The door to Sage's private office slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and Sasha led Zaeryn into a completely different world.

The change was immediate and dramatic.

Where Sage's office had been intimate, personalized with touches of warmth and that intoxicating lavender scent, the main laboratory sprawled before them like a cathedral of science, vast, sterile, and humming with barely contained power. The cold, clinical white light made every surface gleam, and the low-frequency thrum of machinery spoke of massive power consumption.

Directly ahead, seven cylindrical glass pods stood like silent sentinels, each nearly three meters tall, pulsing with eerie bioluminescent light. To the left, a massive machine dominated the floor, the Vitae Integration Matrix, a fusion of particle accelerator and organic incubator.

Tubes and cables snaked from it to dozens of monitoring stations where holographic displays rotated through three-dimensional molecular models.

Scattered throughout the space, at least a dozen women in crisp lab coats moved with purposeful efficiency. They were all beautiful, honed, and focused, a gallery of pure, concentrated intellect.

The moment Zaeryn stepped through the door behind Sasha, the change in atmosphere was noticeable. Conversations cut off. Heads turned.

A severe-looking woman with fiery red hair and sharp features actually took a step back, her hand moving protectively over her work as if Zaeryn might contaminate it with his mere presence.

'Here we go again.' Zaeryn thought, a little annoyed.

"Sasha?" A young researcher with dark hair approached, her confusion clear. Her eyes flicked from Sasha to Zaeryn and back. "What... what are you doing?"

Before Sasha could respond, another voice cut through the lab, sharp, amused, and dripping with condescension.

"Oh my Goddess, Sasha. Did you bring your pet to work? And here I thought the memo about 'Male Safety Protocol' meant locking them in a velvet cage, not parading them past live experiments."

The speaker was Vivienne.

Zaeryn turned to look at her, and the moment his eyes met her figure, he noticed that she wasn't just beautiful she was a masterpiece of engineered hostility.

She was tall and statuesque, with platinum blonde hair pulled into an immaculate, gravity-defying bun. Her white lab coat was tailored, clearly custom, and she wore it open over a form-fitting emerald-green dress that screamed power player. Her curves were generous, impossibly balanced by the sheer force of her presentation, a woman whose figure suggested indulgence but whose attitude demanded respect.

Her ice-blue eyes, utterly devoid of warmth, raked over Zaeryn like he was a particularly intriguing stain on her immaculate floor.

"I didn't realize we had a 'bring your male to work day,' darling," Vivienne continued, her voice carrying across the lab. "Though I suppose he is rather well-trained. Look at how quietly he stands there, just waiting for a pat on the head." She gave him a grin that was annoying to the core, clearly trying to make him snap and react.

A ripple of laughter ran through a few onlookers.

Zaeryn felt the familiar anger, the instinct to shoot back with a searing comeback. But he was surrounded by strangers. He held the fire in check, meeting Vivienne's stare with a look of pure, almost insulting boredom. He suppressed a yawn.

"Sasha, can we continue?" he said, his voice flat, signaling that their words meant so little they weren't even worth his energy.

Sasha's face had gone rigid. "He's not mine, Vivienne," she said, her voice cold and precise as a scalpel. "He belongs to Dr. Stellan."

The shift in the room was immediate. The mocking smiles evaporated. Even Vivienne's smirk froze, then melted into something more cautious.

"Dr. Stellan's...?" Vivienne repeated, her tone losing the sarcasm. She looked at Zaeryn with new eyes, still skeptical, but now calculating. "I see. "

"Dr. Stellan asked me to keep him entertained while she attends to guests," Sasha continued, her voice taking on a superior edge as she leaned on Sage's authority.

"Well," Vivienne said, flipping her hair over her shoulder, "I suppose if Dr. Stellan has use for him, that's her prerogative. Though I can't imagine what she sees in…. " She paused, eyes traveling down Zaeryn's body with exaggerated slowness. She meant to mock, because she expected him to be bad looking. However, to her disappointment, or rather her shock he wasn't at all.

Her gaze traveled down Zaeryn's uniform, lingering unapologetically on the fitted cut of his pants.

She returned her gaze to his face with a knowing smirk. "Oh, now I see what she sees. You're actually attractive for a male. Still, you're a male at the end of the day. And we all know males have underdeveloped brains and zero Vitae capacity."

The insult landed with perfect, calculated cruelty. More laughter, cruder this time.

Zaeryn maintained his neutral expression. The insult wasn't new, but coming from this gorgeous, arrogant woman, it struck a new chord.

He didn't just want to win an argument; he wanted to dominate her.

'System, who is this?' he asked.

The system hummed silently in the background, bringing up a simple notification.

[Vivienne Haximus]

Zaeryn blinked. What kind of name was Haximus? He had never heard it before.

Although he had to agree it fit someone like her perfectly.

And as annoying as she was. The undeniable truth was that she was tall and majestic, and hot. Honestly, everyone in this room was hot, but she just stood out with her aura of pure, untouchable authority, a walking paradox of a body that suggested indulgence and an attitude that promised damnation for even thinking about it.

He immediately commanded the system for a full diagnostic

[ANALYZING TARGET: DR. VIVIENNE HAXIMUS]

[VITAE TIER: Unknown]

[PRIMARY ABILITY CLASS: Unknown]

[VITAL STATISTICS: High-Tier political influence at Stellan Innovations. Senior Bio-Research Lead in the Vitae-infused synthetic genetics division.]

