02 - Core Technique

Chapter 02 - Core Technique

Written By Dr Armstrong

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Pain.

Alexander was no stranger to pain, he was one of Lady Death's top suitors, after all, and pain was like a side bitch to him.

There are three types of pain.

The first is physical pain, the kind you experience when your skin is pierced, your meat is eaten, your bone shattered, and your blood drank.

The second is emotional pain, the most frequent type of pain experienced by people from first-world countries. Your significant other turns out to be a lover of your brother, your dad leaving you for milk, and your black cat named Summer dying in the peak of summer are perfect examples of emotional pain.

The third, is primordial pain, the type of pain that most people experience only once in their entire lives.

This is the type of pain that could break a person, the pain of having one's manhood chopped off without any anaesthesia, the pain of giving birth and raising your precious child, only for them to end up as an OnlyFans model, the pain of logging into Discord...

Currently, Alexander was feeling a hidden, fourth type of pain that no man from his earth would ever have the chance of experiencing.

Financial Pain.

For he had an unfortunate realization, one that he had made all too late; how could he siphon and absorb Magic Power when he couldn't even perceive it?

Well, he had initially assumed that as an Angel, an inherently spiritual being, that magic sense would be a given ability.

But it wasn't, it seemed the Angels had to learn it from their seniors as none of his talents actually helped in the perception department when it came to magic.

He couldn't just go back on his purchase, but without any way of perceiving the individual particles of magic, his [Siphon Magic] became nothing more than a dud.

So there were little to no options aside from the obvious; creating a skill to sense magic, which would undoubtedly be costly...

—[Create Sense Magic for 11 Karmic Points?]—

Damn, it wasn't nearly as expensive as Alexander would have thought.

'Yes.' He confirmed, and the next second, the world became bright.

Really damn bright.

It wasn't a kaleidoscope or anything like that but for someone who had all of his senses vanish for an extremely extended period, the sudden rush of colours was quite overwhelming.

All of the video games and movies he watched through the system had been transmitted directly through his mind, there were no senses that had been activated, just his mind making a vivid dream or imagination.

But this skill was not one of imagination, it full-on gave him a new sense, a new way to perceive the world...his only way to perceive the world.

The colours...were very bright, overwhelmingly so, but they didn't hurt or sore his eyes.

...He had no eyes, after all.

Instead, they gave him a headache, an intense migraine that would shake even the foundations of the Heavens.

With a pair of eyes, a child could behold the most striking of paintings. With a pair of ears, a rabbit could enjoy the symphonies of nature. With a pair of holes serving as a nose, a dog could be lured in by the aroma of gourmet food. With a tongue, that same dog could taste the single finest meal in its entire canine life.

Aside from the sense of touch, Alexander had none of the 5 senses, nor any of the organs that corresponded with them.

Without eyes, how would one see? It's completely impossible, right?

Well, let's ask this question again, but replace the primary subject...

Without an organ to sense magic, how would one sense magic? It's completely impossible, right?

It should have been impossible, his body had yet to mature to the necessary organs as he was literally still a developing fetus.

But with the power of his bullshit System, it was.

Has anyone ever actually seen an atom? There are diagrams and images of it, visual representations so that students would understand better, but...has anyone ever actually seen a real atom with their naked eye?

Of course, unless you were Antman or the Flash, t'was utter bollocks. Humans could only see objects that reflected light, atoms were much too small for that to even occur in the first place.

They were too small to reflect light...but not too small to reflect magic.

It was bright, so very bright. Everywhere, there was colour...these are atoms, or at least, something close to them.

Alexander could not directly see the individual atoms, but these bright clumps of rainbow light, couldn't be anything else than tiny motes of magic reflected by the atoms.

Magic didn't seem to have a corporeal or defined shape, but they clumped together like clouds of colour, shifting and transforming endlessly. 

These clumps of pure Magic...Mana, Alexander decided to call it, didn't follow gravity at all. Instead of falling like snow, they floated slowly like air, yet didn't follow a pattern as each mote traversed a different path, one that changed every other turn of a second.

