382 ...You'll Find Out!
In a fit of excitement, Revian proceeded to repeat the experiment with more variation. He first took the water to boiling point before cooling it down. After doing so he captured the volatile mana and hurtled it towards his core. This time, the raw mana released from the carried a greater amount of heat energy, which nearly melted his mana channels. But, by ejecting the mana immediately from his palm avoided that trouble. It was a painful test but provided meaningful results. It basically reinforced his theory.
"Why don't we stop?" Yohn suggested. "You've answered your research question."
"As I said, there are still a lot more thermal interactions we need to investigate. We've done cooling, by what about heating?" Revian dismissed.
"We can continue tomorrow," Yohn reiterated.
"Why? I'm feeling perfectly fine. Now please, focus on the experimentation again," Revian said before pouring some room-temperature water into a beaker. He then activated another spell that started to raise the temperature of the fluid slowly, while capturing the released volatile mana. This time, upon piercing his mana core with the volatile mana, a burning coolness radiated outwards, which he navigated with familiarity through his mana channels and out his empty palm.
"This is reducing the temperature of the immediate vicinity of your palm," Yohn explained.
"That's amazing!" Revian exclaimed. "That about phase changes? Let's boil the water completely into steam and see if there is a difference in the by-produced volatile mana."
Yohn held back his words of caution and continued observing carefully.
Revian was relentless with his experimentation. He peppered his mana core continuously with volatile mana while biting through the pain and discomfort. It was all worth it as he was learning more and more about the nature of volatile mana. After a particular point, he learned how to automatically and continuously reabsorb the released volatile mana while casting a spell, send it through his mana core, and release the output from his empty palm.
He held two beakers with water, one in each hand. He then cooled the one on the right while transferring the extracted heat from that beaker to the one on his opposite hand. And thus, he had effectively turned into a perfect heat pump!
At that instant, in the midst of the mana sink, a vortex of mana started to form above Revian. Yohn quickly recognised this phenomenon as a sign of an advancement approaching - Revian's advancement into the Foundation Establishment realm. Yohn let out an excited laugh as he observed the mana siphon into Revian. The impurities inside his body started to vaporise out of his skin, disintegrating his inner clothing in the process.
It was nearly reaching the end of the advancement when something unexpected happened. Revian let out a pained scream before grabbing his abdomen and collapsing like a rag doll, unconscious. Yohn was caught completely off guard by this development. He rushed forward and tried to awaken the unresponsive boy - he was alive, which lowered Yohn's anxiousness slightly. Yohn immediately picked up Revian over his shoulders and started to rush in the Sect's direction.
____
"I really missed this," Jean said out loud while taking in a long breath of the Sect's air. Though there were still two months left of her self-imposed year-long journeywoman's trip, she decided to cut it short (once again) after her talk with Furion. After learning of the new magic wand that Shuri developed for the visually impaired, she just had to track the developments!
"Can I go now?" Kili pleaded. "I need to go find Dora and challenge her to a battle."
"We need to first report our arrival with the Sect Leader and Matron Reva," Jean reminded. "Till that happens, you are my responsibility, and I can't lose sight of you."
"Fine..." Kili said with a sigh. "But this isn't the way to either of their rooms. We're going to the clinic?"
"I want to check if everything is okay first. I've left them for a very long time, I want to make sure that my office is in one piece," Jean stated.
"No fair! We're just wasting time," Kili groaned.
Jean ignored Kili's whining and continued walking towards the clinic. Along the way, she met a few Sect Members. Some of them greeted her with a smile, while others shuddered slightly before giving her a wavering smile.
'Too suspicious! I need to call them in and run a medical checkup to see what idiocy they got into while I was gone-'
"I can see you, Huron!" Jean yelled at the boy tiptoeing away while hiding behind another Sect Member. "I want you in the clinic within the hour, or else I will personally camp outside your room!"
