3 Defective Physique Isn't So Defective After All

Sitting, I meditated as heavily as I could. I'd been onto something last night and the night before that...and the night before that--the past few weeks I'd been close to something.

What exactly? I have no clue. But I can feel it - that I'm close to finding something.

So, I delved deeper and deeper into my meditation. I employed every lesson I'd learnt over the past years and I pushed further into the Zen state I was looking for. Meditation was usually pretty hard for me. I was either too antsy or too emotional - I'm neither someone who's completely calm or someone who can settle down very easily.

But unlike all the last times, I was backed by curiosity and determination. Because last time I'd gained a glimpse of whatever I was feeling.

A flash of green and blue deep inside me.

According to Gramps, being able to see that means I'm getting to a decently good level in my Senjutsu. What I was seeing was my flow of energy and my life force. No where near controlling it or using it for Touki...but a sizeable leap.

But what had me so curious was that blue flash. Green was to be expected - that was my Ki. But blue...? A part of me was somewhat on edge because I was pretty sure on what it could possibly be. Yet at the same time, I was in denial because if that were the truth, it would mean I was abandoned for no reason.

Finally, I seemed to break through some sort of film of darkness and even though my eyes were closed...my vision was full of colors. I could see the Ki in the things surrounding me and I knew I'd have a major breakthrough in my Senjutsu. A pretty big breakthrough considering I'd only been training for the past year. Apparently it took most humans ten or so years to reach this level - but that's just your average, every-day humans. Can't let myself get a big head due to this small achievement.

Composing myself, I turned this new energy sense inward, toward myself and looked inside my body at my flow of energy.

What I saw instantly took the spirit out of me.

...I was as defective as they said, 'So...they were right to abandon me,' I said, feeling some semblance of sadness at the fact I truly was a cripple before I snapped myself out of it, 'Bah! Who needs magic when I have--Wait,' I stopped myself from thinking as I zoomed in on the mana slowly seeping through my body...and more importantly, '...My muscles.'

Instantly, I began to watch the mana interact with my muscles and body as it passed through them. I could see my body with perfect clarity and I could see the mana...washing the muscles. Refining their purity and their quality...'The mana I'm losing isn't just fading away harmlessly but it's instead interacting with my body and improving it? But why?'

My answer came in the form of my Ki as it was flowing through my body.

You see, Ki, when it flows through your body parts of it break off and fade through your body. This is what aging is. When you lose a bit of Ki, you lose a second of your life, and all those seconds eventually add up.

...But my Ki couldn't escape my body. It was stuck and even when Ki broke off from the main flow, it couldn't leave and it had no place to go. So it was absorbed by my cells. My muscles and my bones and my organs and my nerves. All of them had a feast on the leftover Ki.

And this had mutated my body. As soon as I was born, I was born with two defects. One, I can't contain mana which effectively means I don't have any mana. And two, I can't project Ki outside of my body. Either one of them on their own would've just made me a cripple - one more so than the other but a cripple nonetheless.

Yet put together...and I'd been blessed with some sort of mutated physique.

The Ki mutated my cells to absorb energy made inside my body, it would seem, as I wasn't getting naturally stronger off of absorbing the surrounding heat energy or Ki.

No, the energy absorbing properties of my cells was focused around my own mana and excess Ki.

So, every day, alongside my physical training, my muscles were being mutated and empowered by my mana and Ki...'That would seem to be the reason for the fact I have no limiter on my muscular strength and why my muscle quality and arrangement are so abnormally good,' I mused to myself as I watched the energies go into my cells. Mana would purify and refine them before leaving my body while Ki would simply enter the cell and make it more vigorous while also powering it more than something like nutrition ever could.

But all of this brought the biggest question yet: 'How come gramps hasn't spoken to me about this yet? After all, there's no way his Senjutsu doesn't allow him to see the peculiarities of my cells...right?'

Such a question only brought more questions along and for once I was actually hoping I could just go back to having naturally super strong muscles. At least then I could be considered relatively normal. Right now I'm practically a mutant...and I really don't want some weird ass scientist to figure out what's special about me and try to do experiments on me.

Granted they'd need a sizable amount of power to do that...but you can never be too safe.

