Levels of mana rose and fell throughout New Bay, though nowhere particularly stood out. I was now more practiced at determining the difference that higher locations provided with regard to regeneration. Optimally, I would position myself next to an open portal to a very magical area. Assuming I didn’t care about things trying to eat me, of course. That wouldn’t be a good location for careful meditation, though.

“So how did it go?” Doctor Rose asked. “Did you make any improvements?”

I shook my head. “Meditating at maximum mana didn’t seem to do anything, whether I tried to force mana into myself or gently accept it. I just kind of sat there at full.”

“Unfortunate,” she said, “But we can’t expect the first ideas to just work. That was the case before as well.”

“I suppose so,” I said, crossing my arms. “I just wonder if this can work at all. Or if Curse of the Barbarian will change things to some other method.”

“There’s no way to know without access to more information. So until we succeed, we can only hope,” Doctor Rose said. “I wouldn’t give up yet. There’s much more we can try. But if you’re concerned about that Barbarian thing… doesn’t it just affect experience gain?”

“Probably?” I shook my head. “But the information on that…”

“Is limited. I understand. But from what you’ve told me, experience and levels provide mana in their own way. I don’t know if a change to experience should affect how you might improved your maximum mana outside of that system. And if there was… with all the combat you’ve gotten in, presumably you would have stumbled across it.”

I frowned, “I suppose you’re right.”

“Just to clarify, Barbarian is also a class in your world, correct?” I nodded in response to her question. “Do they use mana?”

“Everyone does,” I said. “Though caster classes generally use it faster. Though there are ways for other classes to expend themselves quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to most of the details since I primarily studied magely things. The only other natural class user I have access to is a scout.” She should be back in town soon, I was fairly certain.

“Then I presume they exercise… and you as well. You could try pushing past your physical limits, maybe it would help? Or you could hurt yourself. Don’t forget I’m not the sort of doctor that can tell you if any of this is safe.”

“A series of efforts testing my limits and whether that results in any changes might be good,” I admitted. “The healers would likely become annoyed if I consistently overdid myself, but a few tests would be fine.”

-----

When Meztli had offered her help with my experiments, I gratefully accepted. I should have thought that through more carefully. “Come on! I know you can go another lap!” she called after me.

It didn’t make me feel any better that she was running along with me. I maintained a professional level of fitness, and while orcs might naturally have greater muscle than humans, that didn’t necessarily include endurance running. I could only thank Francois for how breathable my clothes were, though the jacket had been too much sometime before I’d collapsed onto the ground in a puddle of sweat and maybe a few tears.

Then Meztli had shoved Power Brigade brand energy bars into my face and blasted some of her power into me, forcefully replenishing my stamina. Now I was continuing my efforts, but even with powers involved I couldn’t repeat the same number of laps I’d managed before. At least Shockwave wasn’t around lapping me. They were fun sometimes, but at the moment I don’t know if I could handle that in particular.

“Don’t stop if you’re still conscious!” Meztli prompted me as I began to drag my feet. “We need to reach your true limits!”

Too enthusiastic. Personally, passing out didn’t bother me too much- it was just a lot more work to do through physical activity. A body naturally slowed down when fatigued, whereas mana usage continued at optimal speed until completely drained- or if you tried to use too much all at once on one thing, which only took a few seconds.

My feet continued to move one in front of the other. Sweat dripped down my forehead, my cheeks, running over my lips and tusks and off my chin. It was also everywhere else, and I had strongly considered removing my shirt to make that minor difference, but I didn’t particularly want to display that image.

My feet moved, my lungs pumped air to my brain, and my vision darkened. Then it came back with me propped up on a bench. Meztli had caught me on the way down.

“There are plenty of reasons to not pass out,” Mezlti said as she saw I’d come to. “But extreme tests like this occasionally, with proper supervision, are reasonable enough for a mercenary super.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, taking a swig of the electrolyte drink in my hand. Also Power Brigade branded, of course. None of the products were particularly worse or better than their counterparts so I didn’t really care what it was, though I did prefer the lemon-lime flavor in general. I took stock of myself. I didn’t have an internal meter telling me that I was at 33 mana, just a sense that I was at capacity. So after a few minutes of rest, I cast spells exactly equalling that total, focusing on ones I wanted to improve. I didn’t expect to gain anything particular from one capacity’s worth, but I might as well try to be efficient.

I passed out again, of course, but from a different cause. If I had improved my mana, it wasn’t by any measurable amount- not even a measurable fraction of a single point. Doctor Martinez scanned my head, of course.

-----

After some consideration, the best way to get more mana was likely through the acquisition of magical items, such as my staff. With that in mind, I should go seek out Doctor Doomsday and ask him for some materials. Not.

I had no particular grudge against the man, but he clearly had not been pleased with my attempts to spy on him, even that single time. Nobody knew where the man himself was anyway. Instead, the best option was trying to find some of his minions. Quite a few of them had power negating weapons, and they’d been causing quite a bit of trouble for people. It had been determined from the captured samples that they had limited usage of such features, but it would have been crazy to expect anything else.

