Chương 9: Null Syndrome

"Jonny!"

"Tommy…" Jonny gave the other boy a grumpy side-eye before turning back to his breakfast.

"Lucy says you're gonna be in the big kid classes now!" said Tommy.

"Yeah. And?"

"That means we'll be together again!"

"Oh boy…"

"I can show you all about magic," said Tommy confidently.

"Abbess Helen says I'm a progidy! I already cast my first spell! Watch this!"

"Tommy!" said a sharp voice from across the room. Jonny turned to see Sister Lucy watching the two of them like a hawk. Beside him, Tommy was cowed, wilting back and lowering the hand he had raised. Then, a few seconds later, he leaned over to whisper in Jonny's ear.

"Look under the table." A drop of saliva flew from Tommy's mouth, hitting Jonny right in the ear. Jonny raised a hand to wipe it off, and a moment later, a shadow fell over the both of them. It was Sister Lucy, somehow having crossed the room in just a few seconds, and was now standing over them and wearing her "if you don't do what I say, you're in trouble" smile.

"Tommy," she said sweetly.

"I know you weren't about to use magic at the breakfast table, right?"

"R– Right!" said Tommy, raising his hand back up and resting it beside his bowl of porridge.

"That's what I thought," said Lucy.

"After all, using magic at the breakfast table is against the rules, and if you get caught doing it, you'll be on dish duty." Tommy's face paled. Dish duty was his nemesis, and he would do anything to get out of it. He had even gone as far as bribing other kids with shiny rocks he found in order to take over dish duty for him. Jonny wasn't sure why he hated it so much, but he couldn't help but smirk a little. Serves you right.

"I understand!" said Tommy, nodding frantically.

"Of course you do," said Lucy.

"I just wanted to check." With that, she walked away, and a few seconds later, Tommy leaned in again.

"I'll show you later," he whispered. Jonny wiped more saliva from his ear and returned his attention to his porridge. Tommy continued to babble about something else—food, probably—until mealtime was over, and the nuns corralled all the kids to their destinations. The younger kids went back to the play room, where Jonny would normally have started his workout, while the older kids were taken down the hall to the classrooms.

"Older" was, of course, relative. They were all still kids to Jonny. The oldest of them was only 11, and most of them were between six and eight. Most of the kids were adopted sometime after turning five, and the ones who didn't "graduated" to a special boarding school orphanage when they turned 12. Jonny was somewhat looking forward to potentially getting adopted, actually, since it would at least have him out of the orphanage. The Sisters were fine, but being surrounded by kids all day every day was pure torture.

At least if he got adopted, he would, at most, be surrounded by only a few kids, and he would probably be able to see a bit more of the world. But that was something for future Jonny to worry about. The next Adoption Day wasn't for another two months, and he had more pressing matters, like learning magic. They said I couldn't use magic, but look at me now, he thought. I opened my inner eye on my second try! I can cast a little spell!

When they reached the classroom, only the youngest of the older kids entered, which included both Jonny and Tommy. Abbess Helen was already present inside, as were the Margarets, while Lucy and the other nuns took the older big kids over to the next classroom. As they walked in, Jonny looked up at the Abbess and the other nuns, and found that all three were looking at him. An ominous chill went down his spine, but he brushed it aside. It's probably just 'cause I'm the newest one.

"Alright kids," said Abbess Helen with a smile.

"You all know the drill. Let's all have a good practice today." The kids all cheered, then scattered around the room. Some found secluded spots to do what looked a bit like meditation, while others held out their hands and concentrated so hard their faces started turning red. Most, however, went straight toward a shelf on the side of the room piled high with various games. Wait… thought Jonny. Is this just another play room?

"Do you want to play with them?" said a voice in his ear. Jonny flinched and looked up to see one of the Margarets crouching down behind him. Margaret #1, he thought.

"No," said Jonny.

"They're games to help train the mind," continued Margaret, ignoring him.

"It might look like they're just playing around, but all those games are designed specifically to help train parts of the mind responsible for spellcasting. Even if you're not actively practicing your magic, you can still get better at it while having fun.

"But for now, I'm going to teach you how to use your mana. Or at least, how to try to use it. It will be hard to do, but that's what this practice time is for. Now, let's head over there so we can get started." Margaret #1 led Jonny over to the corner, where there was a small desk set up to face a blackboard on the wall. Jonny sat in the desk, while she grabbed a piece of chalk from the ledge, and started writing as she spoke.

The first part of her lecture just went over the basics, about how mana was everywhere and how it flowed through everything, and made magic happen. It was the same stuff that Helen had said the day before, but more verbose, and Jonny almost found himself zoning out until she said something that made him perk up. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Living creatures all process mana as well," she said.

"They absorb it from the atmosphere, and it flows all throughout their body, passing through their core before leaking back out. That's what you do too! You remember how to feel mana with your inner eye, right?" Jonny nodded, but he also frowned. He was pretty sure that his mana didn't leak back out, and also that it didn't naturally absorb mana from the atmosphere either. Was it supposed to? Was that how other mages got more? Was that why the doctor had said he would never be able to use magic?

"Now, I want you to close your eyes, and feel your mana again," continued Margaret #1.

"Feel it flowing through, and how new mana enters, and old mana leaves." Jonny did as he was told, but he did not find what he should have. Just like every other time he checked, his mana swirled around within him, passing through what he assumed was his core right behind his navel, but it never left, and no new mana entered his system.

He watched for a few minutes, just to make sure he wasn't missing it, but no matter how hard he focused, or where on his body he checked, the mana never seemed to be able to get past his skin. It was like there was an invisible barrier separating his body from the rest of the world. When he opened his eyes, he saw Margaret #1 looking at him with an expression of deep concern. He felt gazes on the back of his head, and when he turned, he saw that Margaret #2 and Helen were also paying attention to him.

