Mana Heart

Still in deep meditation, Valen directed the huge amorphous cloud of concentrated mana out of his heart to swallow the tendrils of demonic energy ripping through his veins and mana vessels.

The hostile red mana fought back against the dense cloud of mana and squirmed to escape, but the cloud was too vast and under Valen's deft control, they were quickly subdued.

However such a large mass of non-acclimated mana was certain to rampage.

Valen's body began to heat up as sweat continuously beaded off his skin like he was melting.

Within the struggling amalgamation of mana, Valen specifically drew out the demonic energy to take the lead in the compound of energies.

He slowly began to mold the mana inside out to where a thin red film of demonic energy encased the cloud of mana.

He compressed its form once.

Then again.

The mana's quality was slowly refined as it was drawn back to Valen's heart.

It crawled through his body, pushing the limits of his endurance to manipulate such volatile mana with his poor talent and no mana heart technique.

Valen's clothes were soaked through and his sweat began to form a dark spot around him on his bed.

But Valen couldn't care less, he rlentlesssly compressed and shaped the mana in his body like a possessed artist creating their magnum opus.

He preferred to avoid recalling the memory, but in the future when the Alkan Continent is overrun by demons, his Brightstar Family is fully relinquished of their will and reduced to the mere pawns of one of the ancient demon tribes

Although he was 27 during the time, he was undeniably the trash of the family. He was still on the first star of the [Steel Star Heart] technique and was instantly allocated as their lab rat when he was caught.

They ruthlessly swept through his renowned family of mage knights, how could he stand a single chance as the defective talent?

Not to say that he particularly minded them painting his family's estate with blood, but that was a story for another time.

The memory made him shudder as his body flinched in reflex to the horrifying experiences he went through.

His body was opened, rearranged, removed, put back together, subject to various tortures, everything you could think of and even things you would refuse to think of.

They kept him alive and let him experience all the pain and sensation of having the inside of his body toyed with at the whims of these merciless demons.

Essentially, they experimented on him, resulting in a magically defective human to be able to use demonic energy.

After using a parasite found in the Demon World known as a Devil Leviathan, it burrowed into his body and incubated in his heart.

The demons were amused to find that the larvae of a Devil Leviathan were able to acclimate their host to demonic energy by living in their bodies.

Nesting in their hearts, the larvae would grow to maximum capacity within the heart without impeding function. assisted the heart in pumping blood and fed through the blood's nutrients.

They posses the quality of having a very impressionable mana signature which easily melds with the host, resulting in the acquisition of demonic energy.

However, this was the reason for the decay of Valen's body in his past life. The larvae slowly extracts the vitality of the host and siphons their lifespan.

Once the host inevitably dies either by natural causes or their body giving out after the parasite is unable to prolong its life anymore, it hatches from the hosts corpse as a juvenile monstrosity of the Demon World.

But hopefully Valen could circumvent that horrible fate he would rather kill himself than face again. He would try to emulate the properties of the Devil Leviathan, but with mana instead.

He wasn't hoping for anything too fortunate to happen to him, he was too mature to think the world wanted to help him. But, he at least hoped he was treading in the right direction.

Inventing a mana heart technique was virtually unheard of. Only geniuses of legend… like that deplorable Hero, or monsters with unparalleled talent… also like that Hero, were recorded succeeding.

'I don't even want to think of his name.' Valen scoffed.

However this class of talent almost always forged mana hearts that were shown to have effects beyond the realm of reason.

Valen was hoping for anything above the realm of 'okay' and he figured that since his back was against a wall currently, he might as well roll the dice.

The rumbling cloud contained by demonic energy began to take on the form of a sphere. Slowly, it was evened out and its edges were polished into a smooth surface.

The mana was compacted, as the sphere began to spin.

Valen's masterful application of demonic energy was revealed as he grunted and the ball of mana unraveled into a long winding stream.

The speed of the mana picked up as it gradually gained the form of a demonic serpent. A fin sprouted from its back and circular rows of fangs emerged within its snapping turtle-like beak.

'Haha! Holy shit it's actually working! It seems the years of hosting that dreadful parasite payed off.' Valen inwardly rejoiced.

With the acclimation of his mana with the Devil Leviathan in his previous life, Valen had learned how to manipulate demonic energy in a way that imitate the characteristics of the Larvae's mana.

Valen achieved a feat only a regressor like him could succeed in, as someone who had hosted a Devil Leviathan for years, but is now free

It's speed increased once again as it swam through the veins of Valen's body, rejuvenating all his fatigue.

With a slight pinch, it shot into his heart and curled into a ring, settling into a hibernation within.

A well of heat enveloped Valen's heart as red mana flowed off his body in soft waves.

"HAHAHAHA!" He stood drenched in sweat, but wore a victorious smile.

"Hey, why don't you get us the fuck out of here buddy!?" A voice shouted from Valen's closet.

'Oh , I forgot about them.' He meekly looked out the window and saw that the sun had set while he was meditating.

By the sounds of it, they had been shouting for a while but he was unable to hear them in his trance.

Valen looked down at the picture on his bed with a vacant gaze before hesitantly stashing it into his pocket.

"Alright, I'll let you out!"