Endless Journey: Infinite Realms Chapter 198 Light Beams are not cool!

Chapter 198 Light Beams are not cool!

Even though the Apprentice sounded extremely calm and collected, Alex could feel some kind of intimidating pressure billowing out of this man.
Everyone in the lecture hall could feel this pressure too, as those who were busy chatting earlier were all silent now, with most of them concentrated on the Apprentice only.
"540 hours ago, the Red Moon, codenamed Claret appeared on the night skies." The Apprentice said as a picture of the Red Moon appeared on the glass screen behind him. "At the instant that it appeared, there had been some slight shifting on the tides and the atmospheric pressure, but aside from that, nothing threatening had appeared yet."
"However, what was surprising about this Red Moon was on how quickly it affected its 'chosen ones'." The Apprentice said as the image on the glass screen changed.
This time around, what was shown in the glass screen was a line graph which was displaying 4 lines of data on its body.
"This graph right here shows the length of time that it took for powers to appear once each moon appeared." The Apprentice then tapped the line graph as he continued talking. "From what you can see from this graph, the first three moons took around a day before the powers related to them appeared. But as for the Red Moon, it only took a few minutes for the powers related to it to appear. That in itself, was already bizarre."
"But what was more bizarre was the nature of the ability that manifested from the appearance of the Red Moon." The Apprentice then snapped his fingers as if he was calling the attention of his attendants. "Despos, bring them here."
"Understood Sir!" A male voice could be heard at the other end of the hall, presumably Despos. "Here's Subjects 18 and 19!"
Seconds later, and Alex heard the unmistakable sound of a wagon being carried across the lecture hall.
Seconds more passed by and Alex saw the wagon being hauled and placed at the center of the stage.
"…" As he looked at the wagon, Alex could not help but grimace as he saw what was in the wagon itself.
Placed on the wagon was a metal cage which contained two shackled women.
In terms of their body appearances, one of the women was around 30 years old, while the other one was around 14-15 years old.
Both of them had jet-black hair and slender bodies, although their faces were covered by masks.
Both of them were wearing brown, decrepit clothes, as if they were meant to make the two women look mundane.
Black-colored numbers were also imprinted on their clothes, with the number 18 imprinted on the clothes of the 15-year old girl and the number 19 imprinted on the 30-year old woman.
Both of them were currently hugging each other, with their body languages clearly displaying how scared they were.
"…" With his emotion sense, Alex could perfectly sense how scared these two women right now, and he could not help but clench his fists upon seeing this.
"As you can see here, these two lab subjects, Subject 18 and Subject 19, were some of the non-powered humans that were influenced by the Red Moon." The Apprentice coolly said, as if he was uninterested on pacifying the women inside the cage. "They already went through multitudes of test, and the results that I obtained, were in proper terms, rather mundane."
"…" As the crowd, along with Alex went silent, probably waiting for the Apprentice to continue talking, the Apprentice suddenly kicked the side of the metal cage, prompting the two women inside to tense up and tremble in fear.
"For the physical tests, I have found out that Subject 18 and Subject 19 did not experience any kind of physical enhancement at all. These two also had the same results in the mental tests, with both of them having no advancement on their mental states at all." As he said these words, the Apprentice continued kicking the metal cage with increasing frequency and intensity.
"When we forced Subjects 18 and 19 to manifest their powers, none of them were able to do so." The Apprentice seemed like he sneered as he continued on kicking the metal cage. "According to Subjects 18 and 19, they felt like there was a massive red ball inside their bodies, but no matter what they did to it, they were unable to make it move or make it do something."
When the Apprentice looked like he was about to continue talking, someone sitting from the Celestial cluster suddenly raised his hand.
The Celestial who raised his hand was a young male with golden hair which fanned his head like a mane of a lion.
There was a light sneer on his face as he suddenly asked the Apprentice a question.
"Do you think we're idiots? Even if we Celestials are not as obsessed with you Symbolists in experiments, we have the common sense to check for what you said earlier. Physical tests, mental tests, and power tests? We already have done that! And even if the Devourers were sometimes as dumb as rocks, I'm sure that they had already done something similar to that."
Obviously, some of the Devourers were not happy with that they just heard.
"Hey, what did you just say, you damned Celestial?"
"Come here, you golden sissy, and we shall see who's dumb!"