They knew this would happen, he realized.

"I can't sense it," he said.

"Your mana?" asked Margaret.

"My body's not absorbing it or releasing it."

"Ah…" said Margaret.

"Are you sure? Not even a little bit? Do you want to check again?" He was half-tempted to accept her offer to check again, but he knew it would be no use. Denial was a waste of time. He had learned that lesson in his previous life when he ignored a pain in his leg, telling himself it was just muscle soreness, only for it to turn into a nearly career-ending problem. Ignoring something like this or lying about it was bound to end poorly. It was better to face the truth so he could deal with it.

"Not even a little bit," he confirmed. Margaret turned her gaze past him, and a moment later, a pair of shuffling footsteps told Jonny that Helen had arrived. She didn't say anything at first, but she must have asked a silent question, because Margaret #1 nodded while wearing a sorrowful expression.

"Jonny, come with me for a moment," said Helen, placing a hand on his shoulder. Silently, he followed her toward the door, ignoring the looks the other kids were giving him. Well, trying to ignore. When he passed by Tommy, he couldn't help but make eye contact, and saw the other boy looking shocked, and even a little sad, as if he could sense the gravity of the situation. Why are you the one who's sad, dumbass? thought Jonny.

Rather than going to another classroom, Helen instead led him back the way they had come, then to the opposite side of the orphanage, where her office was located. Jonny had actually never been in that room, so he took a moment to look around when he entered. It reminded him a bit of his high school principal's office, which he had seen quite a few times for reasons only partially his fault.

There was a large, L-shaped, wooden desk in the far corner of the room, piled high with papers and books, with only a small spot clear in front of the chair. One of the walls was lined with bookshelves, but rather than history or fiction like the orphanage's library, these books all seemed to be related to the orphanage itself. Ledgers, blueprints, and stacks and stacks of papers that probably had important business stuff on them. The other walls were covered in art.

Not fancy art, but art that was clearly drawn by the children of the orphanage. They were universally low-quality, and some of them were downright unintelligible, but the contrast between them and the business-related items on the other half of the room made the whole place feel weird.

"Have a seat," said Helen, gesturing toward a chair in front of her desk. Jonny did so, and the old woman walked around behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He felt her mana enter him, but this time, instead of infusing into his body, it was structured, and stayed attacked to her hands. It was like tiny mana worms were swimming around inside him, and it was profoundly uncomfortable.

"This mana within you," she said.

"It's all the mana I gave you yesterday."

"Yeah."

"That's not how it's supposed to be."

"Yeah." She was silent for a few seconds, then the tendrils retracted, and she walked back around to sit on the other side of the desk. Jonny was still quite small, and Helen wasn't exactly tall, so she had to clear some of her papers so they could see each other. Jonny knew that she was not about to give him any kind of good news, but for some reason, she seemed sadder than he was. Maybe it was because he had already long ago accepted that he couldn't use magic that this didn't affect him as much.

"Jonny," she said.

"I'm not sure how to tell you this…" She trailed off, looking down as she searched for the words.

"I can't use magic?" Jonny offered. She looked up at him sharply.

"You don't seem surprised. You already knew?"

"Uhhh… Well… I thought it was kinda weird that the mana wasn't cyclin' through like it was supposed to."

"I see," she said.

"I always forget how insightful children can be. But you are correct. You cannot use magic. I believe you have an extremely rare condition known as Null Syndrome. Your body is not capable of naturally absorbing and releasing mana. You can hold mana within you, and your body can process it, but without being able to release it, you will never be able to cast any spells, and without being able to absorb it, the only mana you can ever have will be mana that is donated from others."

Jonny had had suspicions, but hearing her say it all out loud like that still didn't feel great. In a world where everyone else could use magic, he was basically a cripple. He would never be able to make those fireworks that his father made. He wouldn't be able to fly around on a broomstick, or make things float with his mind. And he would never be as good as Tommy… But so what? he told himself. So what if he couldn't use magic. He had never been able to use magic, and he got by just fine before.

Besides, he wasn't sure it was quite as hopeless as Helen made it sound. After all, he was much stronger when he had mana in his body. He could probably use that for something, right? If he could just figure out how to get his own mana, he could get plenty strong. Who needs spells anyway? All I ever needed was my body.

"I'm still gonna be the strongest," he declared.

"Even if I can't use magic, I'm gonna get strong." Abbess Helen maintained her melancholy expression for a few seconds, then broke out into a smile.

"I'm glad to see you're still being yourself, at least," she said.

"But if you ever need to talk to someone, I, or any of the other Sisters here would be happy."

"I'll be fine."

"And in the meantime, I'll look around for answers. Null Syndrome is rare enough that no one knows much about it. I still have some connections in the capital, so I'll see if any of them know anything about it. Maybe there's a cure that I don't know about. Or at least, a way to get around it." Jonny nodded.

"For now, I'll see if I can find a suitable internal mana technique instructor."

"Internal mana technique?"

"Spells that only work inside your body. Strengthening, healing, and other things like that. Most people don't bother with them, since they can be dangerous, but for you, they might be your only option if you want to do anything magical. Of course, that's only if you want to. If you don't–""I want to!" said Jonny.

"Is that like punching magic?" Helen suppressed a smirk.

"Yes, it's like punching magic."

"I wanna learn that!"

"Then I'll look for an instructor. For now, let's head back to the classroom, and I'll show you some techniques you can use to get a feel for manipulating your mana."

"Okay!" So there's punching magic, thought Jonny excitedly. And it's magic that I can still use! So all I need to do is figure out how to get mana on my own, and I'm back in business! Let's fucking go!