(James)

James lay in a numb mess as his shock effect ran out. It was a strange feeling knowing you weren't thinking properly, but still having enough clarity to realise that. If he had ever taken drugs at all, he might have been able to relate it to an out of body experience.

But As he had always been clean, he could only relate it to the first moment of waking up, where very few, seemingly random thought makes sense, and the rest of the world doesn't even matter.

He didn't try to speak again while the shock status was in effect. All he focused on was Dana holding his head in her lap and her soft smile keeping him calm. He didn't need to get so worked up again. He would heal.

Once the shock effect had worn off, he sat up and looked straight at Dana. She flinched as some of the gore down his face flew towards her, thankfully narrowly missing her. At least his healing eye was closed. He didn't want to imagine what it might look like in there.

"Seriously. If you have more than one eye Skill, don't use them at the same time."

"Sure. But what the hell were you even doing? Why did your eye explode?"

James laid back on her lap and took a deep breath. He gathered his thoughts for a second, trying to order his recent learning into a somewhat comprehensible format.

"So I was trying to find a better way to charge the crystals in my gun. I used mana sight to see the flow of my own mana into the crystal, which was apparently called a mana construct. Then I used jewellers eye to see the crystal in more detail. Then... boom."

Dana seemed to mull it over. She was surprised at what he had learnt but was far from happy with how he had learnt it.

"So using two skills on one eye makes it explode. Fucking lovely. Are you ok to stand?"

"Yeah. I actually feel kind of ok. Well. Despite this."

He pointed to the still healing organ, then stood up and observed the mess he had left behind.

There was gore on the table, and by some miracle, none had landed on the pristine pistol. There was also the pool of vomit not too far from where he was, but to save him another lost meal, he tried not to look at it too much.

Dana stood as Well and started walking back to where she had been practising.

James pulled out his phone, and while it still had some battery, used the front facing camera to examine the condition of his face.

He was actually pleasantly surprised at what he saw though. He had been imagining a deluge of blood and goo, but there were only scraps of flesh and splashes of goo, with only a small stream of blood which had stopped by now.

He pulled out one of the scraps of the shirt he had planned to use as a bandage and cleaned off his face with a splash of water. He was still careful around his eye, as it had another 20 minutes or so before it healed.

He would have to make do with his remaining eye while he practised his new spell.

Remote Charge (Unique):

Use your will to guide the mana to your target and charge it as if it were connected to you by contact.

Cost: 1 mana extra for every 5 mana charged.

The extra cost was quite steep, and the lack of a level indicator showed it wouldn't change anytime soon, if ever, but this was more than a step in the right direction. This skill would essentially allow him to keep charging the crystals in any cylinder he wasn't actively firing.

He practised a few shots by charging all of them at once and using almost half his mana, then recharging the crystal that had just been discharged.

He did this until he was down to less than 10 mana, and was satisfied with his progress. He could now fire much faster than before and with a relatively minor fee. In the future, the cost would become way less of a problem. Probably. 50-60 damage would still be a useful damage count right?

Sure, at this point, he would have a much much easier time dealing with any patrols, and with Dana with him, the two would have no trouble.

But they were still dealing with monsters that could be organised, could implement a strategy, and might have some sort of hierarchy. Aside from the standalone monsters like the ice elemental and rare slime, the closest thing to a leader they had seen was the evolved lizard. And even Then, a level 0 with almost no combat experience could give it a challenge.

James shivered with a severe sense of foreboding, but pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on the present.

He looked at the clock. They still had over half an hour before their agreed time to leave, so James brainstormed what he could do to get instantly stronger, even by a little.

He checked his status and was reminded that he had no unallocated stats. It was weird that the only way to get them seemed to be from levelling up basic fitness, which was surprisingly hard. He supposed that the path someone chose in terms of an occupation or class would provide them with appropriate stats to help them with that specific occupation or class.

He scrolled through his skills and stopped when he got to mana resistance. It had been raised to level 25 and given him some stats when he survived his mana exhaustion in the garden, but what was important now was the fact this skill was still asking to evolve.

James accepted the offer, and Mana Resistance was simply replaced by Mana Protection.

Mana Protection ©:

Damage from Mana is reduced by 26% and damage from Mana Construct-related sources is reduced by 1%.

It was really a minor improvement over the 25% he assumed he had before, and he hadn't received any stats from it. Really, nothing much had happened, and he didn't even know what it meant when it differentiated between mana from people and mana from constructs. Surely it's all just mana.

Another confusing puzzle he would have to leave for now.

He kept scrolling through his skills and the rather disappointing array of spells. He wanted to know more spells, but messing with mana gave him a headache. Dana obviously had a much firmer grasp on the entire concept of magic being an energy, so he would have gone to her for help, but she was pulling off a weird flowing dance and had an intense look of concentration on her face.

He had no choice but to solo this. But first, he had to wait about 10 minutes for his eye to heal. It still ached like hell, but James could ignore it if he was doing something else.

In that time, he idly spun the clip of his gun on his open hand like a large spinning top. It was surprisingly easy to keep it spinning as long as he focused on distributing force relatively evenly and kept a high pace. It was actually quite fun, but it ate into his mana quite quickly. He ended the exercise by lifting it in the air while it spun, and holding the entire component in his imaginary mana hand, held it up.

