Out on the outskirts of Asher’s settlement, a magic vehicle hovered serenely. Inside, Zack stood facing Asher, his form enveloped in crackling lightning, with a complex golden magic circle surrounding his right eye.
Once all the necessary spells were activated, Zack contained the lightning within himself and unleashed his [Hidden Strength], concealing the energy fluctuations, to avoid disrupting his observation. Instantly, the dramatic surges of lightning settled, leaving only a faint glow emanating from Zack’s eye and occasional blue sparks dancing across his skin.
Glancing at the mesmerized Asher, Zack counted down, “We’re starting in 3, 2, 1.” With a wave of his hand, he sent a mana signal to the ship, which swiftly drew in the residual lightning mana inside the room and replaced it with regular mana.
As Zack finished speaking and the mana signal entered the magic vehicle, time seemed to slow to a crawl, the world around him almost frozen in place.
"Huh, feels like old times. Counting on you, buddy," Zack muttered, scanning his surroundings. Then, he shut his left eye and activated his [Eye of Ra], peering into Asher’s body. Outside Asher’s skin, Zack noticed that regular mana was being absorbed more than the lightning residue, despite there still being more lightning mana present.
"Hmm..." Zack focused further, observing the behavior of the regular mana once it entered Asher’s body. What he saw was startling: the cells in Asher’s body eagerly absorbed each mana particle, driving them deep into the cell nuclei. Zack wasn't sure what the cells were up to, but as soon as the particles reached the nuclei, the cells died.
On the other hand, when the cells attempted to capture the mana particles from the lightning residue, there was resistance. Sometimes the cells won, sometimes the lightning residue did, launching an attack on the cell. The difference was, if the cell succeeded and the lightning residue entered, the cell died just like with regular mana. But when the lightning residue prevailed, its aggressiveness seemed to lessen, possibly due to expending energy resisting the cell's control. This resulted in attacks that didn't kill the cell outright, except in rare cases when the lightning residue still had enough energy to do so.
“Huh!?” Zack finally caught onto what was going on with the lightning residue once it got inside Asher’s body. Before, he was just looking at things from a more bird’s-eye view, relying on his mana sense, which didn’t pick up on these details. All he saw was the lightning mana residue wreaking havoc inside the poor kid’s cells and killing them off.
But it turned out the cells themselves were the real culprits, not the lightning residue. In fact, the residue's violent nature actually saved Asher from even more cell deaths. If it had been regular mana, the cells could have easily taken control and caused cells to commit suicide. Zack had no clue what the cells were scheming by driving the particles into their nuclei.
At least now he understood why those raven-haired kids could keep their devil marks in check inside the forbidden zone. Their cells, paired with the lightning's aggression, somehow let them survive in the Lightning Desolation. It was like a double negative making a positive.
But now he needed to figure out what these cells were up to with those mana particles. "Heh, these cells probably think my spells can only peep at cell level. Little do they know, [Eye of Ra] is part of the [God Series] for a reason!" Zack chuckled inwardly. (Note: The cells weren’t actually thinking; this was just Zack's chuunibyou moment.)
"[Eye of Ra] - Extreme Detail!" Zack silently shouted. Instantly, the symbols in his golden right eye spun faster. He felt his vision zooming past cells, past organs, all the way down to the tiniest bits that made up human bodies: DNA!
Then he noticed something intriguing: every time a mana particle entered the cell's nucleus, for just a tiny fraction of a second, the proteins in the DNA rearranged themselves. It was like a signal to the cell, prompting it to change. But before the DNA could stabilize, it crumbled, leading to the cell's demise.
Zack's eyes widened at the sight. "M-Mutation?" he stuttered, almost getting lost in thought. But he snapped out of it, realizing Asher was still struggling. There wasn't much more he could figure out from this, so it was time to wrap up the experiment.
He ended his [Eye of Ra] and signaled the magic vehicle to switch the mana back to lightning residue. Then, he turned off his thought acceleration.
Asher, who had braced himself for pain, was puzzled when Zack switched the concentration back so quickly. It had barely been five seconds since Zack's countdown, and Asher hadn't felt a thing before Zack changed it back. "Uh, Sir Zack, did you forget something?" he asked, looking confused.
Zack grinned at Asher, who was now starting to fill up on the food they'd provided. He tousled Asher's hair and said, "All done. Thanks for your help."
"Huh?" Asher looked shocked, which Zack found amusing.
"What do you want, a longer experiment? Want to feel some pain?" Zack teased, squishing Asher's cheeks. "The beauty standards in this world are unreal, especially for you black-haired kids. Almost all of you could be models." Zack mumbled which Asher couldn’t hear.
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"Noe bud ae you shue ish doe?" Asher replied, his words muffled by Zack's pinch on his cheeks.
"Yeah, go back to Fannie and learn some more magic," Zack replied, releasing Asher's cheeks and giving his head a pat. He ushered Asher out of the magic vehicle and followed him outside. Walking in a different direction, Zack headed back to his dwelling in the settlement, the same house Ivy had shown him when he first arrived.
Both Asher and Lucas had wanted to move Zack to a bigger, fancier house, but he preferred the comfort of his current one. He didn’t need a huge space for his experiments; just a place to jot down notes and study.
