[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 203: Oleg

Their arrival in the star system came with little fanfare. As the educational seat of the Carnegie Group, the Leemar System received billions of visitors each year. A single Apprentice Mech Designer raised no eyebrows, and Ves liked to keep it that way.

After a perfunctory inspection, the Barracuda zipped over towards the inner system and descended into the atmosphere of Leemar II. The slim corvette arrived at a private berth reserved for Leemar's affiliates like Ves, who became an apprentice of a visiting master.

First, he visited the Leemar School of Life Sciences situated on the other side of the planet. Unlike the Leemar Institute of Technology, the Carnegie Group founded the LSLS in the middle of an artificial tropical forest. A vast amount of alien flora and fauna made their home in this dangerous forest.

The frequent injuries and even near-deaths provided students with plenty of practice.

Fortunately, Ves possessed a thick skin so the voracious mosquito-like bugs buzzed around helplessly around his body. Several other visitors deployed a small interference field that repelled the wildlife, but Ves didn't bother with the gadget and strode towards the institute scheduled to receive him. Once he stepped inside the cool interior, a doctor whisked him away for checkups.

After several days of intensive and sometimes invasive tests, Ves finally received a verdict.

"How's it look like, doctor?"

The doctor in charge of his case gave him a smile. "Your genetics are in a very interesting place right now. Though we would have loved to have samples of the hexapods and a copy of the research data, right now we can conclude that your body won't develop in a malignant for the next five years. There is too much we don't know about your acquired alien traits to be sure of anything more."

"What about the CFA's treatment. Did they do what they promised to do?"

"It's absolutely brilliant what they did!" The doctor beamed. "We can surmise that Doctor Jutland induced your genetics into a highly active and malleable phase. This allows him to apply extensive modifications to your physique to the extent that he broke past the natural limits of the human body."

"And this is a bad thing?"

"You may not know this, but humans are not meant to possess so much strength. Your body would have slowly disintegrated as it strained to keep up its hyperactive state."

While Ves got lost in the specifics, he understood the main point easily enough. Just like his tweaks to the Ajax Olympian, his body couldn't handle the strain for an extended period of time.

The doctor also added in something interesting. "It's not actually unheard of to induce a human body to perform past its limits, but it's only relatively safe to do so for a few seconds at most. Any longer will result in severe repercussions."

The full results of the checkup showed that the CFA already remedied the repercussions that Ves had unwittingly accumulated. They also stabilized his genetics so that he wouldn't be vulnerable to biological attacks that targeted his genetics.

"So they hadn't sneaked in a back door or something?"

"No. Absolutely not!" The doctor shook his head. "We can trace their steps in your body. They've been very open about their procedures. It's safe to say that unless they employed their most advanced techniques, there's little chance your body is hiding something nefarious."

Ves knew his own worth. A pitiful junior like him didn't warrant such a massive investment. If the Carnegie Group's most premier medical institution hadn't found any hidden bombs, then he probably had a clean bill of health.