When the time came for patience, I could be good about it. Especially if I was waiting for something uninteresting. I totally expected the most recent experiment to fail, but I couldn’t exactly take my mind off of it because recovering mana more quickly took effort. I was up on the roof of Lower Hills Suites, giving myself nearly the same view of the bay as Bay View Heights. Which was to say, almost negligible actual sightings of water.
I didn’t have a skill to go with my ability to meditate and recover mana. I wasn’t expecting to pick up skills for everything, but could detect actual improvements in how my focus affected recovery. It didn’t require my total attention, allowing me to plan my next steps. What other experiments could I do? How might I best find some minions with more materials that could store mana? I also thought about my future with the Power Brigade, and what sort of squad I would commit to longer term. It might or might not involve some of those I’d been with up until now, but they were all currently going through the same process.
Eventually, I was full on mana. It was hard to say how much I had recovered to. The basic speed was ten minutes per point of mana, but that was in an area with ‘standard’ ambient levels, and without actively working to recover more. On the extreme other end, I had gotten multiple points per minute during portal incidents, where high ambient mana mixed with dismantling portals. I couldn’t exactly say the latter was a good way to recover mana, because it was a lot of effort, but the potential recovery rate swung significantly depending on circumstances.
So taking ten or twenty minutes more than my calculations didn’t necessarily mean I had a higher maximum mana. I could have just been off, either with my assumptions of the ambient mana rate or my ability to improve it.
Because of that, I was very careful with how much mana I used, making certain everything added up. 10, 20, 30. All of that was normal. 33… should have been my limit. But I had more. 34. 35. 36… and finally 37. Spending that final point on Storage, I was quite dizzy. Clearly, I had reached my limit.
Good. I was pleased.
I took the stairs back down- I could always use the exercise, and if I was fast enough I could beat the elevator. Soon enough I was on my own floor, where I ducked over to Midnight’s door, knocking.
“Go ahead and open it,” he called. So I did. “Hi, Turlough. You’re looking much better.”
I ducked into Midnight’s apartment. It was somewhere around five feet high, much too low to stand- but spacious for a decent number of individuals. “I didn’t ever feel particularly bad. Just… uncomfortable for a while. But it doesn’t matter, because it worked! I improved my maximum mana!”
“Oh, congratulations,” Midnight said with sincere happiness. “How much?”
“The full four points I overcharged earlier! I can’t wait to do it again.”
“Turlough…” Midnight said with a bit of hesitation. “Be careful, please? You don’t know what repeating that might do. Especially in a short time period. And… what if it doesn’t last?”
“Hmm…” I frowned, “I didn’t think of that. But it wasn’t just a one-time thing.” I shrugged, “Either way, I’ll give it a week. You’re right, I don’t want to rush into it.” I pondered for a moment, “Maybe I’ll wait until after I get a level? I suppose it’s possible that it’s tapping into that, and I’d just not gain mana on level up? If only someone wrote this stuff down…” I frowned.
I had the feeling Master Uvithar might know some things. But I couldn’t possibly get to him without the mana to cast a full Gate, and I wasn’t even sure if that would be enough due to it being interdimensional instead of just interplanar. I didn’t have a path to follow, either, but at least I had a proper connection- I did live in that world for most of my life, after all.
But, I only needed 3 more mana. That would bring me to 40, half that would be 20 which was just enough. It would be a bit shaky to go through a portal that stretched me to my limits like that, so I might have to practice or something. Maybe buy an upgrade? That could shave off an entire point of mana. Well, I’d consider it as I got closer. It wouldn’t be right away. I could feel the possibilities approaching, though.
“Well anyway,” I said, “My neck is starting to hurt so I’ll be heading back to my place soon. Thanks for watching over me as I tried this.”
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It was amazing, the increase to my mana was like going up four levels at once. More than a ten percent increase to my capacity, which didn’t necessarily let me throw out another big spell, but it was enough for Alter Time at its discounted mana cost, or a couple lower level spells. It was even most of a Sonic Lance.
I wanted to try so many things, like overcharging my mana again and creating larger mana crystals and everything… but that had to wait. I had my regular training to get to, and of course I had to do actual patrols. Even if I got to choose which ones I went on and where, I had a quota to fulfill. Even if nothing happened, it was apparently important to keep people familiar with the Power Brigade logo.
-----
Due to cascading circumstances, I somehow found myself at the mall with two kids. I guess they were probably old enough to be called something else. Young men, teens, or whatever. Either way, it was Jerome and his friend Haralamb. I got the feeling he didn’t have many other friends his age. Or in general. Still, this friend had been around during the latest portal incident and was willing to go through with Jerome- it was just that Jerome stopped him.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Haralamb’s mother was supposed to be the one watching over the two of them. But something came up at the last minute, and Tylissa worked her way through other associates before determining that I was not busy. I had the day off, while she was on duty. Since she just got her new job, she couldn’t afford to miss it- but the boys were looking forward to the mall.
