Chapter 19
THE COST
Falling.
I'm falling again...
Through nothingness—so peaceful, so quiet.
And then the raves start again:
#&£&'£*£#@@
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh—
IAM jolts awake, his body soaked in sweat. A nausea unlike anything he's ever felt twists in his gut, rising like bile. He can barely breathe—the air feels thick and too heavy, as if a massive stone sits on his chest.
Not fear.
Not the usual kind, at least.
This one crawls deeper—feral, ancient, paralyzing.
He tries to move—but nothing obeys him. His limbs are stone, cold and alien.
A low, stifled groan escapes his cracked lips. His head throbs like a war drum, pulsing behind his eyes. His throat scratches and burns with dryness, as if lined with dust and glass, and his nose—completely blocked. He swallows, barely, choking slightly on a thick mass of phlegm lodged in his throat. His skin, every inch of it, screams in hypersensitivity.
Just existing in this moment felt like death.
The sensations come in waves, unrelenting, overwhelming.It strips him down to bone and nerve.
And in all that pain...
He doesn't even notice he's not alone.
Minutes pass. Or maybe hours. Time becomes shapeless. IAM silently battles a storm inside his body and mind, teetering on the edge of madness.
Eventually, he begins to breathe—just barely.
Inhale... Exhale.
Inhale... Exhale...
Each breath is a labor. Each breath is a victory.
He steadies enough to crack open his burning eyes—and blinks. The ceiling above him is unfamiliar.
That...
That ceiling is not mine...
Cold steel. Smooth. Bright. It's no tent fabric. It smells sterile. Artificial.
A moment of shock spikes through him, and IAM chokes—literally. He hacks and gags, desperate to spit but with no strength or control. Finally, disgusted and desperate, he swallows the phlegm down with a grimace and burning throat.
He attempts to turn his neck, to see where he is.
SHARP PAIN.
It stabs like a blade in the base of his neck, electric and blinding. His muscles reject the effort completely. He's locked inside his own body, a prisoner behind his eyes.
So he lies there.
Staring up.
At the white ceiling of a place he does not know, breathing in and out through agony, mind racing with questions...
Suddenly, a figure moved into view, blurring at first, then sharpening.
A woman.
Tall—easily six feet—with pale porcelain skin, just a few shades shy of ghostly. Her lips were blood red, almost surreal against the starkness of her complexion. Blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves, framing a face both serene and vaguely predatory, like an enchanting vampire fresh out of the underworld. Her hazel eyes sparkled with a strange knowing, and a faint smile curled at the corners of her lips—too restrained to be kind, too subtle to be threatening.
She gazed down at IAM like she was examining something fragile… or freshly caught.
As she opened her mouth to speak, IAM became aware of a piercing, high-pitched ringing in his left ear that warped and distorted her voice like a broken radio transmission.
"Hel_o, it's goo_ our aw_ke, let_ see h_er_....
Ha_ be__ kno__ed o_t for 13 hours _nd is co_fi__med to be s a re__t of man expo_ure for a l_ng pe_iod of time…"
(Hello, it's good you're awake. Let's see here… Has been knocked out for thirteen hours and is confirmed to be as a result of mana exposure for a long period of time.)
IAM blinked hard, the headache hammering again as he struggled to focus.
The woman—her expression unchanged—lowered her tablet and said softly, "Oh!"
She then reached out, slowly and deliberately, placing one hand firmly on IAM's chest. He braced himself for another wave of agony, expecting the familiar hot lance of pain—but instead, a rush of cool, liquid-like energy poured through him, diffusing through every nerve.
He gasped. The relief was instant.
The fog in his mind began to lift.
The ringing in his ear faded into silence.
His breathing stabilized.
She smiled a bit wider now—gentle, patient. "Hello there. That's better, right?"
Her voice was warm, velvet and composed, like honey drizzled over stone.
"My name is Althea," she said smoothly. "And you get the pleasure of having me as your nurse while you recover from your… unfortunate incident."
IAM swallowed. His throat still burned, but the cool energy helped.
"What… happened to me?" he rasped.
Althea tapped a few notes on her tablet, then looked at him thoughtfully, as if evaluating whether to be gentle or blunt. She chose somewhere in between.
"Well," she began, "you're suffering from the effects of prolonged exposure to mana as someone without an avien."
