Achilles' eyes widened, stopping frozen before he could even move. He thought he'd just heard a voice, but that was impossible, right? Of course, he got his answer as the voice spoke again.
"Come on in, I said. We've got quite a bit of time, but not all of it." The voice spoke again, sounding a bit old. Achilles knew the voice came from inside the room, and perhaps it might belong to the recent resident of the room before the apocalypse.
He walked into the room, wrapping his barriers around his body in case it was a malevolent spirit attempting to attack him, only to see an old man sitting on one of the beds in the spacious bedroom. The man was white, and had to be in his eighties, judging by the sag and wrinkle of his skin. What? How did he know this? How could he have possibly known what the man's estimated age was just by looking at him?
The man had a sort of triangular shaped face, and when he walked him, he noticed the man's eyes sweeping over his clothes. He ignored the staring and stood in the hall of the suite, blinking a couple times.
"Who the fuck are you?" Achilles asked in a painfully blunt tone. The old man's eyebrow raised at his tone and words for quite a while, before lowering it and speaking for the third time.
"I am Nikola Tesla, and I've been waiting for you, child." The old man, now identified as Nikola Tesla, spoke.
Achilles smiled a bit, and with an amused tone, responded: "So you're the guy who fired his secretary for being too fat?" Tesla, looked away, a bit annoyed for being called out on it, not for the fact that he did indeed do such a thing.
"Yes, but it would've been harmful to her health should she have stayed that way. I prefer healthy people to work with. Not those who've ruined their bodies with chemicals harmful to them." He said firmly, as it was his belief.
Achilles closed his eyes for a second, questioning if he should simply leave or listen to what the asshole wanted to tell him. Apparently, the latter option had won, and by a large margin, just like a certain African dictator who had once won an election with two-hundred thousand votes in a country of fifty thousand residents.
He was fine with ignoring the man's attitude, as long as it wasn't aggravating, and if he gained something from him. Achilles never did like turning down benefits, unless there was an opportunity to gain even better benefits. He walked to the bed and sat down next to the man, letting out a sigh. The moon shone through the window as it rose and the sun fell in the distance. It was already early night time, and the days were becoming shorter, as usual when transitioning into colder seasons.
"Alright, so what do you want to tell me? Or at least, what do you want to tell the person who entered this room?" He asked. When Tesla had said he had been waiting for him, Achilles assumed there were two explanations. Either Tesla was actually expecting Achilles, or he was expecting for a random someone to walk to this specific suite and enter it at the same time as Achilles had, rather if he hadn't himself.
"Well, I did want to tell you about the profundities of these Ten Disasters, but since I'm a bit petty, as anyone is, I'll simply teach you how to move your mana around. You've already got quite a grasp on it, moving it throughout your body as you do." The man paused, making sure Achilles was paying attention as he spoke.
"However, my method will not only help you circulate it while you sleep, but also integrate it into your body as if it was always a part of it. Simply because it is, or rather was." He finishes, the last sentence catching Achilles' attention a bit more than his other words.
"What do you mean 'was'?" He asked, naturally curious. Who wouldn't be, if someone found out they were possibly missing a part of them that could have been potentially important to their body?
Tesla explained that quite a long time ago, mana was considered to have been part of the human body. It was part of every aspect in it, and ever since its disappearance, the effects have been quite slow, but they have brought drastic changes.
The rapid change from the old times, when innovation was slow and things were the same as they were before it, stayed as such because of the presence of mana. It was an extremely abundant energy, having more of a part in the world and the universe as a whole than stardust, one of the main reasons for the planets, stars and other celestial bodies being formed.
Since it was now reintroduced into the human body, the body did not know how to process it into its system, therefore its usage was always mediocre and terrible compared to how it once was.
"Mana is a part of us humans. In fact, it's quite a lot like vitamins and blood. They pass through both the bloodstream and also their own veins, known as mana veins. However, the way humans will come to use it in the next few years is completely ineffective. See, your mana veins are muscles too, as they must be trained diligently, but in a different way." He spoke, taking Achilles' arm and using his finger to line one of Achilles' veins.
"They are meant to be trained like muscles, but function like blood vessels, if that makes sense. Like when muscles, which are trained over time to handle much heavier things than before, larger mana veins are capable of moving mana much faster through the body, as well as generating more mana for the body." Tesla continued to speak, squeezing Achilles' forearm, much to the latters discomfort and annoyance.
"So what you're saying is, just work the fuck out of my mana veins until they're bodybuilder level?" He asks plainly. Tesla nods, and Achilles feels happy that the man didn't correct him for his short summary of what could be considered a wide topic to discuss.
"And exactly how should I go about that? I can feel where it flows to when I use it for making barriers on my body, but I don't actually…" He stops speaking, looking down at his arm, somehow able to see every part of it, from the veins filled with red blood cells, to the individual dead skin cells, and microscopic dirt covering a new layer of fresh skin.
Tesla smiled and let go of his arm, allowing Achilles time to inspect his arm.
"I told you I had been waiting for you. It's because one of your abilities, or rather the ability you'll gain next, is perfect for finding your mana veins. If it were anyone else, and I mean anyone else, without such an ability, it would take them weeks to even catch a quick glimpse of them."
Achilles dragged his finger slowly on his skin, searching and peering through his arm until he had found a white vein, with white-colored mana flowing through it, a bit thin of a stream, but there nonetheless.
He quickly got up, and looked in a mirror, seeing the veins all over his body, but just faintly. Yet being able to see them faintly was enough for him, as he focused the mana in his left pinkie finger's vein to slow to a stop. After a few seconds, it did.
It was some new, but exciting to him to fully explore. But it didn't last for long, as his control wasn't enough to keep it stopped for more than a few seconds. He turned to Tesla, and it was as if the man had read his mind and the questions inside it.
"If you want to learn how to better control your mana, you've found the right person. Sit down, will you? "He spoke, patting the bed. Achilles sat down, and watched as the man made two large marble-sized balls of mana.
Tesla then began to move them around in a circle, keeping them separated and easily controlling both.
"Watch carefully, because with this method, you'll be able to control those barriers of yours far better than before, I'll tell you that much."