I noticed that from somewhere under his clothes he managed to pull out a piece of crystal. Very potent one.

I was taken aback by the amount of magic contained within and almost wanted to jump away.

If anything, I was already taught that a lot of people like blowing themselves up, and a piece like that was definitely something that would produce a solid explosion.

But, that was not his plan.

Instead, he… crushed it.

Yeah, that made me especially confused.

By all means, the piece was looking just like a small shard of Origin Crystal. To destroy something like using just your own grip was pretty much impossible.

Hell, even if that was me at my full magical power when I was still made completely out of the Crystal, I doubt I’d be able to just crush something like that this… effortlessly.

And yet, he did.

The shard turned to puff of smoke…

Or rather a puff of mana, that he promptly inhaled. And rejuvenated.

He definitely got a kick out of that.

The moment he absorbed it, I could tell he was trying to stand up, and actually managing to lift me up, along with the rock that I just moments ago trapped him with.

I had to drain him again, and quickly.

Too bad my hands weren’t exactly free to do it, so I had to use a bit… invasive method.

A headbutt to the face.

It was very effective.

Besides breaking his nose, I definitely managed to get enough contact with him to drain some of his mana.

It wasn’t all of what he managed to regenerate, but it was a start: it was enough for him to stagger and stop pushing me up.

With just one simple headbutt I managed to return us to stalemate.

So I hit again.

This time, I didn’t lift my head up, trying to maintain contact as long as possible, to drain as much as I could.

I could hear him groan in pain and frustration: he could tell that his mana was leaving him

For a second I thought he wanted to smack me again, because he raised his hand.

I honestly wanted to let him do it.

I still was shielded with rock, and his was now fading away, or rather crumbling away. If he was to attempt to hit, I am sure he would’ve broken at least some fingers. Maybe a whole arm if he was unlucky and the swing was hard enough.

But nope, that was not it. He was trying to grab yet another crystal.

Where was he even getting those?

I grabbed his hand, or at least tried to.

Still covered with rock, I managed to just bump his hand and slap away the stone he pulled from his suit…

Just to notice that there were at least ten more under his clothes.

During our scuffle, his suit managed to rip in some pieces and it was now easier to understand where those things were coming from.

Under the onesie, he was wearing a full tactical vest filled to the brim with crystals of different sizes and shapes.

How did that even fit there? Both under his clothes and the amount of crystals he had hidden.

And more importantly, how the hell could a simple piece of cloth be able to hide that much?!

Was that some kind of enchantment?

I mean, if it was, I would also be able to see it. Maybe not what was under it, but I’d at least notice that he had something going on.

This was getting more and more confusing.

If I was to have any chance to finish this before the whole building was to burn to the ground, I would have to cut him off from the supply he had. I thought that it would be easy, considering he was currently being pinned down, but of course it was not.

I wanted to reach towards the hole that got ripped in his clothes, to get a feel for the amount of mana that he was housing, but he noticed that and started flailing.

-Stop it, you fucking…

I swung at his head, trying to discourage him from the attempts at resisting, but he wasn't’ having it.

Since his hands were still free, he did block me with surprising ease.

Of course. He managed to, once again, regenerate his magic, and now enhanced his own body so he wouldn’t get damaged by something as simple as a punch. A punch from a stone fist.

Wait a second.

How was he doing that?

I mean, I was covering myself with stone. He was doing the same just a moment ago, but suddenly he decided to not to…?

Did he want to catch me off-guard?

If so, that worked.

Surprisingly well even.

I straight up was not expecting to feel that much resistance to my punch and the heavy impact made me stop for a moment.

Enough for him to retaliate.

Suddenly, with inhuman strength, he managed to toss me off and jumped backwards a few steps with surprising agility.

I quickly managed to regain my composure, but not soon enough to not get hit once more.

Did he toss a spell again…?

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No.

It was his own fist.

Wasn’t he standing away from me just a moment ago?

I didn’t even get to protect myself, getting hit right in the face. And definitely felt like my nose was broken.

But speaking of broken noses… his was fine.

Wasn’t his bleeding? He was healing?

This was getting annoying.

I gathered myself from the shock and concentrated.

I had to fix my body.

It wasn’t hard, and especially when I was not paying attention to aesthetics. I wasn’t really sure what I looked like, but definitely not human: I am pretty sure that my “healing” was using the crystal to mend the gaps and fill the missing pieces. Like a large, ugly crystal “blood” clot.

I bet if Kon was here, he’d be able to do that ten times better.

Hm.

But wasn’t he there…?

After all, he was part of this body… soul… or whatever we were.

Shouldn’t I be able to use that magic as well as he was…?

I didn’t have time to think, because another fist was flying at my face.

I guess he decided to try and end this with just his fists.

I mean, he did do the most damage just by punching me in the face, so I don’t blame him for that assumption.

And, he was partially correct.

Again, he was too fast for me to block, but this time his fist was met with a lot more resistance, being my crystal disfigured nose.

I had to be a bit too hasty in repairing it, because I am pretty sure that he still managed to chip a little bit and I felt some blood trickling down my cheek. After all, there was still some flesh remaining there…

Seeing his success, he swung once more, but this time, I was ready.

