Chapter 19 : Breath

Hektor slowly adapted to his {Insight State} and could stay longer and longer in that state, looking at his body from his inside. Even though it was painfull at the start, Hektor kept going and could soon stay in this state for an hour.

At this moment, his {Insight State} began to slow down. It became harder to see improvements in the duration he could stay in the state. All he could do is persevere, but after reaching two hours,the improvements rate became so slow that Hektor thoughts he would have to spend an entire year just to augment the duration of his stay in the {Insight State} from one hour to two. He hadn't this time and didn't want to wait this long.

Hektor, then, focused his insight on understanding his body. He already had been looking around previously, but now, he had a goal behind theses explorations. He wanted to research everything he could in order to improves his Way of the Body and Anatomy. First, this state could help him in his training but it could also be helpfull to his research.

As the days passed, Hektor scanned his organs, his circulatory system, his muscles, his bones and every part of his body. Even though his insight was blurred thanks to the wide range it was applied on, Hektor could still analyze and understand many things to his daily introspection.

It might sound extraordinary for him to be able to understand the human body in a weak but remember that he cme from a world scientificly based. They were taught from early on the differents parts of the body and how he was composed. As the years went by, on Earth, Hektor accumulated experiences and memories. He had seen some of his previous friend and persons he considered as members of his familly, being admitted to the hospital for various reasons and had took the time to research what was the cause and consequences of their stays.

He had collected some knowledge of the body thanks to these incidents. But, knowing something doesn't really change the fact that doing the action is complicated. Even if you know the whole human anatomy, you doesn't necessarily becomes doctor. Anyway, with his previous knowledge, as little as it was, Hektor spend the rest of his week pondering on how the whole body worked.

The days passed, and it was already friday, as Hektor sat there deeply in thoughts, only moving to eat, take a leak or shit, and sleep. He hadn't done anything else apart his introspection with his {Insight State} and had found something truly incredible. He had been able to, after countless hours of study, see more learly his body. If before he could see with the blurred eyes of a human, now he could see the microscopic level of things. He could see cells and how they behaved. His organs weren't now only one block of matter but an construct that Hektor was able to see with his insight.

It truly was extraordinary how he had improved his Insight.

'Now that I think about it, I used two differents methods in order to achieve two differents results. First, I focused on a little, tiny piece of my body in order to see it more clearly and second, I spred my insight and circulated it to understand more of my body. I was burdened by agreat strain thanks to the second method, but I was able to increase my time spend in this state and the precision of my Insight. I probably should goes on with this method.' Hektor thought as he analyzed his performance.

As he entered his {Insight State}, he refocused himself on his breath but this time kept an eye on his blood. He knew that oxygen was transported by his blood to his organs and muscles. by controlling the flow of his blood and whole body, Hektor was sure he coudl improve his entire being. Doctor were meant to prevent someone from getting sick or heal them after injuries, etc... But Hektor thought that knowledge of the body and the anatomy should be used in order to improve the fonctionnement of it. It's like talent. If the body is the talent, the doctors are those who prevent it from disappearing. Hektor wanted to use the same knowledge to make this talent even more unusual. He wanted to "upgrade it".

Hektor kept his mind wide and spread his senses and Insight. His breath was steady and circulated from his mouth and nose. The air went into his pharynx, which is between his trachea and his nose. It continued and passed by the larynx, into the trachea which is divided in two bronchi. The two bronchi are, then, also divided in a multitude of bronchioles with acini at the extremities. Acini are a group of alveoli. The alveoli spread like branches of a tree from the tronc, here, the bronchioles. The cluster of alveoli is called an acini.

What's interesting is that it's the alveoli in which the gazeous exchange between the blood and oxygen is done.

Hektor could see all of that and could understand it even better after seeing it with his own "eyes".

His breath became more profound and deep as he looked atthe chain reaction it provoqued inside his body. He alterned between short inspiration and deep exhalation trying to find something, a rythm that could possibly gives the best outcome. The Breath is everything. The whole foundation of every martial art. If you don't have enough breath to execute your art, wouldn't it be useless. You would, not only, lose strenght but you would lose a significant amount of stamina each time you move. By breathing correctly you could improve by a large margin.

But what Hektor was trying to do wasn't finding the 'correct' way of breathing. No. What Hektor wanted to find was the best possible means his body could find to breathe. the best, not just the correct. There could be several correct answer for a lot of questions in the world, but only one best.

He looked, with his Insight, his whole respiratory system and began to try adjusting things. Tried to enlarge his trachea each time he inhaled. Tried push his lungs to their maximum capacity and increase the pace of {Gazeous Exchange} in his Alveoli and Acuni. Tried to find the perfect time of each of his inhalationand exhalation.

It was a true gigantic task he had undertaken. He had to change his whole breathing methode, using every means possible to affect his internals organs and structure. Try affecting your trachea and you'll see that it isn't easy at all. Even with the help of his {Insight state}, Hektor, still had problems as he had to try lots of differents combinations between the changes he instilled in all his respiratory organs. Plus he still had to take into account the time each breath amounted to and had to change it depending on the results.

After three days, Hektor had already found a lead. Whenever he contracted and relaxed his trachea, he felt a little bit of discomfort. It wasn't easily noticable but after hours trying to find flaws in his breathing methode, he could 'see' it. The flaws had to be between the pace of his contracting and relaxing trachea, and the intensity of his contracting and relaxing. Whether Hektor had to amplify the extension of his trachea or if he had to change the rythm it was done was still a mystery. but after finding a flaw, Hektor was confident, extremely confident, because now he knew that his hypothesis was true. He coudl improve his whole body's performance thanks to the {Insight State} he was in.

Then, the second week of the Empire Honor's Academy's school year ended and with it, the seclusion time of Hektor.

*****

In a room filled with luxury and expensives items a young blonde man with blue eyes pondered.

His entire being screamed of nobleness. Be it his prescence, his spacious, luxury filled room or his bearing, all made it obvious that this persons wasn't any ordinary one.

"So the nobles scions of the Empire have been humiliated by a commoner before the eyes of everybody ? They tried to frame him but were, soon after, implicated in it because of their incomplete plan. Truly shamefull. I suppose that if I don't do anything, the commoner will think that it is alright for them to behave as they please.

Joshua, you're in the same class as him in Blacksimthing, right ?" The young man asked after a short soliloquy.

"Yes, Sir. Even though he passed the test of teacher Buldwock, I'm sure I can make him know his place fairly easily." Another young man with brown hairs, eyes, a fit body that exuded strenght and a sharp jawline replied to the blonde man.

"Very well, make sure he doesn't ever dare to ridicule nobles, from now on. Oh and if he tries anything funny, just break his arms and legs, heal him and began anew. Do it fifty times and let him go." The young man said before dismissing Joshua.

"We will see how you behave now, Maximus. Your fate is sealed but I'm pretty curious how you'll react to this. I've always been fascinated by how ants operated, let's see how the queen do it." the amn continued his soliloquy as he fell into thoughts.