The next day was a blur of activity. When they got back from the Institute, Ethel had schedules for each of them. Back-to-back meetings and tasks, no one was spared. Each of them had different aspects to take care of and manage. Ethel had designated Daphne, and to a lesser extent, Mark, as their public faces. Ethel's strategy for new member acquisition lay in harnessing Daphne’s natural charisma and leveraging the rumors Mark had unintentionally caused.
Their tasks also involved shaping up the surrounding neighborhood and trying to get their name out there.
As of yet, only time would tell whether this worked, but in the meantime, patrols and guard units were sent out into the neighborhood, exploring the nearby buildings and introducing themselves to the surrounding people. Karter had extensive knowledge in this area so they picked his brain often.
There were a couple of sign-ups right off the bat, but nothing too extreme. It was then Chloe and Ethel's job to process and manage the new people. Once more Ethel was a key component in the interview process, though Mark heard she had Maggie following her around learning the ropes so that she would eventually be able to give the task over to her.
They had begun to reach their building’s limit, so repairing and expanding into the nearby structures became necessary. Ethel had just about shouted for joy when they had finally gotten the elevators in their building working properly.
Jonathan had made sure, to remind them not to expand toward The Firestarters, leaving them a buffer zone. Every now and then, bikes could be seen roaring down the streets, people hooting with laughter as they passed. Mark had a hunch it was more than just joy rides passing by. Possibly scouting parties aside everything was going well.
Sam and Karter became their diplomats to their other neighboring factions, though none were as close as The Firestarters, apparently, they had their own sets of problems. On top of faction relations, they took care of a good deal of the admin for the faction's day-to-day.
Leaving Jonathan with the monumental task of wrangling the faction's economic numbers and areas for crafting focus. They all helped where they could, but he had the best grasp on their finances, besides Ethel and she was swamped already. He never complained; in fact, he seemed completely comfortable in the position, even creating a small workshop for George to begin his testing.
At one point, while they were busy setting up the Clinic, he came to Mark and Daphne to get their share of the funds, which was five thousand from each of them. Mark honestly didn’t mind giving up the points because he knew it was for a good cause. Plus, eventually, they would get it back and more, and honestly, with the exception of classes, it would take him a very long while before he could work his way through his current wad of Sp.
On that note, the courses they had signed up for would hold their names until they officially came for their first lesson, at which point they would pay, and the number of lessons would tick down each time they showed up after that.
It made for a very flexible timetable, for those who couldn’t get away every day. The fact that they hadn’t been able to get back to the Thunder Dome barely crossed their mind as they simply had no time to think of anything else. But what Mark did find time for was to personally give his condolences to Andy for Noah’s passing. The fact that he was so late already felt terrible but time had never been on Mark’s side. While Andy was sad Mark was surprised to find him doing better than he expected. They had all mourned Noah and used the pain to push themselves forward. Andy had signed up as part of their main fighting force while Sophia and Jackson had remained as messengers for Logistics. Mark also noted that Andy’s Aura had become notably stronger. It gave off a presence of precision and incredible speed.
Feelers were put out and connections were made with surrounding powers. They worked to set things up now so that they had a stable future later. So when they did leave, they knew they wouldn’t be leaving people defenseless.
It was late in the evening when they finally got a majority of things set up.
After everything was done Mark was too full of agitated energy, so he saw Daphne off to their room and made his way up to the rooftop.
Mark was struggling with the sudden change of circumstances. He had been in survival mode for so long, that the quiet was actually more unnerving than being attacked. It wasn’t just him, he’d noticed everyone showing strain in their own way.
It felt wrong for him to be here, relaxing when everywhere else was such a mess. He was having trouble unwinding when he should, and just letting things come.
Reaching the top of the building Mark walked out into the crisp night air. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon and Mark began pacing the length of the roof a couple of times.
Mentally he was tired, but physically his body was restless and ready for something bad to happen.
He was on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Stopping, he looked out over the city, the lights from the different districts, twinkled with activity.
‘The world is marching on.’
The thought seemed to still his tense body. They had made it here, earned this. Now he needed to make the most of the time they had.
As Mark looked down from above and took a breath.
His gaze was drawn to their neighborhood, which, in comparison, was barely lit up by the occasional working street lamp. Even the rooftop was dark, luckily the moonlight was enough for Mark's enhanced senses.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
His eyes turned to look at the space up here. It was rather bare, more of a maintenance area though he did spot a planter running all along the edge of the roof. It had no doubt once held plant life, but now all that remained were dried leaves and cracked stems.
Mark zeroed in on them. Moving over to the ledge he began to pull the dead plant matter out of the beds. Slowly working to tend to the soil. He used [Earth control] to mix in fresh soil.
While working, Mark allowed himself to fall into a thoughtless state, not quite [Meditation], but deep enough that he moved on autopilot, soon enough he was woken from his workings to neatly arranged beds of soil.
