The Ordeal Called Breathing

Two in the morning.

They say even plants and trees sleep at the witching hour, but modern nights are too bright.

Through the gap in the curtains, the artificial orange glow of streetlights seeped in, faintly outlining the contours of my room.

I sat up in bed and quietly opened the window.

A chilly night breeze drifted in.

The slightly damp smell of earth typical of the rainy season. The distant rumble of a truck.

A peaceful night.

(… But I can smell it.)

I closed my eyes and sharpened not my sense of smell, but my mana perception.

In the wind, which was just ordinary air to most people, a distinctive, acrid odor was mixed in, like rust and ozone combined.

The crack in the sky I'd found this evening.

Trace amounts of maso leaking from it had been falling on this city for several hours.

The concentration was probably no more than a few parts per million.

Like dripping water from an eyedropper onto a desert.

But for me now, this single drop was a lifeline.

"… Let's do this."

I sat directly on the hardwood floor and crossed my legs.

Straightened my spine, placed my hands on my knees.

The stance for Heavenly Circulation, the foundation and pinnacle of mana circulation that I had mastered in my previous life.

Normally, humans absorb maso through unconscious breathing into their lungs, then circulate it throughout the body via blood vessels.

But my current body was completely "closed."

My mana circuits were rusted, the pipes clogged, and my heart, the pump, had no ability to move maso.

So I needed to force them open.

Forcibly, violently, jam maso into the blocked circuits.

It was more torture than breathing.

(Inhale…)

I drew in a deep breath.

Filled my lungs with night air.

I visualized the maso particles within glittering like gold dust, filtering and capturing them with my alveoli.

(Hold.)

I held my breath.

I couldn't let the captured particles escape.

Then, with willpower, I peeled those particles from my lungs and guided them toward the mana circuits running along my spine.

Searing pain shot through me.

"Guh…!"

A muffled groan escaped my throat.

Hot.

Like having a red-hot iron wire thrust into my blood vessels.

My rusted circuits groaned, rejecting the foreign intrusion.

I could feel every cell in my body screaming "Stop."

Of course they were. This body had been purely "human" for sixteen years, never once touching maso.

A rejection reaction to foreign matter.

Nausea and dizziness hit simultaneously. Cold sweat burst from my forehead and ran down my back.

(Don't be soft. Compared to losing an arm, this is nothing but a mosquito bite.)

I gritted my teeth and focused my consciousness inward.

I ignored the pain, using that heat as propulsion instead.

(Drop it down. To the furnace in the dantian, below the navel.)

With willpower, I wrestled down the rampaging maso particles.

Through the spine, past the waist, to the center of my lower abdomen.

There lay the place where my "Mana Core" once existed. Now just a cold, empty void.

The phantom sensation of burning flesh continued.

Each millimeter of progress took seconds.

A turtle's pace.

But I couldn't stop. If I let my guard down here, the maso would dissipate and tear my circuits to shreds.

One minute, five minutes, ten minutes.

My sense of time grew hazy.

Steam might have been rising from my body like I was in a sauna.

My shirt was soaked with sweat and clinging heavily to my skin.

Not yet. Had it not arrived yet?

Just as my consciousness began to blur.

Click.

I felt something like a small switch flip inside my body.

At the bottom of my dantian. A single spark had fallen into the frozen furnace.

It took hold instantly, becoming a tiny but unmistakable heat source pulsing at the pit of my stomach.

"… Hah, hah, hah…!"

Unable to bear it any longer, I collapsed forward, hands on the floor.

Each heaving breath made my lungs wheeze.

The taste of iron spread through the back of my throat. Apparently, some capillaries had burst.

But my face was smiling.

(Success…)

A definite warmth below my navel.

Mana no bigger than a single grain of rice.

Not even enough to spark a lighter flame, let alone cast a Fireball.

But it wasn't zero.

Between zero and one lies an infinite divide.

Once the fire is lit, you just keep adding fuel.

This small spark would burn open my circuits from the inside, eventually becoming a pump that circulates mana like a great river.

With trembling hands, I touched my own belly.

Thump, thump. A "second heart" beating at a rhythm separate from my real one.

"… It's a long way."

I murmured to myself, gazing up at the ceiling.

In my prime, my mana was as vast as the ocean, inexhaustible.

Compared to that, this was a single drop of water.

But the path was connected.

I was no longer just a powerless high school student.

I was a dormant predator beginning to sharpen its fangs.

"First, raise the output to the level where I can actually move this body… Two weeks to do it."

My consciousness rapidly faded out.

Exhaustion like mud, close to mana depletion.

I surrendered to gravity on the wet floor.

Tomorrow, I'd be in hell from muscle soreness.

But that pain was the signpost on my road back to being "the strongest."

As my awareness dimmed, for the first time in a long while, I fell asleep without nightmares.