151 Mana Based Changes
Seeing Mana itself was not impossible. It was an incredibly rare instance and also extremely difficult to accomplish at will. Trying to see someone using their Mana was downright almost impossible for the most part. It was also difficult to tell what you were looking at unless you knew exactly what it was. This was mostly because, unless you were extremely sensitive to Mana, you couldn't see it unless the place you were at was thick with Mana residue that was leftover from rampant Magic use.
This mostly happened only on particularly large battlefields in Altair's experience. It could be faintly seen at the start of every one of them that had at least thirty thousand people in it. As the battle wore on, it would become thicker and thicker until it permeated the very air they breathed. Once the battle was over, it was obvious to everyone, even those who were basically unable to sense Mana.
Altair was one of those who people who wasn't sensitive to Mana. She couldn't see the wispy aura it generated at the start of a battle unless there were fifty thousand people throwing Magic around. She had seen it after battles though and she always found its odd, somewhat translucent appearance to be quite strange as the wind ate away at it.
What she had never seen before was an aura so thick that she could see it from so far away. She could see the thick and dense aura sitting atop the green glow that came from the pond below her. It was unbelievable to her. It was like a thick mist that was lit up by the green glow beneath it, which wound up covering an entire side of the building.
As the bike went down closer and closer, the oppressive pull she felt towards the Manamium that glowed like a sun, started to cause her to have a headache. It was like something was stabbing in to her brain and moving around violently. It hurt so bad that she was starting to have trouble seeing straight.
Still, the bike drew closer and closer to the ground as Marissa and Serius were completely ignorant of her condition.
As the bike neared the ground, the oppressive pull started to feel more like a physical weight upon Altair and her mind. The pain had started to subside from its sharp point to a dull ache and Altair couldn't help but feel a wave of exhaustion press upon her with every breath she took.
Marissa lifted Altair off the bike as it was close enough to the ground and set her down before she got off herself. Serius got off the bike as well and dusted off his suit that was still clean with his hands. It seemed to be a neurotic choice more than an actual effective use of his time.
Before them were five servants, three female and two male, all dressed in servant garb. Behind them was an archway that lead to the front doors of the mansion. Both of the male servants flanked the doors as they waited for Marissa and Serius to approach.
Marissa pushed Altair forward, as this was the place that she had arranged for her to stay for the time being, and Altair stumbled forward under the abrupt push.
After taking a few steps, Altair's mind blacked out as a particularly large wave of weariness overtook her. The next time she opened her eyes was because she felt a pinch in her left arm. She found an unfamiliar golden-blue ceiling above her as she stared up at it with her mind completely blank. She turned her head heavily towards her left arm and saw a maid pulling back a syringe.
She blinked once, not processing what she was seeing yet. The maid saw that she had woken up and gave her a warm smile.
The first thing that came to Altair's mind was the talk of vaccines from Marissa and Serius. When that thought hit her, she closed her eyes and plunged deeper into the bed the was on, trying to physically merge with its comfort and quickly fell back asleep.
She felt too tired to be concerned about anything. Her entire body felt like she was covered in a welcoming warmth that seeped to her bones. The bed she was laying on invited her persistently to stay a while and let go of herself. It tempted her to stay sunk within the blankets and pillows and to rest for as long as she felt tired.
And Altair felt completely exhausted, even when she just woke up. Her mind was groggy and her eyes felt strained. Her body felt heavy and unresponsive. The headache she felt earlier was gone but, in its place, was a weighty weariness that seemed to encompass her entire being.
She gladly accepted the beds offer and went right back to sleep.
This didn't cause much of a problem amongst the maids and servants of the home. They have had some experience in this aspect before when Marissa or Serius would drop off someone who was overly tired, hungry, or just in poor health. The first time it happened had worried them, but the subsequent times weren't as alarming until they finally treated it as normal.
They had already changed Altair into some pajamas and underwear after washing her clean while she had slept. They treated her abrupt way of passing out when she arrived as relief. After all, her condition seemed to be normal when she slept. There was nothing strange about it at the time.
But those thoughts started to be concerned when Altair had been asleep for twenty hours with no signs of waking at all. The only time she opened her eyes was when she got her first shot, and that was six hours after she went to sleep the first time. Even when they attempted to wake her up at that point, she didn't so much as stir in her sleep.
It was like she was in a coma.
In truth, Altair was indeed dead to the world around her. The thick Mana permeating the air that only Altair could see was like a drug to her. That drug kept her mind in a near constant state of intoxication. It was like she had been completely smashed from drinking too much alcohol. There was no waking her up.
Her body couldn't burn or Mana without her actively choosing to do so. With all of the Mana she was taking in, it had literally nowhere to go. It settled in her body and kept her warm, relaxed, and tired.
Of course, that didn't mean it stayed in her system permanently. It would naturally dissipate within her body over time. But the problem was there was too much of it in the air, so Altair would just continue to be dead to the world.
Once the twenty four hour mark was hit and Altair was still unconscious, the steward of vacation home, Din, summoned a doctor to check her condition. It wouldn't be good for them at all for Altair to perish from a lack of food or some other illness they were unaware of as they ignored her and the way she slept all the time.
The other servants of the house were in agreement. Naturally, they did not do so without first sending word to Marissa, who was under house arrest with her brother, but they got no response. Since they got no response from her, due to her being locked up by the Emperor, they had no choice but to take matters into their own hands and call up a doctor.
The doctor they summoned was a royal doctor who worked for the royal family for years, so secrecy was guaranteed. But the results he gave them were quite alarming.
To be blunt, the only thing he could figure out was that she seemed to be so intoxicated from alcohol consumption that he stuck around for the next twenty four hours in case some emergency occurred and he had to drain her system. However, when Altair still showed no signs of waking up and continued to be completely dead to the world, even the doctor was baffled.
Obviously, if she was so drunk then it would have faded over time to matter how much a person had consumed.
This caused him to question to the servants after the fifty hour mark of Altair being unconscious. He found out that the only time she woke up was when she got her first vaccination. He then quickly, and wrongly, assumed that the vaccination was spiked with something that would cause this and instantly started to follow the wrong path of tracking down where that vaccination ad been to and everything that went into making it, completely wasting his time for the next week.
Having a body rich and overflowing in Mana for sixty seven hours caused some strange things to occur under the surface. Her body started to become more sensitive to Mana in the environment while also building up a resistance against its effects on her. Since she was basically swimming in Mana, the resistance built up quickly.
The exact effects this had on Altair's body were completely unknown at the time and she didn't even know they had occurred.
Altair just woke up after seventy three hours feeling like she hadn't eaten in days, which was completely true.
The servants of the house immediately moved to prepare an overly nutritious meal for her that Altair's body desperately needed. Due to the royal doctor's complete failure to figure anything out and the fact that he didn't do anything to even ease their minds, they didn't inform him that Altair had woken up. Furthermore, since the doctor had even accused them of giving alcohol to a minor, they proceeded to outright lie to him whenever he called in for a status update.
Effectively, that doctor wound up wasting over a month of his time trying to find the cause to a problem that he was not capable of dealing with.
