Ed carefully spread an even layer of water and wind mana powder over subject 222's mana-core. It swelled just slightly bigger before it shattered and the man died. 'That... was unexpected. It seems that one can't forcefully grow a mana-core beyond its original size. Only natural growth is sustainable. How disappointing. Ah, come to think of it... I wonder if subject 222 had a 2nd awakening after the repairs? I pretty much copied Luny after all, so it's certainly possible. I should have woken him up before killing him.'
The experiments continued. He succeeded once again on subject 234. 'This is harder than I thought. I'm surprised Luny reached a 30% success rate. Each core is different and even a small error can cause the entire thing to shatter.' He shook subject 234's shoulder heavily, causing the woman to wake up.
"Who are you?!" she yelled in shock.
"Relax. I just saved your life. Please cooperate with me if you want to live. First, please tell me what your power is."
The woman glared at him suspiciously but noticed that she was in a hospital room. She seemed to have no idea how she got there. "I'm an ordinary earth esper. I can create and control small amounts of earth."
"I see." Ed nodded while jotting down a few notes in a book. "Do me a favor and try using your powers. See if anything has changed."
"Sure." She agreed. A yellow glow covered her body and small bits of metal began to appear around her. "What is this!?" She yelled in surprise.
"Mm. Interesting. It would seem your 2nd awakening changed your control of earth to control of metal. I suppose they fall under the same umbrella. Still, your power is so weak. How disappointing."
"Who's weak?! Bastard!" She screamed in rage as the bits of metal shot towards Ed. He lifted an arm and shot a stream of fire towards her. She didn't even have time to scream before the flames burnt her to ash. 'Gotta love fire created from mana-powder. Pretty much as potent as it can get. She attacked so quickly though... No wonder she was on death row.'
"Is everything okay?" OP Baldy appeared in the room and eyed the damage.
"Fine." He nodded. "I succeeded and the esper awoke and attacked me, so I killed her. No big deal."
"I see. Keep practicing." Mr. Sai disappeared. The dead body was taken away and a new unconscious body appeared along with a new bed, as the old bed had been burnt away.
'It seems that what Luny said about most espers going through the artificial 2nd awakening remaining weak is also true. Is it because they had low potential to begin with? That would likely make the most sense. Espers like Mordy are the exception to the rule since they had high potential to begin with. After all, he's just as strong as natural 2nd awakened espers despite his awakening being artificial.'
Ed continued experimenting and his success rate slowly rose to 15%. Each time he fixed a core successfully, he would continue with additional experiments.
Subject 297. I've attempted adding water mana-powder to the mana-core despite the core only consisting of earth and wind. The core immediately shattered as a result. Same as all previous subjects of this test. Conclusion, espers cannot handle elements their core did not already possess.
Subject 332. I've tried repairing cores in the opposite way I usually do. After dozens of tests, I've had my 1st success. The mana-core was originally composed of10% fire element and 90% earth element. I managed to change it to 10% earth element and 90% fire element. The esper claimed his original power was to create small amounts of earth with flames atop them. Now, his entire body becomes covered in deadly lava. His constitution became similar to Mordy's body. I had to extinguish the lava with water mana-powder and destroy the man's mana-core to kill him. Conclusion, reversing the element concentration levels may potentially lead to a stronger 2nd awakening. More data needed.
Subject 401. I've repeated my experiments with changing the concentrations of the elements within the cores. Some of the 2nd awakenings still remained weak, so I started playing with the specific percentages even further. I've noticed that all these espers had fairly ordinary powers in the beginning. Likely chosen on purpose at Mr. Sai's discretion. This means that none of them were likely to have high potential. Final conclusion, each esper has a different ideal concentration of the elements to reach their maximum potential during their 2nd awakening.
Subject 457. I've started reducing the concentration of all but one element in each core to near 0%, leaving just a single element at 99.7%. This resulted in more successful 2nd awakenings. This should be how Luny reached a 30% success rate. However, all of the 2nd awakened espers using this method were weak. Conclusion, this method is not ideal for creating a large number of powerful espers.
Subject 500. My fun has come to an end already. I wouldn't be me if I didn't try some crazy things near the end. Just for fun, I took two espers with similar cores. I modified each core to have identical percentages of the fire and wind elements. I couldn't switch the cores since that would cause instant death, but I could do a brain transplant like I did previously with Dupe. Shockingly, both espers survived and had their 2nd awakenings. Their new powers seem completely unrelated. Afterwards, I managed to sedate them again. I performed another brain transplant and returned them to their original bodies. The powers remained the same. Conclusion, everything that makes up an esper's powers and personality is contained within their brain. However, they still require a compatible body. Hypothesis, the existence of the soul has already been confirmed by Yuki's current form and the information provided by Mr. Sai. I theorize that the esper's soul is housed within the mana-core and that the brain is a secondary existence to an esper's needs. Otherwise, how could Mordy survive when his head was blown apart previously? More data is needed to confirm this theory.
"Finally ready?" Mr. Sai entered the room and questioned him.
"Let me take a short nap first." Ed replied while yawning. He had been up for nearly three days straight. His eyes were bloodshot and all he wanted to do was sleep. Espers could stay up longer than ordinary people, but they still needed sleep for their peak performance.
Four hours later.
'It's time to begin.' He looked at Yuki's unconscious body. He felt slightly guilty, but he managed to suppress it.
He created a hole just like he had done on the previous espers. 'Oh?' It wasn't quite what he had expected. He could see through the cracks that the core consisted of about 45% of the water element, 45% of the dark element, and only 10% of the light element. 'Strange. The light element seems to have been added on later. It only exists on the surface of the core. Did someone else mess with her core before me?'
