The city was weirdly grim that day.
The streets felt empty, even though a multitude of people walked and interacted there. Everyone was moving as fast as they could, making their way towards their homes or places of work as soon as they ended their errands.
The sun seemed gloomy, its rays barely registered in the eyes of citizens, and the wind blew morbid coldness deep into every passerby's bones.
The city was stale, seemingly empty and quiet.
The city waited for something to happen, something massive hung above the capital. A sword of Damocles, waiting for its time to strike.
But every rule had its exception, this time it was Adam.
Despite a constant state of carefulness regarding his injury, being continuously wary of the way he walked, not to make a wrong move and hurt himself, Adam was happy. He was finally able to perform his research, which got postponed for nearly a month.
The Refrigerators returned the day before, and they went their separate ways soon after, as they got a long leave after a somehow successful mission.
Adam went to his uncle's room, inside the tavern, where he and the kittens resided. Suzie, Frank and the second kitten were present as he arrived.
Suzie was the mother, they agreed to name her that way after the doctor suggested it. Then they decided to name one kitten each, Derek already found the name of his one, and named it Frank. Suitable name, but not one that Adam would choose. For him, it was too simple.
The kittens were still blind, but they would soon gain sight, so Adam had to start thinking about a name for his one. The little furry bastard seemed to distinguish him from Derek even if he didn't say anything, as if he saw them somehow.
The kitten play time ended after Derek told Adam about what he was doing while his protege worked in the military. It appears, that Derek got himself in quite the company, some nobles started to invite him to the parties, befriending him.
It was definitely an effect of being an uncle to a mage, but Derk didn't let that discourage him and started to appear at those parties, making friendships and connections. He explained to himself that he acted as Adam's proxy into high society.
Eventually, the mage's uncle mentioned a widow his age. Her husband died a few years ago on a mission while in the army, and she became the sole owner of their wealth. She hadn't had any children and turned out to be quite a party woman.
She was the host of most of the gatherings Derek attended. Yet, the woman didn't squander the money on parties without any thought to it, the fun was a part of her motives, but mostly, she created a net of connections there, and grew her late husband's fortune in many ways, by trading and investing mostly.
Adam caught a sparkle flying through his uncle's eyes as he talked about that impressive woman.
The meeting came to an end earlier than Derk would have liked, but his nephew had an important thing to do.
The research had to begin!
--------------------------------
Adams Lablatory was clean when he entered, but it would soon change.
The first thing he did was to get one of the corpses from the freezing chamber, the one which when alive, was an intermediate magic beast.
Andam had three of those, two from the same race, with varying ranks, one elementary and one intermediate, with a magic core. The third corpse was of another race, intermediate with an aura core.
The first two were ice-elemental wolves, and the third was an owl. It was quite weird that an owl, an animal considered to be very smart used aura instead of mana, which was thought of as the more mentally stimulating one.
The mage had some problems with moving the wolf corpse, which was considerably large with his broken bones, but he somehow managed. Keeping it in a freezer for a week or two also didn't help, as it stifled the body and made it too cold to touch for extended periods of time.
Fortunately, it didn't freeze. If it did, Adam's money would go to waste as the beast's flesh would break apart when the droplets of water inside would crystallise.
It was comfortably soft, firm enough not to need another hand beside the cutting one to hold it, and plenty soft to cut into it. Actually, it was softer than right after death, every decent hunter knows that you have to wait a bit before cutting the meat from the bones, Adam learnt from his dissection teacher that the phenomena are called 'postmortem concentrations' and they appear in every dead body, including humans.
It was quite funny if Adam would continue with his non-existent muscle building and deterioration from not doing any manual labour, His biceps would be the hardest, only after he died.
Which meant he had to start training, even if just for the looks.
When the body arrived on the table, it was time to fetch tools. Adam didn't have anything which could even remotely substitute real dissection tools, such as razor blades, tongs, saws and those weir things used to hold already cut flesh open. That's why he borrowed the equipment from Elgu, the pathologist who taught him how to cut people. Which retrospect sounds macabre.
Having brought the gear and prepared everything, including a few buckets and containers, Adam started cutting.
The first thing that came under his blade for the wolf's torso.
Adam wanted to see how the heart of a mana attained animal looks, is it different, evolved?
Does it work as the mana collector like in his own body?
These questions lingered on Adam's mind, they were making him wonder, disturbing him for a long time already, and they weren't all, only a small part of the mage's curious mind.
After cutting the skin, bones appeared in Adams's vision. Now was a hard part, to saw apart the bones while preserving the flesh around them.
Firstly, Adam severed the meat all around the bones and used that weird tool to pull it apart, giving him an easier and better view. Then he used the saw to cut the ribs, it wasn't easy but he managed to do it while damaging only a little bit of tissue around.
Now, the heart was open to see.
It was very unassuming, looking like every other heart Adam had seen. Nothing made it special at first glance. It was red, had four chambers and was connected to a multitude of veins and arteries.
There was no magical aura, no special colour or uneasy feeling.
The blood vessels were also normal, small and big, they varied in size but all connected to the heart there were blue ones and red ones, like normal.
