This work proposes a novel bio-inspired metaheuristic called Artificial Cardiac Conduction System (ACCS) inspired by the human cardiac conduction system. The ACCS algorithm imitates the functional behaviour of the human heart that generates and sends signals to the heart muscle, initiating it to contract. Four nodes in the myocardium layer participate in generating and controlling heart rate, such as the sinoatrial, atrioventricular, bundle of His, and Purkinje fibres. The mechanism of controlling the heart rate through these four nodes is implemented. The algorithm is then benchmarked on 19 well-known mathematical test functions as it can determine the exploitation and exploration capability of the algorithm. The results are verified by a comparative study with Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA), Differential Evolution (DE), and Fast Evolutionary Programming (FEP). The algorithm undergoes a rigorous evaluation using the CEC-C06 2019 Benchmark Test Functions, illuminating its adeptness in both exploitation and exploration. Validation ensues through a meticulous comparative analysis involving the Dragonfly Algorithm (DA), WOA, PSO, Lagrange Elementary Optimization (Leo), and the Ant Nesting Algorithm (ANA). The results show that the ACCS algorithm can provide very competitive results compared to these well-known metaheuristics and other conventional methods.