Now that his friends agreed to his crazy plan, James could finally get to absorbing the energy.

Absorbing so much energy would probably take days or even weeks for any normal person, that’s if they could even absorb it at all in the first place. But for James it was just another Tuesday. The experience of dealing with the Bloodwell made this seem like a piece of cake. At least he wasn’t being actively dissolved while doing the absorbing this time around.

James began waving his hands, conjuring another wave of Prongs with each movement. Within minutes, thousands of Prongs were embedded into all the energy containers in the facility. Thick, dark energy began flowing into him from all directions.

“Well, if anyone is crazy and strong enough to beat 40 Stygian cities, I suppose it’s him.” Lunaris sighed as she still was in disbelief at his crazy plan. But she couldn’t prevent a small smile from forming. It was crazy, sure, but if it worked, it would be a great win for Hedonia in these trying times.

“It’s not crazy if it works.” Helios smiled back.

There was so much energy stored, that even the thousands of Prongs James had conjured were barely making a dent. So he kept conjuring tens of thousands more, until the many containers of energy were being visibly drained by the second.

Within minutes, he was done. The rest of the group had joined them in the meantime, and they had been watching him absorb the energy.

Their mouths were agape as they were stunned by the almost nonsensical scene. Barely a few minutes had passed, and James was already doing something absolutely mind-blowing again.

“How the hell could one man do this so fast? This much energy could fuel thousands of mages!” Emilia asked, her eyes wide open in shock.

The dwarves had already rushed towards James, who was standing still with his eyes closed and digesting the energies, and were inspecting him with a bunch of microscopes and all manner of strange devices they pulled out of their robes.

“Is he really human?” Eruditus asked as he measured James’s head.

“There are a lot of things which appear human but are in fact so much more.” Bacchus said while probing into James’s ear.

“Come on guys, let’s not be that intrusive!” Ruppus said while taking a sample of James’s hair.

Denmac, who had seen more of James’s insane deeds than the dwarves, was not any less immune to the surprising sight. He was mutely staring at the containers, then he looked at James, then back at the containers.

A few minutes later, when the shock had worn off, Lunaris decided they were finally ready to be shocked again.

“40 cities?!” The group shouted in unison after Lunaris informed them of the plan.

Nobody moved, their faces turning white as they cycled through many conflicted emotions.

“You guys don’t necessarily have to come with us.” Helios announced. “It’s your choice, really.”

The group stood there frozen for several minutes. No one dared to make a sound.

But as they looked at James, who had repeatedly done things that they would’ve thought were impossible just moments before he did them, they all realized that deep down, they really wanted to be there to see him do it.

“I’m in.” Denmac said, and all the others immediately nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, James opened his eyes as he finished fully digesting the energy.

“I’m glad you guys are in, it’s gonna be fun!” James laughed.

“Fun?!” They shouted in unison again. For some reason, hearing him describe the plan as fun was even more surprising than even the bonkers plan itself.

“A-anyway, how do we do this? Do we go back to Hedonia to prepare or something?” Denmac asked.

“Prepare? No way.” James shook his head. “We don’t have time for that. There’s a trick to this plan that can really work in our favor.” James smiled devilishly. “You see, they won’t react to the destroyed cities right away. I mean, they took over a third of the planet, and they’re actively engaging in a war. So the dark side can’t respond to our actions immediately. Naturally, the information will in fact get out very soon, whether it’s through a random agent that managed to flee or whatever other means of communicating they have. But it’ll still take time until their higher ups actually send somebody strong enough to deal with the threat. The key is being done with all 40 cities before they can actually react.”

“So not only do you want to destroy 40 cities, but you also want to do it in a mad dash as if you’re robbing as many liquor stores as you can before the police arrives?” Emilia stared at him with her eyes wide open. “My god, he is crazy after all. Look, there’s not even a trace of fear on his face!”

“Hey, it’s fine.” James smiled and shook his head. “We won’t target any fancy cities. Just the weakest of them all, like this one. And the more we succeed, the stronger we get, both through leveling up, and through the energy I’ll absorb. It’ll only get easier and safer, we’ll be done in no time!”

At this point, they had used up their ability to be surprised, so the group just nodded numbly to the crazy man’s words.

“Oh, and to ease your worries, this is what absorbing and refining a single city’s energy allows me to do.”

James extended his hand and began pumping mana into it. A small, spherical ball of mana was spinning in his hand, growing larger with each passing moment.

Within seconds, it was already too big to fit in his hand.

“Let’s go outside for this.” James said.

The group moved outside the facility, James’s sphere having already grown larger than him. And it didn’t look like it was about to stop.

Within another few seconds, the sphere dwarfed James. He was holding the mana above his head, so it looked like he was underneath a lake of mana. The rate at which it looked to be growing was only getting faster the larger the sphere became. It was almost doubling every few seconds.

“Just how much mana is that?” Emilia gasped.

“A lot.” Denmac replied with his breath drawn. He tried to breathe, but he actively had to remind his brain to do it.

The dwarves were furiously taking notes and snapping pictures, although their phones were barely working with so much energy flowing around.

The lake of mana quickly became a sea and then an ocean. It was impossible to even see where the sphere ended, it looked like the entire sky was filled with mana.

“And that’s the mana I get from just one city. Now imagine 40 times this much.” James smiled fiendishly.