Evan POV:

Well, The goblins were an actual threat but not as much as how Ruby was when she went frenzied in dragon form. But on the other hand, the losses were low but there were a number of injured people. I’m not gonna pretend to care about what the kingdom suffered, since It has nothing to do with me but I did offer them my condolences for the soldiers who passed on.

After that, getting the people back to their Kingdom was quite a pain in the ass. Though I didn’t really have to do much since they did start camping near my house but all their kids wanted to play either next to my house or inside which was a bit annoying.

Thankfully, Trish and his team were there to save the day, I just had to protect my property like an old veteran protecting his lawn from these damn kids who don’t know that they’re in other people’s property!

In the end, I just burrowed some soldiers from Trish who have to stand guard and make sure no one comes near my mansion. Right now, there’s a lot of political stuff going on over there and the kingdom needed some maintenance as well, so these people will stay here until Daisy gives an all-clear signal for their people to return. Other than that, Tifa is helping Elizabeth and I’m all alone with my thoughts.

It's not a bad thing since I can focus on my future plans once again.

Right now, it's already nighttime, the moon is up high, and I'm going back into my mansion after Trish wanted to talk to me about rewards. I just told him not to bother me with their kingdom's problems… and also that a musket or two would be a good enough reward, if they have any to spare.

I pushed open the wooden door and stepped into my mansion, where Lucy and Oswald were already waiting for me. Lucy’s Large witch’s hat was hiding her eyes until she looked up at me and I saw a mischievous twinkle in her eye, while Oswald was his usual nervous yet excited self. "Welcome back, Shishou!" they both said at the same time, as if rehearsed.

“Yea, I’m Back.” I said Jeff closed the door behind me.

Lucy’s hat bobbed up and down as she started excitedly complimenting me, "Your contribution today during the dragon's fight was amazing, Shishou! Not only did you fight the guild master with everything you had, but you also kept giving away Mana Balls to everyone."

I forgot to mention this before but apparently, Mana balls is quite a common spell that everyone can use but nobody wants to because other spells are just better.

Oswald was hesitating but he decided to be open with his thoughts, “H-Honestly speaking, I wanted to talk to you about the amount of mana you provided in a single span of a minute is impossible no matter how we see it. I wanted to ask how much your total mana is, or if you’re using some kind of technique that you can teach us? O-Of course only if you don't mind.”

Due to the height difference, Lucy lightly punched Oswald’s belly, “Oswald! Don't be straight forward like that! It's rude!”

You sound like you wanted to ask me the same thing.

Oswald rubbed his stomach from the pain, “But there's no other way of asking that.”

“Okay, hold on you two.” I said trying to break their small argument, “I don’t mind telling you how I could do that, but before that, how about you guys tell me how much mana you two have?”

I’ve noticed this before as well but apparently, the mana regeneration of all these people works differently.

While I can regenerate all my mana in a couple of seconds, even when moving, the people of this world need a couple hours, less than that if their meditating during that. I’ve seen Lucy meditate before and she told me that it was to regenerate her mana quickly.

Lucy's eyes glinted with pride as she looked up, her head held high. "Being the genius I am," she declared, "I have three times more mana than the average person."

Oswald made a follow-up, “For me it's Two times more mana than an average.”

They both looked at me with pride but I have no idea what in the hell that means! Tell me the numerical value! I screamed in my mind.

I need a better Reference Point. But what and how?

“Yours is twice more than average.” Nezha's calm and motherly voice echoed in the spacious room, as she descended the wooden stairs with Hope in her hands.

With a wave of my hand, I acknowledged my mother's presence, while Hope mimicked my gesture with her small arms. "Papa!" she exclaimed, her innocent voice piercing the air until Nezha finally walked up to me and handed me the small bundle of joy.

I could tell that Hope was happy in my arms with how vigorously her two small tails were swinging, Nezha smiled as she saw the happy baby in my hand before continuing, “Your total mana is two times more than that of a normal person. We forgot to tell you about it after your amnesia accident, but your conversation just reminded me to tell you.”

