I. A Week at the Edge of Collapse
The newborn slept inside the magi-technological incubator, unaware of the tension suffocating the main residence of the Arias family.
Seven days.
Seven days in which the floating screens—connected by filaments of glowing light—had failed to show even the slightest decrease in the baby's mana levels.
Every reading was the same:
High. Dense. Unstable. Dangerous.
The magical equivalent of trying to trap a river inside a wine glass.
The situation was so critical that Alexander Vides López—Johana's older brother, a doctor and specialized mage—had barely slept.
He spent the nights in a wrinkled lab coat, with a cup of cold coffee and his eyes fixed on the fluctuations of Jhosep's core.
And no matter what he tried…
Nothing worked.
Modern techniques failed.
Flow regulators couldn't ease the pressure.
Magical stabilizers could only postpone the spikes.
It was useless.
The baby's mana simply refused to follow any known rule.
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II. The Silence None of Them Could Break
While Alexander worked tirelessly, Manuel, Johana, and Liora barely left the incubator's side.
Manuel Arias Moreno, usually emotionless, had spent the entire week sitting in front of the glass, watching his son with the same intensity a soldier uses to survey a minefield. He didn't speak. He didn't complain. He simply observed… as if searching for an impossible answer.
Johana, on the other hand, was the very image of fear.
Dark circles under her eyes, trembling hands, a heart that seemed to stop with every warning beep from the monitors.
Liora Falkenray—half human, half elf—was perhaps the most shaken.
More than anyone, she understood what mana meant for a living being.
Essence.
Life.
The flow that bound body, spirit, and soul.
Seeing a baby with a core on the verge of collapsing made her stomach twist.
—He can't die… not again… she murmured each night, unaware of how painfully true those words were.
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III. Alexander and the Forbidden Documents
On the sixth day, Alexander exhausted every modern option.
There was only one place left to look.
Far behind.
He requested access to extremely restricted ancient documents.
The Vides family's Archivist—a frail elderly woman with thick glasses and ink-stained hands—brought the boxes personally.
—These texts were never meant to be opened again, Alexander, she said gravely.
But if it's to save your nephew… then let history judge.
That night, Alexander opened the boxes in his office.
Inside, he found:
Las Siete Partidas
A medieval law compilation describing brutal punishments, spiritual suppression, and mutilation.
Castilian legal manuscripts
With references to judgments where divine sentence mixed with physical and magical punishment.
The Malleus Maleficarum
A dark treatise on witchcraft and torture for those who "offended essence."
Just reading them made Alexander's skin crawl.
Cruel.
Inhumane.
Barbaric.
But among the horror…
He noticed a pattern.
A technique that appeared between the lines:
The gravest punishment of the Ancient Era was not death.
It was stripping someone of their mana.
Following that clue, Alexander discovered even older documents—barely legible—describing a forbidden seal:
The Vital Suppression Seal.
Created to:
Disable all mana channels
Completely isolate the core
Disconnect the individual from mana
Condemn them to a slow spiritual death
Thousands of words.
Runes.
Hieroglyphs.
Extinct tongues.
All repeating three concepts:
CONTAIN — DESTROY — KILL
Alexander felt sick.
Was this the only surviving method for stopping an overflowing core?
But he kept reading.
Because of the baby.
Because of his sister.
Because of his family.
---
IV. The Experiments
To understand the seal's behavior, Alexander used test subjects:
Deviants
Animals altered by mana.
The first was a small fox-like creature with two tails and glowing yellow eyes.
He tried removing the "kill" aspect from the seal.
Result:
The creature immediately reverted to its original form.
No pain.
No death.
Alexander wrote quickly.
—This… could work…
Next, he removed "destroy," leaving only "contain."
Immediate result:
The mana became trapped inside the core, with no way to circulate.
As if he had sealed a river inside a bottle.
The creature collapsed in seconds.
Not dead… but close.
It took hours to stabilize it.
Lastly, he removed both "kill" and "destroy," leaving a weakened form of "contain."
The result was stable, but…
Alexander's conclusion:
Containing mana without harming or destroying it is possible…
but it forces the core to keep the mana motionless.
Like a river without flow.
Like a heart beating without pumping.
Mana would never circulate.
Never leave the core.
Never pass through the channels.
The child would grow up with no usable mana.
A "mana-less human."
A pariah.
A mistake in society's eyes.
Alexander shut the book, exhausted.
The "cure" existed.
But it came at a terrible price.
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V. Only One Choice Remains
That night, Alexander gathered the three adults.
They stood in front of him.
In front of the incubator.
In front of the child's fate.
His voice came out tired, worn:
—I found a possibility. But… I don't know if it can be called a solution.
All eyes fixed on him.
Alexander inhaled and explained:
The seal.
The experiments.
The risks.
The unavoidable consequence:
The child would live without mana.
Forever.
A void in a world full of essence.
A child who would never be accepted.
Who would be mocked, rejected, isolated.
A future of suffering.
When he finished…
Silence.
Manuel remained still, serious, analyzing every detail as if dissecting a moral paradox.
Liora exploded:
—NO! You can't be serious!
Her emerald eyes trembled.
—Stripping someone of mana is… is stealing part of their soul! It's mutilation!
Johana couldn't even speak.
Her fear was paralyzing.
She had already lost a child once…
She couldn't bear the thought of condemning this one.
Alexander lowered his gaze.
—I know it's cruel… I know.
But if we don't act…
if we don't slow the flow…
the core won't survive.
The word he avoided hung in the air:
He'll die.
And the weight of that truth crushed them.
They had to choose:
Let him live…
but without mana.
Or watch his core collapse.
An impossible choice.
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