Enigma of Sin

Days turned into weeks as time flew by and winter finally arrived in full swing. Greatly surprising Kayn was the amount of snow that fell from the sky here. They almost never had snow at his family's estate, but he had seen it back on Earth, so he at least knew what it was. Though, apparently here it was called something more like snee, which gave Kayn a good laugh.

While he spoke what was called Common Tongue language here, there were words that had similarities to languages he was familiar with on Earth. The only difference between the two planets was that one had multiple languages with different dialects for different geographical regions while the other had one language.

Talgonoth, to what he knew, all spoke the same language, Common Tongue. Granted there were still differences in dialect as you changed regions, at least this was all true for the continent of Lavanth.

During the last few weeks, Kayn helped to insulate the house against the cold better and even went out to hunt for fresh meat as they normally lived off of stored grains and preserved meats during winter. With the meat came the pelts as well, which Est was skilled enough to be able to make new clothing from.

During the hunts, he was also able to work towards his secondary goal of becoming more comfortable with his wings. After the first time he consciously protracted his wings, he didn't have the same pain. He was slowly but surely learning how to use his wings, though he hadn't had the confidence to try flying yet.

Est and Horace began looking at Kayn with even more gratitude in their smiles as what he had done for them this winter was beginning to shape them up for the best winter season to date. They were also happy that he seemed to be making progress mentally and even opened up with them.

He had asked Est if he could talk to her about the past and have someone to talk to about his trauma. As it turned out, both Est and Horace ended up joining the sessions and Kayn was surprised to find out how good of listeners both of them were.

Speaking about his problems with them really helped to take a bit of the burden that plagued his heart away. After getting to the point where he explained how he ended up here, they both couldn't stand it anymore and stood up before wrapping him in a long hug.

Kayn couldn't help but feel heartened. Est and Horace were like his aunts and uncles on Earth that he had never had here on Talgonoth. It wasn't the feeling you'd get from your direct family, but it was still family none the less.

As Kayn started to feel uncomfortable calling them by Mr. Horace and Mrs. Est, he asked if he could call them as his aunt and uncle. They were surprised at first, but were happy to accept. Kayn thought that it would be best that way as corny as it could seem from the outside.

He wanted to talk about them to his sister as she grew older, and even bring her back so they could see her grow. What better way was there than for his sister to see them as family from the start.

For Est and Horace, adopting a niece and nephew was a joyous occasion. Neither of the two had siblings, so their children wouldn't have cousins originally. But now they could, even if Kayn would be more akin to an uncle with the age gap. They couldn't care less about blood relations as family could be who you decide it to be.

While doing what he could for the family, Kayn spent a lot of time learning how to take care of his sister in the future as well as playing with her. His mental health was taking steps in the right direction and making progress, and his sister was a great help with this. Her smile, bright eyes, and giggling made Kayn feel a joy he wasn't sure he would be able to again.

Any of the time not doing any of the aforementioned activities was spent researching himself and developing his Void Eye spell more. He was still attempting to replicate with it what technology could achieve on Earth. The second developmental process of the spell Kayn formulated was in how his brain processed the information.

He did his best to take the data his spell generated and create a picture inside of his mind that he could examine over and over after he stopped casting Void Eye. In the past, he had to maintain the connection in order to visualize what was happening in the body, but he was trying to better optimize that now.

What he was trying to do was to create a 3D image in his head of everything he discovered and let it stay there after he ended the spell so he could examine different aspects. He wasn't able to succeed in forming the image in his head, but he was able to create holographic constructs in front of him out of light magic which he was able to pull apart and enhance as he pleased.

Kayn couldn't help but feel like he was a certain rich man that created an iron body for himself. Kayn found amusement in just creating the hologram and playing around with it, acting like he was throwing out useless parts and putting better ones in.

He had only examined himself in depth enough to make holograms of himself though, so it was always his own image that he was moving parts and playing with.

One day while he was tweaking his technique and playing with his own imagine, he achieved a new success. He was able to successfully visualize and replicate the appearance of his core in the hologram, including the colors and the weird clouds that rotated around it.