I acted like I understood but honestly, I had no idea what she was trying to tell me… Wait a minute! Was that why I had two mana stars when I woke up in this world?

I suddenly turned towards Lucy “Hey Lucy! Pop quiz time!” Lucy was both surprised and a bit panicked by my sudden moves, “How many times can an average person cast the wand of sparking?”

A wand of sparking has a mana cost of 2 Mp. With that, I can calculate the rest.

Lucy placed her hand on her chin as she started thinking with her giant witch hat hiding her facial features because of how short she is, “If I’m correct then… an average person can cast a wand of sparking ten times in quick succession before collapsing due to mana exhaustion.”

Ohhhh so I was Correct then! The average natural max mana is 20 Mp. Just like with every player. That’s probably why I started out in this world with 40 Mp instead of 20 Mp which confused me so much. It was just that I had twice the max mana than that of an average person.

“Okay, I think I got it.” I looked at Hope and was suddenly reminded of something. “By the way, where’s Faith?” Faith, the other ball of joy wasn’t with Nezha which was quite the rare sight because she refused to be away from the both of them.

“I left her with Helputt.” Nezha responded and I looked at her with skepticism.

“I don’t want to sound rude… But is that a good idea?”

Nezha made a helpless face, “I know that he seems hopeless sometimes, but he’s really strong and wise. You’d best not underestimate him since he still has the qualifications of a king-” We all heard a bunch of crashing noises followed by either the cries or the laughter of kid, it was hard to discern but the very next moment, Nezha had seemed to somehow teleported from talking in front of me, to be almost completely up the staircase.

Nezha's face twisted in helplessness. "I know he may seem hopeless at times, but he's stronger and wiser than you think. Don't underestimate him, he still has the qualifications of a king-" Suddenly, a cacophony of crashes interrupted her, accompanied by the sound of a child's laughter or tears, it was hard to discern. In the next moment, Nezha had vanished from my presence and reappeared nearly at the top of the staircase. I blinked and she was gone.

I heard Nezha’s angry roars all the way from down here, “HELPUTT!! IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO FAITH THEN I SWEAR TO GOD YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET IT!”

We all looked at each other before running upstairs and following the noise. We all went to my room, where the noises were coming from, and saw Helputt acting – no. He was forced to act like a puppet controlled by strings. And this isn’t a metaphorical example either, Vines were growing from the floorboards and wrapped around various parts of his body as he was being controlled like a marionette by Tania.

Faith was on my Bed laughing hysterically on the show being in front of her by Tania the Dryad. Tania made Helputt do a split and I heard a bunch of cracking noises from Helputt followed by his pained groans but Faith Kept on laughing which made Helputt happy despite the tears on his face.

“You like that don’t you?” said Tania, but I don’t know if Tania was talking to Helputt or Faith but I honestly didn’t want to know.

At this point, Helputt saw us all standing at the doorway watching everything happen before our eyes and he managed to painfully turn towards us with distressed eyes as he manage to squeeze out two words. “Save… Me.”

Before anyone else could say anything, I started speaking solemnly, "Today, we mourn the loss of a brave and noble warrior."

"Don't you dare speak of me in the past tense!" Helputt retorted with a mix of pain and anger, but I chose to disregard the peril he was in.

“No screaming.” Said Tania sadistically as she made Helputt move in the most inhumane ways possible that I could hear bones cracking and the painful groans of Helputt, but it was all drowned out by the laughter of Hope and faith.

“Okay, Mom. You're up.” I said as I handed Hope to her, “And don’t worry about him I’ll tell Emma to fix him up later.” I then turned around to leave with Lucy and Oswald.

I haven't seen Luna and Mia yet but they're probably helping Trish and the other soldiers with the cooking.

“Alright guys,” I said to the two following behind me, “You wanted to know how I could use Mana Balls non-stop right?” They made resolute faces and nodded as I headed outside, “Alright, I'll tell you how I did it. But First, let's do some experiments.”

