A faint, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Kael Voss's lips as memories surfaced unbidden.
Over the past six months, he and Gareth "Wraith" Stone had forged an unshakable bond—two boys cut from the same cloth, both hailing from resource-starved frontier settlements, their shared resilience and quiet determination drawing them together as confidants. There were no secrets between them.
Kael slowly unfolded his cross-legged posture, rubbing his calves to restore circulation. Hours of meditative cultivation had left his limbs numb, his bio-energy pathways feeling sluggish with disuse. He continued massaging until sensation returned fully, then rose from the nutrient-infused padding, brushing dust from his standard-issue synthetic tunic—a habit ingrained from his village days—and pushed open the hatch of his cultivation chamber.
Glancing back at the stark, metallic structure, Kael allowed himself a dry chuckle. The chamber had been carved directly into the Verdant Bio-Dome's reinforced alloy bedrock, its hatch forged from a single slab of carbon-titanium composite. For an intruder to breach it, they'd need industrial plasma cutters and hours of relentless work—an impossible feat for any ordinary person.
Such sealed gene cultivation chambers were luxuries reserved for the Seven Luminaries Tech Conglomerate's elite: division directors, senior advisors, and council elders. Even core operatives rarely earned the right to use them. Designed to shield cultivators from external energy fluctuations and electromagnetic interference, they prevented the catastrophic gene sequence destabilization that often plagued those mastering advanced bio-tech protocols. Kael still marveled at how Dr. Mordecai Thorne had pulled strings with the Conglomerate's elders to secure this space for him—an unprecedented privilege for a mere probationary apprentice.
From the moment the chamber was completed, Dr. Thorne had designated it solely for Kael's use. The decision had left Kael reeling with disbelief; such favor far exceeded the usual mentor-apprentice dynamic.
Dr. Thorne's generosity had been unwavering. Each day since Kael had officially become his apprentice, the elder scientist had provided him with a rotating regimen of gene stabilizers, cell-repair serums, and nutrient pastes. He'd even prepared weekly immersion baths infused with rare bio-engineered extracts—substances Kael recognized only by their faint, iridescent glow and the doctor's reverent demeanor when handling them. Though Kael didn't know their exact composition, he understood their value; Dr. Thorne's stoic face would soften into something approaching reluctance each time he dispensed the treatments, as if parting with fragments of a priceless treasure.
The supplements had yielded tangible results. Kael's cultivation speed had surged, and he'd recently shattered the bottleneck to master the first tier of the Unnamed Gene Calibration Protocol. The breakthrough hadn't come without cost—several of his gene strands had nearly frayed under the strain, leaving him with mild internal cellular damage—but Dr. Thorne's expert care and willingness to lavish rare healing agents had prevented any permanent harm.
What struck Kael most was Dr. Thorne's reaction to his injury. The normally detached scientist had been restless and agitated throughout his recovery, his gaunt face etched with concern until Kael's bio-energy signatures stabilized. It was a level of investment that felt unnatural, leaving Kael with a faint, gnawing unease. If not for the fact that no one from his village had ever ventured beyond their arid homeworld save his uncle, he might have suspected the doctor was a long-lost relative.
Stretching his arms overhead, Kael set off toward his quarters. Since being promoted to formal apprentices, he and Gareth had moved out of the shared dormitories, each granted a small private cabin within the bio-dome.
As he passed Gareth's door, Kael glanced in—empty, as expected. He knew exactly where his friend would be: at the base of the bio-dome's artificial gravitational cascade, honing his cultivation.
Dr. Thorne's instructions had diverged for the two boys. For Kael, the focus remained solely on the Unnamed Gene Calibration Protocol, with no mention of combat techniques. To compensate, the doctor had thrown open the doors to his vast library of bio-technical manuals, teaching Kael everything he knew about genetic engineering and emergency bio-augmentation—answering every question with meticulous detail, never holding back.
For Gareth, however, Dr. Thorne had kept his promise, imparted him a highly specialized combat-oriented program: the Bio-Armor Reinforcement Technique. A relic of the Conglomerate's early genetic research, the technique was rarely practiced, so obscure that most operatives had never even heard of it.
Unlike standard gene-enhancement protocols, which grew progressively more difficult with each tier, the Bio-Armor Technique followed a bizarre trajectory. Its first three tiers were relatively straightforward, no harder to master than basic strength-augmentation programs. But from the fourth tier onward, the difficulty spiked dramatically—requiring the cultivator to endure excruciating cellular restructuring, their muscle fibers and bone density being forcibly enhanced beyond natural limits. Many aspirants abandoned the program at this stage, unable to bear the agony, their gene sequences permanently stunted. The fifth and sixth tiers were even worse, the pain multiplying exponentially with each advancement.
Yet those who persevered past the sixth tier and reached the seventh would find the path smoothing out—save for monthly episodes of crippling cellular regeneration that felt like being flayed alive and rebuilt from the inside out. It was a brutal trade-off that had made the technique nearly extinct.
But the rewards were unparalleled. At its ninth and final tier, the Bio-Armor Technique transformed the body into a living weapon: a layer of carbonized bio-plate would form beneath the skin, rendering the cultivator impervious to conventional weapons, extreme temperatures, and even low-grade plasma blasts. Their muscular fibers would be reinforced with nano-lattices, granting them superhuman strength—enough to tear through alloy armor, overpower gene-enhanced beasts, and even grapple with small combat drones.
It was a technique that inspired equal parts greed and terror. No one since its creator—a legendary geneticist said to be born without pain receptors—had ever mastered all nine tiers. Dr. Thorne had laid bare every horror and hardship for Gareth, but the boy, unshaken by tales of suffering and fixated solely on the technique's power, had agreed without hesitation.
To Kael's surprise, the Bio-Armor Technique seemed tailor-made for Gareth. In just two months, he'd surged to the peak of the first tier. Eager to break through to the second, he'd followed Dr. Thorne's advice, spending each afternoon beneath the bio-dome's gravitational cascade—a forty-meter column of concentrated energy that simulated the crushing force of a planetary storm.
Gareth had sworn the method was working, claiming he could feel the barrier between tiers growing thinner, as fragile as a sheet of synthetic film. One final push, he insisted, and he'd break through.
Kael shook his head, a fond grin playing on his lips. Knowing Gareth's stubborn resolve, he had no doubt his friend would succeed—pain or no pain. With a final glance toward the distant hum of the gravitational cascade, Kael continued toward his quarters, already mentally preparing for the night's cultivation session. The path of gene ascension was never easy, but with a friend like Gareth by his side, Kael found himself welcoming the challenge.