"AHHHHHHH!" Tusa continued to scream in pain as the A7-KE1 General Purpose Pilot Cultivation Elixir subjected him to unimaginable torture! The expert pilots all reacted with alarm! If not for the fact that the mechers kept their composure, they would have thought that they deliberately set out to harm their comrades! Minutes passed by while Tusa continued lo experience pain and distress from the glowing liquid Ural he had just ingested. Whatever lire sluff had done when it entered iris stomach, it seemed as if the elixir burned right through his stomach walls and ate up his entire body from the inside! "Power can never be attained with ease." Jovy Armalon eventually spoke once Tusa started to scream at a lower intensity. "You have to understand that expert pilots such as yourselves can only grow stronger in adversity. One of our special research teams has successfully developed a means to substantially stimulate the growth of your resonance strength based on this principle. Ils effects may appear extreme, but that is the only means for the general cultivation elixir lo induce any noticeable effects on you. Anything less will fail to generate any meaningful progress, thereby investing a rare and expensive product in vain." Though Joshua and the others were able to accept the mecher's explanation, it was hard to stomach it when they saw the consequences in reality. Not all of the pilots wished for their enemies to experience this kind of torture. Tusa looked increasingly more haggard as his body convulsed in an erratic pattern while sweat started to pour from his brow. Still, no matter how much he screamed or how disturbing the black splotches on his skin had become, the mechers did not see the need to take any specific actions aside from monitoring the data readings. They essentially let the elixir run its course. Although the entire event made a profoundly disturbing impression on the pilots, that was mainly because there were still too many unknowns. No one understood what the elixir had done to Tusa. As the main effects slowly began to peter out, the expert pilot's body no longer experienced as much strain as before. The Larkinson pilot visibly relaxed as the ominous black lines and splotches disappeared from his skin. It was as if they were never there in the first place. Several more minutes passed as Tusa continued to take heaving breaths. It was as if he had just completed a marathon run and was just regaining his awareness of his immediate environment. The doctors came and inspected him in person, not that it mattered as the data all remained within acceptable boundaries. Meanwhile, Ves and Jovy studied the same chart. "Good news." The RA mech designer smiled. "Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson has attained a new record. His resonance strength has peaked at 2.2 laveres above his previously recorded limit. 1 am told that once he stabilizes over the new month, his resonance strength may settle onto a stable level that is just above this level. This is an above average result and shows that he has good compatibility with this formula. The expert pilot is one step closer to becoming an ace pilot candidate. It is regretful that the elixirs are unable to induce breakthroughs. Every pilot can only do that the old-fashioned way." If Tusa's case was considered a 'good result', then the remaining expert pilots were reluctant to find out what happened during less ideal outcomes! Part of the signs that Tusa had managed to weather the storm fairly well was that he was soon able to speak coherently after the main effects of the elixir wore off. This was apparently not always the case. "How do you feel, Tusa?" Ves asked over a communication channel. "I... am okay... I guess." The expert pilot slowly said as if he had just completed an arduous battle. "I think... I get why these elixirs are such a big deal. I don't know whether I want lo do this again..." "lam told that your peak resonance strength will grow by at least 2.2 after you have completed your recovery, which is expected to take around a month." That clearly sparked a reaction out of Tusa. "So much? Well... I guess I will sign up for the next session..." As the doctors took Tusa away for monitoring, Venerable Zimro Belson went next since he was the newest and weakest expert pilot among the crowd. An hour went by as the elixirs subjected multiple different expert pilots to the same kind of harrowing experience. Each of the restrained expert pilots screamed in pain and maybe even terror. Each of their skins began to display temporary black patches that swam across their bodies. Each of their wills became increasingly more disordered, though they also spiked to heights that the pilots never attained in the past! That last effect was probably the desired result. The outcome was not good if the pilot failed to receive sufficient stimulation. Fortunately, the mechers exercised great control over the processes. They studied the properties of every single expert pilot extensively enough to adjust the dosages of every elixir to the exact right amounts. "It takes great effort to hit the right sweet spot for every individual recipient." Jovy spoke to the dwindling amount of expert pilots in the observation room. "Administer a little too much, and the negative side effects will become a lol more severe. This will significantly delay your recovery. Administer loo little, and the elixir will unable produce strong enough reactions. This will significantly lower the final result. We are constantly refining our ratios to improve our success rate." After a bit more waiting, Venerable Joshua finally had his turn. He went through the same steps as the expert pilots who came before him. Given that each of them had managed to survive their own ordeals tinder good condition, Joshua no longer felt as wary as before. That started to change as the doctor holding the vial slowly approached the medical chair. For whatever reason, all of his instincts screamed that he was coming closer lo a source of great danger and power! 