Heart of Ember

The commander had brought out his own chair this time, making sure to sit down and watch the show.

Kane quite liked the man's "do what needs to be done" attitude, though not so much what needed to be done.

"You feel anything yet, kid?" The commander asked dryly.

"Not really, I can feel whatever you guys injected me getting closer to my chest, but that's about it."

The man smirked, "Trust me, we'll both know when it starts working."

His words were right on the mark, as a searing pain erupted from Kane's heart. It hurt almost as bad as when he lost his finger.

The commander frowned as Kane clutched his chest, he began instructing Kane to pour Manilium into his chest, though Kane was way ahead of him.

The dense liquid had moved into his heart, spreading itself all over the place and using the artificial mana inside of it to create a barrier for the real mana to fill.

The pain wasn't as bad as it was during the second stage when Kane had no mana to numb it with. About a minute of Kane dumping mana into his heart passed before the liquid merged with the muscles and tissues in his chest, creating a solid passage that mana couldn't leak out of.

There was something different about his core though, it seemed the area was a lot thicker, and produced a natural pulling sensation towards ambient mana, forcing it to unconsciously gather and condense inside of his heart.

"So that's how you guys create the mana channels, that's pretty cool!" Kane gave a thumbs up. The process had eaten up around 1/8th of his mana.

The commander was dumbfounded, "Y-you survived?! To think you could raise your capacity to such an extent without help from the system!"

"I spent a lot of time practicing and experimenting with it," Kane smiled proudly.

"You did? Which affinity do you have? Is it space, like what you used in Ember?" The commander asked urgently.

Kane's smile was replaced by a look of confusion, "Yeah... why?"

The commander pulled his watch up to his face and spoke into it, "Greetings, Northern Governer. We have an anomaly at site A-4, an experiment by the name of 'Kane,' without any help from Ember he's managed to increase his Manilium capacity and survive the third dose. More importantly, we have our second successful space attribute!"

Kane could hear a muffled voice coming out from the seemingly normal watch, "What? That's great news, I'll be over in a few days, start his training and put him in a squad as soon as possible."

"All right, I'll let him know," the district commander hung up, turning to face Kane.

"Come with me kid, let's get you situated here, you're gonna be given the VIP treatment," he enthusiastically laughed.

Kane nodded and followed him down through the hall, the man looked back at him.

"Where did your mark appear?" He questioned.

"Huh? Not quite sure I understand..."

"After the original dose, where did your first mark appear, the starting point for your Manilium veins. They should've popped up over a sensory organ and amplified it," the commander explained.

"Oh! Those, they appeared in my eye sockets," Kane chuckled at the irony.

The commander let out a disappointed smirk and shook his head, "Poor kid, talk about bad luck."

"The real bad luck was getting roped into all this... though I won't deny these powers are pretty cool."

Nearing the end of the hallway, they approached a large room and turned towards yet another passage.

Kane was confident this large facility was all underground, he couldn't tell where though.

Entering yet another room, he was met with his father, running up to hug him with tears rolling down his red face.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I don't know what to do," his dad whispered while sobbing against him.

The man approached him and began speaking, "You'll go home and forget about all of this, your son survived the process, and pretty soon he'll be an icon of the country. We'll take care of your basic financial needs and your son's pay. From one father to another, I'm telling you it's in your best interest to let this happen."

Kane could tell his father was absolutely furious, as he began yelling angrily at the top of his lungs, "F*CK YOU!! A piece of sh*t like you, a father? You make money off of torturing KIDS for f*cks sake. I swear to god you government assholes ar..."

Kane was genuinely surprised, he'd never seen his father get this angry, even back when he was still coping with mom.

"I understand your frustration, but please keep in mind that your son's entire livelihood and future are now tied directly to me, so please choose your next words carefully," The commander calmly threatened.

Kane's dad was seething, but held his tongue, "... Fine, just let me talk to my son for a moment."

"I'm afraid we don't have time for that. He'll be able to leave the facility and visit you on his days off once we've gotten him situated however," the man snapped his fingers, prompting some soldiers to quickly drug Kane's father from behind.

"If you're doing anything other than sending him home, you will never, get my cooperation," Kane said coldly. He refused to turn away from his dad until he got an answer he liked.

"Don't worry kid, that's exactly what we're doing. As long as your pops got the 'no babbling' memo, you can eventually go back to a mostly normal home life with him."

Kane let out a sigh, 'These government types are stressful," Kane wearily thought.

'I know you're reading my mind,' Kane added jussst in case someone here was actually doing that.

Hearing one of the soldiers jump in surprise made Kane jump in surprise as well.

------------

The commander led Kane around the base, first showing him the armory, where he briefly had his measurements taken. An armored black and red suit, similar to the one worn by the 'rank 3' woman, was brought out and fitted on Kane.

Next Kane was taken to the barracks, then a series of meeting rooms for the different squads, and finally, a large training center.

