Dawn was filtering through the curtains when Noah opened his eyes with difficulty.

His back hurt. The cold of the wooden floor crept up his arms.

"Hmm..."

He blinked several times.

"What am I doing on the floor ?"

His hand groped around until it found his glasses. When he put them back on his nose, the memories returned all at once.

'Ah, right.'

'I drained my Astra again.'

A sigh escaped him.

He remained lying there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling.

'I got no results.'

'And on top of that, I passed out.'

Wonderful.

The dull migraine pulsing behind his temples seemed to be mocking him.

He eventually sat up.

The room looked like a battlefield. Open notebooks. Abandoned samples. Overturned test tubes. Plant residue.

Noah ran a hand through his hair.

"Decomposition consumes far too much Astra..."

His voice disappeared into the silence of the laboratory.

Since his Ascension, he had already understood one thing. His problem was not power. It was endurance.

Every use of his Node emptied his reserves at an absurd speed. He finally sat down at his worktable.

'When this experiment is finished...'

'I’ll have to find a way to reach the second Node.'

Maybe that would be enough. Maybe not. The problem was always the same. No one truly knew how to progress.

Theories existed. Certainties did not.

Noah had spent several nights going through the available publications. The conclusions were vague. Some Ascendants simply seemed to wake up one morning with a new Node.

Others progressed after a particularly intense battle. An existential crisis. A revelation. An extreme emotion. Sometimes even without any identifiable reason.

Researchers had also noticed something else. Ascendants who spent a lot of time inside Holes generally progressed faster. Proximity to astral crystals seemed to encourage Node development. As if ambient Astra directly fed their evolution. That theory explained certain strange habits.

Many Superior Ascendants kept crystal fragments in their rooms. Some even slept surrounded by dozens of pieces. Others meditated near them for hours.

Then there were the idiots. Those who had tried to eat them. Noah shook his head.

"A particularly effective form of natural selection."

The medical reports were eloquent. Crystals stuck in the esophagus. Internal bleeding. Perforations. Emergency surgery. In the best cases.

In the worst... He preferred not to think about it.

'In the end, everything revolves around crystals.'

The conclusion always returned to the same place. Crystals. Holes. Astra. The rest was only speculation.

Noah stood.

"One thing at a time."

His gaze settled on the plants lined up near the window.

"Let’s finish this experiment first."

The days passed.

One.

Then two.

Then three.

Then four.

Noah did not even notice them vanish. The laboratory became his universe. The rest of the world gradually ceased to exist.

When the fourth night arrived, London was already wrapped in darkness. Noah was staring at a new batch of residue with a weary expression.

"I still can’t get it..."

He pushed the debris with the tip of his finger.

"I’m sure the intensity is correct."

The problem came from elsewhere. Control. Always control. Molecular decomposition demanded monstrous precision. The slightest mistake reduced everything to dust or destroyed the target molecule as well.

Noah slumped into his chair. His eyes rose toward the ceiling.

"Haaa..."

The migraine was returning. Again.

He pressed his fingers against his temples.

"I hate this."

Depleted Astra always left that sensation behind. As if someone were slowly driving a needle into his brain.

He stood. Stretched. His joints cracked.

"That’s enough for today."

His hand grabbed his lab coat. Then stopped. Silence fell. One moment. Then another. A tired smile appeared.

"Come on."

"One last attempt."

The Centella leaf rested in his palm. Noah closed his eyes. Gray Astra awakened immediately. Like a familiar mist. He felt his Node vibrate. The shifting particles appeared in his mind. Always moving. Always unstable. As if they refused to keep a fixed shape.

'Focus.'

The migraine pulsed. Harder.

'Ignore it.'

Astra began to circulate slowly. Very slowly.

Noah adjusted the frequency. Then the intensity. Then the frequency again. Each correction demanded surgical precision. One mistake. And he would have to start over.

One minute passed.

Then two.

The leaf vibrated. Very slightly. A cyan glow appeared.

Noah’s eyes snapped open.

"Yes..."

A luminous drop had just formed.

His heart raced.

"Yes."

This time, he knew it. He had succeeded. The leaf continued to disappear. Atom by atom. Molecule by molecule.

Until only a single drop of cyan liquid remained, floating above his palm. The laboratory seemed suspended in time.

Noah held his breath.

"I’ve got you..."

The liquid fell delicately into the test tube prepared in advance.

Plop.

The sound echoed like a victory.

"I’ve finally got you, you little bas..."

Pain exploded inside his skull.

"ARGH !"

The world tilted. The table. The ceiling The light.

Everything blurred together. Then darkness carried him away again. But unlike the previous times, Noah passed out with a smile on his lips.

The next morning.

The test tube was still glowing on the table. A soft cyan light. Almost unreal. Noah contemplated it in silence.

Then a nervous laugh escaped him.

"He he he... I did it."

He raised his arms toward the ceiling.

"Noah and his brain, well done."

Then he pointed at the tube.

"Noah and his Astra, well done yeah hehehe...."