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎 Though Joshua knew that this was just a false alarm, he could not prevent his danger senses from going crazy! "Calm yourself." The older man said as he inserted the vial into a contraption with perfect control over his limbs. "This shall not take long from an external perspective." "What does that mean?" "You will experience time at a different rate once you come under the effects of the elixir. How much time will pass from your perspective varies greatly from case to case. I cannot say much more than this. The only other advice that I can tell you is that your first contact with this elixir is the most crucial. It will greatly define how much you gain from subsequent sessions." With that, the doctor retreated. Joshua already started to breathe faster as a force field forcibly look control of his mouth and throat. His alarm abruptly spiked when he could see the glowing liquid flowing through the transparent tube. The closer the elixir came to making contact with his body, the more Joshua wanted to pull his body outside of this chamber! "Begin!" The elixir burned like searing hot lava as it quickly passed through his throat! Though Joshua recognized that the pain was mostly illusionary, it was still difficult for him to maintain his composure. He soon lost this battle as the elixir started lo lake effect! Somehow, its extremely potent energies flowed into his body and raced right into his head! "AAAAAAAAAHH!" Joshua lost most of his coherence as the pain truly started to set in! Somehow, the powerful energies drilled into his mind and began to erode his will without encountering any meaningful resistance! There was nothing Joshua could do to repel this invasion! His willpower turned into a complete joke in front of this powerful source! What was odd was that even his companion spirit Willy also experienced a similar kind of overwhelming pain! As the active effects induced by the elixir started to affect him in a crude and agonizing manner, Joshua's perception soon started to grow woozy. His eyes remained wide open, but he was 110 longer in the medical chamber. Somehow, he found himself in a shaky and misshapen version of his cockpit. There were so many familiar shapes and colors that Joshua knew that he had entered the belly of his battle partner again. "E-Evcrchangcr." His voice shakily said in an oddly distorted manner. "I need you, buddy." Silence greeted him. Though Joshua's active interface with his expert mech granted him control over its systems, he found it odd that the living mech remained unresponsive. As his weary and buzzing head tried to investigate the state of his Everchanger further, he found to his horror that his expert mech was dead! "No! Everchanger! Where are you?! Why have you died!?" His expert mech had become as responsive as a lifeless rock! All of the years that Joshua spent growing alongside the Everchanger had given him a strong attachment lo his battle partner, so discovering that his machine had become diminished was an alarming discovery! It was at this point that the resonance shield of his expert mech received a powerful kinetic blow! "Ahhl" Getting distracted was one of the greatest taboos of a pilot! Joshua quickly tried to regain his situational awareness. He soon discovered what took place during his moment of absence. "The fleet! No!" An indescribably enormous mass of tangible shadows had enveloped all of the ships of the expeditionary fleet! From the Spirit of Bentheim to the Indigo Tremor, this amorphous mass of space that had somehow gained substance engulfed the vulnerable ships as well as the mechs that tried to fight off this scary threat, to no avail! No weapon could do anything to hall the advance of this inky shadow. As soon as a mech got caught by the tentacles of darkness, they got crushed, destroying them utterly while taking their pilots down as well! "NOOOOOO!" Venerable Joshua found it difficult to maintain his full concentration, but he tried his best to command his dead expert mech to fly forward while drawing out the Gray Lotus! Beams of ominous death did nothing but disappear inside the dark mass. Il was as if there wasn't anything actually alive to kill. Joshua registered this futile result, yet he pulled the trigger over and over again as if that would help. Once his glowing green expert hero mech got close enough, the machine struck at the mass head-on with a powerful plasma sword! Unfortunately, the destructive energy weapon did nothing to harm this shadow! It took less a second later for the nearest inky black masses to shoot forward and capture the Everchanger in a dark embrace, completely bypassing the resonance shield which should have offered actual protection. "I'm caught!" Joshua did everything possible to escape this hold. As the dark tentacles squeezed rhe frame of rhe expert mech, the Everchanger silently groaned and creaked as the sturdy armor plating started to deform remarkably quickly. The forces acting on the mech frame were overwhelmingly powerful! As the squeeze became tighter and tighter, more and more components got damaged, causing Venerable Joshua to experience painful feedback that became increasingly more distressing and debilitating! "Aaaah!" He screamed inside rhe wobbling cockpit as his vision and his senses started to go haywire. At a certain point, Joshua could no longer properly maintain the connection to his distressed expert mech. Instead, he became surrounded by the powerful black inky masses that conveyed an overwhelming sense of power. Joshua fell downwards into a pit that did not end. There was no mech or comrade to stop his descent. The threatening inky masses crept closer and closer, causing Joshua to experience their overwhelming danger increasingly better. Once the dark tentacles wrapped around his body, they squeezed with forces that were strong enough to shatter an entire expert mech! His body didn't stand a chance. Flesh and bone shattered in an instant, causing Joshua to experience death in its truest sense! He didn't even experience enough pain to let out one last cry!