Then he reached into his inventory and took out a couple of seeds he had gotten a while ago. It was the cherry pips from Andy’s hideout. Mark had saved them after eating the fruit. Making two holes for them and placing them far enough apart, Mark buried them.
Then he triggered [Nature control] and began feeding Mana into them. Trying his best to memorize the pattern of life they gave off.
It was expected, but still strange. The pip gave off a completely different pattern from the seeds Oliver had given him.
An entirely new weave of life.
Mark had thought there would be similarities because they were both plants, but he couldn’t find even one similar section.
The pips soaked up Marks Mana greedily. He knew from experience, that having a seed meant it would grow rapidly. In this case, the seeds just kept drinking in the Mana, until Mark was tapped out. Panting and with a dull headache, he opened his eyes. The planters had not changed much, but now two small saplings barely taller than waist height, had breached the soil.
Had that been one of the creeper seeds Oliver had given him, this entire rooftop would have been covered in foliage.
Mark thought this might happen, these pips were of a different quality to other plants he had access to right now.
They required much more Mana to grow.
The planters were big enough to handle these plants, even when they became trees, but Mark would have to infuse them with his Mana whenever he had the chance, to get them to that stage.
Satisfied for the moment, Mark sat down on the edge of the building and dropped into [Meditation], using it to center his mind and body.
Mark began to pull the surrounding energies into himself. Prana was abundant here. He could even feel the two new lives on either side of himself.
In an attempt to get a better look, Mark expanded a construct over the two saplings. Details of their shape and energies came into focus to Mark. He could tell how many leaves each of them had with certainty and what kind of condition they were both in. It was just as he was finishing up his inspection that he noticed the way the spell was interacting with the surrounding energies.
Mark paused.
He began to pull the ambient Prana towards himself once more. Only this time he began using the construct as an extension of himself.
It was similar to what he had done with Sam’s corruption, by pulling the energy through his Resistance. Only this time he focused his construct and Resistance to block out the ambient Corruption from entering.
He wasn’t ready to suffer that experience again.
The moment he did this, there was an exponential increase in the flow of all energies entering his core. The Prana brought with it Mana and Aura. Mark's body devoured the energies as they rushed in, seemingly drawn to him.
Of course, Aura escaped his grasp but he ignored that.
Mark expanded the size of his construct to cover the entire rooftop.
The small trickle of pure energy had become a flowing torrent.
Rushing in from all directions, Mark had to concentrate so as not to get lost in the flow.
The spell acted to draw more energy towards his cores, expanding his construct was similar to increasing his reach into the world, allowing him to pull more of the power into himself. At first, Mark just kept drinking in the flow but he started to notice a problem.
The Mana and Aura he was taking in had begun to burn through his chest. It was nothing like the pain of the Corruption, but he could definitely feel it growing as he took more in.
He was hitting some sort of limit.
When he compared how the three energies felt, he realized they matched his attribute distribution. Simply put, this new method was limited by how much of the energy his body could naturally handle. And, that must be determined by his defenses.
His aura was hurting him the most, because he had no Aura of his own, and his Resistance was the only protection he had. The energy sat like a churning fire in his abdomen, and it had begun to spread out across his muscles and body. While his head hurt considerably less, he could still feel he was approaching a ceiling there too. The amount of Prana he could still take in felt limitless, but probably wasn’t. Mark tried to keep the other two energies out, and just draw in Prana, but, untangling them was almost impossible unless they were already in his cores.
Eventually, he had to stop because his body simply couldn’t take it anymore.
The moment he relaxed and opened his eyes the system prompt came up.
Source: Mediation (+10 Prana, +6 Mana, +0 Aura, +50 exp points)
Mark checked the time and realized only an hour had passed. That had to be the single fastest gain he had gotten in one session, and he’d gotten Mana to boot. He was definitely onto something here.
Pulling his construct back in Mark tried to stand up and promptly fell back on his ass. His muscles ached like he had just done a full-body workout. Mark mobilized his Prana to repair the tissues and the pain lessened, but there were some aspects he could not repair.
It became apparent that this new trick had a limit to its use. Even his brain felt foggy, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his usual casting limit was reduced.
He would have to balance the amount he used this technique.
Mark also noted that suddenly, Mana was flowing into his core at accelerated rates. Then he remembered that he must have just reached his Mana regeneration threshold.
With the addition of the new Mana stats, he now had 201 base Mana, so he was regenerating a point of Mana every thirty seconds. Which was a huge jump, and frankly, it would make him much more potent in combat.
The next step up from here was if a person reached 600 base Mana, then, one would regenerate 1 Mana per second. Mark didn’t know how long it would take to get there but he could only imagine the devastation one could create with that much Mana, and that was not factoring in items.
Mark stretched his arms up towards the night sky, his tired muscles complaining as he got to his feet. Making his way toward the stairwell, he looked out over the city once more.
This was happening they were safe, well, relatively speaking. The city had its own dangers.
But for now, they were safe.