When the time came for patience, I could be good about it. Especially if I was waiting for something uninteresting. I totally expected the most recent experiment to fail, but I couldn’t exactly take my mind off of it because recovering mana more quickly took effort. I was up on the roof of Lower Hills Suites, giving myself nearly the same view of the bay as Bay View Heights. Which was to say, almost negligible actual sightings of water.

I didn’t have a skill to go with my ability to meditate and recover mana. I wasn’t expecting to pick up skills for everything, but could detect actual improvements in how my focus affected recovery. It didn’t require my total attention, allowing me to plan my next steps. What other experiments could I do? How might I best find some minions with more materials that could store mana? I also thought about my future with the Power Brigade, and what sort of squad I would commit to longer term. It might or might not involve some of those I’d been with up until now, but they were all currently going through the same process.

Eventually, I was full on mana. It was hard to say how much I had recovered to. The basic speed was ten minutes per point of mana, but that was in an area with ‘standard’ ambient levels, and without actively working to recover more. On the extreme other end, I had gotten multiple points per minute during portal incidents, where high ambient mana mixed with dismantling portals. I couldn’t exactly say the latter was a good way to recover mana, because it was a lot of effort, but the potential recovery rate swung significantly depending on circumstances.

So taking ten or twenty minutes more than my calculations didn’t necessarily mean I had a higher maximum mana. I could have just been off, either with my assumptions of the ambient mana rate or my ability to improve it.

Because of that, I was very careful with how much mana I used, making certain everything added up. 10, 20, 30. All of that was normal. 33… should have been my limit. But I had more. 34. 35. 36… and finally 37. Spending that final point on Storage, I was quite dizzy. Clearly, I had reached my limit.

Good. I was pleased.

I took the stairs back down- I could always use the exercise, and if I was fast enough I could beat the elevator. Soon enough I was on my own floor, where I ducked over to Midnight’s door, knocking.

“Go ahead and open it,” he called. So I did. “Hi, Turlough. You’re looking much better.”

I ducked into Midnight’s apartment. It was somewhere around five feet high, much too low to stand- but spacious for a decent number of individuals. “I didn’t ever feel particularly bad. Just… uncomfortable for a while. But it doesn’t matter, because it worked! I improved my maximum mana!”

“Oh, congratulations,” Midnight said with sincere happiness. “How much?”

“The full four points I overcharged earlier! I can’t wait to do it again.”

“Turlough…” Midnight said with a bit of hesitation. “Be careful, please? You don’t know what repeating that might do. Especially in a short time period. And… what if it doesn’t last?”

“Hmm…” I frowned, “I didn’t think of that. But it wasn’t just a one-time thing.” I shrugged, “Either way, I’ll give it a week. You’re right, I don’t want to rush into it.” I pondered for a moment, “Maybe I’ll wait until after I get a level? I suppose it’s possible that it’s tapping into that, and I’d just not gain mana on level up? If only someone wrote this stuff down…” I frowned.

I had the feeling Master Uvithar might know some things. But I couldn’t possibly get to him without the mana to cast a full Gate, and I wasn’t even sure if that would be enough due to it being interdimensional instead of just interplanar. I didn’t have a path to follow, either, but at least I had a proper connection- I did live in that world for most of my life, after all.

But, I only needed 3 more mana. That would bring me to 40, half that would be 20 which was just enough. It would be a bit shaky to go through a portal that stretched me to my limits like that, so I might have to practice or something. Maybe buy an upgrade? That could shave off an entire point of mana. Well, I’d consider it as I got closer. It wouldn’t be right away. I could feel the possibilities approaching, though.

“Well anyway,” I said, “My neck is starting to hurt so I’ll be heading back to my place soon. Thanks for watching over me as I tried this.”

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It was amazing, the increase to my mana was like going up four levels at once. More than a ten percent increase to my capacity, which didn’t necessarily let me throw out another big spell, but it was enough for Alter Time at its discounted mana cost, or a couple lower level spells. It was even most of a Sonic Lance.

I wanted to try so many things, like overcharging my mana again and creating larger mana crystals and everything… but that had to wait. I had my regular training to get to, and of course I had to do actual patrols. Even if I got to choose which ones I went on and where, I had a quota to fulfill. Even if nothing happened, it was apparently important to keep people familiar with the Power Brigade logo.

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