Enigma of Sin

Kayn couldn't die doing something so risky right now. He still had his sister to think about, not to mention the mysterious words that he would have the opportunity to erase his regrets. He had to make it to that point at the very least.

The only option was to perfect the process before approaching it physically. Luckily, he had the perfect thing to visualize changes he made and to run simulations before actually doing it to himself. The only thing was, this would be a completely unexplored area, and his current knowledge might not be enough to help him simulate things as well as he was hoping.

His thoughts were actually pretty simple on paper, he wanted to fuse his mana core into his heart. However, while the thought was simple, the actual process was going to be overly complicated. Without a lot of preparation, he would definitely die before he could even make a slight amount of progress.

He was wanting to utilize the cardiovascular system for mana. If his mana could be circulated along with his blood, theoretically he would have better access to mana at all times. Not to mention his tissues would all be nourished constantly as his mana was pumped throughout his tissues with his blood. His overall prowess theoretically would shoot through the rough.

Mana normally wouldn't return to your mana core, but what if his mana core was also the main organ that pumped blood throughout the body? Kayn really didn't know all of the benefits he would gain from this, but the ones he had thought of far outweighed the risks he would take. Aside from the obvious possibility of death if he failed that is.

He wasn't sure how his core could or would evolve through stages after it became one with his heart though. Putting that aside for later, as long as he could incorporate the major functions of a mana core into his heart, everything should work out…probably…hopefully.

Thus, Kayn stopped developing his Void Eye diagnostic spell further in order to focus in on his new project.

…

Once again weeks passed by while Kayn was working on his project. In total, 53 days passed before he felt that his confidence threshold in succeeding was above 70%, but this wasn't enough for Kayn. He wanted to have a 95% or above threshold before he tried anything. Even a 5% chance was still a massive risk in his eyes.

His plan once he reached that point was to talk with Est and Horace beforehand about the possibility of his death in order to ensure Lara's livelihood. He knew they would try and dissuade him, but it wasn't something he could ignore now. The more time he spent researching this his project, the more certain he was that it was the right path.

By this point, Kayn had mostly figured out how he should incorporate his core into his heart, just not the exact how. He also needed to solve the problem of mana leakage from the vessels after his heart was fused, otherwise he would just be losing mana constantly rather than storing more as he hoped.

As of now, his plan was to essentially perform open surgery, there was just no other way to accomplish his goal. He was planning to store as much mana in his arms as possible, open himself up, and remove his core.

However, within a small amount of time after removal, his plan was to utilize his all-attributed mana into breaking down his core and fusing it into his heart tissue. As the core broke down, he would need to create a temporary barrier of sorts so that as his core weakened, the mana didn't just explode outward.

In all of the simulations he had done both in his head and by hologram, it was possible to replace the muscle and other tissues of his heart with the essence that encompassed his core. The major change would be that he needed it to be able to expand and contract like a heart normally would.

He needed the elasticity of the heart muscle, but the sturdiness of the core. This is what took him the most time to come up with a process for. His previous knowledge of medicine from Earth helped a little bit, but if he wanted to describe what he had come up with now to someone it was simple, magic.

This was a fantasy world by Earth's standards, not everything had to abide by the rules he previously knew. Sometimes things that broke logic had a simple explanation here and that was simply that it was just magic.

If Kayn was being honest, he didn't understand about a quarter of the procedure that he himself created, but every simulation and calculation he came up with said it should work. In a world where mana existed and had infinite applications, sometimes it was just better to accept the good result and think about the how later.

He really did hope though that as he continued progressing his mind that he would truly be able to understand all the underlying intricacies involved. Mana could perform miracles and being able to use all of the elements at once was basically a cheat. Reviewing his simulations over and over again only worked to further solidify this idea in his head.

Kayn theorized that if he used his mana without applying any specific element, the procedure would go smoothly. There was ambient mana in and around everything in this world that had no elemental affinity, so utilizing that to his advantage was what he hoped to do.

The issue with this was that Kayn had never utilized non-attributed mana to fuel a spell before, nor was there any standard for it that he had learned from his parents or Lydia as no one before him could do it.

Thinking about his master only brought him sadness. He could still remember the tidbit of information he heard about her supposedly being dead. It was because of this information that his family ended up in the situation they did. But at the same time, it also brought him more determination to complete this for not only himself and Lara, but Lydia as well.

In the end, Kayn spent another 19 days researching ways to utilize his mana and studying the ins and outs of his current mana pathway's incorporeal nature and how he could essentially transplant them over the blood vessels.

