Adam's lips twitched for a moment as he eyed the unmoving original. A torrent of thoughts crashed in his mind, each a different piece trying to complete the puzzle. But no matter how he tried to slot them, he failed, prompting a strange idea to spring into his mind.
"Don't tell me he survived the radiation, too?" He muttered, his luminous eyes bulging as his thoughts swirled into disbelief. If he did, the original was more of a cockroach than even the third trial's chimaeras. After all, despite their resilience, they wouldn't have survived half of what he had endured.
As his mind wandered into a realm of comparison, a subtle sensation pricking at his awareness drew his attention to the vortex.
Curiosity burning in his heart, he gazed at the mass of mana swirling peacefully. However, each passing second caused his eyes to enlarge a little more. The gentle hum filling the cave grew more disruptive, breaking the peace while the energy erratically flowed.
A whisper escaped his lips, and his spectral form shuddered before the starting spectacle. And soon, something he had never heard of took place in front of his shuddering figure.
Drawn by something in the original's possession, brilliant tendrils of mana rushed at his body. Like millions of ethereal needles, the potent energy passed through the skin, bones, and muscles to reach the stomach. Then, it enveloped a solid yet smooth item that had nothing to do with a human body and passively nourished it.
Yet, when the energy sought to travel along the familiar canals as it usually did, it failed. After all, those canals didn't exist inside the original.
Provoked or angry by the joke, the energy surged like a furious gale for a moment. Then, more mana infiltrated the human's body, travelling through the muscles like hungry hounds. In its passage, it drew every gram of nutrients to fuel its grand project. Feeling it wasn't enough, it scanned deeper, taking everything usable from the bones, muscles, and cells.
A sensation of dread struck Adam as he watched the original's once muscular body gradually turn rickety. Cracking bones protruded from sickly gray skin in a show of horror. But that was only the beginning.
His nose scrounged as the smell of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils, and his pupils trembled at the sight of strange patterns branding themselves in the man's flesh but also in his very soul. They were...
"Mana circuits!" He yelled, his breath hastening at the shocking development and after finally finding a significant answer. Against all odds, the original survived and gained the ability to wield mana before going to the magic world! And everything happened because, in his mad frenzy, he coincidentally swallowed the abomination's core.
"No. There is more to it!"
His mind raced to deduce how deeply the process affected the original. Not only did the mana use the core as a heart to build the circuits, but it also collected another form of energy to fuel the process.
"Gamma radiation," he muttered, a jolt shaking his spectral frame and leading to another discovery. That was why, contrary to him, number two could use atomic spells.
Upon deducing this far, he frowned. It didn't make sense. Why didn't he share the same affinity?
'Well... I'll learn the answer by this recollection's end,' he thought, shrugging and tossing this question to the back of his mind to focus on the unconscious original.
Despite his unhealthy external appearance, his insides were in a much better state than a moment ago. His cells divided again at a steady pace, and his DNA's collapse halted thanks to the mana. It cleverly used the radiation ravaging his body in a silent invasion to build its channels, ridding it of the cells.
It also forced a chain of mutations to occur, creating an entirely new organ by rewriting the collapsing DNA.
However, the process also left long-lasting damages that would never heal. After all, Earthlings' bodies weren't meant to use mana in the first place, and those alterations drained everything from the original. Sadly, no matter what he did in the future, his body would remain on the brink of collapse... and his soul, too.
A wry smile stretched Adam's lips. He started to uncover more about the original's story and, by definition, about him. However, it froze on his face the next second as the scene cracked like a mirror. Glistening shards fell from the cave's ceiling, blinding his vision and deafening his ears. Forced to shield his eyes from the assault, he covered them with his palm to endure.
After a minute, when he reopened them, he frowned. The cave was gone. The behemoth's carcass was gone, too. Instead, he stood behind an individual wearing large clothes in tatters, hiding his frame behind them. His eyes squinted at the hideous mask he wore. But he understood its provenance rapidly.
It was crafted from the creature's chitin. So was the glinting armor hidden behind his coat.
He thought, tucking his fingers around his chin. It made sense since he had seen the most relevant parts of the beginning. If he saw the middle and the end next, he could fill the blanks in without wasting time.
With his renewed understanding, he took his surroundings in. The man was clearly the original, yet he wasn't alone. Filling the room were five aloof individuals sitting before a flag he had never seen.
Fortunately, an aged man soon entered and spoke, relieving his confusion.
"Welcome to the United States of Earth," he said, his eyes peering into each of the six individuals. "We are so grateful to see such powerful humans join us! As you know, the alien menace from the vortex calamity has been ravaging our dear planet for five long years."
A tense silence lingered in the air before he continued.
"From the initial eight billion humans, we are left with five hundred million. We must all unite under the same banner to survive. That's why, after locating your positions, we invested every available resource to bring you here."
His lips curled downwards, and his eyes dimmed upon recalling how many brave men died just to fetch them. But with their presence, many more would survive. After all, each exuded a suffocating pressure despite their relaxed expressions. Monster. They were monsters wearing human skin, especially the masked one.