Yet unlike the popular norm of unpredictability that the other clumps of Mana followed, there were pure and dense concentrations off in the distance. They weren't shaped like clouds, but rather, a spiral of colour, like a miniature tornado of magic spinning in place.

Alexander had nothing to compare the size of those magical tornadoes to other than himself, and by doing so, he found that they were slightly larger than him, but still small enough to fit inside his egg.

Speaking of his egg, there literally was one inside the egg, right above him. 

It seemed to be going...inside of him? The vortex-tail thingy that extended out of the spiral was descending straight into his body, being slowly absorbed into Alexander's angelic aura...

'It's yolk...my yolk?' That's right, the Mana Spiral turned out to be his yolk. As a spiritual race, what kind of nutrients would an Angel fetus need? 

Pure, unadulterated, fairy jizz—Mana, yeah, he needed Mana...

But if it's yolk, then that means that the other spirals are...those are other eggs! His potential siblings!

That basically confirmed his safety. With how many Angel eggs there were here, there was no way he wasn't in Heaven.

'So I'm really in an egg, huh...? I guess I should call myself Chicken Little...' He had initially debated whether or not he was inside of an egg, or some woman's womb.

He knew from the original novel that Demons bore eggs, most of them, anyway. He didn't expect Angels to do the same, but it made sense considering their rather avian traits.

It seems that his body had already been absorbing Mana from the spiral-cum-yolk all along, though at an extremely sluggish rate.

Too slow, in fact.

'Righto, how should I do this...' The [Siphon Magic] skill should work exactly as he made it, but Alexander was still not quite sure of the exact mechanisms of it.

No one could really blame him, what else was he supposed to do? Magically know how to do magic...?

Considering its magic, probably...?

'Let's just try...' Alexander silently muttered as he reallocated all of his spiritual brain's worth of focus and concentration to the herculean task of somehow moving the Mana.

How does a baby breathe? Does it just instinctively know how to...? Of course, it does. A baby's lungs are filled with unspecified liquids, and upon 5-10 seconds from its emergence into the world, the first breath is usually taken if the infant wishes to live.

Now, a baby figuring out how to breathe is quite literally the easiest task in existence. Just open your mouth, or nose, or whatever hole that use to inhale the oxygen...

But what happens when you don't have any mouth or nose? Or any other hole in that matter...?

That was the problem Alexander had currently faced as when he had made his first skill, he had described the process of siphoning Mana to be akin to simply inhaling oxygen from the atmosphere and or drinking water from a fast-flowing river.

And now, how exactly was he going to accomplish that...?

Well, honestly, as a former renowned fantasy author, Alexander wasted no time figuring that out as he had quickly found a solution within mere seconds of thinking about it.

Worms.

How does something take in oxygen when it doesn't have a nose? There are such creatures on his former earth, a lot of them, actually.

It wasn't just worms...frogs, lungless salamanders, newts, fucking sea urchins. When you round all the skin-breathing creatures in the animal kingdom, you can see that the roster was actually quite expansive.

Using the fabled skin-breathing technique that those mighty beasts employed, Alexander quickly began trying to will the Mana above him to descend upon his form, visualizing it as huge inhalations through his spiritual pores.

It was weird, unusual, trippy. Alexander had never imagined what breathing through his skin would feel like, and the sensation crashed to him like a damn firetruck.

A certain heat began to swell up inside of him, building up into an intense heatwave inside his very body that would have surely made him sweat profusely had he been capable of it.

Alexander felt his world spin, as the radiant Mana flowed through his veins, each strand of the golden yarn that made up his body burning with prismatic energy.

It was overflowing, the Mana was...damn, it was overflowing! Flooding his system! Too much, too much!

Alexander gritted his currently non-existent teeth as he bore the pain, concentrating all of his efforts upon the Manaflow, he tried to will it, to manipulate it into moving.

