Nero groaned, as the first thing he felt was a deep headache that was as if he was not waking up from sleep, but had instead spent days awake. He was still drowsy, his thoughts slow to form, so the next thing he took notice of was the warm liquid surrounding his body.
He moved his hand and immediately touched the solid container just beneath the water. It seemed that he was floating in some kind of healing pod.
For a long time after that, Nero did nothing else, slowly allowing his mind to recover from the heavy fog that was clouding his thoughts.
"This is not natural," he mumbled out loud, unable to think in his head as he normally did. "I must be under the effects of some heavy sedatives."
Another long period of silence and inactivity followed, during which Nero’s mind recovered even more. Sensation returned to his limbs, and he discovered that his legs and back were extremely sore, as if he was recovering from an intense workout.
Nero groaned again, this time not because of his headache, but because of the strain of opening his eyes. If he made small movements, such as twitching his hand, then he could succeed. But if he tried to do more, he would fail.
It was like a half baked version of sleep paralysis, but eventually even that faded. Nero opened his eyes to find a soft, blue light filling the pod he was in. His eyes narrowed in on a latch right in front of his face, for it was the only thing to look at really, and slowly opened the pod, though that was a mistake.
The bright light outside stung his eyes, and caused him to clench them shut and cover them with his arm. His body was extremely sensitive at the moment, it seemed, to even the slightest stimuli.
But a calming wave suddenly washed through his body, helping him relax and alleviating some of the soreness from his body.
"Nero Grant you’re my favourite patient ever," claimed a cheerful voice he recognised as Dr. Iris, the Mystic Ayurvedist. "I really thought you were a buzz kill, with all the rejecting live human experimentation. But lo and behold, just a short while later you end up in my hospital, alive and well, with a surface body temperature of -38 celsius (-36.4 Fahrenheit). Oh, I had fun with you."
Nero opened his eyes once more, and found to his surprise that he felt incredibly comfortable. All he had to do was allow Dr. Iris to poke his exposed chest a few times. Personally, he felt the price was too high.
He looked down at his body and found himself only wearing synthetic boxers, revealing his toned, though somewhat frail body, and frowned. His condition had not been so bad, last he remembered.
"How are the others? Did they make it?" he asked, turning back to the doctor as he lifted himself out of the pod.
"Barely," the doctor said, suddenly becoming a little serious. "One of them had a stasis card that put their body into a protected, dormant state. But the temperature of their bodies was so low that even the stasis state was eventually disrupted. If you had not made it in time, they would have died.
"Fortunately, they will make a full recovery in a few days, though their psychological state is not the best. If new soldiers had not come in to fill the numbers, we would have had to suspend Neophyte expeditions there. Even so, a few Initiate teams have started going in every alternate day to relieve the pressure."
"Wait, how long have I been sleeping?" Nero asked, suddenly realising that the doctor’s words didn’t sound right.
"Four days," Dr. Iris said, her expression turning even more grave. "I kept you sedated. We need to have a talk about your condition, but I also need to conduct a few tests. Get up and follow me."
Nero raised an eyebrow, but lifted himself from the pod and grabbed a towel that had been placed nearby, drying himself as he stepped out.
He took slow, deliberate steps as he tested out his body. Even though it did not feel sore anymore, he could tell that he was weaker. He was curious about why his condition was so bad, but was sure he would find out sooner rather than later as he followed the doctor into another room.
"The first obstacle was your body temperature. We had to raise it, but doing so too drastically would spell trouble, even for someone like you who boasts a level of low temperature immunity.
"Don’t underestimate this hurdle. Even leaving your body out at the normal temperature was causing too drastic of a rise in your temperature. We needed to call a certain Arcanist who had an innate ability related to ice, and have him build you a room. The problem was, even his ice was quite a bit warmer than you."
Nero listened quietly as they walked through various halls, not showing a shred of embarrassment at being led, practically naked, through the hospital, though he sincerely wished someone would offer him a robe or something.
