When they opened their eyes, the world was already concrete and gray.
No windows. No sunlight. No sense of time.
Only a sealed room with beds bolted to the floor, seven in total, barely spaced apart. The walls were smooth and cool, reinforced. The floor was cold beneath bare feet. The ceilings rose to ten feet, just enough for the children to stand and move without restriction. There were no light switches—only the humming artificial white light that never dimmed. Every room was equipped with a ceiling-mounted speaker and a hidden surveillance camera in the corner. The only way out was a steel door that opened only for guards and researchers with ID clearance.
This was the interior of one of the rooms inside Karnell Facility. Each child was assigned to one of eleven chambers—each chamber held 21 rooms, seven children per room. In total, around 136 children existed in the main system. A twelfth chamber existed separately, reserved for infants under the age of three. There, the youngest were nurtured until their bodies matured enough to survive the X-Gene serum.
Each of the first eleven chambers operated under a hidden social system: a hierarchy. In each room, the oldest or the strongest child naturally became the leader. In rare cases, one child grew strong enough to dominate the entire chamber.
When O-243 arrived, he was placed in Chamber 1, Room 04. As the guards left, one of his new roommates explained the unspoken rules.
"Oldest leads. Strongest keeps peace. Weak ones get nothing," the boy had said.
O-243 didn't say much. But within hours, it was clear. He was the oldest in the room—and despite not yet demonstrating his strength, the others yielded to him. His tag bore the mark of an O-Class, second only in rarity to the mysterious AB designation. And O-Class children were feared for a reason: physical strength, enhanced resilience, and regenerative capabilities. On his first day, he got into a scuffle during food distribution and broke another boy's arm. His strength was not normal for a ten-year-old.
Livia, one of the facility's data technicians, recorded it quietly in her datapod.
"O-243 shows remarkable baseline enhancement even without stimulation. Suggests innate activation pathway is near."
She wasn't the only one watching.
In the high observation wing, Scoff Karios stood beside a bank of monitors. Behind his breathing mask, tubes whispered, feeding stabilizers into his body. His pitch-black eyes studied each room, each profile. A decade ago, he'd been ignored by the Academy. Now, he controlled the most advanced genetic project in the Empire.
Beside him stood Kaios Verma, a newly appointed diagnostic overseer in his thirties. Formerly head of the Search Division, Kaios was a walking contradiction: a scientist with the look of a battlefield survivor. His bald head glistened beneath surgical lights, and a mask like an archaic gas respirator covered his face. Stabilizing gas hissed softly through tubes at his neck.
"New patch is promising," Kaios muttered, scanning his tablet. "N-264 is already moving metal screws. Magnet-like behavior. Barely a week in."
"Yes," Livia had said earlier, "most of them are already showing signs. Better than the last batch."
Scoff remained silent.
After the X-Gene serum was administered, the surviving children had been allowed to rest. What they didn't know was that while they slept, a secondary surgical procedure was performed on each one. It was fast—precise. A fine slit opened on the scalp, a micro-implant was inserted, and the skin sealed shut in seconds. No scar. No memory.
Livia witnessed one operation and had asked another researcher about it.
"What was that?"
He didn't answer. No one did.
So she logged the data and remained quiet.
The next day, the lights never changed—but at some unknown hour, a guard's voice rang through the speaker.
"Assemble. Physical training begins now."
One by one, the doors opened. Children from each chamber were escorted through metallic corridors into a wide, domed training hall. The walls were lined with steel. Machines stood on the periphery—treadmills, resistance frames, stamina sensors. At the center, eleven instructors waited, each one assigned to a chamber.
They didn't smile. They didn't greet. They only barked orders.
Run. Fight. Fall. Get up again.
Children sparred with each other, sometimes until blood spilled. They ran until their legs collapsed beneath them. Pain was not punished—it was expected. Only failure earned punishment.
Scoff and Kaios watched it all from the monitoring balcony.
"They're like sorcerers in Elemor," Scoff said quietly. "They don't awaken by chanting or glyphs. They're born with it. Especially now… every generation—stronger than the last."
"Because of the Merge?" Kaios asked.
Scoff nodded. "Mana lingers in the air now. Especially in newborns. Each child holds more than the last."
"But why let them interact? Wouldn't isolation be safer?"
Scoff turned. "Because they're not mages. They don't summon power from the air. They need emotion—connection. Hate. Fear. Grief. Love. Pain. Emotional stress sharpens their edge. Breaks seals. Awakens traits."
Kaios said nothing. It made a twisted kind of sense.
Back in Chamber 5, R-932, only three and a half years old, had begun to display signs of perceptual shifts. During a dodge drill, he ducked before the instructor even moved.
Livia logged it immediately.
"Subject R-932 may possess micro-foresight. Unusual onset—appeared within first 48 hours."
Another rarity.
And in Chamber 9, a quiet boy named K-109 sat motionless on his bed, listening. No one approached him. His eyes followed every movement in the room—but slow, deliberate. It wasn't because of laziness. K-109's senses were different. He saw movement as if time had slowed. He could perceive every punch, every twitch—but his body, small and untrained, couldn't keep up.
Livia noted it, puzzled. Neural sensitivity that hadn't yet translated to action.
"Early indicator of K-Class trait. Suggest enhanced perceptual awareness."
The children had barely survived training when it ended. Muscles trembled. Several had collapsed during sparring. They had no idea how long they'd been at it—an hour? More? The facility never gave them clocks, and the lights stayed the same.
After training, they were returned to their chambers.
They were given exactly thirty minutes.
Not enough to rest. Not enough to sleep.
Some boys leaned against their beds, trembling. Others stared at the walls, waiting for the next order. And then, exactly as predicted, it came.
"Assemble. Classroom begins now."
Every speaker in every chamber activated. Chamber 1 to Chamber 11.
All doors unlocked at once.
Groans filled the rooms. Some children could hardly walk. Limbs ached, eyes burned, but no one disobeyed.
No one wanted to know what happened to those who resisted.
The guards led them through corridors toward the learning wing. Concrete hallways gave way to a large training-classroom built like a bunker. Desks in rows, a projector above. And at the front of the room, waiting in silence, was a new figure.
Marla.
They didn't know her yet—but the guards stood stiff when she walked in. Four of them lined the walls, armed with tranquilizer rifles.
The children fell silent.
She was in her thirties. Tall. Cold. Her red hair was tied back, her face unreadable. She wore a long coat with a high collar, and when she walked, her boots made no sound.
She didn't greet them.
She didn't ask for names.
She simply said, in a clear and even tone, "Today, we begin history. The roots of the Stella Empire."
Her voice was precise, emotionless.
"Stella traces its roots back 974 years. Before the Merge. Before Elemor touched Earth. Before mana touched human blood. Arkham Stellare I was the first ruler. The first to embrace steam. The first to see technology as a god."
Every word felt like stone. The children listened, silent not out of interest—but out of fear.
Because they knew what she could do.
Marla had full authority to send any child to the White Room.
The White Room wasn't a story. It was real.
Pure white. Curved walls. Barely large enough for a teen to stand. If they sat or lay down, electric pulses surged from the floor. The walls were shaped to prevent leaning or rest. Some lasted hours. Others… screamed within minutes.
And Marla, with her flat tone and razor-sharp eyes, wouldn't hesitate to send them there.