Ashen sat alone in a secluded chamber, legs crossed and eyes shut. The metropolis outside remained noisy as ever, but none of it reached him.
Knowing he had to make every moment count if he wanted to grow stronger, he refused to waste these few free days doing nothing. Constant improvement was the name of the game; fail, and death would be the only thing waiting for him.
Today, he was going to finish a project he had started all the way back when Edward buried him beneath that boulder. He was referring to his current mana circulation method…
His awareness was turned inward.
Mana threads spread through his body in impossible detail, mapping every circuit and every branching pathway.
His body lit up in his perception like an enormous network of luminous rivers.
The original center, his heart core, pulsed first.
It was as steady as ever.
'Good. Next is…'
His awareness shifted downward, to the artificial core in his lower abdomen, which responded next.
It was also dense and stable, which was self-evident. This was a masterpiece born from desperation under that boulder after all.
The two cores pulsed in rhythm, one above, one below. But the system had always mocked him with that name.
Incomplete Trinity Harmony.
Back then, to compensate for the damage caused by his ruined circuits, he had created the secondary core in his lower abdomen, where a concentrated cluster of healthy circuits comparable to the one surrounding his heart existed.
That core served as an additional mana reservoir, compensating for his abnormally low mana capacity.
Later, after linking it to the half-functioning core in his heart and integrating the concept of Sloth Efficiency into his mana circulation, the system updated the name of his method to Incomplete Trinity Harmony.
What he planned to do was simple enough: remove the incompleteness and turn it into a fully functional technique.
Ashen's awareness slowly rose upward, toward the third cluster of circuits.
His brain, where the upper vein existed.
'The most dangerous region…'
It was also the region that had once been the most damaged.
Back then, even when he possessed the vampire Primordial, he still couldn't achieve Trinity Circulation, as a vampire's body handled mana in a fundamentally different way.
That race did not even possess proper circuits, relying instead on blood and blood vessels to channel mana—a fact Ashen found deeply unfair to humans.
Even now, despite the healing brought by Blood Origin, this area remained the most complicated and sensitive section of his circuits.
One wrong move and he would either become brain-dead or simply die by exploding his brain.
In any case, after fully restoring his circuits, completing the skill had become theoretically possible, but he still held off, as his circuits had changed far too much.
They had grown sturdier and larger, and in some areas, entirely new circuits had even sprouted. Whenever he found free time, he used it to re-familiarize himself with them while planning how to implement the final core.
Now, he finally felt ready.
Ashen inhaled slowly.
'Don't get nervous… I even brought Seraphine. It's gonna be alright…'
He peeked at the worried nun beside him, and she looked at him worriedly in response.
He didn't lack confidence in what he was about to do next, but not taking precautions would be just plain stupid, no matter how assured he was.
If something went wrong, Seraphine would forcefully keep him alive until he fixed himself to get out of danger. Worst case, she could just drag him toward emergency treatment.
That alone raised the odds from terrible to merely bad.
'Good enough.'
Ashen focused.
The mana threads multiplied. Thousands… millions… billions.
His Somatic Autonomy activated in tandem, and his body entered perfect control. His heartbeat slowed. His breathing became precise.
Sloth Efficiency naturally kicked in right after, and every unnecessary motion disappeared.
The concept of waste vanished.
Ashen began.
*
The first step was not creation, surprisingly. It was demolition. He had to remove old circulation habits.
For years, mana had flowed between two cores, from the heart down to the lower abdomen until that rhythm had become instinct.
Now he had to break it.
The moment he forcibly severed the habitual route, instant discomfort hit.
Mana flow destabilized… the smooth cycle became chaotic… His circuits trembled.
Cold sweat formed on his forehead.
Behind him, Seraphine stiffened.
"Ashen…"
He raised one finger.
'Not yet.'
'Still under control.'
Ashen ignored the discomfort and continued.
The second step began, which was naturally compressing the new core.
He gathered mana near the upper vein.
ssst
'Slowly… carefully… yes… just like that…'
He proceeded at a snail's pace, not daring to make any sudden movements.
