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Chapter 63: Technological Maturation

"I... was bought to extend someone else's life?"

Shae was completely incredulous.

Hearing this admission from her "father" was far more impactful than anything that Adam could've possibly said to her. After all, in her heart, Lincoln was family, someone she had lived with her entire life.

If everything that he had said were true, then Shae's entire life would've been a massive lie.

"How is this possible?" Shae yelled, still unwilling to believe what she was being told. "What is this human farm? And why am I still me?"

"I don't know what the human far is, either. I've never been there, all I know is that it's a place where adapters are manufactured. At the time, my father's condition was rapidly worsening, and it just so happened that personal installation technology was developed in the black market, so you were bought as a new vessel."

"Then haven't I changed at all?"

"This happened close to 20 years ago, and back then, the technology wasn't as refined as it is now," Lincoln recounted. "At the time, personal installation technology was quite new, and it was only available in the black market. The only thing that people knew was that it was possible to install one's persona into an adapter's body, and there were rumors going around that the fewer memories an adapter had, the easier the installation process would be, which was why we decided to buy an infant. Even though the installation failed, my father's persona fused as one with yours, with your persona in control, while my father's was only a parasite."

"Why?"

Shae asked as her body trembled with powerful emotions.

"Because at the time of the installation, you were too young. The neurons in your brain were unable to withstand the shock of having an entire persona installed all at once. As a result, most of my father's persona perished. At the time, persona installation technology had only just come into existence, and it wasn't very complete, nor was there much experience gathered in the field. It was later discovered that there would be a higher success rate for persona installations in adult adapters, but that was only discovered close to 15 years after the event."

Lincoln was speaking in a rather wistful tone, but at the same time, he didn't forget to try and justify his own actions.

"Don't hate me, Shae. 20 years ago, my father's word was absolute in the family. He was like a dictator, and I had no right to oppose him. He was responsible for everything after he found out about his terminal illness, we were merely his accomplices. No, I wouldn't even say we were accomplices, we were only aware of what he was up to, and that was the extent of our involvement. I've been good to you all these years, haven't I?"

Lincoln's words seemed to have triggered some memory in Shae's mind. She had lived a lie her entire life thus far, and this astonishing revelation was too much for her to bear. As a result, her headache flared up again.

Shae's chronic headaches were extremely severe, and she finally knew the root cause of her condition.

The brain damage that she had suffered as an infant and the parasitic persona attached to her's were the reasons why her condition couldn't be cured.

She curled up into a ball, and the excruciating pain in her head consumed the entirety of her being, leaving her unable to do anything aside from scream in agony.

Adam couldn't help but heave a sympathetic sigh at the sight of Shae's suffering.

He had always thought that Shae's persona was either her own or belonged to the former head of the Kim Family, but to his surprise, the truth was far more bizarre.

Poor thing.

Adam crouched down beside Shae before tracking down the painkillers that she carried with her. People like her who suffered from chronic pain were bound to carry painkillers everywhere they went.

After feeding the medicine to Shae, the second-in-command turned off the video call.

Adam didn't care what they did to Lincoln, but he didn't want Shae to die.

.

"Leave her to me," Adam said to the warlock.

"It doesn't matter to me. Just make sure to keep an eye on her so she doesn't go around saying stuff she shouldn't. If you can't keep her mouth shut, you won't be able to protect her even if you're a member of our organization."

With that, the warlock departed, leaving only Adam and Shae behind.

Adam untied Shae, and she gradually returned to her senses as the painkillers slowly took effect.

After regaining consciousness, Shae stared at Adam, and for once, she didn't make a snarky remark.

Only after about 10 minutes of silence did Shae finally say something.

"Does the human farm truly exist?"

"It does. We were both born there. That place is filled with artificial wombs and robotic nurturers. Perhaps we're biologically related because they used the sperm and eggs from the same pair of parents for both of us, or perhaps we only share the same father, who knows? I don't know the exact details," Adam explained. "If you don't believe me, you can come and take a look in my psychic world. I have a memory of the human farm that you can see. You're an adapter as well, so you should be able to identify whether the memory is just a delusion of mine or if it depicts an actual place."

"You've been to the human farm before?"

"I haven't, but Deranged Pig's daughter has, and I just so happened to learn about all of this while treating a mental condition that she was suffering from. Come into my psychic world and take a look. I'm sure that'll erase many of your doubts."

Adam lowered his psychic defenses to the outside world as he spoke, and after a moment of contemplation, Shae invaded his psychic world.

After that, Adam brought her to the human farm, where she saw the mechanical bee nurturers, the meat grinders, and the countless artificial wombs that stretched as far as the eyes could see.

Within every single one of those wombs as an infant, and over 99.9% of the infants here were destined to feed the meat grinder.

After leaving the human farm, Shae threw up violently.

As she raised her head again, a look of determined resolution had appeared in her eyes.

"Are you trying to find out the truth? I'll help you."

"That would be great," Adam replied with a nod.

……

The next day, the Kim Family's demise made the rounds on the news.

Under normal circumstances, news of an attack on a powerhouse family in the media would've definitely been a top story, but due to the outbreak of psychic mutants, society was in a state of complete chaos. Murders and homicides were constantly taking place, some of which were perpetrated by psychic mutants, but there was also no shortage of non-psychic-mutants taking advantage of the chaos to satisfy their own homicidal urges.

In contrast with an incident that had resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 people and had been confirmed to be a terrorist attack, the disappearance of a wealthy family was hardly newsworthy. At the very least, no one in the general public cared about the welfare of the Kim Family.

Hence, even though the demise of the Kim Family made it onto the news, it didn't cause much of a stir at all.

The only place where this piece of news had any impact seemed to be Layton Academy.

To be more specific, the impact applied only to the junior students of Layton Academy. Most of these younger students had been bullied by Shae in the past, and many of them couldn't help but taunt her now that she had been struck by misfortune.

"Ahem... I heard your family was attacked by psychic mutants. My condolences."

On the surface, this was a very normal consolatory sentiment, but when it was uttered by someone with clear ill intentions and a cheeky grin on their face, then the consolatory nature of the statement would instantly turn into one that was provocative.

"Get fucked!"

Shae's fuse was still as short as ever, and she immediately invaded the younger student's psychic world before giving him a vicious beating in there.

However, this time, the situation was a little different from before.