Enigma of Sin

Despite Kayn's desire to get home, he needed to get used to how his body felt as well as his mana flow before he could even attempt casting spells. Being fully concentrated on acclimating himself to this new knowledge as well as getting an overall feeling for his body didn't allow for him to keep track of time.

Regardless of how much time passed, he couldn't even attempt to leave without doing this first. If he was honest, keeping track of time only distracted him and made him feel more rushed than he needed to be.

He needed to learn to crawl before he could walk, walk before he could run, and run before he could fly once more. If he tried to skip right to flying, he knew something would probably go wrong and he would end up suffering because of it.

His mana felt intrinsically different now. It was as if something was there now which made him feel whole that he never knew was missing in the first place.

Once he finally felt confident in using his mana again, he started out with simple spells of individual elements before trying out different deviant and fusion elements.

After a while of trial and error he was confident enough in himself to cast his diagnostic technique Void Eye to examine just how his Demonic Dragon Heart had changed.

The once black rotating sphere of mana inside of his heart was now what Kayn could only describe as a quasar super massive black hole. The colorful clouds that were once floating gently around his core were now constantly being sucked into the pitch-black center.

The center was now exuding a beam of pure white mana directly into the start of his mana circulation system, in other words his aortic artery. When he cast a spell for a specific element, rather than splitting that element off of his mana, it was now converting into the specified element as it exited his body.

This resulted in a far more powerful spell and a reduced cost for each spell. Kayn couldn't help but gape at the new appearance of his core. He essentially had a galactic nucleus of mana growing within him now! Did this mean that his core would eventually turn into something akin to a mana galaxy?

He couldn't help but become excited with what the future would hold for his evolution, but first things first, he needed to get home. He considered asking Chaos what exactly he had done, but he had an odd suspicion that the guy wouldn't tell him anything other than to figure it out himself.

While absorbing the information he was bestowed, he came across the spell that Chaos intended for him to use to get home, but just as he said, it would be difficult for Kayn to pull off without dying. Despite the changes that he had painfully undergone, that only gave him about a five percent chance to succeed rather than the zero he had before.

A frown started to appear on Kayn's face and only deepened the more he thought about his abysmal chances of making it home in one piece.

"You've finally realized the perilous situation you're in, haven't you? There are other teleportation spells out there, some that I could even impart to you, but you wouldn't be able to use them either. Your only option is to tear through the void.

"The true void will consume you as you are now. I gave you the most minuscule chance of success, but it's still doubtful you will actually make it. If you can somehow strengthen your new core by even a single stage, as you call it, you may be able to raise your chances a little bit higher.

"I would assume every stage would equate to about as much of a chance as I gave you, but I can't be sure due to the unique nature of your core. You formed something extraordinary and I only pushed it in the direction it was already heading, forcing it to change a bit faster. Without you being back at the beginning of your journey, it would not have been possible.

"I cannot help you anymore than I already have and doing what I did placed a burden on me that I did not expect, so we will be parting ways here."

"But-" Kayn began to argue but was quickly stopped.

"No. As I said, I can no longer provide you with help or I may truly die. I've already gone well past the limits of what I'm supposed to do. Just remember, that man is not your friend or your ally. He will come for you eventually and possibly even hinder your path forwards.

"Do your best to live and grow. Grow strong enough to get revenge for all of the people like me that he has forced into hiding. This universe could use a fresh face to rule over it, so do your best young Kayn. I hope we can meet once again when you have become the being that I expect you to."

With those final words and before Kayn could even respond, he found himself floating in the periphery of a familiar planet. The comfortable sensation of mana surrounding him faded and just as he was about to protect himself from space as he had before, he realized that it didn't affect him how it used to.

He still couldn't breathe, but he didn't feel hot or cold nor were there any bubbles forming in his tissues. Space and the void were quite similar and because his body was changed to be able to withstand the void element both inside and outside of his tissues, the vacuum and bleakness of space no longer had any effect on his body.

Wondering just how much he had improved as he wasn't able to tell inside of Chaos's personal space, he began his descent back to Earth. Once there, he would organize himself, examine his options, and then try to get home. Even if his chances were slim, it wasn't impossible.

Once he was close enough to Earth, he activated his Mana Sense by extending out his own pure mana as far as it could go. His eyes widened in shock as he was quickly able to cover almost half of the entire planet from his current position.

His excitement quickly grew higher until he remembered that apparently this still wasn't enough to even remotely help him get home safely. It wasn't because he didn't have enough power to activate the spell, it was surviving it that he would have issues with.

The method that Chaos gave him was to essentially tear a hole into the void that encompassed the universe and travel through it before tearing another hole back in his home world. The process was relatively simple with his recent acquisition of void based elemental knowledge and he even had the perfect tool to create this hole in the fabric of space, the Tethers of the Void.

The issue was traveling the void.

After he became fully attuned with the void through Chaos's process, he gained the chance to travel through the void without dying instantly, but he would need to be able to protect himself long enough to get to his destination.

According to Chaos's understanding of how it worked, he only needed to think about his destination in vivid detail before casting the initial spell to enter into the void. He would then be pulled along until another hole opened up and he was spat out of it.

Due to the void being anywhere and everywhere, it was essentially folding the space between his current location and the place he thought of before stepping across that fold. The issue was the few seconds he needed to actually cross the void.

He wouldn't instantly die now, but he needed enough power to push back the void from consuming him in those few seconds. According to Chaos, even he wouldn't last more than a few minutes inside the void, and he was the prime being blessed with the void. If being one with the void and one of the oldest and most powerful beings to exist amounted to squat, what were his chances?

Nothing was happening on Earth. The fighting had stopped aside from small skirmishes here and there between guerrilla groups or terrorist groups and the government they were opposing.

It seemed that the discovery of mana was truly the cause of World War III, and now that it was gone, the powerhouse countries had no reason to continue fighting. Obviously, Kayn understood they were looking for mana still, but since there were no obvious places or objects to fight over, the war was now hidden from public eye.

Just as Kayn was about to deactivate his Mana Sense, he noticed a familiar presence on his side of the world. She appeared downtrodden and was simply lying in her bed in the middle of the day while curled up in a ball.

He flew closer to her location because even if he could sense the happenings of the Earth from anywhere, focusing in on a specific area required a lot more concentration and mana, and he didn't want to waste his mana now that he couldn't replenish it easily.

His flight speed with purely his wings was now incredibly fast due to his bodily changes. It wasn't quite as fast as when he used mana to his full extent previously, but it was still several Mach in speed by Earth's standards.

As Kayn got closer to the house that Dr. Elaine was inside of, his eye began to twitch a little upon reading the words spray painted on her roof. It said, "Please take me with you!"

Kayn couldn't and wouldn't do that though. He wasn't about to add her to the Villa's guest list nor would she be able to survive through the void.

He thought about leaving her a D-class rune beast core, but decided against it as that would definitely piss off a certain powerful being who he was working with currently. Kayn didn't want him to act before he was powerful enough to fight back, so he had to refrain from helping the good doctor.

Instead, he landed and pulled out the Villa to write a short letter explaining that she would die if he tried to bring her with him and that he wished her the best of luck in her future endeavors. He even provided a small hint on how to better utilize the Earth's current resources for a more sustainable energy as she wished.

Kayn wasn't going to give her the answers he only came to realize after gaining so much knowledge about the elements recently, but that didn't mean he wouldn't point a pure hearted scientist in the right direction.

He gently set the letter on her windowsill before tapping on the glass in order to alert her that it wasn't just a rock or something hitting the window before he flew away in order to set up the Villa and begin his planning and preparation.

It was time to go home.