He carefully scraped away the surface layers until all the cracks were gone. He had perfected this practice by now. He frowned while looking at the small remaining core. It was now 50% water element and 50% dark element. 'Should I fix it as is? Or add the light element back in from the root of the core?' A scenario like this hadn't occurred in any of his prior testing. Yuki's chances of survival were quickly dropping.
"Yuki." He turned to look at the ghostly version of Yuki. Her soul was starting to tremble and distort as he worked on the mana-core. "Did somebody add the light element to your mana-core previously?"
"Ah... that, uhm..." Yuki fidgeted while wishing to avoid the question.
"They did." OP Baldy nodded. "An old friend I tasked with protecting her was a light esper and was able to temporarily lend power to others. He disappeared after the Reef nightmare attack and Yuki awoke her powers with the new light element included. My friend likely died as a result."
"You knew?!" She questioned in shock.
"Of course I knew." He nodded. "My friend disappeared out of nowhere after the attack. It's not hard to figure out what happened from there. His light element resolved your yin constitution somehow and finally allowed you to awaken."
"Yin constitution?" Ed interrupted. He had never heard of the term.
"Right." Mr. Sai sighed. "It's a body that had an overabundance of negative energies. In this case, water and dark mana. It still wouldn't occur to most people with those mana types. So, it may be more accurate to say that her potential in those energies was too high to function properly. The light mana balanced this problem and allowed her to awaken her powers."
"I see. I'll get back to work and do the best I can." He looked at the mana-core once again. 'The light element is key to her powers functioning properly. In other words, I can't just build on what's already here... What a pain in the ass.'
He thought back to the many mana-cores he worked on and chose to emulate one in particular. It had belonged to an esper with earth, wind, and dark mana. Earth and Wind were opposites, just like fire and water. This esper had 45% earth element, 45% wind element, and 10% dark element. The dark mana kept the balance between the two opposing elements. The esper had died when Ed had tried to decrease the percentage of the dark element.
Ed slowly began to scrape away the water element on one side of the mana-core. Yuki's soul grew blurrier as he continued. Soon, he managed to create a very small hole that lead to the very center of the mana-core. He placed some of the water element back within the center. Then, he began to spread light mana-powder to close the hole he had opened. Fortunately, the mana-core didn't seem to reject the newly introduced element. There was now a small white spot on the surface of the mana-core, while the rest remained black and blue.
He repeated the same step until nearly a tenth of the left-half of the mana-core consisted of the light element. Then he repeated the step on the right-half of the mana-core using the dark element. Going back-and-forth from each half to maintain balance. Soon, the left-half was entirely the light element and the right-half was entirely the dark element. A small blue line ran between the two opposing elements. It was like the equator of a planet, perfectly dividing the two halves.
"Hooo." Ed breathed out to relax while wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"How is it?!" OP Baldy questioned.
"Almost done. We'll know soon." He replied. He glanced at Yuki's ghostly form and his eyes widened in shock. Her soul had changed from being completely blue to a mixture of black and white. However, her ghostly eyes remained a brilliant blue color. It was an odd sight to behold. 'I think my previous theory about the mana-core and soul being linked has further proof now... But why was her soul entirely blue previously despite the center of the core having a mix of dark element and water element? Was it a special case due to her yin constitution? Or am I missing something? There is still far too much I don't understand about these things.'
He returned to his work once more. Fortunately, the last step was the easiest. He carefully applied layers to grow the core back to its original size. Soon, he finished and smiled in relief. Suddenly, the core began to tremble. Slight cracking sounds rang aloud. "FUCK!" He screamed in shock as he watched. He wanted to prevent it, but there was nothing he could do. Mr. Sai and Yuki's soul rushed over to watch, worry present on their faces.
"WHAT WENT WRONG?!" OP Baldy grabbed Ed by the collar and yelled.
"I don't know! I thought it was fine!" He replied nervously while glancing back at the mana-core.
Yuki pushed herself between the two and separated them. "It's okay. It's not anyone's fault. I'm returning now. If I'm going to die, then I want to be in my own body when it happens."
"Yuki!" Mr. Sai yelled in a hoarse voice, with tears appearing in his eyes.
Ed felt an increasing sense of guilt and tears appeared in his eyes as well, but he quickly held them back. 'I knew there were risks in the path I chose. The past can't be changed and I shouldn't brood over it. True, I didn't think something like this could happen when implanting the shock collar, but I of all people have no right to feel sad over something that is my fault to begin with.'
Yuki floated inside, and her soul naturally merged with her body. Surprisingly, the mana-core stopped trembling. However, the mana-core seemed to be transforming as cracking sounds continued to ring aloud.
The dark and light halves of the core bled into each other a little at a time. Then, a small blue circle appeared on each half of the core. It now looked like a yinyang symbol, except that the circles of each side were blue instead of black or white.
...
Yuki sat up from the bed and opened her eyes. They had changed from black to a deep shade of blue. Her hair still remained half-black and half-white. Likewise, the rest of her body appeared normal. 'I'm alive?' She smiled as she looked at her familiar hands. Then she looked up towards Ed and her father.
'What are those numbers?' She wondered. Above each of their heads was a series of numbers. She tried to focus, and the numbers slowly faded away, causing her to feel relieved. 'I'll worry about it later. I'm just happy to be alive.'
She slowly forced herself to stand from the bed. Her body felt weak from lying in a coma for over a week. She bowed her head, "Thank you for saving me!"
"Tsk." OP Baldy harrumphed. "Why thank the bastard that caused it in the first place."
"You're welcome." Ed replied. He crossed his arms while giving Mr. Sai the evil eye. He glanced back at Yuki. "So, did you have your 2nd awakening? How did your powers change?"
"Mm..." She nodded "I'm not sure exactly what my new power is yet, but it definitely changed."