Hell's Handbook - Chapter 269: Great Rewards

We have all heard the legends of great wizards, but do we know how those stories begin? Ardan Egobar, a young man living in a remote corner of the New Monarchy Empire, does not. He doesn't realize that this story is about him. Not yet...In a world where steam locomotives chug along iron rails, where massive airships hover in the skies, where in the cities you might encounter orcs in suits involved in organized crimes, dwarves with cigars controlling major banks, or elves strutting down fashionable boulevards, where humans have built vast nations on the brink of a world war, almost anything seems possible.Maybe, in such a world, even an ordinary young man, the last of the mountain hunters, might one day become the greatest wizard in history.

In the land of the Xia Kingdom, every human being is born with what is known as a ‘resonance’, either to a specific element or a powerful, mythical beast. Unfortunately, Li Luo was born with an incredibly rare condition known as a blank resonance – as the name suggests, he doesn’t have one! Normally, this would be utterly crippling, but at least he has the advantage of being the young master of the mighty House Loulan, one of the five Great Houses of Xia. Unfortunately, his parents, the powerful masters of House Loulan, have gone missing for many years, and the other Great Houses are beginning to eye their holdings quite hungrily. For that matter, plenty are also eyeing his talented, beautiful childhood friend and fiancee Jiang Qing’e, who has been leading House Loulan in his parents’ stead! Li Luo would much rather keep a low profile and wants to call off the engagement – but Jiang Qing’e has flatly refused. What’s a ‘useless young master’ to do?

A pill, a tiny capsule encased in a biologically harmless water-soluble shell; A shell whose very existence is a result of a century of research and technological advancement. A manmade synthesis of Chemicals and product of complex processes.

And in the end, a means to an end.

A way to deliver a concoction of other Chemicals for an agenda; Vitamins for nutrition, medication for treatment, or… perhaps more.

We trust that what we eat won’t do us harm, and trust that those who are responsible for its creation had the best of intentions. But in the end, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to truly tell what lies within a pill.

That is until one day I entered a research institution as a test subject. All I did was swallow a pill I was told to be a health supplement.