For the mana, he ended up solving his problem by adjusting his thinking. If one imagined mana as a beam of light, putting a prism in front of that beam split it into the different colors of the spectrum. Normally with his elemental spells, he was "splitting out" that color from the light, so this time he just needed to not put a prism in front of it.

Kayn could try explaining this to others, but even when he talked about it aloud to himself, he thought he was starting to sound a bit loony.

For these last 19 days, Kayn had stopped all other activity other than his research and taking care of Lara, even forgoing sleep aside from an hour or two a night. While he was a little disappointed with himself for being a bad brother and mostly leaving her to Est during this time, he was trying to justify it by doing this all for his family in the end.

But that would also be a lie, Kayn wanted more power, no he needed it. He didn't understand everything about the balance and whatever nonsense the second being he made a deal with spoke about, but one thing was clear;

If he didn't succeed in these missions, things around him would go bad, and he would most likely lose everyone he cared about one way or the other. Kayn was honest with himself, he didn't think that he would be able to live a life filled with loneliness and death, so this was all for a better future.

…

As he expected, Est and Horace were appalled by what he proposed to them. They didn't understand even a single bit of the theory or what he was actually trying to accomplish, but they did understand there was a possibility of death.

Strangely enough, it wasn't Est who really berated him, but Horace. After hearing Kayn's story, he couldn't think that Kayn was being anything but irresponsible.

It took Kayn almost an entire day, from morning until night, to finally convince them. Though, convincing wasn't the right word as they were still vehemently against it, but came to the conclusion that his mind couldn't be changed.

It was the fact that Kayn said he had 98% confidence in succeeding that they finally relented. Although, Kayn wasn't sure if they quite understood that 2% was still a large risk when playing with one's life, especially when he really didn't need to do it in the first place.

In the end, Est and Horace said they would raise Lara like their own as they had these last few months if anything untoward happened to Kayn.

With all contingencies planned out, Kayn slept for almost a full 24 hours before he felt fully rested to proceed with the operation. However, since it was almost night again, he decided to spend the night with his sister, to recharge himself in the way only a loved one could.

He picked up Lara from the crib as she was placed there earlier by Est while he was sleeping. He then climbed back into the bed and leaned against the headboard while laying his sister on his chest and holding her close.

When he woke up in the morning, he truly felt completely recharged because of his sister and a day and a half of rest. He was ready to proceed. Entrusting Lara to Est and helping move the crib to their room, he retreated back into his room after telling them that if he didn't come out within a week, he probably failed.

…

Kayn calmed his mind before laying down with his head propped up with pillows in order to view everything that he was doing without having to physically hold his head up. He also placed a mirror on the ceiling above the bed as a backup.

He probably didn't actually have to see what he was doing to perform the procedure. With the thousands of times he practiced with simulations he was quite confident, but one never knew if something could go wrong. Not to mention it was also a sort of comfort to see everything happening.

Being prepared both mentally and physically as much as possible, he psyched himself up, "Time to begin!"

Kayn only had a normal knife that he was provided by Horace, and that would in no way penetrate his skin at this point. He then almost completely emptied his core aside from a tiny amount, and then he split the mana that he extracted evenly between his two arms.

Trying to hold the mana in his arms without leakage was not an easy thing to do, but after including it in part of his plan, he practiced this particular skill quite a lot. Releasing a minute amount of mana, the edge of the knife was enhanced with the wind and earth elements, causing it to become more study and much sharper.

He then used the last remaining mana he had sitting inside of his core to infuse himself with the dark element in order to cut off his pain receptors by corroding the nerve at the base of his neck.

Now that the stage was set, he began.

First, he created a short incision just over his mana core so that he could remove it. Next came removing the entire section of tissue and rib cage above his heart. Not only performing, but watching this self-mutilation made Kayn feel a bit weird and truthfully a bit nauseated, but he held strong and continued.

He placed the knife on the bed beside him and proceeded to dig his fingers into the first incision he made. After grasping his mana core in his fingers, he closed his eyes and took a big breath, from here, the real thing would begin and haste was essential.

From the moment he removed his core, the mana pathways would begin to deteriorate. However, he needed those in order to complete the second part of the procedure, so he had no choice but to dedicate some of the mana he stored to stabilize the pathways. This was the first application of the procedure that utilized pure mana.

Steeling his determination once again, he removed the core from his body with one hand and used the other to maintain a steady infusion of pure mana for the stabilization process.

Placing the core to rest at the apex of his exposed heart, he proceeded to the next and most terrifying part of the procedure.

And then, his heart stopped.