Another laugh escaped him.

Then he quickly regained his seriousness.

"Calm down."

"This was only the first step."

His gaze settled on the Tiger Grass.

The second phase was beginning. And this time, he finally had something concrete in his hands. Regetoin truly existed.

The second phase required far less time. This time, Noah was no longer searching for a needle in a molecular haystack. He already possessed the central element.

Regetoin.

Now he had to build around it.

His gaze settled on the Tiger Grass samples lined up across his workbench. The dark green leaves looked almost ordinary.

And yet, after the Grand Radiation, this plant had become one of the favorite subjects of many pharmaceutical teams.

Its regenerative properties had exploded. Not enough to change the world. But enough to draw attention.

Noah put on his lab coat.

"Let’s see what you’ve got."

The following days were devoted to calculations. Dosages. Compatibilities. Chemical reactions. Stabilization.

For the first time in a long while, he was moving on ground he mastered perfectly. Biology. Pharmacology. Molecular chemistry.

Here, Astra was only a tool. The rest was science. And Noah excelled in that field.

The first mixtures were promising. The next ones even more so. Then came the biological tests.

A few laboratory rats were placed under surveillance.

Small incisions were made. Nothing lethal. Nothing inhuman. Just enough to observe the compound’s reaction.

Noah spent hours in front of the cages. Notebook in hand. Stopwatch active. With every observation, his eyebrows rose a little higher.

"Hmm..."

The tissues were healing. Faster. Much faster. Without excessive inflammation. Without abnormal immune response. Without visible signs of rejection. A result almost too clean.

"Interesting..."

Very interesting.

When evening arrived, Noah finally held a complete prototype.

A simple test tube. A few milliliters of translucent cyan liquid. Nothing spectacular. Nothing that looked like a scientific revolution.

And yet...

Something bothered him. He stared at the liquid for several minutes. Without speaking. Without moving.

'Why do I have this strange feeling ?'

He could not put his finger on it.

The results were excellent. So why did that persistent sensation remain ?

Eventually, he sighed.

"Maybe because they’re only rats."

A simple hypothesis. The only way to remove the doubt was obvious. He would have to test the product on himself.

Noah placed the tube on the table. Then rolled up his sleeve. His gaze fell to his elbow.

The scrapes were still visible. Thin scars left by his fall in the alley. The night the mutant rat had chased them. The wound had already almost closed. But it was enough.

He uncorked the tube. Then poured a few drops onto the scar. The cyan liquid spread over his skin.

A few seconds passed. Then the tissues reacted.

Noah froze. The skin began to contract. Cells reorganized before his eyes. The red marks faded. The scar disappeared. Completely. As if it had never existed.

Silence settled. Noah remained motionless. His eyes fixed on his arm. One minute. Then two.

"I knew something was off..."

His voice was almost absent. He slowly turned his arm. No trace. No mark. Nothing. The wound had vanished. Not merely healed. Vanished.

Noah sat down slowly. His gaze returned to the tube. The cyan liquid glowed under the laboratory lights peacefully. As if nothing extraordinary had just happened.

"The wound closed..."

He took off his glasses. Removed them. Put them back on.

As if that could change what he had just seen.

"And it isn’t limited to rats."

A nervous laugh escaped him.

"I think I succeeded a little too well."

Silence answered him. Noah ran a hand over his face. The more he analyzed the result. The less he knew what to think.

Originally, he had wanted to create a serum. A revolutionary treatment. Something capable of accompanying the destruction of tumors. A scientific solution. Medical. Controlled. What he was observing today was different. Very different.

"This looks more like a potion..."

He paused.

"...than a medicine."

The word sounded ridiculous. And yet it was the most appropriate.

A potion.

Like in old fantasy stories. Like in video games. An object that should never have existed.

And yet. The tube was there. Very real.

Noah returned to his notes.

The comparisons. The calculations. The regeneration times.

Finally, he shook his head.

"No."

"The comparison is wrong."

A true healing potion would have regenerated the wound instantly. His prototype could not do that. The repair remained progressive. Fast. But progressive.

Too slow to be miraculous. Too fast to be considered natural. An impossible in-between. An anomaly. A scientific aberration. And that was precisely what disturbed him. A tired smile finally appeared on his face.

He had succeeded objectively.

Any laboratory in the world would have signed an astronomical check to obtain this result. Any researcher would have celebrated for weeks. Any pharmaceutical company would have called it a medical revolution. But Noah felt none of that.

Only a strange sense of emptiness. As if his mind still refused to accept what he had just accomplished.

His gaze returned to the photograph of his father resting on the shelf. The smile faded slightly.

'If I had obtained this a month earlier...'

The thought remained suspended. Unfinished. Useless. The past remained inaccessible.

Even with all the science in the world. Even with Astra. Even with miracles sealed inside a test tube.

Noah slowly closed his eyes. Then opened them again. His gaze settled on the cyan liquid.

"The first step is complete."

His voice was calm and determined.

"Now..."

"...let’s see how far this thing can really go."