After this was not about brute force, a surgery would be a more apt term.
His mana threads became finer and finer until each thread was nearly microscopic.
He layered them carefully.
One spiral, then another, then another… each one faithful to the same Golden angle principle he once applied to the previous cores to maximize heart-core storage.
But this time, the difficulty was absurdly greater. The brain wasn't a passive container.
Now that Ashen had moved beyond theory and started applying his blueprint, he could feel it more and more… the brain was active.
…A little too active for his current method to work properly.
'Of course it is… unlike my other organs, the brain is constantly transmitting and receiving data…'
Constantly processing. Constantly firing. Constantly alive.
All of that activity influenced the mana threads in the region, causing them to shift in response to the signals being propagated.
And thanks to his Mana-Kissed trait, this worked against him.
Now, even something as simple as breathing caused the mana threads near his brain to move involuntarily, assisting the motion like disciplined little soldiers.
'But if they keep moving around like this… how am I supposed to compress the core? And even if I force it… will it remain stable enough…?'
Trying to force a mana core there was like building a fortress in the middle of a battlefield.
Ashen suddenly felt like bashing his own head for overlooking such a massive variable.
A sharp throb spread through his skull.
Pain lanced behind his eyes.
Blood trickled from one nostril.
Beside him, Seraphine's breathing turned shaky. She wanted to ask about his condition… she wanted to do something, anything, to help. Alas, she feared breaking his concentration and making things worse.
So all she could do was fidget beside him in distress.
Even if she had spoken, Ashen wouldn't have answered. His focus had gone far beyond words.
One layer.
Two.
Ten.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Then—
The inevitable happened.
Collapse.
The structure destabilized, and the compressed mana burst outward. Agony exploded through his skull.
Ashen's body jerked violently.
Beside him, Seraphine shot to her feet, her eyes widening in alarm. Even with her limited mana perception, what she was witnessing was utter madness.
'Does he want to turn his own brain into mush…? This crazy—!'
But before she could move, Ashen stabilized.
…Barely.
His breathing turned ragged, pain hammered against his skull like a war drum, yet his eyes slowly opened. And strangely enough, he was smiling.
That smile soon became almost manic, as though he had suddenly grasped a hidden truth of the universe.
'I see.'
That was the answer.
The heart and abdomen cores were containers, but why should the brain also be?
Everything clicked.
Of course.
Of course that was the answer.
'Yes… why cling to building a container? Two is more than enough. As for this one…'
Ashen let out a quiet laugh. 'Let's build something more… custom-made.'
Beside him, Seraphine looked horrified as she watched the bloodied grin spread across his face.
'Did messing with his own brain really turn him stupid…?' she thought, uneasy.
It hadn't happened yet, but what his sane mind was cooking up might've been even more dangerous than anything a broken one could produce.
"haaah…"
He closed his eyes again.
This time, he revised the blueprint.
The cluster was no longer a storage. Its structure resembled a nexus. And that was exactly what it was… a control center.
This was his choice after what he grasped from the recent failure. The third point of the Trinity was never meant to mirror the first two. It was meant to command them.
Mana surged again.
But this time, instead of merely gathering, it organized.
The structure branched into thread-like extensions, each one splitting and refining itself until a crystalline network spread through the upper neural region.
'Now… the hard part…'
With his eyes still closed, Ashen spoke evenly.
"Seraphine. From now on, I want you to focus on healing my brain. No matter what happens. No matter what you see."
Beside him, Seraphine stiffened. That request meant only one thing. His brain is about to be damaged, likely intentionally.
But there was no stopping him now. What else could she do besides helplessly sigh and obey? She placed both palms against his temples and began muttering a chant.
Soft light bloomed, azure and then shifting into pale green.
Ashen exhaled.
'First… create a kernel.'
A dense point of mana formed deep within the upper cranial network.
'Then… connect outward. Starting with the primary motor cortex.'
A thread extended and then… It pierced.
The moment it made contact, a violent jolt ripped through Ashen's body. Half his form went slack, his arm dropping uselessly against the mattress as if the concept of movement had been unplugged.
