I asked Jema what I should do in this situation.
“You need to extract the mana.”
“Can you do it?”
“At least I can’t.”
Jema said that in order to catch the mana backflowing inside Dino’s body, you had to individually grab the mana holes.
He warned that simply extracting it could cause the backflowing mana to spread through the body, resulting in death.
“You need to know where the mana holes in this person’s body are and how many there are.”
Dino was unconscious, so there was no way to find out.
The problem was that even if they knew, there was practically no one who could do anything about it.
Even Jema shook his head, saying it was difficult.
It was something that was beyond comparison with the mana that had accumulated in Perrya’s body.
“So what caused the mana to backflow?”
“It’s a side effect from forcibly handling too much mana.”
“I’ve never done that.”
“You’re not human, right?”
Jema regretted that if he were at least a demon, they could attempt mana backflow treatment.
“Um, where is this?”
As if he had regained consciousness, Dino opened his eyes.
“This is the lodging I stay in.”
“What happened?”
“The mana in your body is backflowing.”
Dino let out a big sigh and barely lifted his upper body.
“I knew it… I overdid it.”
“It’s not just overdoing it; you could die soon.”
Jema shot a pointed remark from the side.
Now that Dino had come to his senses, it seemed he could finally get answers to questions that might help in treatment.
“How many mana holes are in your body? And their locations?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You’ll die!”
Dino seemed to think for a moment at Jema’s words, then slowly opened his mouth.
“Seven thousand heart techniques.”
“Wasn’t it called a core?”
“That’s a lie.”
“Why would you lie about that?”
“To escape from a dead-end job like the Magic Development Department.”
The Magic Development Department had long been a place where people were sent when they were demoted or were problematic.
To get out of there, Dino confessed that he needed to make people around him aware that he had some truly special power.
“Now that I know the location and number, can you treat me?”
“No. I told you earlier that I can’t.”
“It’s a heart technique that has been lost in my family. I completed it through self-study.”
Dino said that he had self-studied by looking at a book that recorded the heart training methods passed down through his family.
Once he reached a certain level, he displayed abilities similar to a core and claimed to those around him that he was a core.
Of course, the people in the development department were so ignorant of this field that they might not even know about cores.
“Mana backflow… It’s unfair to die like this despite having the best heart technique.”
“If you tell me the key points of that heart technique, I might be able to treat you, but I guess you wouldn’t want to do that, right?”
“Correct.”
Dino was a little shocked to hear that even if he was about to die, he wouldn’t reveal the key points of the heart technique he had mastered.
“Ordinary people have at most one, maybe two mana holes.”
“That would be the case.”
“You have seven, so if you don’t know the order, it’s impossible for someone else to control the backflowing mana.”
Simply put, it’s like a game where you have to unlock the codes in a specific order.
Dino remained silent, perhaps contemplating whether he was really going to die with the heart technique he had learned.
“Usually, heart techniques have ways to manage mana backflow included, right?”
“That wasn’t mentioned in the book I saw.”
“That’s incomplete.”
Jema determined that the book Dino had read was an unfinished heart technique.
Thus, it seemed his family had been unable to even learn it, let alone pass it down.
“I think I have to call someone.”
“Who?”
“An expert.”
I pulled out the horn that I had been fiddling with earlier from my pocket.
I had a brief conversation with the Demon King in a corner of the room.
“He’ll be here soon.”
“Who did you call? What is that horn…?”
Unlike the puzzled Dino, Jema returned to the bed, claiming he was tired.
A little while later, two people suddenly appeared in Jema’s room.
“Gah!”
Seeing the two, Dino straightened up with a tense expression.
“Adele, is that you!”
“Hmm? You know?”
“How could I not know the greatest mage among humans?”
It seemed the position of the Academy Headmaster wasn’t just for show.
“Ririan. You’ve grown a lot since I last saw you.”
“Only in body.”
“No. I can feel your mana has become much denser than before.”
After briefly exchanging greetings upon meeting again, I immediately asked them to check Dino’s condition.
Snap!
The Demon King slowly approached and lightly flicked Dino on the forehead.
He had just been hit once, but Dino instantly slumped back against the wall, unconscious.
“This is mana backflow, and it’s an incomplete heart technique. Can it be fixed?”
The Demon King glanced at Adele as he spoke.
“I believe we can manage with just two of them.”
The two, having exchanged significant words, laid Dino down on the floor.
