When he was three years old, Nero started exhibiting signs of his special capability—that he can extract mana out of aether sand just with his bare hands.

He was watching his uncle Amé doing a project when it first happened. Since no one but his uncle was taking care of him, he was often allowed to play inside the workshop. He wasn’t an active child, nor was he playful, but what got to his uncle’s nerve every now and then was his curiosity. Still, he was a good child, and never really did anything bad except worrying his uncle. That meant he was free, more or less.

So, when he approached a bag of aether sand leaning against one of the working table’s legs, Amé just warned him not to eat it, telling him it was poisonous. (He learned later that it isn’t so; but eating aether sand is akin to eating sand—useless and have no benefit to human’s physical body whatsoever.) And he didn’t eat the blue sand. He just put his hand on it, playing with it, feeling it, letting it flow through his finger. But he felt something strange on his palm; a voice inside his head was instructing him to absorb something from the blue sand. An instinct. And for a three-year-old, instincts are absolute. And so, he absorbed whatever it was to be absorbed from the sand. In the end, it made his whole body, especially his tummy, hurt so much due to mana overflow, and only managed to be relieved from it when Amé almost bathed him in mana orbs, them absorbing the excess mana within his body.

That sensation—that instinctual sensation awakened from his first personal encounter with the phenomenon of mana—was springing within his soul right now. Just by holding the aether crystal in his right hand, he could somewhat sense how enormous the mana it contained, as if he’s about to be crushed by a gigantic and roaring ocean wave. He breathed in deeply, praying that he wouldn’t experience what he had when he was three years old. Then breathed out slowly, preparing his whole body. As he breathed in again, he simultaneously drew the mana out of the crystal in his most delicate and subtle effort.

But the mana flowed into him like raging river, and he felt like his body just got crushed and exploded. Just by the mere volume of mana inflow, he felt his right arm had burst. His arm was intact, though, but small explosions ravaged it. And then those small explosions ran throughout his body.

They weren’t superficial, no. The damage was dealt to him way, way deep inside his bones—they directly damaged his soul, his whole being.

For the first time, he could say that he’s feeling his own soul in intricate clarity now more than ever—its form, shape, density, and capacity; too bad, it was due to its destruction. Soon, numbness overtook his hand, then his arm; it was following the flooding mana. Then the mana crashed into his heart, then fell recklessly into his abdomen, where it stayed, until his mana core shattered. The massive amount of mana dispersed all throughout his soul. His whole body got numb.

However, he wasn’t falling or even screaming in pain; his right hand wasn’t trembling, nor could he control it. Something inside him took over all his body functions, and now that something, whatever it was, didn’t want to do anything but to absorb all the mana from the mythical crystal. That something…it’s as if it’s offering his body willfully even as a sacrifice.

His domain of control had been limited to his eyes, and he saw the mana overflowing from him: on his skin were multiple streams of purple smoke—streams of mana—leaking uncontrollably. Soon, he was surrounded by it, veiling his sight with thick purple curtain.

The pain suddenly became acute even though he was numb, peaking so much he couldn’t help but closed his eyes; but then, slowly and steadily, the pain started to subside. All those small points that exploded within him started regenerating too, especially those on his right hand. His heart also calmed down, heartbeats slowing down. And he could feel his shattered mana core mending on its own.

After that, he gained a miniscule liberty in controlling the flow of the mana within his soul. So, immediately he let it spring from his mana core up to his heart, passing through his left arm and hand, towards the lifeless Rius.

As he was becoming complacent, however, his right hand increased what it was absorbing. A second massive wave of mana entered through his body again, destroying everything in him again, shattering his mana core for the second time. He just kept on pouring out the mana into his dog, though, and thus the pain wasn’t as intense as before. The mana leaks didn’t happen this time, but the curtain of purple smoke never fully dissipated.

This cycle happened several times, the duration of which he couldn’t estimate reliably, but it felt like an hour every time a massive wave of mana came flooding into his body.

Soon, the volume of mana inflow subsided, albeit still being massive, and he slowly regained control over all his body functions and faculties. He could even activate his Sirilion’s Eyes; observing the mana he was pouring into his dog’s body, he was glad it wasn’t being rejected, and instead had been filling the dog’s whole body—as if forming a soul for it. And most of the mana was gravitating towards its abdomen—as if forming a mana core.

A dog with a soul and mana core…he never saw one, or any animal for that matter. But he heard that arcane beasts, despite being animals in all aspects, do have souls and mana cores of their own. Was Rius turning into one? Hell…was he even being revived?

In an instant, his extraction of mana from the aether crystal came to a halt. It sent a sudden black out through his whole body as he was continuously pouring out mana into his dog. His Sirilion’s Eyes deactivated involuntarily, then a hot sensation carved into both of his palms.

He dropped the aether crystal to the earth, and saw that it had lost its mysterious color; now, it just looked like a tear-shaped casted metal.

He might have depleted the mana in it…finally. After so many hours…

And only then was the veil of mana, the purple smoke surrounding him and his dog, dissipated like fog being blown by the afternoon breeze.