5 Mana

It was all very strange for Jordan as he could feel his own second heart beat faster for a second and the mana from his second heart enveloped the heart he ate, that mana devoured the dog´s heart and afterward returned to its place in his second heart when Jordan focused he could feel that his mana capacity probably increased.

"that´s interesting" It looked like he could enhance his power through devouring hearts of mutated animals, with this visit to the pack in the storage room appeared on his notebook.

With the heart eaten Jordan moved on and tried skinning the dog´s but that went very very poorly, with no prior experiences or even vague knowledge on the subject Jordan almost completely destroyed the fur and in the end, not even a bit could be used for anything other than a rug to clean shoes.

What surprised Jordan was that he didn't feel disgusted by butchering the beast, there was a bit of unwillingness he felt when he ate the raw heart but nothing else. ´I am quite sure that I wasn't that calm and collected before.... well... it doesn't hurt to be calm, as long as I can regain some sense of self it should be fine´

With the butchering done Jordan moved on to the fun part, first he ran around in the main hall and tried lifting various crates or punched rolls with fabric, as of now his best weapon were his fist and claws so after boxing he also focused on a weapon such as his new two-handed hammer, Jordan arranged several rolls of fabric as dummies and practiced swinging and hitting the best he could.

Jordan stopped only when the sun was high in the sky, and with heavy breathing and aching muscles moved on, it was time to try out mana.

First Jordan decided to sort the mana training into two categories 1) external like making fire, ice, and so on and 2) internal like physical boost.

For starters, Jordan began with external mana handling as it looked a bit less dangerous, after all, it's better when the mana explodes outside of the body rather than inside.

Even though it was dangerous Jordan felt like a kid in a candy shop, after all, who didn't ever want to control powerful spells, move down mountains with the flick of his wrist and rule the world with magic that could do anything one can think of, but that was the end game, for now making fire and not killing himself in the process will be enough.

Jordan focused as hard as he could and made a strand of mana move from his second heart to his palm and just like that his first experiment failed, he tried many more times before a small blue marble-like floating ball appeared on his hand, sweats started to form on Jordan's forehead as he focused to keep the marble stable but in few second the mana dispersed and disappeared to the air.

Jordan didn't stop and continued, and it took him 3 hours just to move the mana from his center of power to his hand, and yet Jordan was itching to try again, just like that few more hours passed, with every try Jordan gained better control and understanding of mana and finally he managed to form stable mana marble that was floating above Jordan's hand.

With a smile from one ear to the other Jordan began the second phase of forming a spell, Jordan imagined the mana marble changing to a small stable flame and after a while... nothing happened ´is my imagination not enough? what else could be required to make flames?´ with nothing better in mind Jordan thought about fire catching on fire about petrol being ignited and so on and after a while.... big burst of flame came out of the marble and the flame was nearly half a meter tall (1ft 7in)

"fuck fuck fuck!" Jordan stopped focusing but the flames didn't disappear nor did the marble-like it did before instead it looked like the mana from the marble wasn't fully converted and instead functioned as fuel for the flames.

When losing focus didn't help Jordan began to panic a little but the pain from his frying hand kept him focused on the task at hand, "ARG.... What to DO?" with gritted teeth Jordan began to manipulate more mana from his second heart and tried to imagine a force that pushed the marble out of the window, the pain from his slowly cooking hand hindered the task quite a bit so it was by no means easy but few several minutes the Jordan managed to make the marble move away, the flaming marble continued to fly and slowly made its way towards a nearby window, Jordan quickly stood up and opened the window so that the marble could fly out, he doesn't need a fire inside the factory, the marble made its way out of the window and continued to fly up to the sky while the flames were still spitting out of it.

With the threat over Jordan could focus on the fire that was starting in his beard, aside from the beard Jordan´s hairs were also a bit scorched but nothing serious.

With the fires were put out Jordan looked at his hand, several cracks and almost black skin everywhere and of course painful as hell, at least Jordan could see how powerful and dangerous mana truly is.

While cursing and with his right hand burnt to crisp Jordan began to search for some bandages or ointment in the first-aid kit, while he was at it he took all bandages that he found and put them in his backpack, as Jordan bandaged his hand he thought ´I should rest for a bit, I read somewhere that sleep can accelerate regeneration´ with those self-mocking thoughts Jordan decided to rest for a bit, so he sat down on the ground and leaned against a wall.

It was quite weird but even after two days, Jordan felt fine, neither tired nor hungry, just mild headache from all the training and some pain from well… his burned hand.

As Jordan was sitting on the ground he decided to try and sleep for a while but no matter what after he closed his eyes, he just couldn't fall asleep.

When nothing happened for about 30 mins Jordan decided it is time to resume his training, the headache already stopped and it would be good to avert the attention from his burnt hand. The hand still hurt like hell but it was manageable, ´its nothing when compared to the pain when I mutated´

This time it was internal mana´s turn, Jordan was sitting crosslegged on the ground and once again he began to focus on his second heart, and now that his first time blew up to his face Jordan changed his approach, with as small as a possible strand of mana he began to exercise, punch rolls of fabric and so on while also moving the mana to his muscles or left fist, but nothing happened, with great distaste he increased volume of mana and once again started to circulated mana in his body.

The mana moved and send a projection of his body to his head while also moving in circles inside his body, but instead of making him stronger Jordan felt that the mana makes him progressively dizzier, it didn´t take long before Jordan puked everything from his stomach out.

As Jordan puked blue glowing mush weird hunger began to creep inside him. "just great" Jordan took his backpack and started looking for something to eat the whole process was quite complicated as Jordan could only use his left hand to search the backpack for that reason as well he in the end settled for some old bread and washed it down with a whole bottle of water but it didn't help at all, for the first time in his life Jordan felt full and yet still hungry. Luckily after a while, the hunger slowly began to fade but strangely enough, it wasn't because of the food.

Feeling that the food didn't help at all Jordan sat on the ground and another round of focus began, with closed eyes Jordan focused on any changes in his body, in few minutes Jordan could feel how his second heart attracted the mana from the air and then stored it.

´interesting, it looks like my body runs on mana now, no need for food and sleep, that sound almost perfect´ With a score of 1:2 and almost 2 wasted days Jordan made a decision and the decision was that it´s not necessary to figure out the mana right now, instead he should focus on his body and try to increase his strength as much as possible in shortest amount time, mana can wait after he can be sure that he wouldn't have to fight anytime possible.

With that, Jordan had nothing to do, his burned hand healed at amazing speed but it will still at least take half a day to be back in perfect shape, in the end, Jordan decided to shave his beard and cut his hair, Jordan took out a razor blade from his backpack and went to find some mirror.

20 or so small cuts, that was what it took to shave with his left hand, Jordan was glad that he didn't manage to cut his throat, his hair went a bit better and he once again he had short and messy black hairs.

The rest of the day Jordan spend familiarizing with his senses and trying out his abilities such as his claws or horn and when the evening came Jordan took the bandages from his hand, it only took about 20 hours for his hand to heal from medium rare to like never cooked hand, after clenching his healed hand and feeling no pain Jordan decided it was time to go and take care of the pack in the storage room.