because his personal room was entirely unobservable to them, indicating that he possessed technology capable of concealing his activities. However, he had chosen not to use it for what he was currently doing in the lab.


    “They really went through all this trouble for a body he probably would have just given them if they had asked,” Birch said, shaking her head in disbelief.


    “Well, we and they didn’t know that at the time, so it wasn’t something we could consider,” Cypress replied, acknowledging the gap in their knowledge.


    “Anyway, does anyone understand what he was doing with the symbols he put on the heart?” Crabapple asked, shifting the focus back to the bodies being worked on. “I can’t even begin to replicate what he did or make sense of the symbols.”


    “I think it has something to do with managing or monitoring the mana in the bodies he’s creating,” Cypress speculated. “Maybe it’s to control it or keep track of it in some way.”


    The debate continued as Cypress and Crabapple exchanged points and counterpoints. After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Birch interjected, “Why not just ask him directly instead of wasting time debating?”


    “We will ask him eventually,” Crabapple responded. “But part of the joy in research is discovering that your hypotheses were on the right track. It’s more satisfying when the answer aligns with your own reasoning,” Crabapple said as he rubbed his nonexistent beard.V/\Issi?T  for the b/est novel reading experi/en/ce