His left arm was burning. To be precise, it wasn't burning. A scalpel had split the skin, severed muscle fibers, and dark red blood seeped from the wound. That was all. And yet his nerves screamed "fire." The ancient part of his brain, the last bastion of survival instinct, kept pleading "stop." Cohen Elias ignored that voice completely. "...Thirty-eight seconds." "[serious] Thirty-eight seconds. Skin regeneration onset, two seconds faster than last time." He picked up the stopwatch and wrote the figure into his notebook. His handwriting was steady. No tremor in his hands. The pain from the wound was indeed tremendous, but there was not a trace of fear in Elias's deep brown eyes. What dwelt there was pure—intellectual, almost beautiful—excitement alone. The examination table was cold. This was the basement of Cohen Lab, a converted storage room from an old textile mill. Ceiling height: 3.2 meters. The concrete walls were thick, soundproofed well. Outside noise was almost complet