'There are three main arteries here..., they connect to the aorta like they are supposed to.... Wait. Three?'
Adam had a sudden revelation as if a switch was turned inside his head.
There was another artery!
What was it for and why was it bluer than the blue one?
Normal arteries were red and blue, it was weird Adam didn't notice it earlier, but the third had a distinctive, blue colour, different from the colour on the blue artery, a blue hue and was way more transparent than it should be.
Adam started to follow its trail, cutting the flesh around it and making way for him to see. The unusual artery was clinging to Wolfe's spine, spreading towards the brain.
Now Adam had already created some theories for what the vein used. One thing that he knew about the brain of magical animals, and creatures in general is that is where the mana core is located.
In Derdanian culture, while the heart is the house of mana, it's the brain that is the most sacred place in the body. It's thought that the brain is the gateway for the soul to communicate with the rest of the body.
Also, the power of someone's soul is thought to affect their talent in handling mana.
To check if his theory is correct, Adam had to split the skull apart. He was taught about it by the pathologist, but it was still risky if he didn't want to damage the brain.
'Here we go.'
To begin the procedure, Adam started by peeling off the skin from the wolf's skull, leaving the bone naked and free to see. The weird thing about the skulls was that they aren't one bone, and it isn't about counting the jaw as the part of the skull. The dome-like bone just looked like a big ball that the kids played with in Frston, on its surface there was a net of seams, natural connections between different bones that together create the skull.
To take it apart, knowing where the various parts end and another begin was very useful. To uncover the brain in the least damaging way, the surgeon has to take away the whole part, carefully so that it doesn't break apart and injure the organ.
Of course, it's a technique used in Derdania, not the bastion of medical knowledge and discovery, and Adam wasn't sure if it could be used on living patients, as his knowledge was imparted to him by a pathologist.
The part he took out was near the spine, at the bottom of the skull. The vein entered the brain there, to see more Adam had to remove some of it.
It was a regrettable move, as his last half an hour was spent removing the bone so that the brain wouldn't be damaged, and now he himself was damaging it.
Getting rid of that portion of the brain was easy compared to the bone, mainly because the mage knew nothing about how to do it. Without guidelines, there was nothing he could do wrong, at least in this sort of thing.
Underneath the brain tissue, deep inside the skull, the core was located.
Now, it was a transparent orb, without any life or vibrancy. Thou it still had a small hue, it was empty. Normally, the core would have a colour and texture, depending on the attribute of the mana its owner used. If not removed in the first few hours after death, the mana inside would dissipate.
It could still be used as a battery, but every time a core is recharged by someone after its owner's death, its capacity falls to about half of what it was before. So, considering that recharging mana cores is an expensive procedure, as it needs mages' involvement, and that it deteriorates very quickly, if not removed quickly, its value falls dramatically.
Around the orb, a multitude of small vein-like tubes stretched out in all directions. Starting at the core and travelling to the end of the brain. They played a vital role in the dissipation of mana after death. If they were cut from the core, its gates would close, if not, the mana would go out until the mana density inside the core was the same as in the atmosphere.
That's all Adam knew about those mana channels, and that's knowledge every kid gains at a seminar before the ascension day to know how to harness the ores if they ever hunt a beast containing one.
Without concrete knowledge, Adam had no clue about what more those veins could do.
The main, thick vein connecting the heart and the core makes sense. The core acted as a storage so there had to be a way for mana to move from the generator, or a collector to be exact, to there, but those veins in the brain made no sense to Adam.
'Well, I will have to ask someone about it, if it connects to the brain, it must be important. However, I also have to figure out if humans also place their cores in the brain. Such a mistake would be horrifying... And also somewhat funny..' Adam thought.
Now, that he investigated his findings, the mage returned to the heart, in search of something more.
After seeing the transparent veins in the brain, Adam obviously checked for something similar around the torso. The search was long and arduous, as Adam had to be careful of the tissue and the organs, for he still didn't know if they were of some use.
'Oh!'
Eventually, he found some of those pathways, there were few and far in between, bet they were there.
There was one leading all the way to the tip of the tail, it was more similar to the transparent artery than the mana veins in the brain, as it was singular and didn't spread as the veins did. It led from the heart to the tail, in a somehow straight line.
The other two were located in the canine's hind legs, they were similar to the tail one, but they spread around the paws of the animal, unlike the first one.
After seeing those, particularly organs. Adam concluded that they acted as pathways for mana to go when the beast cast its abilities. The tail one could for example create some long-range attack, as the line didn't spread, it was concentrated. The leg ones, on the other hand, could serve as some kind of enhancement, they spread wide across the paws, suggesting some larger spells, size-wise.
'Whooo..., that seems to be all.'
After checking a few other things, Adam completed the research on the canine, at least the first specimen.
Now, came time for him to conclude his findings and note them down in a book he brought with himself to make his first grimoire, or whatever the mages called their notes.
After cleaning his hands, Adam sat in front of a table. His chest was in pain after more than two hours of leaning a bit forward, so this moment of rest gave him some relief. Then he started to write, but not too fast, he didn't have much experience in this type of stuff, and he really wanted to be able to read it later, if not, the whole endeavour would be futile.