All kinds of fancy equipment and open arena-like spaces filled the stupidly large room, there were even a few people training, just barely managing to use basic spells.

'I wonder if that's the level the newly-made manalites are supposed to be at?'

Kane made a mental note not to show off too much unless it would get him necessary benefits.

The strongest spell Kane could point out in the room was a small barrage of water, hitting a strange crystal wall that seemed to be hooked up to a monitor.

"We're going to need to test your capabilities before we completely decide what to do with you. Hey! Everybody clear out to the side, I'm testing the new guy," He yelled.

Kane looked up at him, "So what do I do exactly?"

"For starters, go up to that crystal wall and use your strongest attack on it, do you know how to fire off mana? Or were you lying about knowing your attribute?" The commander questioned while nudging Kane in the direction of the wall.

Kane scoffed, "Of course I can shoot mana, I'm a 'valuable asset,' remember?"

Recieving a nod from the commander, he faced the wall, immediately becoming shocked by the difference his mana core made.

Rather than using up half of his mana forming the bullet like he'd planned, it only used up 1/20th.

Kane had no clue exactly what the standards were, but figured this would be similar to the other manalites in the room.

Condensing the mana, he pushed it out of his finger tip. Now that all of his body had channels available, mana seemed to flow a bit faster through him, no longer needing to take alternative routes to get where it needed.

And he could draw mana straight from his constantly re-filling core rather than other parts of his body.

The mana bullet struck the wall, creating a small scratch. The number 324 appeared on a monitor shortly after.

"Oh! You'll be a very good asset indeed!" The commander enthused.

"How does my score compare to the regular people who pass the third stage?"

"The average here for new manalites is 270, you just scored 324. You'll definitely be worth investing resources into," he sounded impressed.

Kane was quite happy with himself, he'd stood out enough to possibly gain access to higher quality training and resources, but held back enough to not reveal the freak of nature he apparently was.

From what he could tell, most people who continued playing Ember only trained their mana when they were using it in game, without even realizing it, so their development was painfully slow compared to Kane's.

Those who'd quit the game probably didn't have the natural attunement to begin training consciously, even Kane with his extreme senses and self-awareness could barely figure out how to move his mana.

Thanks to this, and his constant need to experiment and train, he'd far surpassed those at the same stage.

The commander gave a laugh, "I'd say you've already reached the first rank, kid!"

Kane gave another confused look, "What are the ranks exactly?"

"Ah well, you've got rank 0 which would be your civilians, and 0.5 which are people still increasing their Manilium capacities to decent levels. Rank 1 is the first military rank, it's just manalites capable of using decent attacks, rank 2 manalites can put up a fight, rank 3 would be the skilled soldier."

"And?" Kane raised an eyebrow.

"Hold your horses, I'm getting there. Rank 4 are elite soldiers, they've gotta be powerful and knowledgeable about their attribute. Rank 5 are just a level higher than 4 in combat experience and power, and rank 6... that's just anyone who's strength, skill, and so on has a noticeably wide gap between the previous rank."

"Is there a rank 7?"

"Not unless a demi-god is awoken sometime soon. With your potential, I'd say you have the capabilities to make rank 4 at minimum." He put his hand on Kane's shoulder and brought him over to a strange jell cuff.

"Refill your Manilium and let out as much as you can inside this cuff, it's going to measure your output."

Kane had already refilled his mana, but sat down for a minute and pretended to absorb some.

He stuck his hand in the cuff and released about 1/20th of his mana, assuming that was reasonable.

The commander let out a satisfied smile, "296, damn good kid, just awoken and you're already at the peak of rank 1."

Some of the other manalites lining up around the wall let out surprised gasps.

"Looks like you're being grouped up with the talented kids Kane, I'm sure you'll ascend through the rankings pretty quickly."

"Sorry for asking, but what exactly will I be doing? Outside of training and all that," Kane anxiously questioned.

"We'll probably use your group for community service until you've built up some fighting skills. Our plans for you will be disclosed when necessary, and no sooner," He said the last bit rather sharply.

Kane had to remind himself this was still a powerful military hot shot. Being a district commander was no small thing, they were ranked just under segment governers, who were only slightly below the continental leader.

The "Northern Governer" that was mentioned earlier was one of the 4 segment governors in the country, each segment held 3 states with a single district commander each.

All in all, the country had 12 district commanders, 4 regularly elected segment governors who worked in the council, and a single elected continental leader.

Though the segment governors cycled out every 10 years, the role of continental leader held a lifetime service.

Kane naturally had no clue about this, but the district commander in front of him had been a segment governer back in his heyday.

Kane and the man walked over to the barracks, stopping by a door, the commander faced Kane.

"Go meet your squad, you'll be the third and final member. They got the third dose yesterday, but you're only a little behind them, so it should be fine. All in all, these two have shown the most promise in the state."

'So in otherwords, they aren't even close to my level,' Kane chuckled to himself.