A raucous cacophony of noise brought him back to his senses, and Jonathan jerked back to awareness, finding himself chained to a metal post in the middle of a sandy arena. He was surrounded by thousands of spectators, all peering eagerly down at him from on high. They sat on weathered stone stands that stretched up hundreds of feet into the air, with ample room for all the people present.
An anxious hubbub rose up from their number, and Jonathan caught a few words here and there, none of which were very encouraging. Most of them were along the lines of ‘evil’ and ‘murderer’. There was no doubt who they were talking about. Up above him, nine figures sat on a raised dais, wearing what looked to be the regalia of judges. They were hooded, and he could not make out their features, but they all gave out an aura of refined power that caused Jonathan to inadvertently shiver. The bracelet was still on his wrist, but it was still thankfully inert, and he was able to access his mana at any time that he wanted to. Behind the arena, he could see the tops of hundreds of buildings, which meant that he was probably in the capital of the Ash Heaps. If he managed to escape from here, he would have an entire city to traverse. At least he would be able to get a look at his enemy’s stronghold.
“We are gathered today to witness the trial and punishment of the rebel known as Jonathan Harlowe!” The central member of the hooded figures said, rising to her feet. Around her, the others rose also. “He stands accused of many counts of crimes against the realms and against the will of our overseer, Lord Granath. For these crimes, the accused is only fit for one punishment. Death! In three hours, the Lord himself will be here to pass judgment on this scum you see before you.”
Jonathan wasn't exactly sure how a courtroom worked, but he was pretty sure that this was not it. He was supposed to have some sort of lawyer to defend him, but he supposed that this was all for show anyway. The verdict would be the same no matter what.
“Death! Death!” The crowd began to chant, their voices mingling into a harmonious note that would have been quite beautiful if not for the context. The judge pointed her slender finger at Jonathan, and the sand around him collapsed, causing him to fall down into a dark hole, flailing wildly as he did so.
The chains and the post detached from him, and he landed a few seconds later, grunting as he bent his knees reflexively. The fall had only been about a hundred feet, and he hadn't even lost a single health point. He was standing in a pitch black room, without a single speck of light with which to see. Above him, the gap in the arena floor closed up, extending down to about two feet above his head, and he was left standing there in utter blackness.
After making sure that there was nobody around, he summoned a ball of mana to his hand, casting his surroundings in a soft purple glow. He was in a tiny room, barely six feet wide. There was no door, simply smooth stone, etched with words that glowed faintly with power. Jonathan ran his fingers along one of them, and felt a slight jolt as mana leaped towards his skin from the inscription. The words glowed a bright blue for a second, revealing what they were. They were of no language that Jonathan could understand, and seemed to have no meaning, seeing as his System interface normally translated everything that he saw. It was probably something like the glyphs that he had seen in the abandoned city, a means of channeling the power of mana to more sophisticated ends. In that vein, Jonathan now had access to his mana again, and he would be damned if he did not use it to its fullest to escape from this place. His normal skills were not going to cut it here. He would need to step up his game in terms of mana manipulation abilities.
Stolen novel; please report.
Jonathan summoned a bright ball of mana to his hands, and focused on trying to warp it into different shapes. Because of the way that his mana manipulation abilities worked and improved, he would need to do some experimentation first. The mana was still tinted with purple light,meaning that the power of the Void was very much present in there. It seemed to be a little more potent than before, perhaps from his practice on the flying ship.
Jonathan started off by testing the strength of the walls around him by thrusting the mana into the wall. It bubbled somewhat, and melted around the ball, but it did not evaporate like most materials would. With enough time, he would eventually be able to escape, but that was time that he did not have. Instead, Jonathan withdrew his hands, and focused on trying to improve the destructive capabilities of his mana orbs. Right now, they were about six inches wide, and glowed like a bright fire. He would need to compress it further in order to gain more power out of it.
Jonathan sent his will into the mana channels in his hand, tugging on the mana construct on his palm through them, and condensing it. He made sure that none of the mana escaped, and the ball slowly began to grow smaller and smaller until it was about half the size as before. He had done things like this before, but it had always been within a few seconds of an attack, and he had not been forced to hold it for long. Jonathan was starting to feel the strain as he focused on his mana ball, and it was trying to escape from his grip.
Jonathan tightened his will down onto the orb, and continued, using every ounce of his willpower to crush it into the smallest shape that he could make it. Eventually, he managed to get it down to about an inch, where it was actually painful to hold in place. Jonathan grunted, and sunk his fist into the wall. The ball of mana ate right through the stone like it was made out of butter, but the only problem was that the area of effect was much smaller than before. Jonathan used the orb like a plasma torch, basting the wall in its glow. Eventually, the strain became too much, and the orb exploded, blasting chunks out of the rock. Jonathan was sent off his feet and into the other wall. He sighed, and pushed himself back to standing, knowing that his time was running out here. He only had a few hours to escape this place, before Granath himself came to judge him. He would need to get out of here before then.
Jonathan stepped up the difficulty, drawing mana to both of his fists at once. His hands glowed with purple light as he condensed the orbs, managing to get them both down to around two inches. He moved over to the wall, and starred to tear into it with his mana, carving out a large hole in the side. He was able to keep this up for about a minute, and with his enhanced speed, he had managed to carve about three feet into the wall, with about four feet of width. He could get out through this if he needed to, but it would be a bit of a tight fit. He was not exactly a small man, not since coming to this world.