The lobby remained frozen after Dr.
Frost’s revelation.
Nobody moved.
Nobody even seemed to breathe properly.
The perfect evolution of mankind.
Those words still echoed through the room like something too massive for the human brain to fully process at once.
Some people looked disturbed.
Others looked fascinated.
A few looked like they wanted to deny everything they had just heard.
Adrian leaned back against the couch, staring upward at the ceiling with narrowed eyes.
“So basically,” he muttered, “we’re the next step of humanity.”
“That sounds ridiculously arrogant when you say it out loud,” the red-haired woman near the wall replied.
“But not inaccurate,” Adrian shot back immediately.
Ria sighed softly beside Damien.
“I’m beginning to understand why nobody likes you.”
Adrian smirked slightly.
“Yet you keep talking to me.”
“Mostly for scientific observation.”
A few people actually laughed quietly at that, breaking part of the tension.
Only part of it.
Because the bigger problem still remained.
If everything Dr.
Frost said was true…
Then their entire lives had been a lie they never realized they were living.
Dr.
Frost allowed the room a few moments to settle before continuing.
“But,” he said calmly, “as always with everything…”
His silver eyes shifted slowly across the room.
“…there are variables.”
The atmosphere sharpened instantly again.
Damien noticed something interesting.
Every time Dr.
Frost reached a major point in his explanation, the room naturally focused harder.
Like his words carried weight beyond normal speech.
“The expectation during the creation of the Superhuman Gene,” Dr.
Frost continued, “was always a single version.”
The holographic displays behind him shifted again.
A human DNA structure appeared in glowing blue light.
“Version I.”
The symbol V I appeared beneath it.
“You might even say,” Dr.
Frost added lightly, “that Superhuman Version I represents the complete success state.”
Several people glanced at one another immediately after hearing that.
Especially the nine individuals who only formed one circle.
One of them spoke almost instantly.
“So then what does that make the rest of us?”
Dr.
Frost smiled faintly.
“Complications.”
Adrian folded his arms.
“Convenient way of calling us superior.”
“No,” Dr.
Frost replied calmly, “superior would imply stable understanding.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“We do not fully understand any of you yet.”
That answer quieted the room again.
Dr.
Frost walked slowly past the floating holograms.
“Now then,” he continued, “where does the version system actually come from?”
The projections behind him shifted again.
This time the room darkened much further.
Only the holographic displays illuminated the lobby now.
“To understand that…”
The DNA structures dissolved into streams of glowing blue particles.
“…we must go back to the creation of Superhuman Cells.”
Damien leaned slightly forward unconsciously.
Something about this part felt important.
Dr.
Frost continued.
“Superhuman Cells were formed using Aether.”
The glowing particles began rotating slowly behind him.
“And what is Aether fundamentally?”
He paused.
Then smiled faintly.
“Contrary to what the government tells the public…”
The holograms flickered.
“…Aether is not merely another energy source.”
The blue particles suddenly exploded outward into an image of the galaxy itself.
Stars.
Nebulas.
Infinite darkness.
Dr.
Frost’s voice lowered slightly.
“It is the energy of the universe.”
Silence.
Even the mechanical sounds outside the lobby suddenly felt distant now.
“Aether energy,” Dr.
Frost continued, “was first discovered through crystalline structures buried deep within Earth’s core.”
The galaxy hologram shifted.
Now massive glowing blue crystals appeared rotating slowly in the air.
“Aether Crystals.”
The room stared silently.
The crystals looked beautiful.
Terrifyingly beautiful.
Like condensed fragments of stars trapped in mineral form.
Frost walked toward the projection.
“These crystals,” he said quietly, “are not naturally produced by Earth.”
His eyes narrowed faintly.
“They are residue.”
“Residue of what?” someone asked.
Dr.
Frost looked toward them.
“The Aether used during Earth’s creation.”
That sentence hit the room like a physical weight.
One guy immediately frowned.
“Wait, are you saying the planet was literally built using this stuff?”
Dr.
Frost shrugged slightly.
“That is currently our most plausible conclusion.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes,” Dr.
Frost replied casually.
“Reality tends to be.”
The giant crystal hologram continued rotating.
“One Aether Crystal alone,” Dr.
Frost said, “contains energy comparable to infinite stars.”
Several people immediately reacted.
“That’s impossible.”
“There’s no such thing as infinite energy.”
Dr.
Frost nodded slightly.
“By traditional physics? Correct.”
He pointed toward the crystal hologram.
“But Aether does not obey traditional energy laws.”
The hologram shifted again.
Streams of energy moved endlessly through the crystal without diminishing.
“Normal energy is generated through transformation.”
Heat.
Electricity.
Nuclear fusion.
All appeared briefly in floating equations.
“One form becoming another.”
Then all the equations vanished.
“Aether exists independently.”
The crystal pulsed softly.
“It does not appear to run out.”
The room went silent again.
Even Adrian looked genuinely focused now instead of arrogant.
Dr.
Frost folded his arms behind his back.
“As for where Aether originates…”
He paused briefly.