That made my next choice of squad fairly simple. Doctor Doomsday didn’t exactly have an area of operations- all of New Bay seemed to be within his reach- but we could at least track the general locations of minion activity. Occasional lairs or safehouses were uncovered, but those only led to minion arrests or information about one particular mission’s stated goal. Usually, that was retrieving something. Nobody knew more than that.

But we did have some knowledge of where they might be, and I joined up with a group of mercs I’d briefly interacted with in the past. Mostly in relation to the first real mission, security for a party at a fancy manor in the hills.

First was Magnet Man. “Just as a reminder,” he said, “I do not control magnetism. I control metal. So don’t worry about me yanking your weapons about on accident.”

My staff still had a metal core, but I was fairly certain the point was that he targeted what he wanted to control instead of just making big magnetic fields or whatever.

There was also Knives from the same time, able to form weapons out of her red energy. A power with very limited utility or flexibility outside of combat, but very useful when going up against people that could negate it. She just had to be aware that she would not block specially made weapons- she didn’t rely on her power for defenses to begin with, so that wasn’t a huge ask.

The final member of the little team was Bombino. His power to make explosions wasn’t exactly coveted because of the potential collateral damage, but he had sufficient combat strength to put forth when it was necessary. He could stop a vehicle or break through the AEGIS barriers that Doctor Doomsday had started handing out to orcish minions.

I didn’t think there was any chance I would permanently join up with them, even once we got past the fact that they weren’t even a permanent squad. I was just here to see if I could get my hands on more stuff from Doctor Doomsday and then hope that Vilhelmiina would help me make it something usable. Though I couldn’t expect her to continue to do things for ‘free’, I could at least ask what she would want, and the woman was quite effective.

“Alright,” Magnet Man was in charge of this particular group. “Given our group size and mobility, we’ll be patrolling together. Can’t exactly afford to split up, and we’re just looking for general mayhem. No guarantee what we’ll come across, if anything.”

That was normal for a patrol- we weren’t raiding a hideout or anything. With nothing else particular to say, we set off. Since Force Armor was quite cheap, I had applied it to everyone before we came to the patrol everywhere. 6 mana recovered in an hour- less, with the increased ambient mana in the city- so we only needed to wander around for about half that time for me to be full.

But of course villains didn’t wait for the optimal timing. No more than five minutes into the actual patrol, Magnet Man stopped us. “I sense a large amount of metal moving around the corner,” he said. “Careful. Could be the mod squad or…”

The dark alley was fairly clear to my eyes. It was not the mod squad. I also determined that Magnet man’s senses were… vague. “Rats,” I said. “Should be Rodentia’s. A big swarm. This might be a pain. Though I could use my new spell.”

“Oh, it won’t be too bad,” Magnet Man said. “We’re ready for this. Conserve yourself in case the woman herself shows up. Knives, if you could toss a couple to draw their attention?”

Sometimes I forgot how big Rodentia’s robotic rats were. Some had been vaguely normal rat sized, but many of these were more cat sized. If she made robots that were more efficient, with the rate she made them she might be strong competition for any tech super. But some of them couldn’t help but focus on their thing. Not all tech supers were crazy, but I’d yet to meet any that weren’t enthusiastic.

Red blades of energy stabbed through the torsos of the robot rats, creating sparks as they faded away leaving open holes. That attracted the attention of the rest of the swarm, and they began to quickly make their way towards us. I watched intently, while Magnet Man reached towards the mass of swarming creatures. Then the ones in front just stopped. Others began to climb over them, but he caught onto them as well.

That was a perfect setup for Bombino. He held out his hands, reddish black energy forming a sphere of power that he tossed forward. It was clear he knew how large the explosion would be, as it barely tangented the edges of they alleyway, while at the same time shredding a majority of the metal creatures contained together.

“Wow,” I said. “One-way walls are… useful.”

I was used to Ice Guy’s barriers. They were very durable, and worked against pretty much any incoming projectiles… but they were just walls. That worked both ways. Being able to just stop things where you wanted was great. Then again, I’d seen some of that with Grasp. Magnet Man seemed stronger, though perhaps that was because his power had a narrower usage than general telekinesis.

“Robots are metal,” he shrugged. “I could take them out individually but that’s a real pain.”

As he said that, he was sweeping the remains more towards the mouth of the alleyway. The robo rats that had been further back decided to flee, but he caught them and with no visible signs they stopped wiggling one by one.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“It’s pretty easy to disconnect a few wires,” he said. “And from what I know the fusion reactors in these little buggers are… safe. So I don’t have to worry about screwing something up.”

“It’s at least as safe as exploding them,” Bombino agreed. Then he shook his head, “Could you imagine if miniaturized fusion reactors were used for something more… useful?”

“Hey!” a voice yelled from down the alleyway. “Robo-rats are the epitome of both art and science!”

From the crazy hair and rat mask, it was pretty easy to identify the woman.

“Careful of the cheese ray,” I whispered. That thing was annoying. On that topic, it was also strangely nonlethal. Though that was the sort of thing that kept Rodentia off of the Brigade’s priority takedown list. But since she was here and without minions, we might as well.

“More swarms incoming!” Magnet Man warned.

Oh yes, of course. Silly me, thinking only a hundred or so oversized robotic rats was all she was going to have with her.