"While we brought your body temperature to above freezing, I also studied the behaviour of your body in excruciating detail. I can now inform you with complete confidence that you are not actually immune to low temperature, which I suppose should have been fairly obvious.
"I will briefly explain what happens, though to gain a true, deep understanding you will need to undertake further studies in human anatomy and biology during your period at the academy.
"In essence, when we humans embark on the path of becoming a card master, and our innate ability materialises, at the Neophyte realm it makes a few minor changes to our body, first to allow it to tolerate and use aether, and second to not suffer self harm due to the innate ability itself.
"I have gone through the detailed records of your innate ability, all collected during your service in Lumina, as well as records of the army during your brief training. Your fire, on the surface, absorbs temperature to strengthen itself, thereby dropping the temperature.
"However, considering the anti-curse capabilities shown by your flames, the records have been amended to state that your fire absorbs all kinds of energies, at various levels of effectiveness. It absorbs thermal energy the most rapidly, hence its association with freezing things."
Considering that Nero had not turned over any actual Cryoflame cards to anyone, no one had read the words that described his ability, and so did not know that it spoke of absorbing heat. Later on, Nero felt that his understanding of the word heat was insufficient, or that maybe the description was not entirely correct for the language may be lacking the exact word to describe what his fires absorbed.
"Likewise, after studying the behaviour of your body, I can boldly claim that the direction of your body’s evolution is not to survive in cold weather, but to survive in the absence of all energy as it is sucked up by your flames. For now, it makes no fundamental difference, but if you manage to make it to the Mystic realm, and gain a profession, the evolution of your body will become significant."
Doctor Iris paused her speech, and looked at Nero directly in the eyes, as if to emphasise how important her following words would be.
"If the direction of your body’s evolution remains consistent, you might reach a point where you can become immune to the effects of the fog that surrounds the six countries. Such a discovery has great significance, and I’ve submitted a report to that end to my superiors. I cannot determine how they will respond, but personally I’d put you on a priority nurturing list."
Nero raised his eyebrow, but did not immediately respond. He knew for certain that the growth of his body would not stay consistent. When he entered the Neophyte realm, the development of his body was dictated by a single innate ability. But when he became an Initiate, there would be two innate abilities which would shape his body.
He still didn’t know how that would turn out, but hopefully it would be for the best. Nero also didn’t know if one of his innate abilities would evolve, or if both of them would.
"Well, that is just the basics of how your body is evolving right now," Iris continued. "However, as a Neophyte the level of your body’s evolution is very low. As a result, resisting low temperatures still puts a strain on your physical body. You’ve never noticed it before because your aether assists in helping you resist, but this time the temperature of your body dropped really low.
"Over the period of your body temperature normalising, you lost about 8% of your body mass, and since you don’t have much fat in your body, all of that came from your muscles. Such a drastic drop in such a short span of time nearly sent you into organ failure - making it the second time in a few weeks you’ve nearly had total organ failure.
"Even with healing cards, abilities and medicine, your body cannot sustain such consistent exertion. Combining this with the three fractures you’d suffered, which have also been healed by now, your body is in an extremely drained state. As a doctor, I recommended a week’s worth of bedrest for you, at minimum, before you can be deployed."
The doctor sighed.
"Unfortunately, your own success was your undoing. The success of the latest strategy to send you into cursed areas to search for materials has convinced the higher ups. You’re to be deployed as soon as you’re fit to wield a weapon. Also, you’ve been called for a debriefing. Actually, those buffoons heading this operation wanted you debriefed the moment you woke up. If it weren’t for me threatening to make them impotent, they wouldn’t have given you this breather."
Nero tried, and eventually succeeded, at suppressing the smirk that wanted to appear on his face. This doctor was a little radical. Such a statement to one’s superiors would usually lead to accusations of insubordination, but she got no such response it seemed. One of the perks of being the only Ayurvedist around.
"Actually, a debriefing soon would be for the best," Nero said. "I need to tell them some things that happened during the mission."