Push and Pull

If his hypothesis was correct…

Gerald didn't even want to think about it, he was already shaking with excitement as is. He also didn't want to hype himself up too much in case he was wrong.

He clapped his hands and then rubbed them together, "Well, there's only one thing left to do!" He chuckled quietly and rose to the skies.

"Murder everything in sight! Let's go!"

The space around him twisted, and he began falling sideways. It was quite interesting having the ability to manipulate gravity in this way. There were some tricks to go much faster, but it was expensive to do so.

For 1G acceleration, he had to burn through about 1MP/s, and the terminal velocity was around 200km/h.

If he wanted to go faster, more energy was required to counteract air resistance. 2G equaled to 2MP/s, and 3G needed 4MP/s, etc. It went on like that exponentially, probably into infinity.

It became increasingly less efficient to travel at faster speeds, and it also became cold, so Gerald limited himself to fly at the lowest speed most of the time.

In the vacuum of space, such abilities would have been godlike, especially on long travels, but in a dense atmosphere of a planet, it was just okay. Too much drag.

In any case, as he traveled a dozen kilometers or so, the beasts' attacks became powerful and aggressive again. So much death everywhere, he didn't even have to do anything.

He would just fly above the battle, absorb a hundred or so dead monsters/people and then find a quiet spot to digest his catch.

He, of course, helped kill a few Orcs every time he did so to help the morale of the soldiers below. Repeating this cycle many times, an entire day went by while his Aura grew by 20%.

It took him months to get here, and now a day in this war equaled to previous months of hard work. It was crazy to think about it, but Gerald didn't complain.

"Yup, that's crazy…" He closed his pocket watch and barely held back his smile. "Less than an hour, god damn!"

His Mana regeneration finally exceeded his actual Mana stores.

"More than 1.000MP/h, oh man! It's getting difficult to get an accurate measurement."

He could toss out a simple spell every three seconds or so, forever! Never running out of energy! And to think an average person could do the same only up to ten times a day! It was really difficult for him to keep himself from bursting into laughter at the thought.

After finishing with his celebratory excitement and a little dance, he became serious again. It was time!

He closed his mind and focused. Mana was all around, ownerless and free, it could move anywhere it wanted without caring for solid objects or man-made barriers. It was completely untouchable outside a living being.

And that's when Gerald touched it.

Okay, maybe 'touch' was too strong of a word. He nudged it slightly with his mind.

It was like touching mist with your hand. You couldn't grip it nor hold it, but it still reacted to your movements, unlike before when it was like a ghost, slipping through everything.

This ownerless Mana now started acting like a fluid around him, swirling and moving out of the way as he moved through it. The action was tiny, invisible to an untrained eye, but it was there!

"An improvement! Nice!"

Despite the minuscule change, Gerald was satisfied. That's because his actions were having more effect as he was becoming stronger! Another 100X to his mental powers and he could manipulate Mana as if it was water. It would only take him around 2-3 years of constant war to achieve…

"Hmm, now that I think about it… It's not really feasible, huh? A war of such intensity would need hundreds of millions of combatants." He scratched his forehead and then sighed.

"I need more concentrated death… This war is so wasteful! I can't even absorb 0.1% of it all…"

Keeping his hand under his chin he watched with Magic Eyes a swirl of Mana before him. It was difficult to keep it going. It seemed so weak, ready to disperse at the slightest movement.

He kept stirring it with his mind.

"I wonder what would happen if I…"

Woosh!

The Mana swirl went up in flames.

"I… Uh…" Gerald stared blankly at the empty space. He was dumbfounded.

"I didn't even touch it!" He protested out loud to nobody in particular.

"Okay, okay… Maybe I touched it, but it was just a little!" He momentarily entered a thinking mode where his eyes narrowed and his lips pouted while releasing a long and pondering "Hmmmmm."

After a bit, he created another Mana swirl, touched it, and willed it to ignite.

Woosh!

The Mana swirl went up in flames. Again.

"Hm?" He aggressively lifted one eyebrow and tried something else. Soon a small light was born beside him, and a piece of rock reshaped itself into a bolt.

"Oh…? Oh. Oh! Yohoho! Ahahaha!" He erupted into a bout of uncontrolled laughter. His suspicions were confirmed. "Dude! No way! That's amazing!"

He could barely keep it together, and the culprit was the new discovery which was…

He could use magic! Without a drop of Mana! Or at least, he didn't use any Mana that belonged to him! Commanding ownerless Mana outside of his body! If anyone heard of it…

"Fuck me! That's awesome!" There was a drawback, of course, there always was. Despite being able to command Mana in his near vicinity, since it was outside of his body it required much more effort. He couldn't just mobilize hundreds of spells in a few seconds like he could with his own energy stores or Crystals, but still…

"Yup, I love my life, and I love magic! Hell yeah!" Gerald punched into the air in excitement.

While being the most flashy ability, it wasn't actually that useful. There was, however, something invisible to the naked eye, that carried much more value.

Now that he could interact with Mana on his own terms, he could push...or pull it into his body!

Remember the hard limits of regeneration? Yup! They are gone! With enough effort, Gerald could now stuff more Mana inside his body at once!

A whopping 1,4% increase!