“…we do not know.”
The galaxy projection darkened further.
“But we have theories.”
The hologram shifted into something stranger.
An endless blue dimension filled with streams of light.
“Our most plausible theory is the existence of an Aetherverse.”
The word itself made the room tense slightly.
“A separate dimensional reality containing limitless Aether.”
The glowing crystal projection connected to the strange dimension through streams of light.
“We believe Aether Crystals function as transmitters.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed.
“Transmitters…” he muttered quietly.
Dr.
Frost nodded.
“They connect to the Aetherverse and continuously receive energy indefinitely.”
The hologram pulsed brighter.
“The only measurable difference between crystals is output capacity.”
Ria raised a hand slightly.
“So even the weakest crystal still has absurd amounts of energy?”
Dr.
Frost smiled.
“Correct.”
“How absurd?”
Dr.
Frost looked directly at her.
“Civilization-endingly absurd.”
That answer shut the room up immediately.
Dr.
Frost continued.
“Currently,” he said, “there are only two complete Aether Crystals in existence.”
The holographic projection split into two massive glowing crystals.
“One was broken down into microscopic particles.”
The first crystal shattered into countless grains.
“As small as salt.”
The particles scattered across a holographic Earth.
“These fragments were distributed secretly among government research facilities for experimentation.”
Then the second crystal brightened.
“The remaining crystal…”
The hologram zoomed outward.
“…powers the entire modern world.”
The room froze slightly again.
Adrian frowned.
“You’re telling me one crystal powers all of Earth?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Dr.
Frost tilted his head.
Nobody answered.
Because that was true.
Energy scarcity had practically disappeared centuries ago.
Publicly, governments claimed Aether reactors were simply hyper-efficient.
Nobody realized the truth underneath.
“The Superhuman Research Facility,” Dr.
Frost continued, “received one grain of Aether Crystal.”
The holograms zoomed into a tiny glowing particle.
“We used it as the foundation to reverse-engineer Superhuman Cells.”
The DNA structures returned.
Only now they glowed with faint blue energy.
“Superhuman Cells possess the same fundamental property as Aether Crystals.”
The room focused intensely.
“They are transmitters.”
The glowing cells connected to the massive Aetherverse projection.
“They draw energy directly from the Aetherverse.”
Damien slowly processed the implications.
“So our bodies…” he muttered quietly.
Dr.
Frost looked directly at him.
“…are connected to an infinite external energy source.”
The room became dead silent.
Again.
Dr.
Frost continued before anyone could fully interrupt.
“And that,” he said calmly, “brings us back to the Superhuman Versions.”
The symbols V I, V II, and V III appeared again.
“Each Version represents a difference in Aether output.”
The V I symbol glowed faintly.
“Superhuman Version I possesses the lowest output.”
Then V II brightened stronger.
“Version II possesses greater output.”
Finally V III illuminated the room itself.
“And Version III…”
The energy around the symbol visibly distorted the holographic air.
“…possesses the highest output currently recorded.”
Adrian smirked slightly again.
“So basically we’re batteries.”
Ria immediately looked disgusted.
“That might genuinely be the dumbest possible interpretation.”
Dr.
Frost chuckled lightly.
“Not entirely inaccurate though.”
He pointed toward the symbols.
“The connection itself is nearly identical across all Superhumans.”
The hologram linked all three versions equally to the Aetherverse.
“So in theory…”
His eyes sharpened slightly.
“…all of you possess near-infinite Aether.”
Several people stared at him blankly.
The sentence sounded too ridiculous to comprehend properly.
The blond man from earlier frowned deeply.
“If we have infinite energy then why aren’t we destroying buildings by accident?”
“Output,” Dr.
Frost answered immediately.
“The limitation lies not in supply.”
The symbols pulsed again.
“But in how much energy your bodies can transmit.”
Damien understood instantly.
Like a wire connected to an endless power source.
The wire itself still had limits.
Dr.
Frost smiled slightly after noticing several people beginning to understand.
“That,” he said calmly, “is the baseline of the Version System.”
The holograms slowly faded into streams of blue light drifting through the room like glowing dust.
“But you should understand something important,” Dr.
Frost continued.
His voice lowered slightly.
“Aether has near-limitless applications.”
The floating blue particles suddenly shifted shapes.
Weapons.
Energy barriers.
Flight systems.
Biological regeneration.
Matter manipulation.
The room watched in stunned silence.
“And humanity,” Dr.
Frost said quietly, “has barely scratched the surface of what it can truly do.”
Damien stared at the projections carefully.
For the first time since arriving here…
He genuinely felt it.
The scale of this.
This wasn’t simply a secret organization.
Or a hidden experiment.
This was something capable of reshaping civilization itself.
Dr.
Frost looked around the room one final time.
At the sixteen of them.
At humanity’s so-called perfect evolution.
Then he smiled faintly.
“In your time here,” he said calmly, “I will train you to understand the uses of Aether.”
The floating particles around the room slowly dimmed.
“And help each of you develop into the best version of yourselves possible.”