Chapter 3442: Shocking Divergence From Expectations
"It’s ok, my dear." Mana gently tried to get her to relax. "There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s completely normal and natural, just like I once told you about."
She had been waiting for this moment for more than a year now. Max and Mana ensured that they always had the necessary supplies with them for when it happened. They had always received directives from the Hemosapien Integration Program to keep a close eye on the girl during puberty and especially when she began menstruating.
Any differences in species were bound to show up during puberty, and the people in charge wanted to make sure that they were on top of the matter. Arastia had undergone daily check-ups and weekly examinations her entire life, but one important checkpoint to make sure that the hemosapien children were more similar to human children was to ensure that the female hormonal cycle in hemosapiens was similar to that of humans.
Mana and Max had even undergone a crash course on female puberty and the finer details surrounding it in preparation for her to guide Arastia through this difficult phase in her life. She quickly took Arastia to the toilet.
"Now, just like I once showed you," she gently helped Arastia with the process as the girl followed her foster parent’s instruction carefully with an uncomfortable expression.
Before long, it was done.
"There you go." She smiled at Arastia. "See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?"
Arastia nodded silently before gazing at her stained Martial Attire with a hint of embarrassment.
"There’s nothing to be ashamed about," Mana reminded her. "It is completely normal. I have a second pair of Martial attire for you to change into."
The little girl’s red eyes lit up with delight. "You’re the best, Aunty Mana!"
Arastia’s mood was lifted up once she changed into a new set of clothes that were fresh and clean.
"Do you want to go back to training?" Mana asked with a concerned tone. "It’s alright if you don’t want to. I’m sure that you’re feeling very uncomfortable. It’s normal to experience some pain and other discomfort as well."
"No." Arastia’s red eyes sharpened. "I want to continue training."
Mana’s expression grew a little concerned. "...Are you sure? You might be feeling some degree of physical weakness. It would be better to take it easy for now."
"I don’t feel weak." Arastia gazed at her hands. "If anything, I feel stronger than ever. I feel a gush of blood that makes me feel much, much stronger!"
"...What?" Mana’s eyes widened with shock. "That..."
That didn’t make any sense. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be, based on a lifetime of her own experience and the more detailed training that she had gone through on the matter. There was a period of physical weakness that could be expected at the start of the cycle. Mana has expected her to feel a little down and eager to return home and get some rest.
She had no idea what to do now if she felt the exact opposite. In all her life, Mana had never heard of a gush of power and strength during any part of the hormonal cycle.
"Erm... ok, if you’re truly feeling alright and good, then by all means, go ahead and train," Mana carefully remarked.
It might have been good sense to take her home anyway and take her for a check-up with her assigned special physician, but Mana wanted to see if her claim of physical energy was truly accurate.
Not to mention, as a Martial Master, she could sense a surge of vibrancy in Arastia’s mind, making her suspect that there was something different about Arastia’s cycle than what one could expect normally.
They quickly returned to the training chamber as Arastia eagerly returned to practicing her striking forms.
"Hah!" she threw a fist forward at blinding speeds, releasing a shockwave that rattled the entire chamber.
BANG!
Mana’s eyes widened as a gust of wind caused her hair to flutter backwards. "What...?"
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Each fist that Arastia threw broke the sound barrier, releasing shockwaves across the entire chamber as Mana simply watched with a stunned expression at how powerful Arastia had become. She truly hadn’t anticipated that the young girl was truly this much more powerful than she had been before. Each of her blows not only released shockwaves but also some seismic radiation.
Her expression grew more determined and euphoric as she continued throwing faster and stronger blows, one after another.
"Impossible...!" Mana muttered with a stunned tone under her breath. "How... how can this be?"
How was she experiencing a surge of strength at the start of her cycle when one was supposed to experience a dip in energy? The shedding of the endometrium was triggered by plummeting levels of estrogen and progesterone, which caused the actual shedding and bleeding, along with a wave of weakness.
Yet, when she gazed at Arastia charting new territories of power she had never seen before, there was absolutely no doubt that she was experiencing a gush of power. It wasn’t just a marginal boost, either; Arastia’s attacks were vastly superior to anything she had been capable of before, making for a tremendous surge of energy.
Her eyes widened with realization. "Could it be...? Could this be one of the genetic differences between blood humans and humans?"
If so, it would make a lot of sense. There was no other explanation for the radical departure from expectations in a way that completely defied reality. She even speculated that because blood children had a profoundly unfathomable relationship with blood, hemosapien girls like Arastia had a different relationship with menstruation than human women did.
To them, it was a source of strength that would boost their power in combat.
"...Incredible," Mana murmured with a hint of jealousy in her tone. "Hemosapien girls might have an advantage over hemosapien boys. The Blood Path will likely favor women over men if this means what I think it means."
She couldn’t even fathom what this meant for the future of human civilization.