Enigma of Sin

Going back to when both Est and Horace were looking at Kayn in shock. They couldn't help but stare at him with stunned expressions, but how could they not? The wound on his chest was healing, and while it was much slower than any healing spell, it was still visible to the naked eye.

Est quickly extended her hand out and placed it up to Kayn's neck just as he had taught her before he performed this experiment. She could feel it! She could feel his pulse! He was still alive!

"Move him off the bed so we can clean him and the sheets, quick!"

Inside Horace was grimacing, he didn't want to get anywhere near touching whatever that stuff all over Kayn was, not to mention he already knew he couldn't lift Kayn, but his wife seemed to forget that fact.

"Est, you know I can't lift him alone, I don't know why this kid is so heavy, but it's just not possible for me alone. You get his feet and I'll grab his shoulders and then we will put him on the floor for now." Horace spoke as he as he laid out an extra blanket on the ground.

Before they lifted him though, the duo worked to move Kayn towards the edge of the bed so that it would be far less awkward trying to lift him. After Kayn was placed onto the floor, Horace immediately set out to remove the sheets from the bed and swiftly tossed them out the window to get some of the smell out of the house. He was planning on burning them later with everything else that was soiled.

While Horace was doing that, Est was struggling trying to remove Kayn's pants as they were also stained with the disgusting gunk, but alas they were stuck on him as she couldn't get them removed from under his butt.

Horace had finished his job fairly quickly and ended up watching his wife struggling while trying not to laugh his head off at the comedic display. Unfortunately for him, Est noticed him watching and trying not to laugh at her. She began to silently glare at him in anger.

Horace pulled out a small hunting knife he always kept on him and proceeded to remove Kayn's pants with a few cuts to the fabric. The pants were loosely fitted, so it wasn't very hard for him or dangerous to Kayn.

"Oh my." Est spoke, but quickly recovered herself before draping part of the blanket over his waist.

Horace was also stunned. Normally people wore some type of undergarment, but Kayn apparently wasn't so his goods were on full display. The couple hadn't stripped him fully the first time they took care of him. However, now Horace couldn't help but be slightly envious.

'Is this kid a dragon or something?!'

Est, however, continued on like nothing ever happened and began to clean Kayn's body with the water and soap they brought inside of the room. They didn't have a lot of soap, and it was quite expensive for them, but they prepared it beforehand due to the worrying presence of the smell.

Working in tandem, the couple slowly but surely got every part of Kayn's body cleaned up, redressed, and placed back onto a clean bed. They had to remove the previous mattress from the room, much like the sheets. Fortunately, they had an extra mattress in storage from replacing their own a year or so ago.

Feeling some déjà vu as they once again wrapped his chest in bandages and salve, they felt a strong sense of relief as Kayn was still alive and even looked more comfortable after a good cleansing.

…

Another three days passed as the couple waited for Kayn to wake up. On this particular day, Est had allowed Lara onto Kayn's bed and she was soundly sleeping half plopped on his abdomen as Est sat on a chair next to the bed in the case Lara tried to crawl off the bed.

Kayn's eyes opened slowly being mostly still asleep as he once again found himself waking up staring at the same ceiling. Shutting his eyes again, he wondered how long he was out for this time, but he didn't think it would be longer than a day at most.

Taking a deep breath, his chest felt like it was ripping apart, immediately reminding Kayn that he hadn't yet healed the area of the chest wall he removed. Before he could start to examine his condition though, he felt a strange heaviness coming from his abdomen.

Thinking something had happened that he didn't predict, he quickly reopened his eyes and glanced down at his stomach that should be uncovered. To his surprise the sheets were over him and the heaviness he felt was his sister fast asleep while half lying on him.

Upon observing this, he decided to look around the room only to notice Est sitting near the bed while giving him a warm and gentle smile. "Welcome back."

Kayn's mind momentarily short circuited. He knew that neither Est nor Horace would enter his room within 10 days as that was the time frame they established, but if Est was sitting here, that meant over 10 days had passed since he blacked out.

"How long has it been?" Kayn asked quietly, trying not to disturb his sister.

"It's currently the afternoon of day 14 after you shut yourself in to do whatever you did to yourself." Est's warm smile faded into a reproachful glare and Kayn knew why. They had to have been the ones that cleaned up his blood and helped to wrap his wounds.

"What did you do anyway? When we came in after 10 days it smelled absolutely rancid and there was a reddish-black gunk all around your body, not to mention that partially healed wound on your chest. It seemed to us that you failed in whatever you were trying to do." Est asked as she was curious about what went wrong as he seemed too confident about everything before he went in.

