James began flying back towards the city, still firmly holding his friends with his mana tentacles.

“This is ridiculous, what the hell are these things anyway?” Denmac asked as he touched the tentacles with his fingers. Since they were made of pure mana, a slimy layer of azure goo now covered his hand. “This is absolutely disgusting.” Denmac heaved.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.” James chuckled. “It’s the first time I’m using these things, so there are bound to be some unintended effects. It’s not a spell, after all. I’m just pumping out a bunch of mana and giving it a physical form.”

James laughed, but nobody laughed with him. Instead, everybody had serious looks on their faces?

“What? Did someone punch a puppy or something? Why are you guys so serious all of a sudden?”

“Not a spell…” Denmac’s voice trailed off weakly as he realized the implications.

“Ok, I didn’t say anything before, but this shtick of you guys getting your mind blown for minor reasons every 5 minutes is really played out.” James shook his head. “Come on, you know the drill. I have a lot of mana, so I can do a lot of cool things with it. No big deal, let’s move past it. We’ve got that big bad energy signature to deal with!”

But as he looked around, he saw that not only Denmac’s mouth was agape this time around. Even Lunaris and Helios were staring at him with wide eyes.

“Seriously? We’re really doing this again?” James chuckled. “I’ve created plenty of spells before, what’s the big deal?”

“James, you don’t understand. Materializing your mana without a spell is not something just anybody can do.” Lunaris informed him.

“I’m pretty sure I did it plenty of times before, with or without a spell.” James said. “I think I’ve even seen you guys do it. I still don’t understand why you’re all looking at me as if I split the atom.”

“Well, that’s entirely different.” Helios replied. “What we do usually uses an actual spell. A spell isn’t just a name you give to something you do with mana, it’s an entire mechanism that triggers the right amplitude, configuration and various other properties of mana that allow the mage to actually use the mana in the way he desires. Whereas you’re just using mana, freely, without any spell, and you’re doing things that most people would struggle with even if they had a spell.”

“All right. So I have much better command over mana than most people, and an endless supply of it too. Still not seeing the big deal here. There’s no new information here, I’ve been doing things like this for months now.”

“Oh, James.” Lunaris smiled. Yet again, she felt like she was explaining very basic things to a naïve, innocent child. Even though he was a stone cold killer that eradicated thousands of agents not long ago. But at this point, she found it quite endearing. And a bit funny, since this killing machine that did more damage to the Dark side than dozens of atomic bombs put together could do, would probably be outclassed by a 10-year-old when it came to questions about the subtle workings of this world. He was like a toddler who performed a miracle, and she had to explain his own miracle to him!

“Do you really not see the difference?” Bacchus the dwarf asked. “I’ve studied the powers of countless mages in my life, and yet I’ve never heard of anyone having such supreme command of mana. At least not until thousands of levels later.”

“What we’re trying to say is that these ‘tentacles’ of yours are much more sophisticated than you realize. Unlike your previous uses of mana, the tentacles are downright mystifying even to me.” Eruditus said as he inspected the goo with a magnifying glass. “Not only are they almost as flexible as a liquid, but they’re firm as a solid too. They adjust to your body shape, and they stably hold you even as you’re soaring through the sky. The mana expenditure is one thing, although even that boggles my mind since you’ve got seven of them, especially since you’ve got to be constantly pumping mana into them. But the extreme level of control you’d have to have in order to create and maintain such precise and sophisticated constructs is something I can’t even begin to imagine. To do it without even a spell is on a whole different level.”

The last dwarf, Ruppus, was just standing quietly with his eyes closed, whispering a prayer with his hands clasped together.

“Ok, new rule. No more gasping or getting amazed by what I do.” James sighed. “You guys are way too easily impressed lately. This is nothing, I can do this in my sleep at this point. I’m starting to suspect that these stalkers of ours are influencing your minds somehow, cause you’ve been surprised and amazed every 5 minutes.”

“Do you think we’re being mind controlled?” Emilia gasped.

“God damn it, no more gasps.” James shook his head and laughed. “And no, I didn’t mean it. I don’t even want to think about mind control and shit again. I start rolling my eyes at the mere utterance of the word ‘mind’ nowadays. Anyway, it was just a silly comment since you guys have been impressed by the simplest stuff. At this point it’s not even funny, it’s just confusing. I have no idea what just happened, it’s like this whole conversation has been a nonsensical fever dream. I even suspect that it’s been a weird prank on me. I mean, after all the other stuff we’ve done, this is hardly even worth mentioning.”

He looked at them suspiciously, but they didn’t seem to be laughing. So it wasn’t a prank, they were just genuinely impressed by what he had accomplished randomly and without any effort at all.

He was getting much more overpowered than he thought. Maybe that’s why the stalkers were still following them instead of just attacking. Perhaps his amazing powers could be so strong that they somehow ended up attracting the kind of attention that got him in deep trouble. He had to be careful.

The seven were about to gasp again at the absurdity of the situation, but they managed to control their urge. Still, their minds were reeling. This incredible genius had been accomplishing feats that they previously would’ve called impossible, and he had been doing a new amazing thing every five minutes. And now he was so desensitized to his own greatness that he didn’t even believe that they were actually impressed and not just pranking him.

To him, these mind-blowing tentacles were something he didn’t even think about, something he conjured almost involuntarily. And his nonchalance and utter lack of caring about this great invention was blowing their minds even more than the tentacles themselves it did.

“All right, now it’s time for me to gasp at your doings!” James shouted all of a sudden.

The group looked beneath them, and they realized they were over the pile of agent corpses that they had killed together.

“That’s gotta be hundreds of agents.” James clapped and cheered. “You guys are amazing, well done!”

“Well, that’s nothing compared to that.” Denmac pointed at what used to be a great Stygian city just several minutes ago. It was now a desolate, charred hellscape. Not even rubble remained, the explosion that James didn’t even put a lot of effort into had wiped it clean off the map.

“Ah, come on. Don’t underestimate yourselves! How many people back home can boast about killing even one agent?” James praised them. “But you killed hundreds of them. And these were much tougher ones too, we’re in one of their bigger cities after all. Well done!”

That’s when the seven realized that they did actually do something amazing. James had done so many unbelievable things, so damn often, that they also got desensitized. They completely forgot how normal people would feel in this situation. Someone killing even just one agent would be ecstatic about it.

“Wait, we only did that because you made our barrier almost indestructible!” Emilia realized. “This is also your doing!”

“Stop being so modest, just take the compliment.” James laughed. “You did an amazing thing, guys!”

James was being genuinely kind and earnest. And yet, accepting the compliment felt awkward, since the man could do what they did with his eyes closed.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot about that.” James pointed towards the epicenter of his explosion. “Looks like there’s more fun to be had in this city.”

The seven immediately looked at each other, their eyes wide open as they began doubting his sanity. They all felt the energy signature, and it was so strong that Emilia, the dwarves and Denmac even began trembling involuntarily, since their resistance was much lower. And yet, the madman was genuinely excited.