James was absorbing the energies of the Bloodwell at terrifying rates, but he was being consumed by the Bloodwell even faster. At this rate, he’d be just another pile of flesh and blood added to the Bloodwell.

He tried to cast barriers over himself, but it was useless. They cracked after just a few seconds, so he needed something a lot more powerful to protect himself. He wasn’t being attacked by just some spell, he was entirely submerged in violent, volatile energies, attacking both his body and soul. Even his mind was under siege. To make things worse, he was still cursed. That meant he took even more damage than normal people, so he had even less time available before he would be turned into dust.

But given that he was so resistant to pain and corruption, he had a unique opportunity. Other men might’ve succumbed to the pain or the mind control already, lost in the Bloodwell forever as their body was ground into dust. But James was still resisting. As long as his body still endured, James still had a chance. Few other people would be able to capitalize on such an opportunity.

He could barely even heal any damage done to his body. James’s own healing spells weren’t very effective, and Chaotic Healing only really worked on others. Lunaris’s healing wouldn’t reach him here either.

So he had to slow down the rate at which he was getting damaged. He barely had any time left. He could feel his flesh being dissolved. Given that healing or barriers didn’t work, the only thing left was making his own flesh stronger.

And luckily, he had plenty of resources to do that. The solution was obvious, he’d do the same thing he always did. Relying on his strengths.

His toughness and vitality were low, but he had plenty of mana. And it was getting exponentially bigger and more powerful, expanding by the second.

Raw mana as a shield wouldn’t be very effective in a battle, but given that he wasn’t exactly fighting an actual enemy, James decided to reinforce his flesh with mana.

His flesh was literally dissolving, so James wasn’t about to be stingy with his mana. He sacrificed his entire mana pool at once to reinforce his flesh. Every cell of his body exposed to the Bloodwell was now given a thick coat of mana.

As opposed to a barrier, this was an inelegant solution. A brute force way of creating a defensive layer. A barrier was like a proper shield, designed and geared towards resisting attacks in an efficient way. But this solution was more like wrapping yourself in one hundred layers of gauze.

Naturally, this coat of mana was a lot more fragile than a barrier. But in an environment where a barrier would just crack in seconds, quantity was a lot more important than quality.

And even though James had to continuously provide mana to keep his cells coated with mana, he was absorbing so much of it from the Bloodwell, that his own mana recovery rate paled in comparison. And the stronger the Bloodwell was making it, the stronger even his own mana, innate recovery was getting.

His entire mana pool had been replenished in just a few seconds, and he was already bursting at the seams with mana, even though he was constantly feeding a part of it to the coating.

As fast as he was absorbing it, he still hadn’t even made a dent in the Bloodwell.

But if James couldn’t absorb it, no one could. He had plenty of experience at absorbing energy. Recalling every time he had used Mana Drain or received mana from someone else, James opened up his mana channels to their limits, trying to absorb as much as possible.

But it was like trying to drink a river through a straw.

The actual feeling of absorption was incredible, the energies were making him stronger by the second. It was more powerful than any buff, any level up he had ever experienced.

But the burning of the Bloodwell was becoming intolerable. He knew he’d either have to try to get out soon, or die here senselessly. The mana coating helped a lot, but his time was still extremely limited.

He hadn’t powered up nearly enough yet. There was so much more to gain, he hadn’t absorbed even a tiny sliver of a percentage of what the Bloodwell had to offer.

Personally, he wasn’t greedy after power. But with every passing day, he noticed again and again just how much power was needed. Danger was around every corner, and if he didn’t push himself, he’d never be able to protect his friends or save anybody.

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He couldn’t keep being the manchild that he was. He needed to grow up and sacrifice, suffer for the greater good.

And this was the perfect opportunity. All this power, just lying here, waiting to be taken.

The Bloodwell had to be destroyed urgently, so it was either now or never. If he didn’t take it now, he’d lose this great opportunity forever.

Luckily, James was quite resourceful. He might not be a master of anything, but he sure had a lot of skills. And one of his most recent inventions could provide quite useful.

The Overloading Mana Prongs! They could suck mana out of his enemies, why couldn’t they absorb the energies of the Bloodwell?

James cast an Overloading Mana Prong to test it out. The Prong began absorbing the energy, but it was fried in just a few seconds. It seemed like being submerged in such hostile energies was just too much for the Prongs.