As she observed the cursing boy walk away at a brisk pace, she suddenly noticed two people approaching, one being carried by the other. The unconscious boy was Revian, and Jean recognised him. But what surprised her was that he was being carried by Yohn. The boy's eyes were no longer hollow but had a vibrant glow of all the colours in the rainbow.
"S-Senior Sister Jean!" Yohn called out. "Thank goodness you're back! P-Please help."
Jean approached Yohn and picked Revian out of his hands. "What happened?"
"He- We were doing an experiment," Yohn started. He was clearly shaken and the chronology of his explanation was all over the place. "He advanced into the Foundation Establishment realm and then... then he just..."
"It's okay," Jean said quickly to calm Yohn down. "Let me examine him."
Revian was rushed into the clinic and made to lie down. Jean then started to inspect his body with her mana sense, to search for the common causes of the sudden onset of pain and subsequent unconsciousness. The search went on for ten minutes, until eventually she paused, scratched her said, and evoked, "Weird..."
"What's the matter?" Yohn inquired. "Is he going to be okay?"
"He IS okay," Jean said. "There's nothing wrong with him, medically speaking. And if there is, it is something even I don't know about. But I think that it is highly unlikely."
"So what's happening to him?"
Jean leaned against her desk in the clinic and said, "My guess is that it has something to do with his cultivation. You said that the pain only started AFTER he advanced?"
"That's when it became unbearable," Yohn corrected. "He was having pain during the experiment too, but it was only momentary when he forced volatile mana into his core."
"He did what?!" A shocked male voice resounded from the entrance. All heads turned to see the rattled face of the Sect Leader staring back.
"Why would he do something like that?" The man followed up while rushing forward towards the unconscious boy. He gently placed his palms on Revian's abdomen and concentrated with his eyes closed.
"My goodness!" The Sect Leader explained.
"What's wrong?" Jean probed cautiously.
"His mana core is completely cracked!" Sect Leader Larks declared.
"Oh no..." Yohn exclaimed. He then collapsed on the ground in shock.
The Sect Leader turned to Yohn and said, "Explain to me, everything that happened which led up to this. Do not leave out any details."
"O-Okay," Yohn stuttered before explaining the whole experiment without missing a single piece of information. Once he finished, the Sect Leader's fist dropped on the desk with a loud crack.
"Why would you do something so stupid?!" The Sect Leader bellowed.
"It's my fault! I should have stopped him-"
"You tried," Jean quickly interjected. "Revian just didn't listen to you."
"I didn't try hard enough-"
"Stop blaming yourself," The Sect Leader said with finality before patting the shaken boy's shoulders. "This is now out of your hands and no longer your responsibility. Revian did not stick to the safety procedures he set for himself. You tried to get him to adhere to it, but he did not listen. You performed damage control admirably by bringing him to the Sect as soon as it turned into a problem. You've handled the situation admirably."
He then carefully helped Yohn up and guided him out of the room while saying, "Why don't you take a rest? Everything's going to be alright, now that I'm here."
"Okay..." Yohn muttered while walking out of the clinic, not before giving Revian a quick glance on the way out.
"How do we help him?" Jean asked once she was certain that it was just her and the Sect Leader in the room.
"There's nothing we can do here," The Sect Leader said in defeat before dropping on a chair near Revian's bed. "If you notice, the boy is suffering with symptoms similar to that of mana exhaustion. That's because his core is cracked. Any mana that is generated is immediately dissipated through this crack."
Jean sucked in a cold mouthful of air in shock, "So basically, he's crippled his cultivation."
"Not entirely, since he's in the Foundation Establishment realm," the Sect Leader pointed out.
"So what options do we have?" Jean asked again. "Is there really no remedy to this?"
"There might be," he answered while tilting his head to the side. "But first, we need to wait until Revian wakes up."
"How much trouble is he going to be in?" Jean probed worriedly.
"What more punishment can I mete out that will trump the mire he's dropped himself into by his own volition?" The Sect Leader pointed out. "First, he needs to come to terms with the consequences of his actions."
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