GUARDIAN OF THE END

"Rise and shine." The next morning, Risa once again came to wake him up except she came quite early.

Jason still half asleep mumbled in reply, "Eh??? But I don't have scho… Yes grandma!" his eyes suddenly flew open, sitting straight up in under a moment.

Risa gave him a weird look. "I will see you downstairs in ten." She decided to shrug it off in the end and left his room.

Jason on the other hand wiped beads of sweat off his forehead, having almost slipped up.

He was usually woken up by the system but Risa's voice had made him remember his memories back from Earth.

[ Someone used to wake you up at the orphanage? ] The system inquired curiously.

'There was an old grandma that used to work at the orphanage after her retirement. I remember that she used to wake all of us kids up before sending us to school.' Jason sighed, knowing well that she had died during the war.

He got ready for the day and went downstairs, wondering what type of training Risa will make him go through.

'Did any fishes even survive?' Jason questioned while remembering how most of the fish had been eaten by last night.

[ I don't think we cooked the Eelfish since the sharks were quite heavy for the stomach to digest. ] The system pointed out, making Jason nod in agreement.

After that, Risa and Jason sat at the dining table and ate their breakfast in silence. Once they were done, Risa simply stood up and asked Jason to follow her.

He didn't ask any questions as they made their way towards the back of the manor, an area that Jason rarely visited.

"Uh grandma, how am I going to learn how to use my dark element for healing when the fishes we brought are dead?" Jason suddenly questioned.

"Hmm, who said that they are completely dead?" Risa raised her eyebrow. "It was a rhetorical question so don't answer."

Risa then led the two of them towards a sleek black metal door situated at the back of the manor. The door didn't have any visible locks on it but when Jason pulled on it, it didn't budge slightly.

Jason eyed the door once again while remembering that he had once encountered it while playing with Issac in the past.

His grandfather had told him that the door was the entrance to Risa's secret laboratory.

Risa turned out to be a bit of a researcher and she carried out her research in the area beyond the door.

As for when she got the time to do that? Only she knew.

"Jason, please close your eyes and ears. Also, hold your breath for a few seconds. Don't do anything until I tell you to." Risa suddenly warned him, her right hand closing around the doorknob.

She turned it open the next second.

The door creaked open before a blinding flash of light went off. Jason had already closed his eyes yet he still felt white spots appearing in front of his eyes.

Jason felt Risa's hands around his shoulders as she guided him forward.

"There are stairs below you so be careful." Her voice sounded a bit muffled yet Jason could still make out the words.

He climbed down the stairs slowly until Risa asked them to stop.

Jason could tell that they were standing at the bottom of the stairs as he heard a clicking sound repeating itself.

"You can release your breath now but when you feel my hand on your shoulder, hold your breath again." Risa's voice entered his ears once again as she lifted her hand off his shoulders.

'System, can you see what is happening?' He inquired.

[ Risa is opening some kind of weird door by placing her hand on it and releasing mana through her fingertips. The door is slowly opening inch by inch using her mana though I can't see anything on the other side. ] The system informed.

Jason patiently waited for Risa to ask him to open his eyes but the moment didn't come for a long time.

She guided him inside the door again but this time, even the system couldn't say anything.

"Sorry you had to go through that but there were a few things in there that you are better off not knowing about." Risa apologized as the sound of a door closing was heard. "You can open your eyes and release your breath now."

Jason finally got to see where he was as he looked around at his surroundings with curious eyes.

It was the same size as a small library with numerous shelves covering the edges. However, all of them had been covered up by a black curtain so no one could see the things on the shelves.

Jason's eyes then fell on the center of the room where he saw a huge black table with medical equipment placed on it.

He suddenly felt shivers creeping up his spine when he saw a few of the equipment which was better left undescribed.

Risa also noticed that as she quickly snatched all of them away and deposited them on one of the shelves.

After making sure that they had been covered properly, she faked a cough and explained about the place to Jason.

"This is my laboratory and though that equipment may have made you feel as though this is a serial killer's laboratory, it isn't. You do know what a serial killer is right?"

"I do," Jason replied with a second thought as Risa narrowed her eyes but didn't say anything. Jason didn't realize it at that moment but he had barely dodged a bullet.

"Anyways, most of the stuff on these shelves are things that I have… collected through the years and you wouldn't want to see them," Risa then reached closer to the table as Jason too followed her.

She then bent down a bit and opened one of the many large drawers that were attached to the table.

Jason counted more than twenty such drawers which wasn't surprising considering how the table started from one end of the room and went to the other end.

Though its width was only half the size of its length, the table in itself was the largest one Jason had ever seen.

[ It is large enough to fit at least eight of those sharks from earlier. ] The system commented as Risa finally stood up with a jar in her hand.

"One of the Eelfish you had caught yesterday turned out to be carrying eggs that managed to survive due to the mother's body providing them shield. I gave them a, let's say slight boost, and they hatched."

Risa then opened the jar slowly and put her hand inside it. Jason hadn't noticed it before but he did now. There was water inside the jar.

Risa dipped her hand deeper inside the jar and gently pulled out a baby Eelfish barely a foot long. However, something was wrong with them as they would suddenly start shuddering at an interval of thirty seconds.

"Though they were protected, your lightning still dealt some damage to them. Your goal is to undo that damage by destroying the harmful cells in their bodies and allowing their growth to resume once again."