The other important thing that needed mentioning was Strengthening Serums.

Over a period of time, The Sanctuary had come up with various methods and tricks to maintain its stronghold over the World City Federation and its member cities. But there was this one specific thing that had truly fueled the rise of The Sanctuary and was still the most important factor in its domination.

Ninety years ago, The Sanctuary, though a very powerful and influential member of the World City Federation, had not been the most dominant of them. There were quite a few other cities on a similar level.

At that time, despite sixty years having passed since the arrival of the cataclysm, humanity was in dire straits. Although humans were able to repel the abominations, they were unable to completely overwhelm them.

Despite their vastly improved weapon technology, they were still at a slight disadvantage compared to the abominations. It was a time when the entire world was pouring its resources into science, technology, research, and innovation. Not that it was much different today.

It was during those dire times that one day, The Sanctuary revealed something to the world that changed the entire course of human history. Strengthening Serums.

When injected into a human, these serums strengthened them. Made them stronger. Faster. More agile. Boosted their stamina. Strengthened their reflexes. These serums changed the course of human history.

The physical disadvantage humans had compared to the abominations vanished. With the added advantage of advanced weapons, humanity started to dominate the abominations. It was truly a game changing innovation.

And this was the one product that fueled and cemented The Sanctuary’s rise as the most powerful city in the entire world. Over the past ninety years, many people and many cities had tried to come up with something similar to the Strengthening Serums, but every single effort had resulted in failure. No one had been able to replicate anything like it.

Though the book was silent on the matter, Ronan could guess that The Sanctuary must have played its own part in making those efforts unsuccessful. It would surely not just sit idle and allow anyone to come up with something that could dent its supremacy and domination. Such was human nature.

Now, the strengthening serum was not a one shot solution. It was divided into multiple grades. The book Ronan was reading mentioned five grades of strengthening serums.

Once the first shot was injected into the body, the body underwent a lot of changes. Once the body got accustomed and used to these changes, the second shot was to be administered. A similar process was to be followed for the third up through the fifth shot.

Reading this, Ronan realized that his body was undergoing something similar. His body was also accustoming itself to the changes, and once it was fully adapted to its new strength, he could absorb even more energy from the crystals. Why he was able to do this was one of the great mysteries he had to solve along with the mystery of the cube. There was this thought at the back of his mind that the cube was responsible for this phenomenon too but he could not be sure. He also wondered if he was currently as powerful as a Grade 1 strengthened human.

Strengthening serums were very costly. It was something that not everyone could afford. The first shot was priced at ten-thousand black crystals, or ten million blue crystals.

Afterward, each shot increased by ten-thousand black crystals in price, with the final and fifth shot going as high as fifty-thousand black crystals.

Going through the prices of the serums, Ronan sucked in a cold breath. Ten thousand black crystals was a massive price, and not everybody could afford it. One black crystal amounted to one-thousand blue crystals which was equivalent to killing one-thousand blue abomination. He could not comprehend how many abominations roamed on the land of Acrolius for these many abominations to be killed and harvested.

And that was only for the Grade 1 serum. Grade 1 was where the vast majority of people remained for their entire lives. Gathering another twenty thousand black crystals for the next grade was an uphill, almost impossible task. And according to the book, people who had been administered Grade 3 or Grade 4 serums were extremely rare. It did not even talk about Grade 5 serums apart from it being mentioned in the classification.

There had been people who had tried and experimented by directly administering the second or third serums before grade one. But every time, the result had been the same.

The body was not able to bear the intense strain of the advanced serum, and most of those people had ruptured into a messy explosion of their own gore.

By the time Ronan was done with the books, the sun was already rising in the east. In a single night, he had accumulated a lot of information about the world of Acrolius. And it was information that was going to make his life a lot easier in the new world.

He now knew exactly what to sell. He would choose products that, although could be enticing and a hot commodity, would not attract too much attention from the people in power. The people who truly ruled the town of Kovliar.

After going through the books, he, now, had a good idea about the people who were the rule makers and rulers of Kovliar.

In fact, he also understood that what he had been doing, selling his products, was technically a crime. He was selling things without paying the proper taxes.

If he wanted to legalize his business, he needed to register himself with the authorities and then pay those taxes. But then again, he was not really surprised by this discovery. Elicia had, after all, explicitly talked about selling the goods through the black market.

As he processed all the information, he also concluded that Elicia had most likely been injected with a strengthening serum. The way she had questioned him, asking if he was truly without a serum, was still fresh in his mind. He wondered where she had managed to get the ten thousand black crystals to afford it.

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