And yet, in the few seconds the Prong was active, James doubled his mana intake.

The concept worked, but only for a limited amount of time.

In battle, he had a limited amount of casts. Prongs weren’t exactly the cheapest spell.

But now he had more mana than he could even handle. Even if the Prongs only lasted a few seconds, the only limit was the speed at which he could cast them.

Them being so fragile just meant that he’d have to cast a whole lot.

His mana coat had protected him for a short while, but the Bloodwell seemed to react to it. With each passing moment, the rate at which the Bloodwell was devouring the mana coating was getting faster.

He had no time to waste, so he began casting without stop. Using his experience of conjuring saws, James waved his hand and conjured a dozen Prongs in an instant. His mana pool was almost depleted, but it recovered even quicker than it was spent.

The Prongs absorbed so much energy in an instant that James’s heart stopped for a second, his body literally overwhelmed by the energy.

But James didn’t stop casting. With another wave of his hands, he conjured a dozen more Prongs.

As to avoid being overwhelmed, James sent even more mana into the coating covering his cells. That way, he killed two birds with one stone. It wouldn’t stop the dissolving power of the Bloodwell entirely, but by making the coat as thick as he could, it certainly bough him time.

James kept waving his hands and conjuring Prongs without break.

He could feel his power growing exponentially. Other than his mana pool, his magic power was increasing to the point even the Prongs seemed sturdier with every cast, the latest batch lasting almost double as long as the first one.

Even though James could feel the sting of the chunks of his flesh that had been dissolved, and he knew it would be wise to get out right then and there, it still wasn’t enough.

If they faced two agents right now, all his friends would die. And who was to say that a dozen agents wouldn’t ambush them in the future? And what if entities much stronger than agents attacked them?

He needed power, and he needed it now. That was the only way to protect those he loved.

Defying every instinct in his body, neglecting his own mind’s screams, James stayed in the Bloodwell.

He redirected as much mana as possible into coating his cells. Hundreds of Prongs were surrounding him, feeding him energy that was worth over ten times his entire mana pool per second.

Having so much mana available allowed James to constantly feed the entirety of his mana pool into the mana coating.

His mana pool was now more than three times the size it had been when he first jumped into the Bloodwell. His mana recovery rate and spell power grew proportionally too.

And that only meant that the rate at which he could absorb the energies of the Bloodwell would increase as well.

Not only were the Prongs more resistant, but he could cast even more of them. With a single wave of his hands, James conjured twenty prongs.

Even though several Prongs were being dissolved every second, many more took their place, this time more resistant, being able to absorb even more energy.

Knowing he had little time left if he wanted to keep his life, James upped the ante. Every second was valuable, every second expanded his powers so much more. So he needed to buy more time.

James redirected half of the Prongs into the mana coating. So much mana was now being fueled into providing a protective coating to his cells that he could physically see the mana. His body was now more mana than flesh. For every one of his own cells, there were ten particles of mana. Instead of his own flesh being dissolved, the mana particles would sacrifice themselves instead.

And the mana was instantly replenished. So many Prongs working to fuel the coating slowed down the dissolving process to a crawl.

But James didn’t dare to slow down. He kept conjuring Prongs like a madman. He was waving his hands without even thinking about the mana expenditure. Even his stump of a hand that was cut down by the agent was being used to cast the Prongs. With each movement of his hand, dozens of Prongs would be spawned.

Just a minute later, there were now a thousand Prongs siphoning energies from the Bloodwell. The latest Prongs were quite a bit stronger too, not dissolving quite as fast.

So much energy was being transferred into James that he could spend his entire mana pool and it would be replenished in a millisecond.

He had to use mana to manually pump his own blood, his heart being overwhelmed by the intake of energies. But with so much mana available, he could certainly afford it.

He had to keep converting more and more Prongs into coating his flesh.

It had gotten to the point the mana surrounding his cells was so dense, that the mana coat had become twenty times the size of his own body.

Instead of being submerged in the Bloodwell, it looked like he was now submerged in his own mana. The dissolving process was not affecting his body at all anymore. Before the Bloodwell could dissolve a single of his cells, it would have to get through an immensely thick coat of mana. And yet he only kept adding more and more mana to the coat, not daring to let the Bloodwell keep up.