'Black gunk? Partially healed? What?' Kayn didn't understand what she was saying. He knew some black stuff came out of his body whenever he evolved his core to the next stage, but he definitely was not even close to becoming a stage 4 before he started, so it couldn't be that.

Only now that Kayn was focused back on his body did he truly feel the refreshing feeling flowing throughout his body with every beat of his heart. It was truly what one could call a magical experience as it felt like energy was seeping through every tissue in his body.

He wanted to immediately cast Void Eye on himself to check everything that was happening, but he didn't want to try casting a spell with his new core and system before he was positive nothing would go wrong. At the very least he wasn't going to do it with his sister laying on his stomach.

"Aunt Est, could you please take Lara and leave me alone for a moment? I need to check my body and I'm worried about a backlash. I don't want either of you here in the case something goes wrong."

Honestly, Kayn was just as excited as he was worried because he could feel that what was causing the refreshing feeling all through his body was actually mana. The implications this had for his future were immense.

Once Est picked up Lara and left the room, Kayn immediately followed his gut feeling and cast Void Eye without placing a hand on himself and directing the mana into his body for the exam. While he didn't think this was possible with anyone but himself, being able to examine himself in this way was already a crazy development.

His attention was first captured by his own heart. It was functioning just as normal, but inside of it was a black hole of swirling mana. This mana was being pumped out into his body with every beat of his heart and would be sucked into the black hole once more upon return through his veins.

As Kayn was marveling in this feeling while still focusing on his new fused core-heart, he took in a deep breath. This was when the biggest surprise came for Kayn. As he still had Void Eye active and was focusing in on his core, he could see the new mana flowing in from his lungs and being brought to his heart where it was then sucked in by the black hole.

"What?!" Kayn exclaimed aloud as he couldn't believe what just happened. The effect was very similar to when he was practicing his Void Star technique, but it happened automatically upon taking a deep breath.

The scale wasn't what he could force in through Void Star, but it was happening automatically and from what Kayn could tell, it didn't have the same risks of cracking his core by overfilling it. Any of the excess mana beyond what his core could hold was sent out into his body where it dispersed into his tissues.

He wasn't sure what would happen if his tissues somehow filled up on mana, but that wasn't happening currently as he could feel his mana being used at a steady rate to heal himself.

Even with the pain that moving caused him, Kayn sat up to remove the wrappings around his chest. He was once again stunned by what he saw. While it was very rough looking, the square area he had previously separated from his chest was definitely attached, keeping everything together and the blood inside his body.

"How?" Kayn couldn't help but question at this point. He didn't have that crazy of a regeneration rate initially, nor was it heard of in any book he had ever read. Not even 6th stage mages had this level of regeneration and passive healing properties.

Regardless, this was a good thing! He would definitely explore more into everything later, but first he wanted to heal himself and hold his sister.

Without a second thought, Kayn began fusing his injured tissues with the light element. As he was focused on the mana in the first place, he could feel that the mana in the surrounding tissues immediately rushed to the areas he desired and his wounds healed at an astonishing rate.

At the same time as the mana was rushing out of the surrounding tissues vessels, he could feel it being replenished from his core as it was being pumped throughout his body.

"This is incredible! Wait, if it as all this beneficial, why did I end up passing out? Shouldn't I have felt extremely refreshed rather than having a massive headache?"

As Kayn was pondering on the events, a sudden thought intruded his mind. 'Wait the headache, I've only experienced one like that a few times before and each time I was unconscious for a while if I wasn't in my best condition…no way…did my mind really rank up again. Is this the fifth then?'

Everything was too overwhelming for Kayn right now. There were too many changes in his body for him to understand everything at a quick glance. The changes he expected had happened, but there were so many more he didn't theorize at all, not to mention the increase in his mind's rank at the same time.

Before Kayn went to spend time with his sister, he wanted to come up with a name for his new mana heart. And while he could just name it "mana heart" that just didn't feel grand enough for the achievement he had made.

Although, he admitted that his naming sense wasn't the greatest and had almost always contained "Void" thus far, he was determined to come up with something good for it this time.

It then occurred to Kayn that back on Earth, a dragon's heart was always sought after in fantasy novels and movies as they were a giant mana storage organ. Whoever got their hands on them would often ingest them to obtain marvelous effects.

Not to mention, he would never have started this process without the events with his family happening. He was half-dragon and he wanted to honor his family and the sacrifices his mother, father, and elder sister made for him to arrive here safely with his younger sister.

This new mana heart would be the thing that could lead him to a glorious future of safety for himself and Lara and also revenge for his family's deaths. Thus, a name popped into his head and he immediately decided on it.

'Let's call it the Demonic Dragon Heart.' Kayn thought as he smiled and put on a clean shirt before exiting his room.