First heartbeat.

Armor made of mana appears on my body. As always it's super simple and not very intricate.

Second heartbeat.

The Gargoyle reaches me and I use all this kinetic energy to strengthen my body, but this time not only my endurance but also my speed while my head rings and my body continues to complain.

Before the fist reaches me, I grab it and, using the energy of the monster's swing, I throw it over my shoulder, against the wall of the house. The monster is sent flying through the wall and into the room. Without even turning around, two cones of absorbed kinetic energy shoot behind me, obliterating two invisible monsters sneaking up on Isabella.

Another heartbeat and I dash inside the room, punching the gargoyle right in its face, making it stagger backwards before dodging under its swing and hitting the bottom of its chin. Then I use the force of its attack to throw it on the ground, stepping on its neck.

What now you asshole? Did you have fun?

Mana explodes from the gargoyle and I get pushed away, crashing through the wall and as I stand up, the monster is already in front of me, throwing another hit at me.

I watch its stance, its shoulder, and its movement, and more mana and kinetic energy flow through my body and this time I do not dodge, I slightly shift my body, letting the monster hit my strengthened arm, only so I can follow with my knee burrowing into its chest, throwing it against the wall.

Then I dash against it and boost my strength, hitting the middle of its face and sending it crashing through the house, and back on the streets.

I absorb the kinetic energy from the falling house and use it to strengthen my body even further, again reaching the gargoyle and I burrow my feet into the ground, twist my body, and with as much strength I can muster, kick the Gargoyle that crashes deep inside another house.

I ignore the screams of my logical mind and my body in pain.

Sword? Oscillation? Disruption?

That wouldn't feel so satisfying. I need to move my body, I need to feel my fist hitting something. I need to vent and tear this guy apart.

I lift two stones as big as my fist and throw them towards where I feel these annoying probing touches, only to boost them with a massive amount of kinetic energy. Two stones fly as a rocket and in a split second, both of them reach their target. Two notifications later, and the disgusting touches on my presence disappear.

The gargoyle is back once again and this time I reach out and [Redistribution] explodes at full power, slowing the monster to a crawl, and at the same time, I release that same energy inside my body, strengthening it, boosting my speed, increasing my endurance so it won't break apart.

One quick step and my fist hit its chest and before it's thrown crashing into another house, I grab its arm and pull. The monster flies away and the arm stays in my hand.

This time I get to the monster and before it reacts, I swing with its arm in my hand against its head, sending it staggering backwards before another hit smashes its skull, denting it inside. I let go of the arm and using the power of my body hit its head, literally tearing it from its neck and sending it flying away.

[You have defeated the Battle Gargoyle- lvl 99]

Okay, quickly back to 5% of Mana Regulator and continue to use all this absorbed energy to keep my body strengthened, I don't even want to know what will happen if it stops increasing my endurance.

Hmm, let's rather increase it to 10%.

Damn, that was dumb. So goddamn dumb. Extremely dumb. But it felt so good. I finally feel like I let go of some steam building inside me. Now I need to continue to use kinetic energy to keep my body stronger until it heals or until I find Lily. Let's also ignore the burning mana circuit, yup. Easy.

Totally worth it.

“Are you fine?” I ask while inspecting Isabella and she nods, scratched with some bruises from the fall but otherwise uninjured, only maybe slightly light-headed because of mana usage.

I keep forgetting that other people's mana pools are usually much smaller than mine. Most of them put much fewer stat points into the stat.

Actually, if I think about it, isn't it possible that Isabella's strength stat is much higher than my base one? Dang it, this is more than possible. I'm also totally sure of that. Yet, something stops me from asking. I don't want to know for sure.

I want to continue to tell myself that it doesn't have to be so, a 10-year-old girl's strength is more than mine. If I ever lose my mana I'll get wrecked. Obliterated.

Maybe even by Lily?

Okay, let's focus a bit more on developing techniques that will allow me to endure skills that would block my mana or make it unusable.

“You don't seem fine.” the strong little girl says.

“I'm fine.” Little kids shouldn't be worried about such stuff. Yet I know that she probably felt my lie, her skill allowing her to do so and me still unable to track it.

Thankfully she doesn't say anything and for a few minutes, we just sit there, surrounded by destroyed houses and the corpses of the monsters. We sit there while I, with my eyes closed, try to catch my breath and push the pain to the back of my mind.

Am I that untalented when it comes to skills that would help me regenerate my body or heal it? I think as I continue to try, remembering the feeling of Lily's warm mana and its movement and even try to copy Hadwin's weaker self-healing skill.

Yet there are no results, none at all. In the same way, I can't use Tess's skill or Sophie's skill, I can't even boost my healing.

My theory is that it's something very difficult to do and maybe it's something I'm not good at. In the same way, it's impossible for others to learn as many skills as me and use them so quickly. Our talents are just different.

But I'll get there, I won't stop until a regenerative skill lands in my hands! I already missed out on a few passive skills that would slightly boost my regeneration. For some weird reason. I don't even know why.

What dumbass would pick skills to improve their mana, heh.

Adaptive Physiology, I miss you. I even miss the traits I was offered, Regenerative Tissue, Adaptive Resistance, and always, there is always only one person to blame.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - BenDover? I'll fuck you up if we meet in the tournament.

BenDover (Hell, IDK) - What? I didn't even say anything. Fuck off.

I close the community again, feeling slightly better.

The story goes like this. Once, tens, maybe hundreds of years ago, a beautiful kingdom existed. Not unlike the kingdom or empire from the second floor. A kingdom full of gifted people. Mages, warriors, healers, they were everywhere.

Kingdom full of wonders. Beautiful buildings, tools powered by mana, healers able to restore limbs.

Oliver, his wife, and his kid don't know what happened - in the end, they live far from the center of the city where most of the knowledge is, but they know something happened. Something bad.

Something that created Decay. The variant of mana that takes over the monsters and sometimes even people only to make them seemingly undead, dangerous, mutate them, and twist their being.

Billions of people died to it, unable to fight Decay and getting infected. Just a simple exposure for a long enough time could be dangerous, just having too weak mana would get you infected. So billions of people got infected, farmers, workers, and most of the people that didn't handle mana got infected first, totally ruining the food supply and sending panic through the continent.

And slowly the Decay grew in power, after a few months infecting even people that used to be able to fight with mana.

So under the iron rule of the king, they collected all the uninfected people and grouped around him, his three warriors, and the Saint. The saint created a field that covers a huge area and doesn't allow Decay to infect people within that and that's where the city started.

Years passed and every single human still alive that got this information moved to this city that expanded well beyond its intended size.

We are currently in the outskirts of it, slums if you will, where the most unlucky collect, and the deeper you go into the city and closer to the saint and the last king the safer it is.

But not everything is okay, tens of years, and generations passed and even the center of the city has to deal with Decay that even changed the weather. There is no rain, food is scarce and the monsters are moving closer and closer, either through weakening the field made by the Saint or the Decay getting stronger.

On the outskirts, no one knows what's happening deep in the city, but it seems that the stronger monsters are able to push even deeper than where we currently are and there is no leadership, no help coming anymore, not for years.

Everyone left on their own in this dying world.

The last city on the planet.

Saint's Eternal Bastion.