So there I was, at the New Monolith Mall- the same place Rocker had been causing trouble near the start of my mercenary career. It wasn’t a coincidence we ended up there, because it was one of the few surviving examples of its kind in New Bay. For many people it was still quite a bit out of their way, but malls weren’t really big business these days. So I’d heard when I looked up what a mall was. Until now, I had been purchasing what I needed via the internet, or specific stores in my local part of the city. Though the latter was mostly coffee, or preferably coffee-adjacent things like hot chocolate and pastries.
In general, if anyone asked what my connection was to Jerome I would say I was his tutor- which was partly true. Haralamb knew more, both because of his connection to the portal incident and because Jerome couldn’t just not tell his best friend he could do magic, and had a magic teacher. Not that I cared that much about secrecy even if it was possible anyway.
“So we have arrived,” I said, observing the large open space. The last time I had been here, nearly everyone had already fled from Rocker’s incident. Now, it was overflowing with people. “So… what do we do?”
“Walk around, mostly,” Jerome said. “Window shop. Probably browse the game stores and look for some clothes. The usual.”
… would they sell windows here? This seemed like the most difficult place to navigate a large glass object out of. I wondered why Jerome needed new windows, and also whether or not I could fit one in Storage. Maybe if there was nothing else, and it wasn’t too heavy.
Though my concerns in that area were quickly assuaged when I determined that window shopping was actually not shopping at all, merely peering in the windows of shops. Occasionally that involved us going inside somewhere, but more often than not we just looked.
When we got to the game store, I was somewhat confused. “Would it not be easier to look for what you want online?”
Jerome rolled his eyes. “Easier? Sure. But only if they have what I’m looking for.”
“Don’t they always have it? Computer games are just copies of information, are they not?”
Jerome picked up a nearby case and wagged it at me, “That doesn’t mean they all have to be digital download. Some people like disks,” Jerome said. “And not everyone has fast download speeds.”
Ah. That was a logical point. I did not find such things to be terribly expensive, but given the size of the apartment he was in, I knew they were not terribly wealthy. Though it was likely that Tylissa was earning more now than before. The Power Brigade paid well, even for non-combat jobs. And it was still powered work. Most people could learn to do jobs that didn’t require powers, but to track down dangerous supers generally required another of the same. Those who didn’t need power to find them would get caught very quickly, and never really became a big deal.
Haralamb also contributed his own thoughts to the conversation, “You can also see things you otherwise probably wouldn’t,” he commented about the store. “Since things are physically next to each other, instead of displaying things that some online store thinks you want to buy. Or wants you to think you want.”
They did each end up buying a previously owned game, spending just a small amount of money. They didn’t exactly have income of their own, so there was only so much they could buy. Even so, we continued our excursion.
As we passed through the mall, I saw many different styles of clothing. I saw them on the streets as well, but the particular demographic of the mall trended more towards teens instead of whoever happened to live near the Power Brigade HQ, or the various different patrol routes I’d been on branching much further.
A notable difference of teens was they were more likely to have t-shirts, often with images on them. Those images were often various supers from around New Bay. Not quite all of them, because I did recognize a couple prominents supers from one of the other cities where they were common. All places with a thin veil between worlds, presumably. Supers could and did live elsewhere, but they were most common in a small number of locations.
Frequently, but perhaps not quite so frequently as in the past, I saw Stargirl’s face. It just so happened that some of those also involved her being locked up behind bars. It didn’t seem people were afraid to express negative opinions of supers on their chest, though I did see a few groups take stock of each other. I was fairly certain the most rabid Stargirl fanatics had also been arrested, and nothing came of anything except a few harsh words between people. Most seemed to ignore me.
The most surprising were those who had unflattering images of villains. I didn’t think the villains deserved better, I just thought it seemed… incautious. Among other things, I saw a shirt with an image of ‘Doctor Dumbsday’ on it. He wasn’t known for being particularly restrained, so it seemed risky.
On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine he would have anything to do in a mall. Nothing seemed to be of significant value, especially not when compared to the scale of what things he regularly did.
I continued to believe that as we headed towards a clothing store, and I was correct about most of it. Doctor Doomsday would not stoop to the level of coming to a mall.
I did see some orcs, though. And no, I wasn’t just assuming they worked for him. Because I spotted them as they each activated their AEGIS, feeling a surge of power that drew my attention.
One of them was speaking as they hefted their axes- weapons which I had no idea how they got this far without people noticing. They obviously noticed now as people began running and screaming. In turn, I cast Translation. My very insufficient knowledge of the orcish language wouldn’t tell me what they were up to without it.
“The big guy said we’re here to smash up anything that ‘besmirches’ his image,” said a slightly larger individual, perhaps their leader. “And to make an example of them. So we’re starting with this store,” the orc said, smashing his axe through the glass into a dummy wearing a recently familiar shirt.
I supposed I should probably do something about this situation. “You two should probably get somewhere safe.” I was going to beat up some stupid orcs.