A slow, dangerous grin touched Zaeryn's lips, unseen by the others. The anger was still there, a low burn in his gut, but it was now mixed with a sharp, predatory interest. He looked at Vivienne again, but this time, he wasn't just seeing an arrogant rival. He was seeing a challenge. A prize.

'Right,' he decided, his resolve hardening into something sharp and absolute. 'Her. She's next. I'll find a way.'

Sasha cleared her throat, the sound loud in the tense silence. She shot a nervous glance between her boss's boyfriend and the formidable senior researcher who looked ready to dissect him. "Anyway," she said briskly, eager to steer the situation away from a full-blown workplace incident. "Dr. Stellan's orders were to keep him company. So I'm doing that, by giving him a brief tour of the public areas. If we could…?" Her voice trailed off, a hopeful question.

"Of course," Vivienne drawled, waving a dismissive hand. "Just keep him away from anything important. We wouldn't want his limited processing power accidentally contaminating a viable gene sequence."

She turned back to her workstation, clearly considering the matter closed, though Zaeryn noticed her glancing back at him twice as she walked away.

'Got your interest, Vivienne? I'll have your Vitae, and you won't even realize how much you begged for me to take it,' he thought, his own slow, predatory grin hidden from view.

Sasha's shoulders were tight as she led him toward the glass pods, retreating into the safety of formal presentation. She gestured broadly.

"This is the main research floor," Sasha began, her tone clinical and rehearsed. "We specialize in merging Vitae magical essence with living DNA. The Institute's mandate is to develop organisms capable of surviving and thriving in post-apocalyptic conditions."

Zaeryn's bored expression vanished. He stopped walking, his gaze sweeping over the glowing pods and the massive Vitae Integration Matrix with a new, sharp focus.

He spoke, the words flowing with an unnerving confidence.

"But that's a dangerous fusion, isn't it?"

Sasha paused, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You're treating Vitae like a simple catalyst," he said, his voice quiet, focused. "An energy source to inject into a stable genetic sequence. But Vitae isn't just power; it's informational. It has its own... intent. If you just force it into a biological system, you're not getting symbiosis. You're inviting chaotic resonance. Signature degradation. The organism will either reject the energy, or its own genetics will drift until it becomes an unstable monster."

The clinical, high-level terminology hung in the air, complex and utterly out of place coming from his mouth. He'd just perfectly articulated the core, unsolvable problem of their entire field.

Across the lab, Vivienne, who had been pretending to work, but really she was watching, went completely still. Her immaculate facade cracked, revealing a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief and dawning fury. 'That… level of thinking from him… I did not expect that."

"How... how do you know that?" Sasha finally managed to ask, her voice barely a whisper.

Zaeryn just gave a small, enigmatic smile, finally allowing a crack in his serious facade.

"Easy. See, Sage likes to bore me with this stuff sometimes, and I guess it sticks. But, I also like to read." He gave her a smile.

Sasha gave him a condescending look. "Oh, and I thought for a second, that came from your brilliant mind, not because Sage was discussing it with you."

Zaeryn didn't let Sasha's condescension faze him. He'd heard variations of it his whole life in this world, men weren't supposed to know things, let alone spit out advanced theories like they were casual observations.

But hey, if she wanted to chalk it up to Sage's pillow talk, that was her prerogative. He wasn't here to win arguments; he was here to kill time until Sage got back from whatever high-stakes meeting had yanked her away.

He nodded toward the massive machine on the left, the one that looked like it could birth a new species or level a city block if it glitched. "So, what is that? Looks like it's sucking down enough power to light up half the sector."

Sasha blinked, still recovering from his earlier drop of knowledge, but she slipped back into tour-guide mode quick enough.

She then led him toward the massive machine on the left, its central chamber still pulsing with that hypnotic light. Up close, Zaeryn could see intricate patterns etched into the titanium panels not decoration, but functional elements, channels for energy flow.

"This is another Vitae Integration Matrix," Sasha explained, her voice gaining confidence as she fell into familiar territory. "It allows us to observe how a creature's genetics respond when we expose them to controlled doses of magical energy. The chamber creates a contained field where we can manipulate Vitae concentration down to the molecular level."

A holographic display beside the machine showed a real-time view of what was happening inside, a cluster of cells, magnified thousands of times, surrounded by swirling patterns of golden light. As Zaeryn watched, the light intensified, and the cells... changed. Their structure shifted, membranes rippling, nuclei brightening.

"It's like watching evolution happen in seconds," Sasha said, a note of genuine wonder creeping into her voice despite her attempt at professional detachment.

Zaeryn leaned closer, studying the display. The process was fascinating, but something about it nagged at him. The cells were changing, yes, but not uniformly. Some brightened and stabilized, while others... flickered, dimmed, began to break apart at the edges.

"Fascinating," he murmured. Then, more thoughtfully: "But how do you keep the cells from falling apart? Hitting them with that much raw energy should shred their DNA unless you have some kind of stabilization mechanism."

He glanced at Sasha. "Or is there a newer method?"

Sasha stopped mid-gesture, her hand frozen in the air. She turned to stare at him, emerald eyes wide with genuine surprise.

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