Seraphine's healing surged instantly, forcing damaged neural pathways back into stability.
Ashen didn't relent.
'Again.'
This time, the thread softened at the tip, reshaping as a graft.
It pressed in gently.
'Still wrong…'
He didn't sense any signal flow or translation of intent into motion.
His jaw tightened.
'Not enough.'
His eyes hardened; then, he did something even crazier. Somatic Autonomy was activated, and under his wishes, the region itself was compelled to open on a biological level.
Motor cortex tissue spasmed, folding and shifting under unnatural instruction, creating space for the mana thread to anchor deeper.
His body convulsed in response.
His leg kicked out violently. His fingers curled and twisted midair. His spine arched before collapsing back down.
Seraphine was forced to lean over him just to keep her hands steady, trembling as tears began to spill without her noticing.
'Stop… please… stop…' she thought helplessly, but didn't dare break the chant.
The thread settled, and then… he felt a connection.
Ashen's breath hitched.
'Good…'
But that was only the beginning.
'Motor cortex complete. Next… premotor cortex.'
The process repeated.
This time, he was faster but still had to damage the region and repair it once before he got it right.
From then on, a cycle manifested.
Thread. Break. Heal.
Thread. Break. Heal.
The premotor region caused his head to twitch uncontrollably, as if his body was trying to pre-plan movements that were never executed.
'basal ganglia—'
His hands spasmed in chaotic patterns, fingers tapping invisible rhythms against nothing, like broken instincts fighting for dominance on his flesh.
'Then cerebellum…'
His balance shattered. His torso lurched sideways, dragging Seraphine's support with it as coordination collapsed into jittering instability.
Blood began to trace lightly from his nose again, mixing with the healing glow that kept stitching him back together.
At some point, Seraphine stopped thinking. Only healing stayed on her mind as she stared at Ashen's still lingering smile.
The process accelerated.
'Brainstem...'
'The supplementary motor area…'
Each phrase was shortened now as he gained more and more experience and learned how to mess with his brain without utterly destroying it.
Each connection became cleaner, and the old connections followed through the newer ones.
His actions carried less and less hesitation, until even the damage blurred into just another part of the process.
'Now… Primary visual cortex.'
Ashen hesitated for a split second before crushing that sprout of wavering.
His vision dimmed, but did not reach complete darkness; it felt more like the world had been overlaid with broken signals.
Color bled unevenly across his perception, edges flickering as if his sight was being rendered in hues that he had never thought imaginable.
When the mana thread connected, he did not wait to celebrate his restored vision but moved right to the next sense.
'Haaah… primary auditory cortex…'
Then—
A shriek tore through his ears, yet Seraphine made no sound. This unnatural shrieking was coming solely from the pierced cortex.
'Hypothalamus.'
His body stiffened.
A sudden, irrational hunger clawed through him, making him almost take a bite of the woman on top of him.
Thankfully, he was fast enough to restore the region before he turned into a cannibal.
'parietal lob—'
Pain spiked next, like his skull was being crushed from the inside, then it vanished.
'Still… not finished.'
Now, cognition began to break. Thought itself fractured.
'Cognition layer… frontal lobe…'
His mind stuttered.
Ideas stopped forming in sequence. They collided instead. Logic bent sideways. Emotion surged and then inverted.
A brief spike of panic… Followed by absolute indifference. Then something like anger—
Then nothing at all.
His sense of self flickered unstably, like a signal losing its anchor.
'…This is… inefficient.'
The thought arrived distorted, wrongly spaced, almost чужely.
'Zzz… No… ah…'
Then—
A system prompt echoed in the recesses of his mind.
{Activated Path Skill: Hollow Resolve.}
And, just like that, everything went silent.
Emotion vanished first, then intent, then even the instinct to preserve himself.
Ashen's expression emptied.
Seraphine froze slightly as she noticed the change. She felt like Ashen's intensity had suddenly disappeared, and a machine had taken its place.
Ashen spoke again, voice perfectly level.
"Continue."
'Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.'
