It was the early the next day.
Gerald was standing in front of a small mirror in his room, observing his sorry figure in the reflection.
He was currently looking at his severely mangled body.
There was a deep scar going across his chest, accompanied by many smaller scars, that went in all directions.
His ribcage was slightly deford in so places, as the many broken ribs failed to heal properly and they remained misshapen.
He also had many scratches on his face, arm and legs, that were the remnants of the hard-fought battles from the past.
Where his left arm used to be, there was only a palm-length stump of flesh left. It had no semblance of a limb left, not even a little.
Lastly, his once attractive face was now gone. Apart from the scar on his forehead from the Hobgoblin's arrow, he now had a disfigured chin and lips, due to the explosion that killed the Earth Dragon.
Gerald observed his sorry figure in the mirror and sighed, "How did it co to this? Not even two months passed since I arrived and I already ca close to death so many tis"
He turned his head and rubbed his left cheek. His sight landed on the Mana Elixirs he made last night.
After the disappointing discovery, he felt like a part of him died. All that excitent and hard work were for naught.
"Nanites. The greatest invention of human civilization, they saved from poison and death, but at the sa ti, they are a firm door, preventing from moving forward."
He didn't sleep well this night. It was too much shock all at once and he felt like his mind couldn't hold on much longer.
A single tear rolled down his cheek before he got his emotions back in check.
"It's hard Hard to move forward, and even harder to surrender"
The changes that happened in his body from the consumption of the Mana Elixir did not revert back. His body was now able to contain a bit over 8MP.
The change wasn't great, but it at least gave Gerald so hope for the future. Worst-case scenario, he could create hundreds of Man Elixirs and slowly increase his Mana.
Although a plan like that would probably require hundreds of herbs and years to complete. The amount of money he would need to do so would also be imnse.
Not to ntion that he would have to be really careful not to reveal his secret. The Golden Pouch was already suspicious of him, he knew that much.
It was a good thing he didn't show them his face. You can never be too careful in a new environnt.
"If only there was a way to temporarily deactivate the Nanites Or sohow overload them so they couldn't neutralize the Mana Elixir" Gerald spent quite a bit of ti contemplating what to do.
Although he acted like he gave up, that was in a mont of emotional weakness. After half a day he was almost back to his old optimistic self.
Of course, he still found the reality hard to accept, and no matter how positive his thinking was, he was noticeable gloomier than usual.
"I should take a bath Being a stinking cripple will do no good."
He was almost with the hand on the handle when he stopped and gasped, "That's it! Nanites should protect my body from the poison from coming through the skin!"
Gerald suddenly got a new plan on how to weaken the resistance from the Nanites his body contained.
"If I sar the Elixir on my skin, then most Nanites would try to guard against that and there would be less to prevent from absorbing the potion internally!"
Gerald thought for a while and then said to himself. "That's so crazy it just might work"
He picked up his belt with storage pouches and wore it around his body. Then he proceeded to storm out of the city towards the river.
It was a warm spring morning and the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight, and only small birds and insects traveled across the pristine expansive horizons.
It was truly a wonderful ti to be outside, but Gerald did not pay any attention to his surroundings.
"How should I do this?" He sat down on the river bank as he was contemplating the best course of action.
He said to himself, "I need sothing the size of a bath And if I want to stay inside for a long ti, it has to have warm water at least; I'm not going in that icy water."
After a short while, he decided what to do.
He was going to try and use magic with long chants to better express his desires. It's also going to be a lesser strain on his tired mind.
He lifted his hand and chanted, "By the power I control, shifting dirt, warping stone! I will lead and you will follow, now the ground, make it hollow!"
It was a long magic chant and Mana slowly flowed out of him, creating a hole in the ground near the river. The only problem was, that it was made of soil and mud started to form at the bottom.
And so, he continued.
"Now, walls of stone and pristine water, I also want to make it hotter!"
With a light quake, the bedrock lifted and the sides of the hole beca out of grey stone. A good bit of water also flowed inside just as the chant forced it to.
Then in the last few words, a greater amount of Mana slipped out and rose the temperature of the water.
The whole thing now resembled a hot tub.
Gerald inhaled through the nose and then sighed, "Ah, I exhausted all my Mana, but It barely tingled my brain It's quite useful to cast magic with chants, but only if you have ti. In a battle, where every second counts, it would be suicide to try and use it."
"But for a big project, where it's safe, I have to say, it's excellent!" Gerald proceeded to examine his new creation and when he confird it's stable, he took off his clothes and jumped in.
"Mn, this feels so nice. I started to miss a proper bath."
Gerald relaxed for a few minutes in the warm water to relieve so stress.
Eventually, he extended his hand and grabbed a Mana Elixir. He brought it in front of his face and sighed as he opened the vial, "Oh man, I really hope this works. It's my last chance"
He poured the potion in the water and then took another one and did the sa. Then he took a third potion and took a small sip from it.
Now he only needed to wait and see what happens.
At first, there was nothing. But then, he experienced the familiar comfortable feeling once again, although this ti it was much weaker.
He could feel his body slowly absorbing the potion, but at the sa ti, he felt itchiness at the surface of his skin, as the Nanites tried to neutralize the foreign substance.
Because it was spread out across his entire body, the Nanites had to spread out and they had a hard ti working efficiently.
Also, because Gerald drank only a sip of the potion, it wasn't considered a big threat and so the Nanites allocated to it were way fewer.
The potion's power was slowly waning, but it was happening much slower than the previous day, and Gerald felt no need to vomit like before.
"I think it's working!" Gerald's excitent slowly ca back and he allowed himself to hope again.
He didn't have much to do, apart from just floating in the water and drinking the Elixir every once in a while.
He decided to ditate and recover his exhausted Mana, but there was one thing that was bugging him for a few days already.
When he was in mortal danger, in the fight against the lizard, he sohow absorbed a great amount of Mana all at once.
He spent those days recovering at the infirmary, thinking about it, but he couldn't replicate the phenona.
It did not help that the last fragnts of his mory from the fight were unclear and fogy. He could not rember what he did back then, nor the ntal state he was in.
"Damn it, I have so amazing abilities, like super Mana recovery or enhanced strength, but I can't use them because I don't know how I did it in the first place!" He already wrote his experiences in his notebook, thinking it might enlighten him, but unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Gerald spent the remaining rest of the day soaking in the water. He had to re-heat it a few tis and he spent the rest of the ti contemplating his future.
When he ca out his skin was all wrinkly and sensitive, but the effect was more than worth it!
"Wooo-hoo! 57 MP! Now the power is all mine! Haha!" Gerald squeezed his fist. Feeling the power inside his body boiling, ready to burst forward at any second.
"Fire!" Extending his hand towards the sky, Gerald let out a single word and a twenty-ter collum of fla blasted out of his palm as if it was coming out of a flathrower.
"Yes! Finally, finally, I can no longer be considered weak, instead, I can be considered quite strong already. But, overall, my journey has barely just started!"
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