…

We walked outside, away from the people who were trying to sleep, I did tell a couple of soldiers who were guarding our houses that we were going to be doing some experiments with magic so they don’t go into an alarm from a stray magic spell.

Once I was satisfied with the distance between us and my expansion plus the people, I put a couple of torches down to help us see better in the night light.

Okay, let’s break down all the info I have.

Firstly, an Average Person's mana is 20 Points.

Secondly, People have no way of increasing mana.

Thirdly, Mana Crystals, or the item that permanently increases mana, can increase someone's total mana by 10x of his original max mana, theoretically which may be the reason why I have more than 200 mana points.

That's the whole theory I have with me right now. Now, let's see if the Mana star can actually Help others too, but first. I need a guinea pig.

“Okay, I want one of you to absorb this.” I said to my two curious students.

I took out a Mana crystal which I created moments ago. I have a spare just in case.

The fist-sized blue mana star in my hand shone with an ethereal light, emanating shades of dark blue and purple that appeared to have been woven from the very fabric of the cosmos itself.

“Um, Shishou. What is that?” Lucy asked as they both walked up to me and stared at the star in my hand curiously.

“Something I made recently. It will, hopefully, permanently increase your max mana limit.”

The two of them looked at me in awe. “Really!? T-That should be impossible though! Increasing your maximum mana capacity is impossible and something that has been tried to be done for centuries! It’s like getting two hearts in your body! And-!”

I quickly cut her off, “I did say hopefully right? Oswald, you use, you’re the one with the least amount of mana here.”

“Really!?” Oswald exclaimed, wide-eyed, “But Isn’t that really expensive though? Are you sure you want me to use it?”

“This Thing?” I grinned, “Nah. It's actually quite cheap. So, go ahead don't be shy.” I casually threw it at him and he panicked and barely caught it.

Oswald's nervousness was palpable as he held out the mana crystal, his fingers trembling slightly. "U-Umm, then please don't mind me," he said tentatively, closing his eyes as he awaited further instruction. The star-shaped crystal in his hand glimmered with a bright, almost otherworldly light, casting an ethereal blue glow upon Oswald's features. As he continued to hold out the crystal, blue energy began to seep from it, surrounding him like a mist and spiraling around his body.

The fog grew thicker and thicker, swirling around Oswald in a mesmerizing dance until it had completely consumed him. The star crystal in his hand grew dull and grey as the blue energy drained from it, leaving it looking like a mere shadow of its former self. My eyes drifted over to Lucy, who was staring at Oswald with a mix of envy and admiration.

And then, in a sudden burst of light and energy, the blue fog was gone, and the mana crystal shattered like fragile glass in Oswald's hand. The look of wonder on his face was unmistakable as he realized what he had just accomplished.

Hey! None of those visual effects happened to me! I just have to hold the mana star in the sky and think of using it and poof, I get another max 20 mp points.

“Alright. Oswald, do you feel anything different?”

“N-No, not really?”

“That’s alright, I figured that much at least.” I threw a wand of sparking at him which just looks like an ordinary branch of wood with leaves growing at the tip. “We can test if anything changed if you spam use this.”

Oswald caught it correctly this time and nodded, he aimed towards the ground and started casting, throwing small fiery sparks into a small puddle of mud. I counted every single time he casted.

1,2,3… 5… 10…

… 20.

“Huh?” Oswald raised an eyebrow as he was confused about something.

“What’s wrong?” I quickly asked.

“I, um, can’t cast it anymore.”

“What? Really?” I asked back.

He said he had twice the mana of an average person so he should be able to cast 20 times in quick succession before the mana upgrade and 30 times after. So, does the mana crystal not work on people that aren’t players?

“Was it a fail?” Lucy asked what I was thinking.

“I don’t think so?” Said Oswald as he started doing sit-ups, “I don't feel any sort of tiredness or exhaustion which you feel after emptying out your mana pool… Maybe I can still?”

