Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 11 | Day 29

I narrow my eyes despite them being closed as I focus on my bones, and more particularly, the miasma currently entering them and merging with the time and space mana infused into them.

The current trial was to check out the changes the miasma makes to my bones when I eat food, but…

This result isn’t what I was expecting. Not in the slightest.

I carefully watch the miasma merging with the time and space mana before eventually deciding to poke at the mana with my mental force from my mana arcs. Only for a major pain to radiate throughout my body for a single instant.

“Fuck,” I mutter out loud while my eyes snap open, unable to stop myself before spitting blood out of my mouth and losing the strength in my body to remain upright. But the strength returns just as quickly and I catch myself before falling off of the counter I’m sitting upright on.

The hell was that? I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain so strong before…

After catching my breath, I close my eyes again and focus on my bones, just to find that the miasma from the fruit I had eaten is already gone and used up.

What?

It should’ve lasted much longer than that…

I study my bones for anything that might be a sign of what happened, only for my eyes to snap open in shock.

My… my bones changed. They grew slightly. As if they had aged a bit.

That… does that mean I can cancel the time freezing of my body for a limited amount of time with the miasma? Or… just what happened?

I can’t help the smile that finds its way onto my face at the thought of no longer being stuck in a teenage body forever. Especially considering that I still look about fifteen or sixteen despite being almost twenty now.

This’ll definitely need more studying.

Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 12 | Day 3

“It’s day five of experimenting on the time mana in my body. So far the results are more than I’d ever hoped before, but also less than I was originally expecting to find after discovering the reaction.” I state calmly into the terminal on my arm as I stare at the deadliest area of miasma nearest to my home. “From my experiments so far, I have learned that the consumption of any sort of material will end up in the material being converted to miasma, which will then merge itself into the time and space mana within my body. During this merging process, which lasts a single second at most, the locked state of which the time and space mana is in is disrupted and can be altered through various means, affecting the ‘reversion point’ that my body has set – which is the term I have come to call the point that my immortality returns me back to whenever I take damage.”

I pause for a moment to take a breath and gather my thoughts before continuing, “During the ‘unlocked state’ – which is the term I will be using for the second of time where the time and space mana are not locked together – I am able to tweak my reversion point by a matter of days to even a month, both backwards and forwards, changing the time of which my body is locked into. However, the tweaking process brings with it excruciating pain worse than anything I’ve ever felt before. Pain that only grows worse and more mind numbing the larger the tweaking is.”

A shiver runs through my body at the thought of reexperiencing the pain of pushing my reversion point an entire month ahead to test out the limits. It was so painful that it caused me to pass out for the remainder of the day, and after that I had even developed a temporary amnesia over the events due to trauma. Amnesia that lasted no longer than a few hours before I remembered everything.

“Trial number five, outside miasmic interference, commencing in five seconds,” I state after a long pause. “The trial is meant to test the affects of outside miasma on my body to see if it is able to change the time and space mana into its unlocked state.”

As soon as the timer on my terminal reaches zero, with the recording displaying me on one screen and my insides on another thanks to the help of the biomana scan belonging to the terminal, I step into the literal pool of miasma before closing my eyes and focusing on my legs. Completely ignoring the negligible pain caused by the miasma. Or at least, negligible compared to that of tweaking my reversion point.

“Results are positive,” I state in an emotionless tone of voice while watching the mana in my bones. “There is no visible affect between the outside miasma and my time and space mana. Moving onto studying the miniscule time and space mana inside of my flesh and organs.”

After stating that, I do just that and focus on those.

“No changes in my flesh and organs either.” I drag myself out of the miasma pool, seeing as it has already completely melted my feet by now, leaving me unable to walk. “Results of the experiment are a success. Outside miasmic interference is not possible. Trial is complete.”

And with that, I end the recording before stretching my newly restored feet a little. I then begin to walk back home again, pausing only slightly when I pass by a river and notice that that my skin seems to have grown a touch paler. And my eyes. Eyes that used to be blue but are now a crimson red, one as vivid as blood. And eyes that aren’t actually glowing right now despite their current color.

After just a few seconds though, my eyes return to blue again the moment I get clear of the miasma.

Interesting. Didn’t realize that my eyes change color without the glowing part just from being in contact with miasma.

The cave doesn’t have much if any miasma, much less many mirrors to see myself in. So I never really noticed.

After a few more steps following along the river, I halt for a moment to stare at my reflection.

My armor at this point is rather disgusting, covered in grime and ash from all of my experiments – both on my own body and through my spells. Although if it weren’t for my immortality, it’d likely have a lot of blood and gore on it too. But my immortality returns all of that to my body, making it rather clean in that regard.

But the look in my eyes… is quite different from the one from before. And it only grows worse when a rabbit passes by and my eyes flare a glowing crimson.

By now though I’ve gained enough control to stop myself from attacking them, so not only do I not do that, but the black veins don’t appear anymore either. Not unless I’ve really lost it.

My eyes still glow at the smell of the living though.

I frown at my reflection before shaking my head and continuing on my way home.

Sacrifices have to be made to free mom and dad. Only then will I be able to take a slower approach to everything.