The Reincarnated Hitman

The three found themselves in a room surrounded by a wall that was made completely of metal.

The receptionist who had escorted them here was gone, leaving them in the room with another woman who had on a lab coat.

She had her back to them, seemingly unaware of their presence, but the receptionist had assured them that she was.

She was just in the zone.

"This is getting boring," Eli let out as his excitement had visibly died down.

They had been standing in the same spot for ten minutes now with nothing happening, so he was bound to get bored.

But it seemed his words successfully got the woman out of her... ’ zone ’, and she finally turned towards them.

"Catch," she suddenly tossed something towards Eli, and Liam was about to react, but he noticed what it was, so he allowed it to float to the kid.

Eli caught the object, frowned and looked back at the woman. "What’s this?"

"VR glasses," she simply said, "Since you said you were bored, that should keep you entertained for a while."

Eli looked at the glasses in his hand.

It looked quite different from normal glasses, bulkier too. Skeptical, the kid looked up at his older brother, and Liam simply nodded.

"Ah, you might want to lie down while using that," the woman suddenly said as she pointed towards a certain corner of the room.

Eli walked to it, lay down, and put the glasses on.

The moment they were on, they immediately activated, showing him multiple screens. A second later, he seemed to completely pass out.

Liam looked at the kid before turning back to the woman who was also looking at him, so he asked, "Do I have something on my face?"

"No, your face is quite fine," the woman muttered before adding, "but it also seems really familiar."

"Are you hitting on me?" Liam asked with a smile.

The woman continued looking at him for a while, ignoring his question before she finally recalled where she had seen him.

"You had your pragma measured five years ago, right?" It wasn’t actually a question, because she was completely certain, "I always wondered what your Factor was, even though your pragma is almost Null."

"Didn’t matter in the end," Liam answered with a shrug, "after all, there’s barely anything I can do with my Factor thanks to my Pragma."

He lied with a straight face.

Although his Pragma was still low, it had now grown to the size of at least three teacups.

Also, thanks to the requirements of his Factor, he barely used any Pragma when creating the things he wanted.

After all, he already had enough knowledge of them, and since he was now constantly using his Pragma, it was slowly growing with each passing day.

"Is that so?" The woman let out as she placed a hand on her chin before walking towards a certain corner of the room, tapping the wall twice.

The next second, the wall suddenly opened, and she retrieved something from it before it closed back up.

The woman then walked back to him with what seemed like a folder. "I’m Dr. Ada Maxwell, but you can just call me Ada."

"Since you last came here five years ago, I’ve been thinking," She said as she extended the folder towards him, "what if even people with Null Pragma could freely use their Factors?"

Liam accepted the folder, opened it and realized that it was full of research documents. "This is?"

"Plans for a Pragma battery," Ada responded.

"And you’re giving it to me because?" Liam asked, a bit suspicious.

"Well, I planned to give it to you after the battery had been created," she answered, "since you were the inspiration for it."

"And I’m guessing it’s incomplete?" Liam muttered as he looked through the files before him.

"Well," Ada placed a hand on her chin, "it seems all we know about Pragma was not enough to replicate it."

"I see," Liam muttered before he smiled.

"Now then," Ada finally acknowledged Lea’s presence, "shall we do what you’re here for?"

Lea, who had been silently observing the interaction between the two, walked towards Ada.

"Hold on," Ada said as she turned around, walked to the wall again, retrieved a device and walked back to the girl.

The device looked like a bracelet with a screen on it, and she fastened the bracelet snugly around Lea’s wrist, the small screen flickering to life with a soft hum as it settled against her skin.

"This’ll just take a moment," Ada said, tapping something on the screen. "It’s non-invasive. "

"It simply reads your Pragma output, cross-references it against baseline thresholds," she explained, "it’s the same tech we used on your brother five years ago, just... a little less clunky now."

"Hmm," Lea nodded as she watched the numbers quickly change on the small screen.

"Nervous?" Liam asked as he stood beside her.

"No," Lea shook her head, though even she knew that was far from the truth.

"Huh?" Ada suddenly let out, causing the two to turn towards her.

"What’s wrong?" Lea asked nervously as she looked at Ada’s expression.

Ada placed a hand on her chin, as she tapped the bracelet and the numbers on it started switching again until they stopped at the same ones they previously did.

"That’s interesting," she muttered.

"Interesting how?" Liam asked, though judging from her tone, he was certain that she meant good interesting.

Ada remained silent for a while, walked to what seemed like a large monitor, opened a couple of files and then looked through a couple of numbers.

Lea, on the other hand, was getting nervous by the second, since Ada was refusing to say anything.

"You’re freaking my sister out, Ada," Liam said after a while. "Can you tell us the results already?"

"Right, sorry," she muttered and walked back to the nervous Lea, looking at her for a while before adding, "I don’t know how to put this, but..."

"You have a Beta ranked Pragma with potential for it to become Alpha ranked."