He couldn't do this to the Mana outside of his body, he tried and it was to no avail.

Yet the moment it entered through his skin, he could feel a strange familiarity with it, as if it belonged to him in a way, a metaphysical part of his very being that couldn't be ignored when one spoke of him.

He didn't seem to need a special skill to manipulate the Mana that was already flowing inside his body. The Mana seem to naturally move inward upon entering him, it was as if it was being sucked by something, pulled closer and closer to his core.

It had to be his Pureheart, the talent wasn't just a racial ability, it was an actual organ inside of his core.

What is the function of a heart? Of course, it was to mainly pump blood and oxygen throughout the body.

The same could be said for an Angel's Pureheart, as its primary function was to pump pure magic throughout the Spiritual Body.

Alexander didn't even need to try at all, it seemed. Humans never needed to actively command the beating of their hearts, and it was naturally the same for the unborn Angel.

But the difference between him and a human was that he could.

Alexander could control and manipulate the flowing Mana in his body, unlike a mortal human of flesh and bone who could not in their wildest dreams control the flow of their crimson blood.

It was second nature, he willed the Mana to spread out throughout his body, filling every nook and cranny of his anatomy with brimming energy as he did so.

The Mana was overflowing, in his blinded thirst, the Angel had accidentally siphoned too much Mana from his yolk.

Having so much Mana in his body wasn't actually a problem at all, he was a spiritual being, after all. But the problem didn't lay in his general anatomy, but in one specific organ; the very same one that pumped his Mana.

His Pureheart could only contain and pump so much Mana in its current, developing state. At this rate...dying of a brutal heart attack even before being born was a terrifyingly possible fate for the Angel.

The only solution to this problem that he could think of was to spread the Mana as much as possible, which was quite hard since all Mana seemed to be attracted to one another.

Really, it's as if they were affected by each other's gravitational pull...

 '...That's it!' Alexander widened his non-existent eyes as he made an enlightening realization.

If the Mana was being pulled towards one another, by some kind of voodoo bullshit gravity, then he'll just have to work with the gravity!

Alexander knew that the Mana wasn't just being pulled to each other, but also to his Pureheart. That meant the organ had the same spiritual gravity that the Mana was operating on...

From this, an idea was formed as the metaphorical light bulb inside of Alexander's angelic brain shone like a neutron star.

Exactly, a star!

Well, not exactly a neutron star...or even a star at all, in that matter. A planet or a large enough rock floating in space would do.

Let's imagine the motes of Mana as rocky space debris, what happens when they get pulled too close to a large object? They are sucked in by the gravity of that object!

If so, why does the moon not fall upon the earth? It is also because of gravity!

If the moon were just a little more distance away, it would escape the cycle of revolution quite easily. Yet if it were any closer, the apocalypse might just come tomorrow.

Yet the moon is precisely the distance away from Earth that it needs to be to stay in its gravitational orbit.

When the gravitational force and speed are just right, a rock in space will not fall into the planet, but instead, around the damn thing.

Alexander planned to reenact this phenomenon with his Manaflow, his Pureheart serving as the metaphorical planet of Saturn and his Mana as its orbital ring.

Alexander concentrated and arranged the Mana into a more linear form, that in the likeness of a shining comet. He then appropriately hurled it straight to his Pureheart and the damn thing was immediately pulled into orbit.

However, the comet entered too fast and ended up crashing into his heart, giving Alexander a stroke of pain as the comet proceeded to bounce off of his heart and back into orbit.

Taking a deep breath of non-existent air, Alexander willed the Mana comet to move and flow around his heart. It was unexpectedly quite easy as the comet began to move on its own, compelled by the gravitational orbit of his heart to start revolving around it.

Alexander let out a breath of satisfaction as he enjoyed the fruits of his labour, the comet hurling around his heart in a circular pattern as a tail of energy was left in its trail, creating a sort of ring around his heart.

[Congratulations.]

