Enigma of Sin

With the lid fully opened, Kayn excitedly looked at what was inside of the box. On the right side of the book was a book with no title on the front. It was pure black aside from a purple border.

On the left side of the box Kayn saw two black-golden bracelets that were about two inches long each. There were no patterns or designs, it honestly just looked to Kayn like they were two thick slap bracelets made out of a beautiful shining black-gold metal.

He couldn't see anything special about them, so he did what he always would if he couldn't figure an item out. Unfortunately, while looking at the bracelets the ghostly floating letters above them read [Unable to Analyze].

Next, he turned to the book in which he got back a similar result of just [Book (Unable to grade)]. Reaching out to the book, he picked it up and tried to open the cover, but the page wouldn't flip! No matter how much strength he put into trying to just open the book, it wouldn't budge.

Placing the book back in its place, he next picked up the bracelets and slid one over each wrist. However, all he felt was disappointment. Nothing felt different and there was no indication of what these bracelets would even do.

He cycled through all of the elements he was currently able to utilize, attempting to spark any kind of reaction in the bracelets. It was only when he arrived at using the shadow element did any sort of reaction occur, he thought that the bracelets shimmered a little brighter than normal, but that was it. Nothing else happened.

The box turned out to be nothing but disappointment as it only made him wish his mother were here to help him understand what it all was. The only conclusion Kayn could come to after pondering on it, was that he wasn't strong enough, or didn't meet some kind of condition for use. Which one it was, he wasn't sure.

But this all brought his thinking around back to the beginning, how to make progress during the next few months while he learned to take care of his sister and improve his mental health.

His depression was a serious issue, and he knew that just putting some work into things he enjoyed wouldn't make it magically disappear. He wanted someone to talk to about everything, someone who could sympathize with his sorrows.

The only person who came to his mind at this point was Est. He could only hope that she would agree to become his impromptu therapist, even if all she did was listen and agree with him that things were hard. Granted, he couldn't tell her the whole story so he would have to omit certain aspects of his journey, but he knew just talking out what he could with someone would help.

With that plan, he moved on to the next item in the agenda he made for himself. Kayn placed the box back into his bag before putting on a jacket and shoes and walking out of the house.

It was still snowing, but the wind wasn't bad at all, Kayn actually found it pleasant and relaxing to walk around in. His destination was the forest beyond the borders of the farm fields, no matter what he didn't want Horace or Est to somehow chance upon what he was about to try doing.

It had taken Kayn roughly and hour of wandering just to find a suitable spot to try what he wanted. He removed the jacket and his shirt and proceeded to stand there for the next 10 minutes with a constipated look on his face.

"Damnit! Why is this so hard?! I clearly saw that I had wings and I also clearly crash landed from the sky. The only reason my shoulder blade area was so messed up could only be caused by wings somehow sprouting out of me, so just how?!" Kayn shouted in frustration.

He had pondered on this a lot, but didn't want to test it while he was in the house or in view of Est and Horace. Only, he couldn't come to a conclusion on how to make them appear again. His mother had stated that mythical creatures could take humanoid forms, but never taught him about it or how they went about performing such a thing.

He only knew that the mass from their original form was condensed down into a smaller form, and somehow the atmospheric mana would balance things out for them so they didn't crush most of the things that they placed their massive weight on. He honestly had no clue how any of that could work besides mana being reactive and adjusting gravity, but mana wasn't a conscious being. It only served to make his head hurt the more he thought about it.

On the other hand, Kayn learned that his mass had increased and he had no idea when. He only learned about it because when he was working one day in the fields with Horace, Horace had complained to Kayn about how heavy he was and his struggle of bringing him into the house.

Thinking about it, Kayn hadn't used a horse or any other mount since initially traveling to Myrem. His body had gone through a lot of changes since then too and now he was worried that he wouldn't be able to ride a mount and would have to walk the entire way to the Mancean Empire. He could always test it with the farm's horse, but didn't want to risk it.

However, that was a problem to worry about later on. For now, his focus returned to trying to make his wings pop out. For the first 10 minutes he had been trying to force mana into his shoulder blades hoping that it would initiate the change, but nothing happened.

