The next day, Athena stayed at home finishing her painting for the spring exhibition.
She covers her painting with the cloth before she went to Lee Pharma building in the city.
Once she arrives, a few men introduce themselves to her. They are Ralph's teammates.
"Mrs. Smith, Nice to meet you. My name is Zachary West, just call me Zack. I am the zoologist and Mr. Shon's guardian." A man with a square shape glasses said politely.
Athena nods and replies.
"Nice to meet you too. Just call me Athena." She smiles and turns to look at another one man.
"My name is Mohammad Ali. I am the Scientist and Ms. Renee's guardian. Nice to meet you, Miss Athena." One man with a bit messy hair greets her.
Again Athena nods her head. She then turns to Shon behind all of them. He looks a bit scared. Maybe it's been a while since last he went to another city.
"Hi Shon, don't be afraid. I'm also just like you. I am one of the Golden V victims too. My name is Athena." She tried to make him feel comfortable.
Shon nodded. He still lowered his gaze at the floor. A bit shy to look at Athena. For him, Athena is as beautiful as an angel.
"Shon must be shy because this is the first time he went away from his hiding spot." Zack pats on Shon's back.
"Oh.." Athena doesn't know what else to say.
"Alright, Let's gather for a bit briefing before we go tomorrow." Ralph take in charge and leads all of them to the glass meeting room. There is a round table inside it.
Put the blueprint device on the center of the table, Ralph starts the meeting.
Zoro just does an online meeting using 5D call, Aurora can't come because she had a thing to do at the City.
Ralph press the button on the remote and the device starts to show a map of Borneo mountain and forest.
"We can't go through the land because it will take a lot of time, so I suggest we go through the air and use the parachute to landing at this point." He shows a red dot on the maps.
"Using this method we can reduce the time taken to the point. In this area, there is a group of native people lives here. So we can camp around here before we hike up the mountain at night, so we'll be arriving at midnight. We're going back through the river and after we arrive at the jetty, we'll take an aircraft to go home."
"We need to reach the spot at the midnight to get the extract?" Athena scrunched a bit.
"Yes. It has to be midnight. The only time that the flowers give out the scents. If not, we need to wait for the next full moon." Ralph explain.
"The wild beast.." Zoro wants to ask, but Ralph interjecting him.
"Shon will handle this." Ralph turned to look at Shon and he nodded.
"Shon, you need to guard us in the back while I took the extract from the flowers. While Athena and Zoro need to guard at both side. Sometimes, this wild beast won't listen to Shon, so we need to be prepared if anything happens."
"Uhh..wait a minute, can you fight, Athena?" He finally remembered that he never ask her about whether she can fight or not. If Renee, she sure can fight. All other Golden V survivor is somewhat gifted with the ability to fight.
Athena nod and smirk. " I can."
"Good. So all we need is preparing for the trip tomorrow. We'll be leaving on 0600."
"Uhm.. about transportation.."
"That'll be arranged by my brother. All of us need to gather at Lee air Base tomorrow. Zoro, you need to pick me up okay?"
"Yes, princess." he nodded his head.
"So, all of you staying at my family mansion right?" Athena ask.
"Yes, Miss Athena."
"Okay, before we dismiss our meeting, please bring a suitable weapon for tomorrow. Anything that needs to be added?." He looks at everyone and after all of them shake their head in a no, he ended the meeting. He looks at the door and finds that Aurora just back from her errands.
He scrunches his eyebrow a bit.
"Hey, Rora..where are you going the whole day?" he asks.
"Oh! Come here. Athena, you also come here too." he calls out Athena's name.
Athena stood up from her chair and went over to both of them. They meet Ali, the scientist, and Zack in the giant iron vault.
"Zack, explain to her." Said, Ralph.
Zack touches his glasses to try to find a good word for her.
"Athena, it seems your blood also need a special mixture from other animal's blood just like Veron."
"Okay..and what kind of animal is that?" Athena feels a bit uneasy.
"Erm... Albino phyton or maybe the one with the huge body. But it's a rare species. We use the venom of albino cobra for Veron and you need to use the blood of albino. The saturation will make your blood stop to eat your life span and it can multiple your blood cell. So, your blood will not run out from your body system. However, we need to test it first to prove my theory." Zack finishes his explanation.
While Ali nodded in to agree. "There is another way. But..this is to upgrade your skill and quite dangerous."
Again, Athena scrunches her eyebrow.
"Upgrading?"
"Like a version, what you have here is the version one. We can upgrade it to the next phase. But most of them refuse because we never know what the outcomes will be. Base from the cell and data, it can generate a complete mutation in your blood cell. Meaning, what you have right now is only the result of fifty percent mutation. Once you mutate into the full version, you actually reach a goal of the experiment that they run years ago."
Athena blinks a few times, this is a piece of new shocking information for her.
"The curse?" she continues after silent for a moment.
"As I said, once you reach 100 percent mutation, you are totally complete the process. This means, you are not restrained from the life span, you can heal your own body. I suppose it will lift up all the effect that you had right now."
"But?"
"But, whether you still can control your own mind and body we don't know it yet. We don't know how far and powerful you can be. We don't know how much pain will you have to go through in the process and whether your body can or can't take it."
"The way to create it?"
"Mixed all the blood from the survivor." Ali lowered his gaze.