Entering his room, he grabbed his notebook and started jotting down his thoughts from today's observation.
"Mana poisoning" was the term he came up with to describe the phenomenon. He felt it was more fitting than what outsiders called it, "Devil Mark".
Mana poisoning, he noted, occurs when the cells in a black-haired person's body eagerly absorb mana and try to use it for cell mutation or evolution by rearranging the DNA. However, the DNA rearrangement seems imperfect, leading to rapid DNA crumbling and eventual cell death.
He then described what he observed, where the violent nature of the lightning mana residue proved beneficial for the kids compared to gentle mana particles. This was because gentle mana particles were more easily controlled by the cells, facilitating their entry into the cells to induce mutation. The deaths of the cells were attributed to failed mutations, rather than the chaotic nature of the mana itself. When viewed broadly, it seemed like the cells were perishing due to the tumultuous mana, as it appeared to be aggressively pulled by the cells, causing them to die upon contact. However, in reality, it was the cells themselves that initiated this process.
So, the only way for these kids to survive was to have some seriously superior mana control, way more than an average wizard apprentice, to override the cells' control. But even that wasn’t a long-term fix, because even a skilled magic apprentice needed to sleep, making them unable to control their mana. So, the other solution was to activate the mana heart in these black-haired kids and stash all their mana in there. The mana heart was like a separate dimension from the physical body, so the cells couldn’t mess with the mana inside it. Then, the magic apprentices could use a magic artifact or a formation to keep mana outside from entering their bodies. That way, there wouldn't be any mana inside their bodies for their cells to control.
Pausing in his writing, Zack couldn't shake off the strangeness of it all. He hadn’t noticed this phenomenon in Fannie's body, even though she was also black-haired like the kids experiencing it. There had to be a trigger, and his gut feeling told him it lay beyond the forbidden zone. The other black-haired kids had exhibited these symptoms during their time outside the forbidden zone.
He still needed the kids' cooperation for further study, but this time, he didn’t want to put them at risk. He had some ideas on how to start investigating, though. His intuition told him that whatever triggered the cells' eagerness to mutate might also be connected to the magic beasts getting stronger and more aggressive. The timing lined up: the magic beasts started evolving around the same time the mana poisoning began appearing on the black-haired kids. Both phenomena involved mutation albeit the kid’s attempts failed.
Considering the widespread symptoms among magic beasts across the continent, the only plausible method of spreading had to be through the air. Water couldn’t travel across the entire continent and spread the symptoms so quickly.
So, Zack decided he'd gather some air samples from outside the forbidden zone and compare them with the air inside. Whatever particles were present outside but not inside could be the cause. After all, Fannie showed no symptoms while inside the zone.
As he closed his notebook, ready to start planning his next experiment, a call came through his badge from the lightning tower. Zack closed his eyes and focused, connecting his consciousness with the badge. ‘Ah, from the lightning tower. Must be an update about the operation,’ he thought.
With a flick of mana, he accepted the call. Instantly, a beam of light projected from the badge, forming the figure of Lady Evangeline, the tower master of the lightning tower.
"Greetings, Sir Zack. I trust you're doing well. I'm calling to report as per your instructions. The magic towers have located the chosen babies. They've dispatched their finest, including their tower masters, to their locations. On our end, we've sent four peak level 1 wizards, Sir Cedric, Sir Archibald, to accompany Lord Gandril and Mystara," Lady Evangeline reported after saluting Zack.
"Alright, proceed with the plan. Remind the other tower masters once again to stick to our original strategy," Zack instructed, settling back into his seat.
"As you command, Sir Zack. I'll see to it right away," Lady Evangeline replied dutifully.
Listening to her response, Zack couldn't help but feel a twinge of discomfort. "Isn't this turning into a full-on leader-subordinate thing? I didn't sign up to be a tower master, yet here I am, giving orders like one."
With a sigh, he added, "Next time, don't report directly to me. Let someone else handle it. And as a tower master yourself, you don't have to follow my instructions. The plan was yours to begin with. I feel kinda bad about all this."
"Understood, Sir Zack," Lady Evangeline replied, sounding every bit like a subordinate. Zack hearing the response was speechless.
"Alright, you can go. Just keep me updated on the situation," Zack said helplessly..
Lady Evangeline bid farewell before the call ended. Zack glanced toward the horizon, in the direction of the presumed location of the chosen babies. "They should be fine. They've got Gandril, Mystara, and the formation," he muttered to himself.
He felt confident that having Gandril and Mystara on the team was sufficient to retrieve the babies, even if all six locations were swarmed by level 3 magic beasts. He owed the confidence from the additional support provided by the lightning tower to the other magic towers: the magic barrier formation. This formation was cooked up by Zack and Sir Cedric, the only level 3 formation masters on the continent, during Zack's advancement to level 3.
Originally, it was part of the setup keeping the walls sturdy in the advancement room. They had modified it to create an independent barrier. This barrier was exceptionally robust, able to hold off the attacks from a level 3 powerhouse for days. It should give each magic tower's crew enough breathing room to handle a level 3 magic beast until Gandril and Mystara arrive to save the day.