Mana

He sat in his room reading his book while the woman where discussing the plan further. 

'So, according to this book, Mana is everywhere, its basically like oxygen. But it seems to use it, you body needs to be born with the pathways to handle it, one wrong move and you can cripple yourself.' He continued reading until an hour went by. 

'Ok,' He closed the book. 'I think I know how mana works now. If you are not born with mana then you need a teacher to help you but the steps sound easy to do myself.' 

The room was quiet, the faint sounds of Luna and Vess's planning session barely reaching his ears. The book lay open in his lap as he reviewed what he learned one last time.

'Simple enough,' he thought, closing his eyes. 'Find the mana in the air. Pull it in. Create pathways.'

He positioned himself cross-legged on the floor, back straight, hands resting on his knees. The book warned about the dangers, but warnings were for the cautious. Luther wasn't cautious, he wanted power.

He began the meditation, focusing on his breathing first.

In. Out. In. Out.

Then he reached out with his senses, trying to feel the mana the book described as floating everywhere around him. At first, there was nothing. Just stillness and his own frustrated breathing.

Then... something. A faint tingle at the edges of his awareness. Like static electricity but more... alive.

'There you are,' he thought with satisfaction. Now came the hard part.

He tried to pull the mana toward him, visualizing it flowing into his body. For several minutes, nothing happened. Then suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed through his chest.

"Gah!" he gasped, eyes flying open. His hand clutched at his shirt. It felt like someone had driven a hot needle into his heart.

'Just the beginning,' he told himself, gritting his teeth. 'Push through it.'

He closed his eyes again and reached for the mana more forcefully this time. The pain returned immediately, spreading through his chest like wildfire. Something warm trickled from his nose. Blood.

His body wasn't built for this. The book was clear - without natural pathways or a teacher's guidance, forcing mana into an unprepared body was dangerous. But he didn't care about danger. 

He cared only about power.

"Come on," he growled through clenched teeth. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he pulled harder, imagining the mana flooding into him.

The pain intensified. Sharp, jagged bolts ran down his arms and legs. His muscles spasmed. More blood leaked from his nose, dripping onto his shirt. His vision blurred, darkening at the edges.

His body was fighting back, rejecting the foreign energy he was forcing into it but he refused to stop. He has never been one to quit. Not when survival was at stake, not when victory was the only acceptable outcome.

'Just you wait,' he thought fiercely. 'I will end you all so called "heroes".'

His arms began to shake. Blood vessels burst in his eyes, turning the whites crimson. His heartbeat became erratic - too fast, then too slow. Warning signals flashed through his consciousness.

Still, he pushed.

"This is fucking crazy," he whispered, blood bubbling between his lips, "I bet the goddess is smiling seeing me in pain like this-"

His body began shutting down. His kidneys burned as if filled with acid. His lungs struggled to draw breath. The mana he managed to pull in wasn't flowing properly - it was tearing through him like shrapnel, destroying tissue as it went.

The book's warnings echoed in his fading consciousness. Without proper channels, mana became a poison. 

Without preparation, it became a weapon turned against its wielder.

His body slumped sideways. The floor felt cool against his cheek. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

'Not... yet... goddammit...' he thought as darkness closed in.

With one final, desperate effort, he reached for the mana again. His body convulsed. Blood poured from his ears, his nose, the corners of his eyes.

In that moment, suspended between consciousness and oblivion, he felt no fear. Only rage and determination.

Only the burning desire to make his enemies suffer.

Then, darkness claimed him completely.

Time lost meaning as he floated in a void between life and death. His body shut down, but something deep within him refused to surrender.

In this space of nothingness, a tiny spark remained. Not hope - he didn't believe in hope. It was something harder, colder. Pure stubborn will.

'Not... done... yet...'

The thought was barely formed, more instinct than conscious decision. Even as his physical form lay broken on the floor, blood pooling around him, his consciousness continued fighting.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. 

Then, from the depths of his fading awareness, he felt something change. The mana that was tearing him apart began to... slow. Not disappearing, but shifting, like a raging river finding a new path after flooding its banks.

Pain still coursed through every cell, but different now. Less chaotic. More... purposeful.

Deep in his chest, a single channel began to form. Not naturally grown like those born with the gift, but forcibly carved through sheer stubborn persistence. Like water wearing down stone over centuries, compressed into moments of agony.

His unconscious body twitched. A finger moved. His breathing, which had all but stopped, resumed in shallow, ragged gasps.

The mana was still destroying him, but slower now. And as it destroyed, it rebuilt. Crude pathways forming where none had existed before.

Blood vessels that had burst began to heal, not perfectly, but enough. His heart steadied its rhythm, one painful beat at a time.

Behind his closed eyelids, something flickered. A faint yellow glow emanated from his skin, almost imperceptible.

His consciousness clawed its way back from the void, dragging itself toward the surface. The first sensation was pain - overwhelming, all-consuming pain. 

But pain meant he was alive.

His eyes cracked open. The room spun violently. He tried to move and immediately regretted it as fresh agony lanced through his limbs.

"Ungh..." The sound that escaped his blood-crusted lips wasn't quite human.

His vision slowly focused on his hand, lying palm-up beside his face. There, in the center of his palm, a tiny yellow light pulsed weakly. It flickered like a candle in a storm, threatening to go out at any moment.

But it didn't go out.

'I... did it...'

The thought brought no joy, only grim satisfaction. His body felt wrong - damaged in ways he couldn't fully comprehend. The crude mana pathways he forced open were unstable, incomplete. Nothing like the natural channels those born with the gift possessed.

But they were there and they were his.

He tried to sit up and failed, collapsing back onto the floor. Blood had dried on his face, his clothes, the wooden boards beneath him. His muscles screamed in protest at even the smallest movement.

This wasn't a victory. Not yet. What he achieved was closer to a stalemate with death.

But for him that was enough. He didn't win but he didn't lost either.

And now, he had mana. Weak, unstable, barely controllable - but there. 

A weapon. 

As consciousness threatened to slip away again, he focused on the tiny yellow light in his palm. It pulsed in time with his labored heartbeat.

'Hahaha, they'll... never see it... coming...'

Darkness claimed him once more, but this time, it wasn't the darkness of approaching death. It was the darkness of exhaustion, of a body demanding rest to rebuild.