Chương 62: Working Too Hard Can Give You A Heart Attack-ack-ack-ack-ack

Jonny woke up back in the mana well in his fur bed. Igrette was leaning against the stone table, scratching Charles under the chin. She did not seem particularly surprised or concerned when she saw Jonny moving, and Jonny wasn't in any pain, so he slowly sat up and stood up from the pile of furs.

"How are you feeling?" asked Igrette. Jonny looked down at his body, trying to sense if anything was wrong, but he felt perfectly fine. Better than fine, actually. He felt like he had just gotten a very good night's sleep after a moderately intense workout.

"Good?" he said, confused. He remembered what had happened before he passed out. At the time, he almost felt like he was dying. It was not the type of thing he felt he should have recovered from so quickly. Unless it wasn't quick at all…

"How long was I asleep?"

"Six hours or so," said Igrette.

"Your body recovered quickly once it calmed down. I'm no healer, but I don't think there will be any lasting damage. As long as you take it easy for the next few days, that is."

"What…? What even happened?"

"Your heart got overworked trying to keep up with your body," said Igrette, as if that wasn't something to be worried about.

"I suspected something like that might happen."

"You did?"

"The heart is one of the body's more delicate organs, when it comes to mana capacity. It does not respond to mana as quickly, and is usually one of the main limiters on growth of internal mana practitioners. Yours in particular is under even further strain because your second layer mana courses through your entire body, instead of being concentrated near your core. It has been struggling to keep pace with the rest of your body for over a year now, and has been the main limiter on you reaching second layer."

"Yeah, I guess… So it's normal, then?"

"I have no idea," she said.

"I've never really seen a body like yours. I'm no Helen, but I took a look inside while you were unconscious to make sure there was no damage. Your heart seemed ordinary—very strong, actually—but out of curiosity, I also took a look at your lungs, and they are… not ordinary. I wouldn't call them inhuman… but they're certainly not the same as mine." Jonny frowned.

"But my heart isn't?"

"I am not sure if your heart is. You said that it was a mana surge in your lungs that changed them, right?"

"So you're saying that I should do the same to my heart?"

"Absolutely not! And I doubt you should have done it with your lungs either. Who knows what you actually did there? What I'm saying is that my understanding of what is happening in your body is incomplete. It's clear at this point that Nulls are fundamentally different from ordinary people, and I cannot say anything about your heart with any kind of certainty. Perhaps it's normal. Perhaps you are missing something. I have no way of knowing."

"Hmmmm…" He used his mana sense to feel around his heart. It didn't feel weird to him. It didn't feel injured either, which was good, but now that Igrette had brought it up, she had a very good point. His lungs had been normal, but then they later changed, allowing him to breathe mana. What if his heart was the same?

"I think you might be right," he said. Igrette nodded, and Charles leaned in, tilting his head so that she would scratch the side instead of the chin. Igrette obliged, paying more attention to him than Jonny.

"For now, you should take things slow," she said without looking up.

"Rest for today and tomorrow, then start slowly ramping up your activity. Keep an eye on your heart, and don't let things get out of hand. See if you can glean some kind of insight. Because right now, it is very strong for your age, and is growing stronger at a rate that would have allowed you to progress extremely quickly. But if even that pace isn't enough to keep up with your mana, then we should strongly consider other options."

"Right," said Jonny.

"That sounds good."

"Do you recall that first time I took you to the stone circle, and you tried breathing in the mana, but it didn't work?"

"Yeah?"

"You had some kind of intuitive understanding that something was supposed to be happening, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, the breathing felt good, even if my lungs couldn't absorb the mana yet."

"Pay attention to your heart and see if you ever feel anything similar. Your instincts are our strongest tool here, since we have no precedent to fall back on. Well…" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Jonny waited for her to continue her thought, but she never did.

"What is it?" he prompted.

"It's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing."

"It's nothing," she said.

"Nothing worth thinking about anyways."

"Now I'm curious, though."

"I might tell you later," she said, shaking her head.

"I don't want to set any kind of expectations, though, or taint your perspective. For now, just focus on recovering and building up your activity, and following your instincts." Jonny narrowed his eyes at her, but didn't press further. Igrette rarely withheld information from him, but when she did, she usually had a good reason. He'd probably bug her about it later, but he was fine with letting it drop for now. As Igrette suggested, he spent the rest of the day resting.

He did some mana breathing, letting his newly densified mana fill his body repeatedly. Each time, he watched closely as it passed in and out of his heart, both to make sure he wasn't straining it, and to see if he noticed anything unusual. After an hour of this, though, he noticed nothing, and Igrette told him to stop, just to be safe. He spent the rest of the day working with some of the furs and leathers they had collected, trying to make clothes.

