"Vampire?" Sean asked from the pod.
"Yes. Although not exactly the same, the genetic markers are similar enough, with yours shedding quite a substantial amount of biological weaknesses, like the denaturing of their cells, under strong UV light. This is something vampires can already circumvent using mana, but still a weakness nonetheless."
Devon turned to face him.
"In your case, this rapid cell denaturing is distilled into irritation from the sun. And your hunger for blood iron, is muted compared to theirs."
Devon held Sean's gaze for a while, seeing that nobody had anything to say, and continued.
"What is the most astounding thing for me here, is that all three, non-human gene markers are in the integration phase with your human genetics.
"This means that, all three were recently introduced into your body in the last eight months. But judging from the level of integration, it is very recent, at most, a week."
The whole place went graveyard silent, as they quietly digested what he had just said.
Richelle who was thinking that it was perhaps Sean's origins had that notion shattered in a few sentences. If Devon was not making a mistake, then Sean might have taken to some kind of reckless action she didn't understand, even before the enhancement.
"Three genes in the span of a week is something impossible, even for your super human genes, but... here we are," Devon said, feeling quite exhausted mentally.
While it was shocking to others, they didn't really know how all these worked.
It was just like the family of a cancer patient, suddenly hearing that the cancerous tumor was mysteriously gone. While they would be shocked and confused, this feeling of bewilderment was often accompanied by other emotions that mute them, like joy and happiness.
However, for the doctor that diagnosed said patient, and perhaps wasn't a believer of the supernatural, such a thing wasn't just a biological shock, it was also a culture shock, and maybe a flip of his entire world view.
That was the same situation Devon found himself in. Devon was a very open minded person, and always wanted to learn and further research on biological improvements.
Add this to how much knowledge he had, what was possible and what wasn't, were only separated by a thin line that could not be infringed on, in his mind. Analyzing Sean however, had just been one shock after the other, and the last one, wasn't even something he could rationalize at all.
On the other side, Thorne was having a fierce conversation with HORUS, trying to understand as much as possible.
[What he said, is indeed affirmative. However, he is looking at things from the lenses of a human of this world. The human bloodline of the lad is supremely powerful, that it can break some racial limits of the body... limiting it to their human bloodline is a great insult to the progenitor of said bloodline.]
HORUS confirmed to Thorne.
[The question that should be on their minds now, is not how it is possible, but how it happened.]
Throughout Devon's explanation, Richelle had her eyes trained on Sean as she listened. It was to the extent he even began to feel uncomfortable.
"Tell me," She demanded.
She truly couldn't understand if Sean's actions now, was a need for power, or just needlessly chasing death. It was already a known fact, that a person couldn't undergo another enhancement, without at least a year or two year difference.
To receive three genes in a week, especially one that was unidentifiable, was chasing death. Now that she thought of it, he had been pronounced dead after after his last enhancement.
There was no one who would be that daring, and she had never knew Sean to be that daring. Except he knew he was going to come back to life. If he knew that, it meant he remembers his past. But if he did, why would he lie to her?
She would have said that perhaps there was a guarantee given to him, to bring him back, if not for the fact that even with all of humanity's advancement, bringing the dead to life, was basically impossible.
Why was he keeping things from her?
"You know what? Forget it," she said, taking a different approach.
If he was keeping it a secret from her, then it must be something he felt would endanger his life. And this was definitely not the right place to be giving out such information.
She would however, make sure to grill the answers out of him. Unless it was puberty kind of stuff, keeping secrets from her, was a no, no.
"How many enhancements did you do?" Michael suddenly asked.
"One?" Sean replied, wondering why he wasn't behaving like a second rate villain for the first time.
"Then it might be possible that he received all three at once? Right Devon? Maybe they were mixed or something," Michael suggested, feeling it made some sense.
Richelle's eyes shone with realization. Indeed that was possible. Frankly no one had tried it. If only one beast gene could kill a person, mixing more than one... Who knew what would happen?
It had automatically been dismissed as failure, as theoretically, it was not possible. If one already had a high mortality rate, and put the body under immense stress, two would be even more damaging, talk of three. But Sean's genes were not like others, it devoured, rather than being forced to accept the foreign genes.
"While it theoretically makes sense considering his human bloodline, it doesn't explain the unknown gene he harbours," Devon replied with a shake of his head.
They went silent again, falling back to square one.
"I hope none of this leaves this place," Richelle's voice suddenly cut through the contemplative silence.
"I would be using his information for my private research, however, he wouldn't be identified as my specimen. So he's free with me." Devon replied.
"I have no need of ratting him out, or being at odds with you, but his information isn't just something I can discard," he concluded, with a slow shake of his head.
Richelle took a breath, even though it wasn't the perfect scenario, there was no loose ends from his side... Well, except Devon himself.
"And I don't need to mention about the said researches?" She questioned.
Even though it appeared to be a normal question, to them the condescending subtext and veiled threat, were quite interpretable.
Devon frowned. "It's called private isn't it?" He replied with a question of his own.
"Thank you," she said simply, and her eyes landed on Michael.
Instantly, everyone felt like they had been transferred to another world. Sean, Thorne, even the forgotten Drew, immediately tensed, feeling like they were standing before a predator.