Breakthrough (1) - 12

"Crackle!"

As my brain started overheating, I swore that I could hear electricity surging through my ears.

'Get it under control, get it under control, get it under control!'

Yelling inside my mind, I forcibly grabbed the mana and started moving it away from my brain.

"ZZZZIIIIIIIIPPPPPP!"

But, after just a few seconds, it rebounded back into my brain and a crazy amount of pain assaulted me once more.

'Mana in brain = bad.'

How the fuck could I have known that my brain would reject mana?

If I was going to liken my bodily state now to something else, I would say that it was a state very close to that of qi deviation in those murim novels.

Basically, I was dead unless something fortunate happened anytime soon.

'Ah, the eye!'

A flash of inspiration suddenly hit me, as I remembered something from the kid's research.

If I could form it around my eye, then that could work, I think.

After all, the reason people formed it in the dantian was to boost their strength, their heart to boost their endurance, and their brain to boost their intelligence, and those were basically the three places that everyone, regardless of race, put their mana hearts.

But, for me, I was definitely different, and I also had to save myself from certain death right now.

You see, back in my first life, I had made my mana heart in my dantian, the safest of places, and the place that most "kindlings" chose to put their mana heart.

In this life, I had chosen to put my mana heart in the riskiest of places, for more reasons than 100, but to me, the benefits had outweighed the harms.

But now, I was definitely regretting this decision.

Yet, because I had already done it, I could only try and salvage the situation.

So, with all these advanced mana theories in my brain, I had conjectured that putting my mana heart in my eye was somewhat of an ok solution, one that I kind of needed to implement right now if I wanted to save my life.

Thus, I went ahead and did it, forming a mana sphere around my eye.

'Come on! This has to work!'

As my mana continued to rage inside my brain, I started channeling more and more of it towards my eye.

Yes, I was channeling it only towards one eye, because I wanted to save my other eye as a back-up, in case something failed once again and I was left with zero eyes to see the world from.

And then, a flash, and nothing more.

Slumping back onto my bed, I just laid there, unmoving, as I breathed raggedly, my mind going over the whole experience once again.

'I almost died.'

But, everything had worked out in the end, as I had successfully formed a mana heart.

Now, it was only a matter of growing my strength, as the space-time around me ebbed and flowed, powered by the heartbeat of this world, with destiny as the waters' guiding light.

...

One Year Later:

I was now eleven years old.

Every day for the past year had basically been copies of that second day that Yuki had been here, with my clinging to Yuki for half the day whilst she called me a pervert, all just so that we could talk together, and then I would go and train by myself for the rest of the time.

I mean, I was a vampire, so I really didn't need to sleep, but did so anyways, to keep suspicion from being cast upon myself.

But, now that I was officially a "kindling", I was supposed to be able to sleep less and less anyways, and so I had done just that.

Oh yeah, if you were wondering what a "kindling" was, in layman terms, they were just awakeners, but the kid had wanted a unique term for the people in the world that he wrote, so he had used the word "kindling" instead.

And, although "kindling" was a term that could describe any awakener, regardless of whether they were a mage of a knight, there were further distinctions within.

For people who put their mana heart in their dantian, which were mostly knights, they would be called "cinders".

For people who put their mana heart in their heart, which was a pretty even mix between mages and knights, they would be called "coals".

For people who put their mana heart in their brains, which were mostly mages, they would be called "ashes".

Those were the three subdivisions within the kindlings, and thus, most people would differentiate others using these three terms.

Obviously, this would lead to conversations such as the following:

"Oh, hi! Are you a cinder?"

"No, I'm an ash."

"So a mage?"

"Yes."

"..."

I don't know why the kid made it like this, because basically, you would still have to ask a person if they were either a knight or mage in the end, but yeah, that was the way this world worked.

But now, to the problem, I was a person that fit in none of these categories.

I mean, regular people, non kindlers, were called "smoke", so I could be put into this category, as I was technically not a kindler due to my mana heart being in an entirely novel place.

Yet, there did exist a category that I could be placed into.

"Zephyr."

A category made up of irregulars, kindlers that couldn't be placed in the traditional three categories.

Most of the ones in this category were in fact, not kindlers, because they hadn't awakened mana, but had somehow surpassed all human limitations by themselves, and had become monsters in their own right.

Of course, there were also many demigods who were sorted into this category too due to them not using mana as their main energy source, but I would elaborate on that later.

Back to the main topic of discussion, what I was trying to say was that I would most likely be classified as a Zephyr once people stronger than me started observing me.

I just hoped that their attentions would be placed on my sister, as she continued to grow stronger, day by day, at an astonishing rate that had never seen before.

She was the rising star of this generation, no, of all of humanity, as she eclipsed all that had come before and after.

All except for one.

"Young Master, you must attend the Youth Gathering in two weeks."

"I presume that the Young Master of the Zeniths will also be there?"

"Yes."

Hearing this name, I could only sigh, remembering his face as he looked grimly at me in my first life.

That face would forever be etched into my memory.

After all, he was the one.

He was why my sister would never be hailed as the greatest.

You see, she was truly the greatest.

All except for the protagonist.