Oswald looked towards the slightly burnt mud and tried casting another spark. A small spark formed at the tip of the wand and flew into the mud.

Hold on, how did he…?

A sudden silence fell over the group as we all turned to look at Lucy, her eyes wide with shock and her mouth slightly agape. I couldn't help but follow her gaze towards Oswald, who seemed to be experiencing some sort of internal struggle as his legs shook uncontrollably. Was it fear or was it excitement? It was difficult to tell.

“Woah!” Lucy was the first one to break the silence, “Oswald! How did you do that!?”

“I-I don't know. Shishou! What's happening to me!?” Looks like Oswald was feeling both excitement and fear at the same time.

I crossed my arms, “Looks like we need to continue the experiment to know more about it.”

We continued trying a couple more things until I was satisfied with the information I had gathered.

Okay, I have concluded that every single person in this world has a special type of mana which going to call Broken Mp for now, this broken Mp is extremely slow to regenerate typically needing an hour or two to fully regenerate. But, when they absorb a mana star, it will convert all the broken Mp they have into Pure Mp. Pure Mp follows the functions of the game, it’s the same mana that I have. Which means they can regenerate mana as fast as I can and also not have to worry about mana exhaustion or whatever the term they said it was.

To test all the theories I had, I needed to give Oswald the spare mana crystal I had, and this time it worked similar to how I use it, it shone brightly for a moment before shattering.

Regardless, Oswald was dancing like he was on drugs and Lucy was biting her clothes in Anger because she didn't get a mana star.

… I'll make it up to her by teaching her how to make one.

Well, I guess this means I have a new side objective now, which is to, at the very least, make every person I know, get pure Mp through a mana crystal.

How do I get the fallen stars required to do that? Easy, the Guild!

I asked Ruby and Elizabeth to collect fallen stars for me and they were more than happy to help me.

The Next Day, I ended up with 18 Fallen Stars or 6 Mana Crystals.

I distributed two mana crystals to Lucy, one each to Luna and Mia, and the last two to Hope and Faith. However, it seemed that there was a problem with Hope and Faith. While the others absorbed the mana crystals with ease, Hope and Faith had difficulty taking in the energy.

Sooo… This is how it went.

I went to my room with the mana crystals in my hand and saw both Hope and Faith playing with some toys I made for them.

The looked at the strange object in my hand with curiosity.

I handed it to them the stars were big enough that they had to hold it with both their hands. They were looking at its every inch, deciding what to do with it. Until I gave them a little nudge, “Instead of food, you have to absorb that today okay?”

They looked at the star in their hands and tried sniffing it, I saw a little blue energy come out of the star and go into their small noses, It made actually made them sneeze before they threw the stars away.

“No,” said Faith as she shook her head.

“Papa Mana, more Tasty!” Said Hope.

“Yes.” Faith followed up with a nod.

I gave a small chuckle, “Listen up you two. My mana may be tastier, but this thing is much more beneficial to you, it will make you stronger! And maybe even make you grow quicker. So, come on, absorb it. If you're still hungry afterwards then I’ll give you my mana too.

“No!” Said Faith.

“Papa Mana!”

“Yes!”

They spoke in broken English but somehow had the mentality of continuing each other sentences.

…Is this what feeding your kid's Broccoli feels like? … You two are gonna eat your broccoli!

A few minutes passed by and I’ll say this now, I did not like what I had to do to get them to absorb the mana crystals.

Faith and hope were both on my bed, trying their best to stop their tears.

I’ll say this now, I did not hurt them in any shape or form, I just forced them to absorb it, but I will be honest, I feel like I've committed a crime and I'll be honest, I have never felt much more like a villain than right now.

I heard a door creaking open behind me and all the hairs on my body jumped up from the amount of killing intent I was feeling from behind me.

I looked back and there was one very angry Nezha there. So angry in fact that she was radiating the aura of a demon.

Long story short, I got scolded for like, the next hour or so. Which I honestly just accepted to fight the guilt swirling in my heart for making my babies cry.