The Fifty-Million Touch
Frank stepped into the lab and froze. The place was massive—shiny floors, glass walls, and row after row of machines that looked like they could cost more than his scooter.
He remembered that, right when he walked in, one strange-looking device had caught his eye. He’d poked it, twisted a knob, and—click—something inside snapped. He quickly let go, casually pretending nothing happened. Nobody seemed to notice, so he relaxed.
Then the bodyguard’s earlier words echoed in his head. That piece you just touched? Worth fifty million.
Frank began doing the math. Okay… I deliver food. If the tip’s bad, maybe three bucks. If it’s good, ten or fifteen. So… fifty million divided by five dollars… that’s… a hundred? No, wait… one million?
He kept counting on his fingers. If I do thirty deliveries a day, I’ll… uh… yeah, that’s… many years. A lot of years.
Frank didn’t know it yet, but he was off by a mile. The real number was ten million deliveries—something no rider could finish in a lifetime.
The Discovery of True Qi
They eventually stopped in a small white room with a single bed surrounded by scanners. The machines hummed quietly, blinking with strange lights. Karl and his assistants, all in white coats and masks, stood nearby.
“Just lie down and relax,” one of them said. “We’ll collect some samples. That’s all you need to do.”
Frank blinked. That’s it? Lie here and earn millions?
“Exactly,” the assistant said. “If the experiment works, it’s that easy.”
Frank lay down, hands behind his head. Within minutes, boredom set in and he began picking his nose with his right hand.
In the monitoring room, Karl and his team stared at the live feed. On the thermal scanner, countless streams of energy—True Qi—flowed through Frank’s body like rivers of light. It moved constantly, never breaking, never fading.
Karl leaned closer to the screen. “Excellent… If I could get a body like his, I wouldn’t just have the strongest defense. I might become the strongest attacker as well.”
One thing was clear: Frank had never trained properly. His absurd natural talent was going completely to waste.
The Failed Extraction
A masked staff member entered with a pair of surgical tweezers, aiming for Frank’s arm. The moment the metal touched his skin, Frank let out a howl.
“Please, please stop—it hurts like fuck!”
The staffer looked at the tweezers—nothing. Over his earpiece, a voice explained, “There’s a layer of True Qi shielding his skin. You can’t get anything off him.”
The man tried again, pressing harder and longer—thirty agonizing seconds. Frank’s screams filled the room, the kind you’d expect from a slaughterhouse at peak hour.
Still nothing. Gritting his teeth, the staffer poured all his strength into his grip. Snap. The tweezers broke clean in half.
In the monitoring room, Karl smiled faintly. “This is exactly the defense I’ve been looking for. We’ll try another way.” His assistants nodded instantly.
The Drill That Couldn’t
Frank glanced at a staff member. “How much longer is this gonna take?”
“Not long,” came the reply—before the man stepped out.
Moments later, a robot rolled in. Its arm was fitted with a precision jackhammer tip, the kind you’d see at a construction site—but sleeker, stronger, forged from the hardest known metal.
Frank’s eyes widened. “Hey, wait a sec—” The drill started lowering toward his arm.
Then the screaming began. “It hurts! It hurts my f**k!” he shouted, throwing in random phrases like “Stop raping me!” just to emphasize his misery.
In the monitoring room, Karl’s team watched as the drill pressed against the True Qi barrier, actually pushing it down slightly. Everyone held their breath. Victory seemed close—until a deafening BOOM! ripped through the lab.
The jackhammer shattered, the robot collapsed into a heap of smoking scrap.
“Oh shit,” one technician muttered, “there goes eighty million.”
Frank stared at the wreckage, sweat dripping down his face. If they make me pay for that… I’m dead. I’ll have to sell myself ten times over.
The Breakout
In the control room, Karl slammed his fist onto a nearby table, splitting the million-dollar piece of equipment in two. He ignored the staff’s protests.
“Find a way to get biological tissue from him—today—or I’ll take all four of your heads.”
One man trembled so hard he wet his pants, begging Karl for mercy.
Meanwhile, on the bed, Frank’s thoughts spiraled. Are they planning to make me pay? He tried to convince himself it wasn’t his fault. Their gear probably wasn’t from a good company. Cheap materials. They can’t blame me for that.
Then another thought hit—What if I just leave?
He jumped up, sprinted to the door, and smashed through it, leaving a perfect human-shaped hole in the metal. Without looking back, he bolted down the corridor and out of sight.
The Hair That Saved the Day
A technician chased after him, shouting, “Hey! Don’t leave! We’re not done yet!” But Frank was already gone.
The man who’d wet himself dropped to his knees, grabbing Karl’s leg. “Boss, please, don’t kill me! I’ll serve you forever—clean toilets, eat shit, anything—just let me live!”
Karl wasn’t listening. His gaze had locked onto the bed. A single strand of hair lay there—the result of Frank tearing at his head in frustration before his escape.
“That’s it,” Karl whispered. Finally, they had a biological sample.
Over the next few days, the team ran exhaustive experiments. They tried to decode the hair’s DNA and merge it with Karl’s own genetic structure.
But Frank’s genes were far too strong. The moment they attempted integration, the raw power in the DNA struck back, damaging Karl’s body so severely he was bedridden for ten days.
A worker cautiously asked, “Boss, do you want me to find Frank for another test?”
Karl stared at the ceiling, voice low. “No need. Maybe he’s just too strong… and I’d like to live a few more years.”