Enigma of Sin

"Ah, we finally made it to Palatine!" Kinzie shouted in an excited voice. She and Rowen had just arrived at the back of a long queue to enter into a massive city that was surrounded by 30 meter (~98 ft) high walls.

Rowen glanced over at Kinzie to see her marveling at how tall the walls were and how far into the distance they reached. "The Mancean capital is a massive city surrounded by seven walls that form its border. They call it the Seven Origins Wall. This is due to the face that in a time of defense, the massive towers found at the intersection of each wall serve as a formation."

"Have you ever seen the formation in use Grandpa?"

"Why did you stop calling me Papi?" Rowen looked at Kinzie with a dejected expression to which he received an answer of her being too old to call him that in public now.

"Anyway, thankfully no I haven't seen it during the times I stayed here during my travels. If it appears, that means there is some sort of catastrophic threat approaching.

"Though, with the disappearance of many of the mythical beasts like dragons and phoenixes, a single individual in the current time wouldn't denote the use of the formation. Only if an attack from those damn liches down south came this close would they need to use it." Rowen's lips curled into a grimace as he spoke about the liches.

The Inmortuea Empire was constantly sending attacks against the borders of both the Mancean and Carnet Empires. Both empires learned long ago to burn corpses of the battles that they won the field. But when they lost, any of the dead including the undead that they had already killed would rise again to become the new fighting force for the liches.

"I hope I never see the formation activated then! Though, it would be kind of cool to see a dragon. From what I have read, they were actually quite peaceful unless one attacked them first or tried to steal from them."

Kinzie had always been interested in seeing new things and exploring, which was one of the reasons she left home in the first place. Though, both of her parents dying to the Phantom Death gave her the major push to pursue her own goals.

"What did we come here for anyway, Grandpa?" Kinzie asked.

"Hmm? I thought I told you that. We are going to settle here for a while. I want to build up my stock and treasury again and places like this are always looking for enchanters to set up shop."

"Ugh, that means I'm going to be stuck in this city as your glorified shop assistant! So boring!" Kinzie couldn't help but complain, that kind of life had no excitement or fun. She was still quite young by elven standards and had lived a sheltered life within a small village in the Great Forest.

All she wanted to do now was explore what the world had in store for her, maybe have a family eventually, or maybe even die while fighting a praiseworthy foe! Sitting inside of a shop, cleaning it, and talking with customers all day was too sedentary for her. After all, she had discovered during these months with Rowen that she had zero talent for enchanting.

"Did you forget everything we talked about?" Rowen spoke as he gave her a sharp knock on the head.

"You are at the age to go to the Mancean Empire's Astaro Academy! They only accept those who have a mana core and are younger than 20, though you can still attend well into your 20s as it all depends on your growth. Most start around 17 or 18 as that is when their core first forms, so they would all have stage 1 cores.

You are only 19 and at the second stage already! I'm sure they'll accept you after the examination! You would be placed into classes with those who have achieved the second stage, which doesn't happen until the early 20s for most, so you'll most likely be one of the youngest in your class."

Rowen couldn't help but rub his nose a little, while her attitude didn't denote it at all, Kinzie was classified as a genius for her age.

"But why? As you said, I'm already in the second stage and I'm not trying to brag, but I'm a fairly good fighter now days."

"Kinzie, unless you stand at the pinnacle of the world it's not enough. And even then, there will always be things you can learn. The teachers there can help you to perfect your movements, introduce you to new spells, and even help you with casting efficiency.

"Plus, didn't that boy give you a design for a new bow he thought would suit your style? Once we get it made, you'll need a safe, but at the same time competitive environment to really learn how to use it as he intended."

At the time, Kayn wasn't sure how to exactly make it work since he wasn't nor was he planning to become a blacksmith, but he designed a bow that would work well for Kinzie, even if she got into close combat situations.

Kayn would have been lying if he said he didn't have inspiration from bows he had seen in fantasy movies, but it would truly be good for Kinzie to use if she could make it. One end of the bow would be fitted with a blade of sorts and the other would be fitted with a spike. The entire bow was then supposed to be reinforced so that it wouldn't split like her other bows had.

Just thinking about the bow made her excited, but she also couldn't fathom how expensive it was going to be as the raw materials to meet the designs requirements were quite stringent.

But with this topic back on her mind, she pulled out the still dull communication crystal. It had been many months since it had shown any signs of life.

'I wonder if he's even alive…'

…

Meanwhile, Kayn was busy staring down at his now silent heart. He had taken one last large breath before stopping it himself by frying the SA node, the pacemaker of the heart. He is a living, oxygen depending organism; so while he could hold his breath for a decent amount of time, that didn't mean he could forgo it altogether.

With a lack of oxygen, not to mention the pooling blood as it wasn't circulating anymore, he would surely die within a few minutes if his heart didn't start up again. Kayn expected some tissue damage, but he could only hope that his brain would hold out.

A normal human could last at most 3-5 minutes before severe brain damage set in, even if they were revived. But Kayn is a third stage core mage as well as part dragon, part elf, and part demon. Surely this would give him some sort of advantage. And according to all the theoretical simulations he had done beforehand, he wasn't wrong.

However, with his core removed, it was like becoming a cripple, only by maintaining his system with pure mana was he keeping his body from going into shock. If he couldn't finish the procedure fast, things definitely wouldn't end well, even if he did live.

Kayn began to slowly melt his mana core with pure mana and directed the material that composed its outer shell to directly fuse with his heart tissue. This was the easy part for Kayn as he had long figured out how to adjust the composition of the tissue and core shell to find a perfect balance.

The difficult part came next. When his core appeared to only be covered by a very thin surface and was about to break due to the strain of holding what was inside, he formed a pseudo-core with the pure mana and encapsulated it before the final layer fell off.

When the final layer melted to begin fusing with his heart, what was left was a clearer picture of the inside of Kayn's core. It was like a black hole, pulling in its surroundings and bending them to its will. The previous clouds Lydia had pointed out were just masses of colored light that swirled around the black hole.

This is where Kayn was stuck, as he previously couldn't figure out how to place the core essence of his core inside of his heart. Cracks in his core took a long time to heal and he originally didn't have a way to fix them.

So, even if he could just tear his heart open and heal it back up, since he had changed its composition, it wouldn't be that easy. Most likely, before his new core-heart combination could even heal, the mana would either leak out or implode due to loss of stability.

This is where the invention of his pseudo-core with pure mana would come in. He had discovered that pure mana was able to significantly reduce the time it took his core to heal from cracks. He just needed to keep his heart covered with one while directing the remainder of his mana into his right arm in order to stabilize it long enough for everything to settle.

The mana inside of the core itself wasn't physical, this discovery was the entire reason Kayn pushed forward with this project. He wouldn't have to cut his heart open or worry about which chamber to place the core essence inside of. All he had to do was leave a bit of tissue unfused and shove the core essence inside before closing it off while keeping it wrapped in a pseudo-core.

Once again, the issue came down to timing as he could only maintain the pseudo-core for a few minutes maximum. With all of the different clocks counting down, he willed for and shoved the core-essence down into his heart before sealing it off by fusing the last bit of heart tissue and core shell.

After the entire fusion process was complete, Kayn knew he was down to his last couple of minutes before he would personally greet death. Working as quickly as he could, the mana that was once being used to sustain his old mana pathways was then used to incorporate those same pathways with his blood vessels.

Just as Kayn was nearly finished, he could feel his consciousness fading and as his concentration slipped, and so to did the mana he was controlling. The last bit of mana that he needed to restart his heart and complete the connection of his new mana system and core…vanished.