The dwarves stared at James, their mouths agape.

“We must see his limits! It’s no longer just about training, we must see it in the name of science!” Eruditus proclaimed.

Ruppus nodded his head with the energy of an excited puppy, while Bacchus stared at James without even blinking.

James had gotten quite curious about his limits as well, so he happily got to work.

Sixty prongs became 80, eighty became 100, a hundred became 120.

Finally, at around 140 prongs, James began feeling the strain. But he still felt like he had a lot more within him.

However, he was unable to find out. The dummy, which was supposedly indestructible, burst into flames and imploded at 150 prongs.

“What? Impossible! I got the most expensive model I could find, that thing was supposed to resist attacks from mages up to level 500!” Helios shouted. Even though he could hardly believe his eyes, his heart was full of pride for his brother. Such an incredible attack, and yet he still hadn’t reached the full extent of his powers.

“Each hundred levels is an entirely different realm, how is this possible? A dummy capable of resisting a level 500 attack would hardly even be damaged by someone at level 400, much less someone under 200.” Lunaris added.

Now everybody was staring at James with their mouth agape, to the point he turned beet red. “Stop that god damn it, I’m unworthy of such praise.” He mumbled, feeling like quite the imposter. Even if he had become quite strong, he didn’t feel like he deserved praise or appreciation. He owed everything to Helios and Lunaris, they basically spoon-fed him for so long.

In order to put a stop to all the undeserved praise, he decided to get to the bottom of his powers right away.

He had been incrementally increasing the number of prongs so as to not strain himself too much, but this wasn’t nearly fast enough.

“Come outside, we don’t really need a dummy!” James declared.

James’s Prongs didn’t require a target per se. They were technically just a tool to inject his mana.

You can still shoot out liquid out of a syringe, even if it’s not injecting into anything in particular.

James went outside and spawned 300 prongs. That being double the previous number, he could feel the strain as soon as he started pumping mana through them, but it still wasn’t enough. He felt like he had plenty left in him, and it was regenerating at speeds that even he didn’t fully understand.

A more careful person would probably increase the amount by just a few prongs at a time, but James didn’t have that kind of patience.

Instead, he chose to double the number yet again. With a few waves of his hands, 600 prongs were now pumping mana into the surroundings.

It was a good thing that there weren’t any neighbors around Helios’s house, because the incredible amount of mana was starting to create a storm. Mana storms weren’t exactly unusual in this world, but one would still wreak havoc if it happened in a residential area, of all places.

James was feeling significantly drained from that many prongs. But while his mana pool was being drained in just a few seconds, the problem was the regeneration.

The 600 prongs were enough to completely stop James’s mana outflow. And yet, a few seconds later, James’s mana would recover and start pumping the prongs full of mana again.

The mana recovery felt very weird, as if a wave from within him was rushing over his mana pool and filling it just like a huge hole on the beach would be filled by the tide.

The 600 prongs was sort of a limit for him. Fueling 600 prongs for 10 seconds was enough to leave him with no mana for a few seconds.

But he hadn’t learned enough. All it told him was that 600 prongs for 10 seconds was the size of his mana pool.

Now that his mana pool was able to regenerate so fast, he realized that the actual size of the mana pool didn’t mean much. It only dictated the amount of magic he would be able to use in a short burst, but a few seconds later he’d be back to full.

What he really needed to know was just how many times his mana pool could regenerate? Finding that out would be quite exhausting, and it could even hurt. But he had to know. They weren’t going against ordinary enemies. They would be fighting an entity that was intimidating even to full-fledged agents, and he’d probably have countless allies as well.

James understood that knowing his own abilities was crucial if they were to have a chance at beating Garantep.

Before going nuts with his experiment, James looked at the mana storm he was creating. Luckily though, the mana seemed to be rising into the sky, the storm calming itself down as the mana diffused into the air.

Seeing as he wasn’t causing any collateral damage, James let himself go crazy.

If he could fuel 600 prongs for 10 seconds, then to speed the process up, James decided to spawn 6000 prongs.

His saws made him used to spamming spells and creating entire armies of conjurations in seconds, so it didn’t take long before 6000 prongs littered the air.

One second after he activated the prongs, James was completely out of mana.

A mana storm that made the one before look like a light breeze immediately began ravaging the landscape, with enough force to pull a tree by the roots in a flash.

The three dwarves observing James were beyond shocked. Frozen in awe, they weren’t able to move an inch, even though they knew they needed to do something.

Luckily, James had his friends near him.

Lunaris and Helios got to work immediately. With combined bursts of air magic, they were able to push the storm into the sky, facilitating the diffusion of mana into the atmosphere without much trouble.

But even though the mana storm had passed, the three frozen dwarves weren’t able to move. Because not even five seconds later, James was able to repeat the process once more.

“I’m sorry to put you guys to work like that, but I really need to figure out my limits.”

“Don’t worry brother, with every burst of mana you make us proud!” Helios shouted with renewed enthusiasm. Each time James released mana into the atmosphere, Helios’s optimism grew. As brave and stoic as he was, he had no idea how they’d be able to defeat a foe like Garantep. The previous agent was almost enough to kill them, and yet Garantep was probably stronger than a thousand of those agents put together. But now, he truly felt like they had a chance.

Lunaris couldn’t control her smile either. “You just keep working and don’t worry about the storms, we’ll deal with them!”

Seeing as his friends had his back, James continued without worry.

He repeated the process over and over, while Lunaris and Helios were pushing the mana storms up into the air, and the three dwarves were frozen in stupefaction.

Ten, twenty, thirty times. His mana pool kept being refilled, as if an endless ocean was lying dormant within him.

It had gotten to the point that he released so much mana into the atmosphere that he had truly caused a scene.

Even though the mana was harmless once a storm settled down, so much mana began pooling in the sky that the entirety of Hedonia was able to see it. Every single person in Hedonia was staring at the sky, watching the bright blue concentration of mana getting bigger and bigger. Phenomena like rainbows and aurora borealis were spawning as the light of the sun was refracted by the mana.

Unbeknownst to him, James had stirred quite a buzz throughout Hedonia. People were going out and having picnics under the beautiful sky adorned with pretty shapes and colors. Photos and videos were being taken, everybody wondering what was causing this weird phenomenon which seemed to be growing by the second.

Finally, after the seventieth time he used the prongs, his mana wasn’t regenerating anymore.

The cumulative exhaustion hit him like a bag of bricks. As soon as the mana stopped regenerating, he felt like even the life had been drained out of him. But in a way, it was also a pleasant kind of exhaustion, as if he was lying down after a really intense workout.

Shamelessly, James went to sleep right then and there. He could hardly keep his eyes open, and since they weren’t in a deadly battle this time around, he found it hard to resist the temptation.

But nobody protested. Lunaris and Helios carried him to his bed, while the three dwarves were still frozen in awe.