-...These 'pathways' go all the way from the snout to the tail of the animal.
I think the ones leading from the heart to the brain act as the way for the mana to go to the 'storage', the core, from the heart which gathered it from the atmosphere.
The ones going from the heart to the limbs probably help the canine to cast its abilities.
I am clueless about the ones spreading in the brain, they don't seem to help with casting abilities. Neither do they look important for gathering mana....-
After the first session, the mage went outside to eat something and rest for a while, he still had to dissect two other animals. But he didn't leave the laboratory without changing his attire, a bloody mess of his clothes didn't look good enough to even walk in the severs.
Of course, the bloody clothes weren't his robes, he wasn't a fucking retard.
------------------------------------
After a quick bite, Adam returned to the messy laboratory. Where the wolf's dissected corpse was still lying on the table.
Adam asked one of the servants working in the tower to help him. They brought another table in the chamber. He still didn't want to get rid of the wolf carapace but had to have some space for its less-powerful counterpart.
Having cleaned a bit, the mage pulled the next corpse from the freezer with the help of the servant and dismissed him afterwards. The corpse, not the servant.
This session was different from the first one, Adam wasn't looking for things out of the ordinary comparable to normal bodies, now he looked for things he found in the first corpse, to see what arrived at the elementary realm and what was at the intermediate.
This time, he started at the head, having figured out that checking the weird veins came first.
He split it open, just like its predecessor and sighed, as he cut the brain flesh. It was gross, he didn't recognise the churning in his stomach as a symptom of deep disgust and repellence while checking the first wolf, he was too excited at the time. Now as he cooled down a bit, his work started to make him sick.
It was harder to make himself cut the flesh apart, his thoughts wandered to recent situations. He hadn't seen the monster's cave in all its glory, but even a glimpse inside gave him a headache and softened his knees. The gutted remains of the animals inside were very similar to the bodies that lay on his tables.
There were few differences among these two though. But not ones that made him feel any better.
They- he and the monsters both made their prey into a gruesome picture, the difference was that he played with long-dead bodies, in search of knowledge, and the monsters killed their prey for food, to feed their future children.
Adam felt evil, even the monsters had more respect for the dead than him at the moment. Was it necessary?
Eventually, Adam suppressed those feelings. Though his actions were morally questionable, If he had to sacrifice a bit of his conscience for a chance to expand his knowledge and explore the world, he would do it. To an extent.
The second wolf was a complete waste of time.
Adam didn't find anything in its brain out of the ordinary, in truth the whole body was just like a normal wolf.
The muscles were bigger and harder but were still the same muscles, just enhanced. The same applied to the bones and overall structure of the monster. It was just a big, tough version of itself.
Adam concluded that the monster's ascension from basic to the elementary realm didn't give them anything special, it was like evolution in which the monster would become a better version of itself, healthier, faster, stronger, and possibly more intelligent.
'I wonder if warriors also have such progression. They gain cores around the same time, so it would be quite logical.'
Adam moved on, he still had a bird to check. It was late already, but he figured he would finish the research today. The mage didn't have anything to do the next day, so he would rest and clean the lab, or maybe search for some more information in the quest to create his technique, but he still hadn't decided.
The aura manipulating owl was a big bird, with around two metres of wingspan. It was all white, a camouflage perfect for the snowy plains of Derdania.
Adam followed the same procedure as with the wolves, by firstly cutting his way into the torso and checking the heart and its surroundings, then examining the brain.
What he noticed shocked him quite a bit.
The aura monster didn't have its core in the brain, it was tucked under the animal's heart. But that's not what piqued his interest, it was common knowledge after all. What interested him was what came from the core.
While in the magic beast, the magic channels were quite big, and solitary with some exceptions, the aura channels were different. They spread throughout all of the bird's body, focusing mainly on muscles used for flight and in the near-skin area.
Also, there were no weird veins in the brain.
The aura beast had a much more developed circulatory system for the energy, but it had lesser capacity than the one in the magic beast. The channels were more numerous but far thinner and more fragile.
Also, the owl's muscles were comparable in hardness and density to the ones Adam saw in the wolf's corpse, the elementary one. It was an astounding achievement for a bird of prey to be comparable in physical strength to a wolf, even one a rank below.
What Adam also knew from his interactions with some intermediate and advanced warriors inside the army camp, was that aura was an excellent tool to strengthen the body.
He didn't know if the bird enhanced its muscles with its aura, but it was nearly certain that it helped itself keep quiet as the archer from Captain Garry's team did to her arrows. That's what the owls were famous for, after all.
After writing down his findings, Adam cleaned spilt blood and body parts that fell on the floor. It would be much more difficult to clean it if it condensed, so he did it right after ending his research, instead of the next day when he planned to clean the rest of the mess.
After closing the lab shut, the mage went to his room and left his newly started book on a shelf there.
'I need to find a good name for it, it's my first book after all.'
After a day of hard work, he fell on a bed like a log, after taking the dirty clothes off.
He didn't know at the time, that the night sky would soon find itself a new source of light.