Spell learnt: Enchanted Telekinesis (B)

Enchanted Telekinesis (B)

Manipulate the spacial position of mana enchanted materials by controlling the mana inside it.

Cost: 1 mana per 100g per 10s

A somewhat... underwhelming spell.

He checked the timer on his effect. Only 2 minutes had passed. That was impossible, right?

James sighed and resigned himself to doing something he should at the very beginning.

James had to guess that the table he was sitting at weighed upwards of 30kg. He had been to the gym frequently and had little trouble with that kind of weight. There wasn't much else in the room that could be heavier though, so he got himself under the table and lifted.

He winced as he heard the components of his gun slide off the table as he lifted it. Maybe he should have moved those first. But the grief was short lived as the legendary weapon wouldn't even be scratched. Instead, James was in awe of himself. He could hold the table on one hand and squat with it. It was such a monumental change in strength from just two days ago that he had to take a moment to actually be grateful for the system.

That moment crumbled as he rapidly weakened and fell flat, with the table slamming down above him.

He saw his stamina bar was almost empty and was slowly refilling as he lay in a heap breathing heavily.

"I'm ok! Just need to... take five!"

He could hear Dana running back to him, then the footsteps stopped and got slightly fainter again.

He should really stop worrying her like this. It couldn't be good for her heart. But then again, maybe she would get a skill to make her worry less.

James almost laughed but realised it was probably better she cared about him so much it was more motivation for him to do better. Be stronger.

The minutes he spent on the floor were a bit disgusting. He stayed still to let his stamina regen faster and occupied himself by counting the pieces of gum on the bottom of the table, then the colours. He was irrevocably bored. Knowing that he had these amazing powers yet had to wait before he could use them was almost killing him.

Skill learnt: Patience ©

Patience [1]:

Patience is more than a virtue, it is a method of growing. As such, animalistic impulses are easier to ignore. You seem more at peace with yourself.

It was a strange Skill, but a welcome one nonetheless. He was less bored now. Whether that was due to getting the Skill, or the Skill itself, he had no idea. All he knew was that his eye was healed and he had about two-thirds of his stamina and half of his mana to use on magic. And... just about 10 minutes to do it.

James had to work quickly if he wanted to gain anything from this time.

Activating mana sight, he used mana force as much as he could and went for a very basic shape. A ball of mana.

It was maybe the size of a tennis ball, but he kept pushing more mana into It, making it denser and bigger. The mana in the sphere was violent and moved quickly. It was getting harder to control the sphere, but James had started something fun. He was not about to back down to his own weakness.

James kept pushing more and more mana in until the sphere was the size of a football. He was nearing the quarter mark of his mana left. He had to work faster.

At this point, he stopped trying to add more, and instead compressed it.

The sphere was reluctant and pushed against him. So James just pushed harder. This might be the way to make a mana construct, and if it was like the crystals in his gun, he would be able to have all kinds of fun.

The mana in the ball stopped vibrating suddenly and became still. The ball that was so filled with energy was still.

He loosened his grip on it, and it stayed there. Stable and ready, a ball of pure mana.

Casting learnt: Mana Sphere (M)

James hesitated to do anything else with the ball as it was. He deactivated Mana sight and breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar headache relented.

Casting ( spell type): casting is a type of magic that opens up more powerful avenues for variation. A casting can become many things and can be very dangerous. Mana cost is dictated by size and shape of casting.

As far as he could tell, James could only agree with the infobox. This sphere of compressed yet stable mana was incredible. It broke more than one of the old laws of physics. That might be a goal. To make new laws of physics including mana.

James laughed to himself. As if anyone was still so concerned with physics. He smiled and pushed his hand through where he thought the orb was. Without mana sight on, it was completely invisible without Mana sight on, and he couldn't feel it at all when he touched it. really, this was a logical impasse. He had an object of high potential damage here and had the opportunity to decide what to do with it. He already knew what he was going to do with it. He had only one choice.

James used mana force to push the mana sphere as far away from him as he could. despite the distance, he could still feel a connection from the sphere to his chest, it was only now that the connection was taut that it was obvious. he imagined the ordered structure of the sphere and imagined a fault at the very centre. a collapse of its very being. the sphere suddenly flexed, and he could feel it rapidly losing stability. he held on with the last ditch use of mana force, exercising the limit of his ability to manipulate.

all at once, he clicked his fingers, released his hold of the sphere, and whispered "boom."

the sphere took a moment to collapse completely, but it reacted exactly how James had expected. the mana condensed rapidly as it tried to release and contain itself all at once. the mass of mana warped the very air making the prelude to the spell visible to the naked eye.

then it exploded all at once. the gust of displaced air reached James almost halfway across the room. the explosion was strange. there was no light and little sound, but the concussive force was the primary factor.

Spell Learnt: Implosion (B)

Implosion (B):

implosion is a destructive trigger from a casting that converts all mana readily available into a strong frenzy of movement that results in a large radius of effect spell. damage and radius of the spell depend on casting size.

there was little damage to the nearby walls and floor, but the significantly weaker ceiling was torn apart.

"DUDE! What the shit?!" Dana yelled across the room.

James lifted both his arms above his head in triumph.

"EXPLOSION!"