Chapter Nineteen — Devouring a Heart of Orne
From Daniel's point of view:
I sat on my bed by the window, the last of the daylight sliding faintly across the wooden floor. I picked up the first lightning mana stone and began trying to refine it the way I'd recently learned.
After a few minutes I felt the process was moving far slower than I'd expected.
(Guess I'll use this thing… even Salem used to be jealous of me because of it.) I thought to myself.
I called it "absolute focus." I'd been doing it for years, especially in the days before final exams, when I forced my mind to detach from everything around it. I didn't just study — I became a machine that knew only the material in front of me. Sometimes Salem would call my name a dozen times and I wouldn't answer; sometimes he would hit me, and still I wouldn't snap out of it… unless he picked my papers up.
This state happens naturally for some people, but for me it was slightly different: I could enter and leave it by choice, which is how I achieved grades like those who worked all year, even though I didn't.
The downside… was the cursed headache that hit me after I came out of it, especially if I pushed it to the extreme. That headache… I still haven't found a cure for it.
The refining began, aided by the Heart of Orne that had granted me an unknowable ability.
As soon as I took the mana stone, my heart felt like a black hole, trying to pull energy toward it and dominate it. Mana streamed from the stone into me, bringing with it a strange sensation, as if my body were being remade from the inside.
I let the mana enter and controlled it slowly. I began to feel a connection between it and my heart, as though they were just getting acquainted. Then the next phase came: distributing the mana throughout my body.
I closed my eyes, focused, and gently guided the mana. It was like electricity seeping into my blood, warming my extremities with a peculiar, pleasant heat. The warmth rose in my chest and spread to my limbs. The stone began to glow, then its light dimmed little by little… until it became ordinary, drained.
After half an hour of concentration I had finished refining the first stone. I felt I'd reached the limit; if I continued, the mana would start to leave my body.
But the result... was astounding.
My body felt alert and alive as if I'd just been revived. For a moment I even felt I could run for a whole day without stopping. Well… that might be an exaggeration. But the truth was I felt better than I had at any time in my life. And this was only the beginning.
Now I tried to improve my mana control — to move it faster and concentrate it in half my body. It was very hard; some mana leaked out of me and I lost control of it. So I took the second stone and compensated for the lost amount. This continued for another hour, and after great effort I finally felt ready to start the actual devouring of a Heart of Orne.
After a ten-minute rest I began. I held the false heart, and because there was mana in my body I felt an intense hunger of a different kind; now I understood why the process was called "devouring the heart."
I began. I felt a tangible connection from my heart to the heart in my hand. The heart in my hand started to break and fragment; the small pieces shattered further until they were invisible to the eye. The heart in my hand turned to ash, then changed into a liquid in my palm. The liquid then became a heatless gas that nevertheless had substance in my hand. The liquid fully transformed into gas, left my hand, and headed straight for my chest toward my own Heart of Orne. It penetrated my clothes and skin; I felt it keenly as it entered my body and wrapped around my heart. I also began channeling the refined mana within me into that gas until it mixed with it, and, to my surprise, the gas absorbed it and seemed to want more.
I guided the mana into the gas until the mana that had been filling my body was used up. The gas kept demanding more, but I had no mana left; if I tried to refine mana from another stone now I risked losing control of the gas. That meant I had to move to the next phase — the most dangerous — and so I did.
My own Heart of Orne began to unravel. Cracks appeared across its surface, and I was startled by the terrible pain when the heart's shell split. I knew it would hurt, but I hadn't expected this; my absolute-focus state deepened right then. The Orn Core cracked too.
"Ugh… ughhh… ahh…" (Damn, this is lethal pain… why didn't they explain how much it would hurt?) I hissed.
The gas entered the heart through the fissures and completely enveloped it; the Orn Core was wrapped as well. The fractures sealed little by little, and after a time — I didn't know how long — the cracks had almost healed and the pain subsided. There was still a lot of gas left, which I directed around the core. Thanks to my renewed heart and the now-stronger Orn Core, I could store mana inside my heart specifically in a ring around the Orn Core.
As for the remaining gas, I expelled it through the last crack on the heart's surface; when that wound closed too, I released the rest outward, and most of the gas — about ninety percent — dispersed into the air.
I opened my detail screen:
[Name: Daniel Moriarty]
[Age: 22 years]
[Heart of Orne (Lightning): First Circle Completion 3%]
[Health: 97]
[Strength: 7 points]
[Speed: 8 points]
[Endurance: 7 points]
[Mana: 0 points]
[Eira: None]
[More details 巛]
I watched the screen change. The lightning attribute appeared, and the first circle's completion rose from 0 to ,3 and "Mana" finally showed 0 points instead of "None." That meant if I picked up a stone and refined its mana now and placed it into my heart, it would become an extremely thin ring of lightning mana around the Orn Core; the maximum points I could get right now was ,3. Subsequent heart-devouring would thicken the ring around the core until the circle was complete — and the first full circle contains 100 mana points. But that was impossible for me right now.
When I finished I breathed a calming sigh, then the painful headache hit. I took out the herb paper, put it in my mouth, and lay down on my bed with my eyes closed, covering my face with a pillow so not to see light or hear noise, trying to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I had woken not long ago and couldn't sleep, so I remained awake.
After a while, when the pain became tolerable and the herbs began to make a noticeable effect, I got up and left the room. Lucas and Sanjay's rooms were still closed, so I left them and went to the kitchen to take a meal to calm myself.
The kitchen was simple, medieval in style: muddy stone walls, a wooden table with worn edges, and a wood-fired stove. On the shelves were some copper pots, herbs hanging in the corners, and an old knife beside the chopping board. There were few options, but enough to put together something decent.
I took a simple meal: slices of fried cured meat over a layer of bread, sprinkled with ground herbs and a little cheese that looked foreign, and a side of cooked legumes with some juice.
When I came out, the two rooms remained closed. I ate quietly and left two portions on the table as a reward for them after the hard work. When they still had not come out, I left the house and went out to learn more about the kingdom at night.
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[Name]
[Age]
[Heart of Orne (Element): ]
[Health] — represents how much damage the character can withstand before death or unconsciousness. (This is different from games: if a lethal attack hits vital areas like the heart, all health points can be lost at once; death must reach zero.)
[Strength] — represents physical power: lifting heavy objects, physical strikes, carrying heavy weapons, normal strike power.
[Speed] — determines attack and movement speed in combat.
[Endurance] — measures resistance to fatigue.
[Mana: 0 points]
[Eira: None]
[Elemental Resistances] — resistance to fire, water, lightning, ice, etc.
[Physical Defense] — reduces damage from physical attacks.
[Magic Defense] — reduces damage from magical attacks.
[Immunity to Diseases] — resistance against illnesses.
[Immunity to Poisons] — general resistance to toxins.
[Agility] — represents evasive speed and ability to perform quick, flexible maneuvers in combat.
[More details 巛]