Adele placed one hand on Dino’s chest and closed his eyes gently.
Maintaining that position for quite some time, Adele began to carefully extract mana from several places on Dino’s body using his fingers.
The mana that was tangled near Dino’s heart gradually unraveled.
The speed at which the mana was being drawn from Dino’s body was quite slow.
Adele continued the healing procedure until dawn broke.
Wiping the sweat that had gathered on his forehead, Adele looked at Dino.
“Phew… I’ve at least relieved some burden for now.”
The mana that had been swirling rapidly inside Dino had calmed down significantly.
“For now, cut these two here.”
The Demon King pointed to Dino’s hands and ordered Adele.
“Wait, why are you cutting there?”
When I asked in confusion, the Demon King simply replied.
“Because they’re unnecessary.”
Adele and the Demon King placed their hands on both of Dino’s arms.
Their mana gradually moved downward, targeting a specific spot with persistence.
Watching this, I suddenly remembered a technique I had learned from Alium long ago.
Insert the threads of mana into the opponent’s body and destroy them!
The mana holes in Dino’s hands shattered simultaneously.
The mana flowing from the broken holes was cleanly extracted by the two.
“Are mana holes that easy to break?”
“Only the sturdy ones don’t break easily. These are breaking like this because they lack a foundation.”
Being an incomplete heart technique, there were still many deficiencies, and it was clear that improvements were needed.
Two mana holes disappeared, but Dino’s expression had relaxed more than expected.
“At least when I fainted, I didn’t feel any pain, so that’s good.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“That’s why I fainted ahead of time.”
It seemed that the Demon King putting Dino to sleep initially was a kind of consideration.
Now, only four spots remained.
With the Demon King joining in, the speed of the treatment progressed remarkably.
Even though every time Dino woke up, the Demon King would inevitably put him back to sleep.
When all the treatment was over, it was now midnight.
Dino, whose condition had returned to normal, regained consciousness sooner than expected.
“Oh.”
Surrounded by several people, including me, Dino looked around dizzily, touching his head as he sat up.
“Hmm?”
Noticing changes in his body, he hurriedly began to check.
“Two mana holes…”
“I cut them off because they were unnecessary.”
“I need all seven to perform the heart technique!”
As the Demon King reached out to flick him again, Dino instinctively shrank back.
“You know that heart technique isn’t perfect, right?”
Dino nodded silently.
“Rumor has it you claimed to be a core. That technique was likely made by your ancestors based on seeing a core.”
“It’s incomplete, though.”
“Why do you think it’s incomplete?”
I was quietly listening, curious about the differences between those who mastered cores and heart techniques.
“A core doesn’t create mana holes. Not a single one.”
“If there aren’t any, isn’t it inconvenient to handle mana?”
“It’s not necessary from the start. You’re born with optimal physical conditions for magic use, so there’s no chance of backflow like you.”
As the Demon King spoke about being optimized for magic use, he glanced at me.
Even though my body operates somewhat differently, it still functions in a way similar to a core.
In my case, my heart plays that role instead of mana holes.
“Now that two mana holes have been removed, you’ve become a half of a half.”
Dino muttered with a somewhat regretful expression.
Adele remarked that mastering an incomplete heart technique was like harboring a ticking time bomb.
“You’ll need to solidify the remaining mana holes more. Of course, I don’t think you’ll finish that before you die.”
“That makes sense.”
There are dozens to hundreds of heart techniques passed down throughout the continent, but there are not many alternatives to replace those that have been handed down for centuries.
Heart techniques refined through years of trial and error are the essence that minimizes flaws and maximizes strengths.
Many have died trying to master heart techniques that have not even been properly studied.
Compared to those people, Dino was indeed quite lucky.
“And whatever magic you used, I don’t know what it was, but if you use it just one more time, you’ll really die this time.”
At the Demon King’s warning, Dino swallowed hard, blinking his eyes before slowly speaking.
“U-um, if I solidify the mana holes, can I use it again?”
“Generally, demons don’t create more than two. Occasionally, there are some who create three, but that’s really rare. But you just went and created seven without any foundation. Ah, now it’s five, right? It won’t be easy to make even one or two of them usable.”
After giving such advice, the Demon King disappeared along with Adele.
Dino stared out the window with a somewhat dazed expression.
“Time to go back.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is my room.”
It was a time when someone needed comfort, but here, there was no one to soothe him.
With slow movements, Dino left the room, forgetting to even say goodbye.