Kayn paused after incorporating this new visualization into his hologram, he just stared at his core in thought. While he had continued using the Void Star technique to further strengthen his core, it was starting to feel like that wasn't enough and something needed to change.

In general, a mana core was a physical thing that formed inside of a mage's body. The pathways that mana followed were incorporeal in nature. The pathways were kind of like invisible nerves that branched out from the core itself and mostly flowed down the legs and arms with a singular large branch extending to the head. It resembled the appearance of the Chinese character, dà 大, that he only remembered because it looked like a stick figure, minus the head.

This was how the system was developed in every humanoid being according to the research Kayn had read in the past. The differences stemmed from how many branching points off of the main "root pathway" the limb had. Those with more branches could generally control their mana better as they cast spells.

But Kayn looked at this system with an emotion he couldn't quite describe. If he summed up all of his thoughts into a single word, it would be simple, inefficient. Kayn couldn't help but think that the whole mana pathway system was completely inefficient.

Mana was moved from the core, down the specified pathways, and then released from the body to produce specific results. There really was no return system. The mana would just come out of the core and that was it.

If the casting of the spell was interrupted midway, that mana was just gone as it wouldn't remain inside of the pathways. The mana was simply expelled without producing any effects at that point. Being interrupted would normally cause a backlash inside the individual with the severity depending on the type of spell and amount of mana they used.

During a hunt where he had gone deeper and farther away than normal, he found a rune beast that after fighting, Kayn assumed was low B-class.

Finding a core stone in the corpse, Kayn finally decided it was time to test something he had read over a year ago. He cut off a large chunk of meat as well and cooked it on the spot.

While he was ingesting the meat, he examined his body at the same time. As was recorded, ingesting meat with high levels of mana was supposed to allow Kayn to enhance his core and body if he trusted the notes from the Records of the Void.

Surprisingly, Kayn was able to observe and feel that some mana was indeed sent to his tissues before entering his core. But even after eating several kilograms of the meat to the point he felt like he could roll back home, the conclusion he once again came to was, inefficient. The amount of mana he had gained from eating so much meat from a rune beast above his technical stage was so minuscule that it just didn't feel worth it.

After this, his thoughts and hopes moved to the core stone. Generally, people would absorb the mana using specific formations that could be rented for use or permanently placed in a residence. Obsidian Void Dragons were capable of eating a core as long as it matched their affinities, as if it didn't the end result was mostly them dying by explosion from mana overload.

Since Kayn could match all the elements, he wasn't worried about exploding, but rather that it wouldn't absorb like he was hoping.

Kayn stuck the golf ball sized core stone that come from a dark attuned rune beast into his mouth and bit down. It was like trying to bite through a jaw breaker, but putting more strength into his jaw, he was able to begin crushing it up.

As he finished chewing it and began to swallow down the fragments of the core, he once again cast Void Eye. All of the sudden Kayn felt an electrifying sensation spread throughout his entire body. He felt exhilarated at the feeling of the mana spreading throughout his body and forming around his core.

All of the sudden, the mana dispersed. Only a minimal amount was left behind and that entered into his core. His tissues felt nourished a bit, but overall, he felt nothing.

A single session of casting his Void Star technique was more efficient than either one of these methods by several fold. Only now could he understand why absorbing cores at a low stage would ruin the potential of an individual's core later on and eventually stop working.

Coming back to the present, Kayn was still staring at the hologram of his core before he grabbed his hair with both hands and started lightly pulling on it and tossing it around. "Ugh! It's all just so inefficient! Progressing, casting, nourishing the body, all of it!"

It was at this time that Kayn glanced to the right, which was the left side of his body. That's when he saw it and had a sudden burst of inspiration. The heart! If he could somehow utilize that and his circulatory system, maybe, just maybe he could make things more efficient.

'This could be the push that I need to make progress!' Kayn thought to himself in excitement, that was until it was quickly extinguished like dumping a lake's worth of water on a small campfire.

Messing with his core and heart in the way he was beginning to imagine would definitely have him skirting around the edges of death.