After more time passed and Kayn couldn't think of anything, he swept his hand and the air around him instantly heated up, causing the ground around him to clear of the snow and dry up.

Kayn plopped down and leaned back while sighing. He had too many things on his mind to accomplish anything, so he decided to meditate for a while without doing anything in order to clear up his thoughts a little.

…

"Wait! I'm not magically making wings appear, using mana was the wrong approach the entire time! I should have thought of it before since the tissues in my back changed. I am a dragon, it's intrinsic. What I need to do is use my muscles, not my mana!" Kayn opened his eyes and shot up to standing from his sitting position that he had been in for the past few hours.

Kayn began to rotate his shoulders, and played around trying to feel and control the movements of his back muscles. More time passed and he was finally able to distinctly feel the difference in the muscles surrounding his shoulder blades.

When the time came that he felt confident he was correct, he flexed the new muscles while rotating his scapulae outward.

And then, "AHH FUCK, WHY DOES THIS HURT SO FUCKING MUCH!!" Two black wings that somewhat resembled a bat's wings burst out from Kayn's back. The webbing was black, and each finger of the wing ended in an ivory bone spike that protruded from the wings. At the spot where all of the bones converged was a single large spike.

Meanwhile, Kayn was rolling on the ground trying to reach back towards the base of the wings. He tried to pour healing magic into them, but nothing seemed to ease the pain of sprouting new body parts.

Kayn sat back up and closed his eyes once more. Over time the pain began to subside and Kayn was finally able to think about something other than the pain, and what he felt was fascinating.

"Wow it's just like having two more arms sprout from my back! Only, the fingers are far too long and everything is connected by webbing. This is going to take a while to get used to." Kayn wasn't talking to anyone but himself, but speaking his thoughts aloud helped him sometimes.

Kayn spent another few hours just getting used to the new feelings that sprouted from his back. He had to spend the majority of that time getting the feel of the muscles that controlled his wings. As of now, they were basically just decorations as he couldn't control them at all. It was kind of like when he was trying to learn to walk with his poor muscle control as an infant.

Now that the sun was beginning to set, Kayn knew the moment he was dreading had come. How in the world was he supposed to retract them back into his body? His control over them was so poor that he wasn't positive he would be able to.

Regardless, he put all of his focus into bringing them into a folded position. After that he tried several different movements to make them vanish into his back once more, but he just couldn't figure it out.

The sun had already set by this point, and he knew that Est and Horace were probably starting to worry about him. With this thought in mind, a singular word ran through his mind,

'Please, please, please.'

As he continued to struggle controlling his new muscles, he brought his shoulders back and forced his shoulder blades as close together as possible. Finally, he felt something pop.

The weight that extended out from his shoulder blades which he was just starting to get accustomed to disappeared like a lie. The heaviness was still there, but it was back being inside of his body and wasn't messing with his balance anymore. He did it! The best part about the whole thing was that…

"It doesn't hurt! Ahahahaha"

Kayn laughed to himself in glee as the retracting process didn't bring him any of the pain that he felt when his wings popped out initially.

Kayn became curious at that point and reached his hand back to feel around his shoulder blade area as he expected another wound to have opened up. To his surprise, there was no wound of any sort. However, he could feel two long lines that followed his spine in between his spine and shoulder blades.

There was no hole or anything of the sort, just two long lines, Kayn didn't understand it at all. There was one thing was clear to him though, mass couldn't just vanish.

Kayn decided to use his diagnostic spell Void Eye more in depth on his scapular regions to see if he could get any clues. His mind was quickly shocked, the wing bones still existed, only on a much, much smaller scale and were intricately folded along his spine just under the new mark on his skin.

The connecting point of the bones was his scapula which had adopted a concave shape. The inside appeared similar to the fossa that his arm connected to on the outside, and his shoulder blade no longer appeared like an axe head as normal.

'I wonder how all of this has affected my original muscle attachment points.'

Kayn knew that he would get lost in thought examining himself more. So, without further ado, he started running back to the house on the farm. He could examine himself all he wanted inside of his room without bringing out the wings.

And that was exactly what he did after arriving back at the house and ensuring Est and Horace that nothing had happened and he had just lost time exploring the area.