Chapter 309 - Broken, Untapped

"Hey..."

Rynold, in that moment, stopped whatever he was doing and quickly looked behind him. He heard something. He swore that he heard a whisper. It wasn't the voice of the only other person with him there.

At that point, it might've been the fatigue. Rynold had been working for hours on the bench, after all. The thing he was making didn't just take physical strength. Actually, it felt more mentally daunting than anything else.

But, Rynold didn't feel at all tired. Something about the Nevermore didn't require him to rest or eat or anything. Because, if it had, he would've already collapsed. Or, worse, dead because of a bunch of other things. Nonetheless, Rynold was in okay shape. Not the best, but not necessarily the worst either.

So, that made him think.

'I could've sworn that...'

His thought was cut immediately short as the voice called out to him once more. It was all indistinct murmurs, nothing solid to form any sense whatsoever. Rynold couldn't bring to mind what he was hearing. However, Rynold felt a sense of omen — and scorn.

"You're-- broken."

Rynold heard a sentence. Or, at least, some form of one. And, as soon as he did, Rynold dropped the hammer on the table, placing his hands to his sides.

He didn't realize it, but Rynold had his face contorted. There was an obviously stressed look on his expression, only appearing after working strenuously for the past few hours.

'Wha-'

He struggled to form any thoughts as the feeling of terror overwhelmed him. Rynold had felt this before. It was the feeling he had made so distinctively clear that he didn't want to feel ever again. This was something beyond any genuine powerlessness he could feel from any physical threat. What Rynold felt at this moment was heavy, suffocating beyond any rational reason.

It was true, unbridled hopelessness.

Rynold's terror turned to fear. Every instinct he had left his body as he stood there in utter, paralyzing fear.

It was as if time had stood still. Rynold couldn't move, not even an inch from where he was standing. No part of him wanted — could've fought back. All he could do at that very moment was take it all in. The fear. The terror. The outright doom and helplessness he had long dreaded.

"Hey, kid!"

As soon as the old man called to Rynold, he snapped out of his daze. With a hand on his shoulder, Rynold looked over to the man standing next to him. There was a worried look on his face. However, all Rynold could respond with was the empty expression he had felt. It was written all over his face, after all.

"I've been calling out to you for the past five minutes. You really didn't hear a word of what I said?"

The words went into one ear and out the other. Rynold was far too stunned to even think of anything else. The fear had taken over him in a way no threat the New World had thrown at him before.

"Kid..?" the old man stepped to his right, standing directly in front of Rynold, "Something happened. Something got to you, didn't it?"

The old man had been speaking out of experience. The tone of his words and the expression he carried while saying it was one of true experience. And, judging by the concern he had conveyed, the experience must've been harrowing.

"Hey," the man called out to Rynold once more, "Hey! Look at me, kid. Whatever you saw. Whatever you heard. Whatever in the absolute hell you felt, it doesn't matter. It is not real."

Rynold looked over to the old man, this time his blank face slightly contorting. He was, by all means, recovering. But, it was obvious that Rynold's mental stability was far from what it would've normally been.

"Take a break," the man ordered, physically moving Rynold to where the old man would usually rest. And, with a hearty sigh, the old man returned to Rynold's workbench.

Despite knowing Rynold was in a fragile state, the old man knew that nothing bad would happen after this one mentally-breaking attack. The old man knew that as an absolute fact. And, well, it wasn't like he could've helped with Rynold's recovery.

"Huh."

Heaving a slightly impressed grunt, the old man was, in a sense, impressed. The reason being that Rynold was able to make something out of the rather indirect instructions. And, to be able to accomplish something as the one Rynold had made with just a few glances, it was beyond the old man's expectations.

Unfortunately, there was a limit to awe.

'Tsk.'

With a simple flip, the old man saw all of what Rynold's creation had to offer. It was nothing more than a glorified piece of decoration. While it was an impressive feat to conceptually build something like that, it had no application whatsoever.

'A compounding accumulative Mana Cell,' that was what Rynold had made, 'The craftsmanship is alright. The concept even better. Build quality could use some work. But, it wouldn't work. Anybody with half a brain would know that it wouldn't work.'

So, what was Rynold thinking?

Whatever it was, the old man had no way of finding out. Rynold was, by all means, out. All the guy did at that point was to stare off at the empty space in front of him. He wasn't even blinking.

'I hope he pulls out of it,' the old man thought, turning away from Rynold and started going back to his work. However, he stopped halfway as he felt Mana emanate from behind him.

Rynold was willing his Mana into life. Subconsciously, at that.

It was a feat in itself. However, to do so in such a state was no sign of anything good.

In that instant, before anything else could happen, the old man shuffled the room into a barricade. Every plank of wood, metal, or whatever piece of garbage was thrown right in front of the old man. It clashed together as it formed a makeshift barricade.

But, it was barricade nonetheless.

A second after the barricade formed, nothing bad happened. However, the density of the Mana Rynold was forming compounded by the second. It was like a ticking time bomb with no way to defuse it. All the old man could do was brace for impact, hoping that the resulting explosion wouldn't be too big to contain.

Unfortunately, his expectations weren't at all met.

The concentration of Mana peaked at one point and subsided the next. The whole series of events was mistifying at least. There was no explanation for what was happening whatsoever. And, given the circumstances Rynold was in, any semblance of normalcy was gone out of the window.

'That's..,' the old man lifted the barricade and slowly approached Rynold, 'That's an absurd amount of power for a kid.'

Lowering his guard, the old man thought to himself of what Rynold truly was. Because, to him, the kid was nothing more than a would-be Magic User. Sure, he had some skills, but the old man never expected this much.

That being said, power alone wouldn't let just anyone survive Hell. Otherwise, the whole place would be a dog-eat-dog world. The old man knew this much despite not going out of his shell of a home too much. While power would've definitely helped with surviving, getting mentally attacked by wraiths could unravel that strength in mere seconds. It's just like what had happened to Rynold just recently. Well, Rynold's case was worse off than most.

As his thoughts gathered, the old man found himself staring at Rynold's makeshift Mana Cell. It had dropped down on the ground amidst all of the old man's panic. And, much to his surprise, the thing seemed to be glowing.

It resonated. The Mana Cell resonated with Rynold's subconscious Mana wielding.

'It's sustaining itself despite the lack of any direct influence,' the old man observed as he moved closer to the ground, 'The Mana didn't even leave the kid's body. How did it absorb this Mana?'

Admittedly, the Mana inside the Mana Cell was not at all impressive. It was the fact that it even had Mana that surprised the old man. The thing had absorbed Mana from the air like it was no problem at all. Rynold had managed to create a Mana sponge, albeit a small one.

'This kid...'

It soon became clear that the Rynold had more potential than the old man had realized. However, even after experiencing the series of events that transpired, the old man couldn't help but think that Rynold was just that. A kid with potential but no way of manifesting it. What's worse, Rynold was clearly his own worst enemy.

The old man had seen his fair share of Magic Users, but never one that had the same abilities as Rynold. None of them had the same untapped potential.

Which, consequently, begs the question:

Was it now his job to teach him?