Jonny was never a very crafty person, either on Earth or here, but when the fabrics from the orphanage started to wear down too much to be usable, he didn't really have much of a choice. Now, he wouldn't call himself an expert on making clothes out of wild animals, but he had gotten half-decent, if he did say so himself. Currently, he was working on a new pair of underwear for himself.

Underwear was one of the trickiest things to make, since leather and fur weren't very good at being thin and unnoticeable, but he and Igrette had gotten good enough at treating pika pelts that his latest attempts were downright comfortable. At the end of the night, he held up his handiwork. A pair of nearly symmetrical briefs made of two pika pelts and held together with leather cord from a yak Igrette had killed.

It looked a little bit big for the current him, but he had been growing quickly lately, and knew that it would fit well soon, and would become tight after only a few more months. The next day, he spent most of the day working on two shirts for himself, as well as a fox-fur hat. Fox fur was his favorite, when he could get it, but the foxes tended to be smarter than most other animals, and they were faster than he was, so it was very rare that he could get one.

The day after that, he finally got back to exercise, and for the next week, he and Igrette worked closely to try and figure out the issue of his heart. He would go for runs, then sit down to meditate as soon as his heart rate went even slightly beyond a comfortable level, and report what he felt to Igrette. Usually that feeling was not much, but a few times, when he really pushed himself, he would get an odd feeling of elation.

He didn't think much of it at first, since he assumed it was something like adrenaline, or runner's high, and he didn't even bother to mention it to Igrette at first. The moment he did, though she honed in on it, and had him focus more on it. She pushed him to the point that he felt he was teetering on the edge of the danger zone, then once again had him sit down and meditate. Unfortunately, they still didn't figure out much. Jonny got excited when his heart rate went up as he channeled mana through it.

That was about it. It seemed important, but neither of them had the faintest idea what to do about it. They tried intentionally bringing him to that state and staying there, but it was impossible to reach any kind of balance. Either he would slow down, and his heart rate would decrease, or it would just keep climbing, and he would get light headed and pass out.

"Hmmmm…" said Igrette, rubbing Charles' chin as the hawk looked down at Jonny from her shoulder.

"I don't get it," said Jonny, flopping back onto the snow.

"Raising my heart rate feels fun. What's that supposed to mean? Breathing felt good. My heart beating feels fun. Should I do another mana surge?"

"Definitely not," said Igrette. Jonny knew that would be the answer, and he agreed with it, but he also wasn't sure what else he could do. They had so little to work with.

"There might be something we can do…" said Igrette slowly.

"What is it?"

"I have an old acquaintance, from back during the Demon War. He is a genius, but he's also… eccentric. He was in charge of a research project during the war studying people with Null Syndrome. He was of the believe that Nulls have untapped potential, and that they could be powerful warriors, since their bodies respond so well to mana tempering, like yours. The king agreed, and granted him funding, and they sent me to help teach the Nulls combat.

The king eventually cut the project, though, as it produced no results after two years.

"He is still doing research, though. He said it was his life's work. He thought that those with Null Syndrome were actually descendants of some ancient people who were all like that. I don't remember the details, but he was very convinced that there was more to it than just not being able to use magic."

"So you're saying we should go see him?"

"I'm saying we could go see him," she corrected.

"But it would be a risk. They might think we're dead, but I'm not exactly inconspicuous, and neither are you. We could be spotted and we'd have inquisitors on our tail again. But, he might also have some insight into your condition, and have ideas. At the very least, he will be more than willing to shelter us and keep us secret, as long as he gets to study you. As far as I am aware, you are one of a kind in the world." Jonny thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Let's do it then."

"Are you sure?" Igrette asked.

"There's no rush."

"Yeah, but there's no reason to wait, either, right?" he asked, sitting back up.

"You said it yourself. Didn't you say it was gonna take, like, 10 years for me to be ready for third layer at this rate?"

"Something like that."

"Well, that's too long," he said.

"I don't want to be out here for fifty years, just so I can get strong enough to stand on my own. I want to figure this out sooner than later."

"Don't be too impatient," Igrette cautioned.

"You could figure it out on your own. It's only been a little over a week."

"Yeah, but I can figure it out on my own if we head to meet this researcher guy too, right? Besides, I dunno about you, but I want some real food. We haven't had salted meat in four years." Igrette scratched Charles' chin for a few more seconds, then nodded.

"Alright, then," she said.

"Then we'd better start packing up."