I still wasn’t as fast as him, but I did anticipate the attack. Especially as straightforward as this.

His fist was met with my rocky shield that got promptly crushed, but that was enough for me to reduce his momentum and catch his hand.

This time, with bare hands.

He instantly wanted to jump back, but I wasn’t going to let him.

The moment I grasped him, I recast the stone spell again: this time trapping us together, with a stone… well cuffs, essentially.

That did catch him off-guard, enough for me to get another hand around his neck and repeat the process there.

He was flailing like mad.

No wonder. He had been feeling the drain constantly chipping at his resources. I mean at this point he had to be running out of the crystals, right?

Wrong.

I was already most of the way to making full collar for the man when I felt a surge of magic from him and he finally managed to shake me off.

But this feeling was… different.

So far his superhuman strength and agility was similar to when I saw Mike fight. There was no mana involved, at least not that I could see.

But this time, I vividly was able to see the sudden surge that went right from the crystal he pulled out of his seemingly infinite supply, right towards his chest… and then it disappeared. Like someone had drained it away…

Hm.

Intriguing.

Normally, if someone was to enchant themselves, I would’ve expected for the mana to be distributed equally among their body… or the opposite, to focus on one particular spot that they’d want to enhance.

But not here. It just… vanished.

Either that or he was boosting his own heart…

I mean… that was not it, right…?

Okay, true. If one was to enhance their heart, surely they would get some better physical performance… but not to this degree!

I understand having better stamina or something, but having that much strength for example, was definitely not possible… right…?

But, whatever I wanted to think, my mind was still trying to come to the same conclusion.

That those people were just doping.

Hell, I knew how regular adrenaline can mess with one’s physical abilities. What would actually happen if one would infuse massive amounts of mana into their bloodstream… to spread it all over the muscles…

Yeah. That was it.

But that brought a different question.

If that was indeed the case… What other effects did this thing have on the human body?

Sure, if one was just a crystal, like I was, I am sure there would be no problem at all.

I guess Mike was crystal enough for him to also have no problems with that… But what about other people?

As far as I knew, the guy in front of me was not connected to some kind of Origin Crystal… at least not directly.

Sure, his supply was something, but so far I’ve always seen him absorb the pieces by destroying them. And they did feel a bit different.

If he was just another abomination like us, he’d just have to absorb mana from the environment. Or try doing that to me.

Instead, he was just pumping mana into his own body this way. I wasn’t able to see it only because it was already a part of their body and suppressed by their original magical signature. I mean, the mana inside the body was not changing at all, if you were to use your own reserves, that is.

This guy was a different case, sure, but that didn’t say much because of the strange isolation that his clothes were providing.

Sure, not any more, at least not that much: I did manage to make some holes, so there was a lot more of his actual mana capacity visible… Well, his, plus the bonus reserves he had hidden. But that was a different problem…

The problem that I had to resolve first.

And I started having an idea about that…

His clothes during our scuffle had been torn in multiple pieces. Honestly, considering that they were isolating his mana for some reason, they were surprisingly delicate. Well, at least not resistant to regular damage.

But first, I had to catch him again.

Sounds easy, right? After all, I already managed to do that multiple times.

But, apparently he had finally decided to finish me. Well, or tried to at least.

Maybe that was the real adrenaline hitting or something, but he got even faster.

He started copying me: he conjured a bunch of pieces of stone that he sharpened like spikes, growing out of his hands and started tossing them at me.

While quick, they weren’t dealing much damage. Especially when I countered with my own rocks.

But, the problem was that he was getting faster.

And I don’t mean just his projectiles: he himself was moving.

Sidestepping, trying to get behind me, he was dashing like mad.

He knew he didn’t have enough power to break through my defenses, so he started banking on his speed, something he knew he was superior in.

And, he was right.

Some of his spikes did manage to catch me.

They weren’t really doing much damage, but they were definitely hurting and drawing blood.

Of course I was constantly healing myself, filling myself with more and more crystal and boosting my defense in the process. So, you can imagine my surprise when I started feeling… weird.

By all means, his attack should not have been doing any damage to me. As far as I could tell, those were just projectiles. Stone, hard and sharp, but still. Especially after hardening my skin with that much crystal…

Was he imbuing them with magic…?

I mean, those were magically conjured, sure. But that was it: besides that, it was just a piece of stone, right…?

The thing was… whatever he was using, it was having an opposite effect of what he was intending to.

I think at least.

I was feeling charged with mana.

It was just like he was bombarding me with regular spells. I mean, I was already mostly crystal, at least in the spots that counted in current circumstances, so I definitely was absorbing magic from everything that hit me.

Too bad he was hitting me with literal rocks.

Was he using something else…?

Don’t tell me he was using the crystals that were fueling him?

That would definitely explain the weird feeling I was having.

I had to get a closer look, but that was definitely not the case. So what was it, then? Was it even him who was doing that?

I mean, who else? We were alone in here…

Whatever it was, I was not going to waste good mana.

It was a pretty good opportunity to test something…