While Team 5 focused on power nullification, Team 6 paid much more attention to founding a team of mercenaries with the ability to increase each others’ power. Some held the ability to increase physical prowess in battle like increasing their strength output, raising the level of speed one can attain or even the mental capacity our brains function with.

Others hold the capability to powerfully amplify magical might! This may seem weak in comparison to a physical boost; considering with augmented force anybody can topple houses with relative ease. People with super - strength already will have it even further enhanced, and the way enhancement powers work is… they stack! With enough enhancements, leveling a city is easy. Forget worrying about super – villains, even an elderly woman can pose a threat to humanity with enough physical or magical augmentations placed upon her!

In actuality however, magical augmentation is a lot more dangerous. Sure, physical enhancement can help you achieve enough power to level a city, or if you can withstand it, even a country. But boosting one’s magical abilities may very well grant them the ability to cast spells that’re powerful enough to alter reality as the user sees fit!

Why?

Because most spells that boost magic don’t actually focus on strengthening it’s power output or force of strength. Some do, but not a vast majority of them will make ‘strengthening the magic’s attacking force’ their prime goal.

Most magic enhancements focus on increasing the overall ‘capacity’ one can hold within. What this means in drinkable terms is, rather then powering up the potency of the ‘lemonade’ currently within a cup, they choose instead, to increase the cup size itself.

So your level 1 fireball has been augmented to release double its original power? That’s cool. Great even. Under special circumstances, your fireball will beat all other fireballs that would oppose you! But if instead… the enhancement ability increased your mana pool…

What then happens, is you now have enough mana to either spam 50 or so fireballs with ease – or even skip a few grades and fire away a level 8 inferno’s rain shower.unlike physical force, magic is a lot more versatile. You CAN increase the magic’s potency if you want, but why make such a decision if you can just increase how much magic you have, and thereby gain the ability to cast powerful spells you happened to learn, but could never perform due to the very taxing energy cost? The sheer versatility of magic augmentation far surpasses the uses of physical augmentation in the eyes of many.

But how can you even increase magic? Increasing physical might can be done with a blessing from higher level beings, such as divine beings in the divine planes, demigods who have grown powerful enough to ascend higher than the mortal plane, powerful mortals(such as humans) that have been chosen with honor to ascend due to strength, favoritism or popularity… and Gods that are in charge of granting such powers to those they deem worthy. Blessings are more akin to invoking a spiritual power placed within you, rather than magically based. Think of Hercules or Poseidon granting their ‘blessing’ for strength or fish communication. Of course, the same Gods can grant different blessings depending on their specialties.

Aside from blessings, a powerful magical enchantment can do the trick. This one is the most common method, the most effective to ‘stack’ and the easiest to break. Lastly, there is mechanical tech to enhance the physical body beyond normal measures. This type of augmentation is even rarer than Blessings from a God! And as complex as it sounds, not many technology jamming or tech manipulators can succeed at breaking this enhancement. It’s usually the longest lasting enhancement type of ability out of them all.

But, what about magic? Blessings also work here. Spiritual ‘blessings’ can be thought of as being similar to ‘seals of approval’. There are many high – ranking beings who work with creativity, energy usability, ritual craft and ‘magic’ itself. The ability to use blessings, though uncommon when it comes to magic, can still be sought after successfully with a bit of hard work.

But there is no machine out there that can magically enhance somebody’s magical prowess. There are ENCHANTED machines and such. But these types of technological devices grant magic boosts not innately, but through magic being cast on them first.

Speaking of magic… It’s actually the most effective method to enhance someone’s magic. By casting any magic enhancement spell, the user will almost completely drain their own mana and ‘gifting’ it to another.

Then there’s enhancing a person’s magic by casting a higher level spell known simply as a magic energy gathering spell. How it’s done is simple: a magical symbol is cast on the target. That symbol will be a focus point for ‘mana’ to gather into the user, allowing them to have increased levels of magic usage for a short period of time. Either way, magic is the most effective way to boost magic.

But there are immense drawbacks to enhancements as well. First: if your body can’t handle the increase in power, you will die. No questions asked and without a doubt. Just as stated previously, an old woman can level a city with enough power amplifying stacks. But if she reaches her limit before that point… well, the city will remain safe, at the very least.

Second is that magic based enhancing effects can be countered by those wielding anti-magic properties. Technology that enhances others can be destroyed a whole lot easier than the rest since it’s a physical existence and not an abstract one.

Third, and most dangerous of all, is not the pain brought to your body from forcefully surpassing it's restraints. Nor is it the fatigue settling in after the tempory enchantment expires – even if you’re in the midst of a fight or flight situation.

No, the third weakness to such a powerful buffing skill that stacks, is that everybody has developed their own methods to counter it, due to the stacking effect being that threatening. Anyone known for ‘buffing’ is immediately target number 1 on a battlefield, and should they even survive, will find themselves on a couple thousand wanted posters with a suitable reward in either Villain Haven(if they were a hero) or Herotopia(If the individual was a villain). Similar to speedsters and healers, they enhancement buffers aren’t known for living long.

Mr. Abrams learned quite a bit from scanning the memories of those Dark Mercenaries scouts earlier on. Team 6 seemed like the most troublesome to deal with, because of one fact: They were ALL magic AND physical enhancement boosters! Why? Because in the mercenary corps, the frequent death toll is already known by all. Who would invest in anyone that’s only going to become a liability for their organization? As tempting as it seems to have augmented strength, having a big target on their backs wasn’t worth constantly defending a person who could ONLY manage to temporarily boost either parameter by a little.

…

…But, what if the person could boost both? Now, THAT was definitely worth protecting! Such a versatile supporter! Which led to a large number of mages being accepted, since it’s easy for magicians to learn both physical enhancement or and magical enhancement spells.

That being the case: Mr. Abrams wanted to use this chance to crush both teams 5 and 6 simultaneously. If they could increase their strength or magic prowess and cast a strange spell… although Houdini still has confidence in stopping them, it will be all the more troublesome. Especially so, if they do something like sending out a signal.

Teams 1 – 3 weren’t around the forest… but Team 7 was still there. And Mr. Abrams couldn’t be rash with them. After all, not even these captured scouts knew anything about the unusual team. Just that they had abilities that didn’t ‘match’ the others.

There was such a lovely pit forming below Team 5, so what should Mr. Abrams do with all of that uprooted earth?

Well, naturally…

…

He should return it back to the forest.

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A mountainous cluster of soil, rock bedding, minerals, insects and dead leaves – all in the shape of half a sphere. It directly loomed overhead. How flash it was to see a giant earthen meteorite looming overhead in such a threatening state. Bits of dirt fell off from the mass, but they weren’t much faster than the originating forest bedding-turned-weapon which fell to the land below, aiming for Team 6 all the while. At first, their reactions were pretty non – nonchalant. After all, when a shadow was cast overhead, they didn’t really know what they were looking at. It was only after the first trickles of soil hit their heads that they connected this monolithic mass to the recent quake they all grew weary about.

Did a titan just dig out a chunk of land and chuck it at them? Regardless, they needed to move! Unlike the previous teams, they were split into two categories. The ‘Oh, we’re fucked…’ group – and the cocky ‘So a mountain’s falling. Who cares?’ group of enhancement mercenaries. In fact, these guys had already received orders from Captain Dave the very moment they first formed a team!

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