[By virtue of your efforts, you have managed to synthesise an ability that could be called a skill without our help. For this outstanding achievement...]

[+10 Karmic Points]

[This skill will be designated as the Asrahan Core Technique, just like the one in your memories.]

[Rejoice.]

'...[Asrahan Core Technique]? The one from The Greatest Estate Developer?" Alexander was pleasantly surprised by the System's announcement.

Not only was he given a few more points to work with, but the announcement also revealed to him the possibility of imitating various skills from all of fiction without the System's help.

As long as it was realistically possible to create that skill independently from the System, it was nine hundred times better to do so!

The downside of that strategy was the lack of customization, but that was a non-issue as he could just edit the skill after its creation. That's not really that bad, right?

Alexander took a deep breath and stopped controlling the flow of Mana in his body, he was exhausted, not only mentally, but also spiritually.

He had prepared a lot for an apocalypse scenario like the one that befell his planet, such a thing was unavoidable when you were not only an avid reader of post-apocalypse fantasy novels, but also an esteemed author of one.

The heads-up from that Armstrong guy really did help for a bit, though it seemed his death was unavoidable...

He's just been ignoring it now, but Alexander had this strange feeling that he was not himself. 

Sure, after the initial realization of his current reincarnated situation, panic was unavoidable, but...he didn't really feel in danger, or afraid in any way.

In fact, he hadn't felt much emotion, boredom wasn't even hitting him in any sort of way even after a year of isolation.

...Which was strange, to say the least.

He felt that something inside of him was gone, null. After death, it was as if the Grim Reaper took something essential from him as a form of recompense for his reincarnation...

It was as if he lacked a Soul, but that's not possible, right? As an Angel, he very much should have a literal Holy Soul...

It wasn't his Soul that had been taken away, it couldn't be. Rather, it's something less spiritual and more...mental.

Was it his personality, had it been altered? Not, really...Alexander didn't feel all that different in that aspect, he was still very much Alexander, just a...

Just not human anymore...

Maybe that's it...it wasn't that something was taken away from him, it was just that his mindset had changed due to the extremely different brain in this new body of his...

Maybe...

Regardless, Alexander's current highest priority was getting out of this top-security prison called his egg.

Now that he was no longer in any mortal danger thanks to his newly acquired Core Technique, Alexander quickly got his shit together again before trying to will his Mana to move once more.

This time, moving the Mana was even more natural and smooth, the same kind of smoothness one could find in a hot slice of butter.

The ring of Mana revolving around his heart was like an auxillary engine beside the main engine that was his Pureheart.

The process of controlling Mana was enhanced thanks to Mana circle.

With this newfound ease of movement, Alexander manipulated some of his Mana to flow into the upper portion of his face, accelerating the growth of that general area.

He felt an intense itchiness strike his face, like a hundreds upon thousand of soldier ants biting his skin.

The sensation was immense, otherworldly, Alexander gritted his teeth as he preserved through the feeling.

It took hours upon hours, but his efforts were rewarded greatly as upon completion; Alexander could finally see with his own eyes.

Well, eye without an S...

His gamble was correct. According to the Spiritual Body's description, Alexander did not grow from age, but from the accumulation of power.

That's fancy language for his body being able to grow if you inject more magic into it.

And by focusing a large amount of his Mana into one spot, his forehead, Alexander was able to grow a singular eye.

He stayed silent for a moment as he observed the interior of his own egg.

Unlike a regular egg, which would be very dark, the inside of this egg was rather well-lit.

It was actually well-lit because of the light emanating out from his body, Alexander realized.

Oddly enough, there wasn't any liquid inside the egg. He was just levitating above the shell with the yolk spiral right above him...

Opening the System, he grimaced at the 3d model of himself as he stared at the distirbingly human-like eye attached to his yarn body.

Well, beggars couldn't be choosers.

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Thoughts?

Do you guys think he is adapting too fast? I don't see it. I mean, he has clear reason to be being an isekai novel author and all.

Do please give your reviews.