'Ventromedial.'
'Anterior cingulate cortex.'
If someone peeked at his thoughts now, they'd only glimpse chaos. The cognition layer of his brain, the one responsible for memory, emotion, and logic, had completely turned on its head.
But despite that… miraculously, Ashen's body continued operating on his brain like it was someone else's.
Hollow Resolve made sure of that. As long as the task that was assigned remained incomplete, it would keep going no matter what.
Such was the horror of this conceptual skill.
And so, damage became irrelevant data; repair became a background process, and the network spread.
Thread after thread, connection after connection until—
'Connect them all through the kernel.'
Uniting cognition, perception, and control… the last link sealed.
And the moment it did, everything snapped into place.
Ashen's perception exploded outward. Every mana thread in his body became crystal clear. Now, if he wanted to, he could even peek at his most microscopic cells with utter transparency.
His breathing, his heartbeat, even his smallest twitch; everything was now accompanied by a steady flow of mana that no longer dissipated, instead circulating endlessly through the newly formed pathway.
The next thing he noticed was his control.
It had risen to terrifying levels, both bodily and in mana manipulation.
As external information began flooding his now-stable senses, he noticed something else.
His reaction time, once around 0.2 seconds as a normal human, having already dropped to 0.1 after tempering his body with Somatic Autonomy, had accelerated a hundredfold, nearing 0.001 seconds.
It felt almost instantaneous.
'This…is… magical.' his eyes were almost glazed from the eutrophic feeling.
The three cores pulsed at once, starting from the brain nexus.
They synchronized on their own, as if they were waiting for just the final piece of the puzzle to manifest.
His body reached harmony, allowing mana to move from heart to abdomen, abdomen to brain, and then brain to heart.
The triangle completed.
Just as Ashen was about to relax…
For one terrifying second… everything resisted. His body shook. Blood leaked from his nose, ears, and mouth.
The circuits screamed.
Seraphine panicked.
"Ashen!"
Then—
Hmmm—
They resonated, and the three centers aligned perfectly. The circulation stabilized.
A unified pulse spread through his body, followed by another. The pulses kept repeating until mana no longer flowed like rivers and followed the new living system.
The system chimed.
[Extra Skill: Incomplete Trinity Harmony has evolved → Trinity Harmony]
[You have gained deeper resonance with mana.]
[The innate skill Mana Authority has absorbed your trait, Mana-Kissed, to evolve.]
[Innate Skill: Mana Authority has evolved → Mana Imperium]
The system seemed to lag for a second before continuing…
[Somatic Autonomy ↑ (Beyond-)]
"..."
Every chime from the system felt like it was congratulating him on the feat of lobotomizing himself and remaining just sane enough to tell the tale afterward.
But Ashen did not know how to react; he was just too numb right now.
Either way… he decided to inspect the system later and instead immerse himself in these new sensations that made the world feel different.
'Hehehe… every interaction with the world feels like it has lost all friction…'
A grin spread across his face.
"It worked."
That sentence snapped Seraphine out of her daze. She stared at him for one second.
Then all tension left her body.
Her knees almost gave out.
"You absolute lunatic…"
She crashed into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, and buried her face into his chest.
"You idiot… idiot… idiot…"
Ashen chuckled and returned the hug.
"Sorry."
"Fuck your sorry!"
"…ah?"
Her grip tightened.
"Just promise me you're not doing that again…"
"…"
"I promise not to do it without you?"
"Idiot…"
☽⟲✧⸸✧⟲☾
…
…
Reminder:
Hollow Resolve (Evolved from Path Skill: Trance)
A desperate evolution of Trance that strips the user of all conscious thought, emotion, and will, reducing them to a hollow vessel driven solely by duty.
In this state, the user's mind is devoid of intent, hatred, fear, or even survival instinct.
This absence renders them nearly imperceptible to abilities that read thoughts or predict intent, as they radiate no more malice than a rock or a tree.
Their body continues to move, executing the core objective without hesitation or self-preservation, until the duty is fulfilled or they are rendered utterly beyond recovery, body and soul.