Chapter 1511: 98.9%

Keeping Yeza still, especially in such a precarious location, wasn’t exactly an easy task. However, the painter didn’t seem to mind the occasional waving of her arms or crawling and continued to focus on his work.

Either that, or the painter was too scared to bring up the issue.

Nevertheless, the painter and Prince Thomas let the trio go after a couple of hours. The portrait was still incomplete, but their presence was no longer needed. Actually, someone else with more important tasks demanded it.

Khan, Liiza, and Yeza ended up trading one building for another, entering a flat that had been rearranged into a lab. Soldiers and scientists were still working on it, too, arranging various consoles and the just-teleported equipment, but the place seemed ready to fulfill its primary purpose.

Surprisingly, the person in charge of that lab wasn’t the usual Garret. Khan and Liiza didn’t even find Abraham waiting for that in that rearranged flat.

Instead, soldiers escorted the trio to an engrossed Raymond, tinkering with various consoles simultaneously, worsening his already exhausted appearance.

“My Prince, please, undress and stand on that platform,” Raymond requested, not diverting his eyes from the many screens in front of him but pointing at a spot deeper into the area.

The flat didn’t exactly have platforms, but following Raymond’s arm led Khan to a small room covered in blue lines that radiated different traces of synthetic mana. Khan also spotted scanners among them, as well as the bright circle on the floor where he was supposed to stand.

Raymond didn’t say it, but the implications were obvious, and Liiza took it upon herself to fulfill them. After entering that room, Liiza reached for her husband’s head, finally stealing away Yeza.

Needless to say, Yeza wasn’t ready to give up on her domain, but she couldn’t really oppose Liiza’s pull. Moreover, Liiza wasn’t as weak as her husband, so Yeza could only throw a loud fit while ending up in her arms.

“Mama is so evil,” Khan gasped, leaning toward Yeza, who cried while reaching for his hair. “She keeps making our little Princess cry.”

“Babies are supposed to cry,” Liiza scoffed, grabbing Khan’s face to lift it toward hers. “Now undress before Mama does that for you.”

Khan obviously had a joke ready, but Liiza silenced him with a sudden kiss, leaving the room before he could say anything.

The consoles and screens in front of and around Raymond kept track of anything happening in that small room. Liiza could catch Khan undressing when she joined the scientist, who tapped on a holographic key to activate a specific function once everything was ready.

“The room will radiate waves of mana of different nature, my Prince,” Raymond explained, speaking to the console’s mic. “It shouldn’t be uncomfortable for you, but please try not to oppose it.”

Liiza didn’t know much about the human methods. At least, she wasn’t knowledgeable enough to match scientists in those specific fields. The writing on the consoles was also quite foreign to her, but inspecting the process did give her an idea of its purpose.

Each screen inspected a different aspect of the event, studying specific ways in which Khan’s body reacted to the faint waves of synthetic mana that blew over him.

The waves of synthetic mana themselves looked designed to cause reactions the scanners could study, but Raymond had to increase their intensity several times before obtaining any worthwhile data.

That data served to build a precise profile of Khan’s status, which the consoles then rearranged and compared to other relevant information in the human records to draw conclusions.

Of course, precision was impossible when Khan was involved. Still, that prolonged exposure to that synthetic mana gradually brought the results closer to that unachievable result, other than triggering something else.

Raymond’s lifelong mission was to push humankind toward the next evolutionary step, and Khan had become a key aspect of that research long ago.

However, Khan’s rise to political prominence had prevented Raymond from studying him further, interrupting his research through the sheer unavailability of updated data.

That was no more. Raymond wasn’t only looking at the most updated data he could obtain. He could also steer that study wherever he desired, and those ideas didn’t play well with his new restriction.

The red tattoo flared while the test was still ongoing, making Raymond grunt and close his eyes to endure the pain radiating through his body. His blood vessels also rose and slithered under his skin, seemingly wanting to burst.

Raymond was quick to suppress the subconscious and conscious thoughts in his mind, only for a chilling sensation to greet him. A white, cold light had enveloped him, seemingly wanting to stir the very core of his being into eternal stillness.

“Continue,” Liiza ordered before Raymond could turn and come up with any excuse. She didn’t want to hear it anyway. Actually, listening to obvious lies might very well make her opt for harsher punishments.

Luckily, Raymond was smart enough not to push the issue. He kept steering the test in the intended direction, ultimately reaching relatively satisfying results.

“You can come out now, my Prince,” Raymond said into the console’s speakers once the test was over, making Khan join him and his wife less than a minute later.

The lingering cold vibe did catch Khan’s attention, but one glance at Liiza made him set the issue aside. Raymond’s reeducation couldn’t have been immediate anyway, and he had more important matters at hand.

“What did you find?” Khan asked.

“I failed to reach the level of precision you requested, my Prince,” Raymond revealed, apologizing. “I’m afraid only inspecting trends can teach our tools how to read hundredths reliably.”

“Trends, how?” Khan questioned. “And does this mean the scanners can read up to decimals?”

“Indeed, my Prince,” Raymond confirmed. “Your attunement currently sits at ninety-eight point nine percent. Though it’s unclear whether it’s closer to ninety-nine or ninety-eight point eight.”

Khan understood the scanners had to approximate that unclear number, but Raymond had already mentioned the solution to the issue.

“I suggest you perform a series of short but meaningful training sessions, my Prince,” Raymond explained, “Each with a similar test in between. Your growth will teach the machines what to look for and provide more accurate results.”

Khan couldn’t help but scratch his head. Avoiding fulfilling his attunement with mana wasn’t a problem. He needed so much energy that he could be quite careless during his training sessions in the end.

Yet, the meaningful part could be an issue. Khan had guessed he would need entire planets to get the energy he needed, and the universe didn’t exactly have many valuable options below those.

“Is Garret discussing this with the Empire already?” Khan asked.

“He is, my Prince,” Raymond confirmed.

“Tell him to look for moons then,” Khan ordered. “And prepare a teleport for the task. I’ll tell the Emperor that we are going out on a trip in the meantime.”