Her tone was clinical but not unkind.
"This is a common case among individuals with less developed willpower. To compensate for their inefficiency compared to those with stronger mental faculties, they expose themselves to intense mana for extended periods and with high frequency, believing that enduring the pain will accelerate adaptation."
She tilted her head.
"It does… to a degree. But the body pays for it."
IAM listened quietly, eyes wide.
"People with stronger mental strength don't need to go to such extremes. Their minds adjust faster, more efficiently. But by pushing your body like this, especially without the stabilizing effect of an avien, you've stressed your system beyond its limit. Your pores and pore-like openings—which regulate mana flow—have been strained and damaged."
She lifted a hand and ticked symptoms off her fingers:
"Nausea. Headache. Physical weakness. Burning eyes. Hypersensitive skin. Mental disorientation. Ringing ears. Temporary paralysis."
Her voice dropped slightly. "And in extreme cases—coma, or worse."
IAM's jaw clenched. He hadn't known… or hadn't wanted to know.
Althea exhaled softly through her nose. "It's a very unpleasant experience, yes. And frankly... did no one tell you?"
She gave him a measured look, more disappointment than accusation.
"There was no need to rush. You're encouraged to train one day, and rest the next. Two weeks is the average for avien formation. You would have been fine."
IAM felt shame rise in his throat, thicker than the phlegm. He had done this to himself.
But still....
IAM's chest felt heavy—hollow, almost—as a gnawing realization began to stir within him.
There was a fundamental, cruel divide between this world and the one he had come from. Not in the architecture, the customs, or the creatures. Not in the food or the strange swirling mana that coated everything like an invisible mist.
No—it was mental strength.
The baseline—the minimum—mental fortitude of people in this world was staggeringly high compared to Earth. IAM hadn't understood it before. Not truly. But now… now he did.
The pain he endured in his desperate attempt to form an avien… it wasn't just severe. It was inhuman. Barbaric. And yet, it was the norm here. The wild and reckless technique that forced the body to adapt through sheer agony wasn't outlawed, nor abandoned. It was commonplace.
Because they could endure it.
That was the difference.
Even with their incredibly high mental strength, most people here still struggled to form an avien in two weeks. That timeframe would be laughable—impossible—on Earth. And yet, here, it was expected.
And IAM…?
He had barely kept up.
Six minutes and twenty-three seconds, in one week and five days.
By Earth standards, it was superhuman.
Here… it was subpar.
Embarrassingly weak.
And now—after pushing past every boundary, after breaking himself for even a sliver of progress—he had reached a new peak:
Eight minutes and three seconds.
But even as he held onto that number like a badge of honor, an ominous weight settled in his gut.
The worst, he feared, was yet to be spoken.
Althea, still standing beside him, cleared her throat gently. Her voice was soft—but steady, professional.
"And due to this," she began, her eyes never leaving the screen of her tablet, "unfortunately... I'm afraid that in order to shake off the effects and recover properly…"
She glanced at him now, and her eyes had that same quiet sympathy. But her tone never wavered.
"You must not attempt to form an avien for two full weeks."
She let the words settle.
"And during that time… your resistance to the pain will most likely drop. Meaning…"
A pause. Then:
"…it might take you another two weeks to succeed."
She looked up from her tablet.
"So, at the very least… it may be a month."
.....
The words echoed in the room like a gavel striking cold steel.
IAM's eyes welled instantly.
Tears broke free, hot and unrelenting, rolling down his temples, soaking into the hospital pillow beneath him.
His lips trembled, and he tried to speak—but the words were lost. Garbled. Swallowed by the depth of his sobbing.
He cried.
Not just from the pain. Not even from the delay.
But from the sheer weight of helplessness.
Althea stood still, her hands folded. She said nothing. Offered no words of comfort. But in her eyes—if one looked carefully—there was a glimmer of pity. A softness behind the professional mask.
IAM grumbled something incoherent, his body shaking with the effort of grief, the heartbreak of being inadequate.
Then, through the sobs—finally, she heard something clear:
"I…"
His voice cracked.
"I'm so pathetic…"
The words lingered.
Raw.
Unanswered.
Unrefuted.
There was no reply.
No denial.
No comforting lie.
Only silence—and the sound of his own tears.