Coming out of my meditation, I rubbed my eyes a little before standing up and walking off toward wherever gramps is. I needed to ask some questions and I'd rather not try and rely on myself too much when I have so much help readily available.

That didn't mean I'd show all the cards I have...but I'd just ask some questions as to not find myself caught with my pants down.

Like if people can see how my Ki and Mana interact with my body. If they can...well, I need to get stronger and quicker.

. . .

"So you mean to say that what my muscles does with Ki has been seen before?" I asked, incredulously. In reply to my disbelief, Gramps gave a smile before nodding.

"Yep," he answered simply, downing some medicine before continuing, "What? Did you think you were unique and something never seen before, Ban? Come on, son, I've taught you to be less narcissistic than that," he let out a mighty laugh that boomed through the surroundings before he finally came to a stop and continued, "Usually it happens once in a while and it gives birth to especially strong humans if they follow the path of Senjutsu...but it comes at a cost," he let out a sigh, "The mutations caused by the Ki...aren't always beneficial."

What he said made me go pale in the face, 'Had I seen anything wrong with my body earlier??' I rapidly went through my memory of my body's health and flow of energy, looking for anything that looked off or went against Gramps' teachings. But there wasn't anything out of the ordinary and that caused me to unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

A sigh gramps caught and smiled at, "Relieved that nothings mutated badly in you?" he asked before ruffling my hair, "Me too, Ban. Me too," he smiled happily and curiously as he kept speaking, "Despite having been alive with this 'defective' physique for 12 years, Ban...you've not once had a negative mutation. Well, aside from the no limiters that has led to overworking old Kyo a little!" he gave a laugh before it devolved into a cough. I looked at him, activating my Senjutsu and I saw his flow of life and it looked...weak. I felt a like I had a lump in my throat as I watched the man who'd raised me in this life.

Hell, he'd saved me when that crazy fucker who called himself my uncle tried to stomp me out as a baby. Without this old monk in front of me...I'd probably be in much worse condition and in a much worse scenario.

But death...is a natural part of life. At least for gramps it is. He's getting old. He's not been poisoned and he's not feeling the after effects of some age-old injury he got in his youth.

He's just an old man and his time to rest is coming.

It doesn't make his death any less sad to me but it does help me swallow the very bitter pill his death is to me. At least he's had his time...and from what he's told me, he's been about for long enough already. Well, that's what he says anyway.

Clearing my head a little, I decided to ask another question, "...Then what about mana? Does that affect the body passively or anything?"

Gramps slowly stopped coughing and after clearing his throat a little and downing some more medicinal tea, he answered my question while stroking his bushy white beard, "In normal amounts...no, not really. You'd need tremendous amounts of mana for it to start affecting the body passively. The only way people can use Body Strengthening Magic is because it has all those calculations and mumbo jumbo in it that amplifies the mana's effect on the body."

"Huh..." I replied, something dawning on me as he said this, which caused me ask one last question, "Gramps, what's the average amount of mana a human will emit?"

A bushy white eyebrow raised, gramps seemed to go into thought before I felt a new energy being exuded by him. It seems that not only is gramps able to exude Ki but also Mana and he's also able to suppress it when he wants.

"This is around average for a normal person...and yours Ban, is quite a bit below average," he gave a sad smile as his mana stopped being exuded and went back into it's suppressed state, "But worry not, your mana capacity doesn't matter too much because your Ki amount is incredibly high for your age!" he smiled wide, all semblance of sadness and pity wiped off of his face. Meanwhile, I wasn't exactly sad...just confused.

'What's gramps on about?' I thought, confused about what he'd just said, 'My mana amount is below average...yet the mana he released is so much less than the mana that's produced...inside my body...Oh,' I came to a stark realization.

The Ki wasn't causing any negative mutations that would give me the magical form of tumors...because I had such a tremendous amount of mana. But that tremendous amount of mana was spent on working together with my Ki and stopping bad mutations...which causes my overall mana output to be very below average.

It's not that I'm below average in terms of amount...it's that my body just needs so much of it to stop negative mutations and to support the growth of the positive mutations that the leftover mana is as small as a single percent of my original amount of mana.

My mana amount when it's created inside my body is to such an amount that it can passively effect my body. That's the reason I haven't had any life-threatening mutations. That's the reason why my good mutations are so monstrously good and that's why they keep on getting better.

...Holy shit.