"Hmph." The lion-like Celestial ignored the shouts of rage from the Devourers as he continued talking. "Since we already knew what you just said earlier, then everything that you just told us were basically useless… In that case, why are you still there? Don't tell me that you have something important that you can still show us? Something that only you discovered?"
"That guy right there is Claudius, the son of Duke GoldRiver." Anya explained to Alex as she pointed to the lion-like Celestial. "Don't go near him. He hates those who are related to me."
"…" Alex only gave Anya a nod, as he was currently focused on observing the argument between Claudius and the Apprentice.
"Clang, clang, clang."
Even with all the arguments that were spouted by Claudius, the Apprentice still continued on kicking the metal cage.
It was as if what Claudius said did not faze the Apprentice at all.
"You want something interesting? Then feast your eyes upon the results of my tireless tests!" The Apprentice then gave the metal cage 10 more kicks, and once he did that, something unexpected happened to Subject 18 and Subject 19.
"Ahh!!" Both women let out blood-curdling shouts as red beams of light shot out of their eyes.
Their bodies began to tremble as the red light beams continued to intensify.
This state of theirs lasted for 5 more seconds before the light beams died out.
Subjects 18 and 19 immediately fainted after that.
"What?"
This was the general word that was uttered by the crowd as they saw what happened.
Even Alex was stupefied too, as he could not fathom what had just happened.
Even though there was no power that manifested at all, just the mere sight of those red light beams was enough to show that the Apprentice was able to do something to the ability of Subject 18 and 19!
Well, even if the reaction was only those red light beams, that has to account for something, since Alex did not even succeed on making Kiera's power react like that!
"Kiera and I tried many ways to make her powers work for the last 3 weeks, but we found nothing that could trigger her ability… But the Apprentice actually found a way to make this power react!" Alex thought to himself grimly as the crowd on the lecture hall began to shout and clamor for the Apprentice to explain what he did. "This is really unexpected…"
"Hohoho, you want me to explain how I did that?" The Apprentice, who somewhat looked smug right now, only stared at the noisy crowd in front of him as he leaned against the metal cage.
"Hey! What are you looking smug for?" Claudius, who looked somewhat pissed from what the Apprentice did, declared loudly as he glared at the Apprentice. "This is a conference, so you're ought to share everything!"
"Of course, I'm willing to share my discovery, but do I really need to do it today?" The Apprentice smugly replied as he tilted his head. "You know that this conference will last for three days… Since that was the case, I can just tell you all about my discovery on the last day. Even if I did that, I won't violate any of the rules in this conference!"
"You!"
"Of course there are some exceptions." The Apprentice said as he ignored Claudius' complaints. "If any of you wants to obtain the truth from me today, you can just visit me at my dwelling place. There, I can tell you about my discovery, but of course I will not give that for free. There will be a price, but in my opinion, what you will pay to me will be worth your effort…"
"Hey! You're just scamming us!" Most of the attendees of the Conference shouted out as they heard what the Apprentice said.
Apprentice actually wanted to sell the info about his discovery to those who wanted to know the truth early? That's just blatant scam right there!
"Why would it be a scam when I was just giving the information ahead of time?" The Apprentice asked innocently to the riled-up crowd. "If you want to know about it early, then just pay me something. If you don't, then just wait until the end of the conference to know it. There, isn't that just easy?"
"…."
Even though Alex was wary of the Apprentice, he could not help but praise what the Apprentice just did.
"What a masterful way of reaping benefits from desperate people." Alex muttered to himself as he shook his head wryly. "Many will surely be biting his bait by the end of this day…"
With the Apprentice withholding an important information which was related to the power from the Red Moon, there will obviously be some people in this conference that will be tempted to buy this information from the Apprentice!
After all, the earlier that they knew it, the better it will be for them!
"Now, who's going first?" Alex muttered to himself as he looked around the lecture hall. "Hehehe, I think that Claudius guy will be the one that will buy the info first…."
As Alex said these words, he suddenly heard the sound of an opening door.
"Creak…"
Alex looked at the source of the sound, and there he saw Anya leaving the door of her private room.
"Oh hell no…" These were the words that appeared on Alex's mind as he realized what Anya was about to do.
He was only able to take 3 steps forward before he heard Anya's voice echoing throughout the whole lecture hall.
"I'm highly interested on buying the information from you. Perhaps you're free to discuss the terms of the transaction here in my private room? I assure you that nothing ill will happen to you. I promise that in the name of my family."