He felt along the walls, trying to find a seam, and then remembered that he was basically a budget superman without the cape or the flight. He cocked back his fist, and punched the wall as hard as he could, shattering the wood. However, as he retracted his fist, the wood grew back in an instant, making it as if it had never been damaged in the first place. Jonathan stared at the suddenly pristine wall once more, and heard mocking laughter coming from the outside of his room.
“You fool! You will never get out of there with your brute power alone. You are welcome to try though.” The voice of the man outside was nasally, arrogant, and high pitched, which instantly made Jonathan dislike the man, not that he was particularly inclined to anyone on this ship in the first place. He could have easily unbound the spell if he had access to his mana, but he did not.
Jonathan reached down to the band on his wrist and tried to pull it off, but he could feel the bracelet drawing on his mana pool, sucking it out to reinforce itself. It was a clever piece of craftsmanship, and Jonathan could not help but be impressed by it. He sat down, out of ideas, and tried to connect to his mana. It was as if there was a solid
steel wall between him and his power though, and he was completely unable to even get the smallest speck of light to appear in front of him. The bracelet was too powerful for even him to deal with.
However, he had another trick up his sleeve, which was the power of the Void. He had used it mostly to accentuate his mana, but he knew that it was something separate entirely, given by the mastery bar on his stat sheet. He was still at one percent, which meant that he still had a long journey in front of him.
He could feel a tight core of purple energy deep within him, but it felt removed, not because of the bracelet, but simply because he had never tried to access it before. He could feel a profound connection to it however, greater than any he had felt before. Jonathan closed his eyes, and sent his awareness to the orb of purple light, trying to get it to respond to his will.
As he grew closer and closer to it in his metaphysical sight, he noticed that it was only the tiniest fraction of a near infinite well of power. The amount that he could see was small enough, but the amount that he could feel in the corner of his mind was mind bogglingly immense. It was as if he was looking at the house sized top
of a planet sized iceberg. It was a majestic sight, at least with the context that he could feel in the back of his mind. If not for the thought of the massive well of power lurking behind this tiny front, it would have simply seemed like his mana or some other banal power. Instad, he could now feel more of the Void within himself, and he reached out to it, beckoning for its embrace.
The purple light started to flicker, and a tiny purple flame drifted towards him from off the orb, hovering over his hand. It had no heat to it, but it felt as if it had near infinite destructive potential. Jonathan returned to the outside world, and saw that a tiny flickering flame hovered above his palm, glowing with a surreal purple light. He smiled, and moved it towards the mana inhibiting bracelet.
As it made contact, the bracelet sizzled, and the flame went out. The bracelet looked almost unchanged, but Jonathan saw that a tiny portion of it had melted, but had since recooled. However, he had certainly made a dent in it. Jonathan smiled, and he knew that he now had a way out.
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Over the next few hours, he worked on improving his control over the Void, and managed to increase his mastery to two percent by
doing so. The flames became slightly larger, and the bracelet was beginning to warp under the strain. There was no heat to the fire, so it did not burn his hand, but the bracelet acted as if it was being slowly eaten away by something. Nobody came to bother him, either under orders not to disturb him, or because they were too afraid to come into an enclosed space with him. His assailants had known that they wouldn’t have been able to defeat him in an honest battle, and they had resorted to using poison instead. At least, he flattered his own ego by thinking that was the reason. In any case, it hardly mattered. He was in this predicament one way or another, and it was his utmost imperative to escape it as quickly as he could. However he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He was in a flying ship, and doubted that he would be able to simply waltz up to the top and jump over the edge. No, somebody would stop him before that. He would have to wait and bide his time until he had an opportunity to escape.
Jonathan kept at it, gradually weakening his bracelet until it had been cut entirely through on one side, and the mana dampening effects were mostly gone. However, he knew that he could not simply break free now. The ship was likely to have many powerful foes on it,
foes that Jonathan would not be able to defeat without the aid of his armor and weapons. A good portion of his durability and combat prowess came from his armor and his gauntlets, and despite the fact that he was probably stronger than anyone on this ship, there were far more of them, and they might have more of that toxic gas that they had used on him before. He did not know what had been in that stuff, but it had been potent enough to knock him out in a matter of seconds. Perhaps that was a way of bypassing the System mandated laws against circle lords fighting those who were far weaker than themselves, in that they could simply send high leveled armaments to their lackeys for them to use in their stead. Nothing seemed to be entirely fair in this new world, and Jonathan was sure that was the reason behind it.
Jonathan hid the torn part of the bracelet in his sleeve, making it appear that it was in the same shape as before. He had managed to render it impotent, and his greatest weapon in the coming hours would be ensuring that the enemy thought he was powerless. Well, he still possessed his strength, but as shown before, there were many ways of negating the effects of that with ease. He was sure that enough
strength would have allowed him to overload the defenses, perhaps with the addition of all of his remaining stat points, but then he would be in uncertain territory, no better off than before.
Jonathan waited for a bit, with nothing better to do with his time than explore his capacity for the Void. The well of elemental energy within him was not going anywhere any time soon, and it was always available for him to study. The power of the Void was fascinating in its depth, and despite its one overarching quality which was the destruction of everything not related to itself, it possessed incredible depth in the breadth of its concept.
Some time later, perhaps over a day, the ship began to descend, and Jonathan jerked back to full awareness. He had reached three percent mastery over his element, which was welcome. The descent was gradual, but it was certainly there, and Jonathan got to his feet. As soon as he did so, the same gas from before started to filter in through holes forming in the side of the room, poisoning Jonathan. As he collapsed to the floor, he made sure that his bracelet was hidden. Shadowy figures entered the room as he fell unconscious, picking him up and carrying him off somewhere unknown. However, Jonathan was already asleep by that point.