Chef in the Apocalypse

Jayce made his way down to the river where he had been practicing yesterday, still feeling rather amused from the situation at the gates. How would he have found a grenade? The world government had already put a ban on all sorts of weapons.

Even if he had one, why would he send it towards the gates? Their main line of defense against the monsters of the forest.

He shook his head, letting out another chuckle. He felt relaxed and limber and his stomach was full of rich food that gave him a massive stat boost. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Jayce took out his Bloodfang Dagger and nimbly moved it around his fingers, thinking about his next moves. He had already confirmed that it was possible to increase the output of skills and abilities with the use of mana, so he didn’t see any point in further testing.

The next step was to see if he could increase the damage of his regular attacks, ones that did not have any input from the system. That way he would know if this was something that he should pursue further.

He had already tried a fair few times yesterday, without any success. However, he was not discouraged.

"Nothing left but to try it out."

With that, he ran towards a nearby tree and began to throw some regular strikes. He performed about 100 slashes and stabs without rest, carving out pieces of bark and wood with every strike. This would be his baseline.

He took a few steps back and looked at his handiwork. He had noticed that even without prompting, his mana was taking the initiative to flow towards his right arm. This was something that felt different from yesterday.

"Am I subconsciously moving my mana?" Jayce thought, pondering the changes.

However, he shook his head in the next moment. He was really good at asking questions that he did not have an answer for, causing a wry smile to creep onto his face.

His gaze moved to the tree a couple of meters away, it was now time to consciously try moving his mana. He closed his eyes, honing his senses onto the mana that was constantly circulating through his meridians.

Moving forward a few steps, he began to will the mana to the dagger in his right arm and at the same time he slashed down onto the tree face.

As it made contact, he knew that it was a weak strike. Yet he was not fazed, continuing to strike rhythmically against the tree face one stroke at a time.

The mana within him ebbed and flowed, crashing against the channels in his hand and arms again and again, causing a dull ache to assault his arm. But that did not stop Jayce, who continued to slash away.

If a spectator were close by, they may think that the young man had a grudge with this particular tree, were it not for the calm look on his face.

’Just a little more.’ Jayce grit his teeth from the dull ache which began to grow more painful with every swing. Soon enough, it felt like someone was hacking away at it with a hatchet.

’A little... more.’ The last few strikes were heavy, taking all of his strength to be able to finish the swinging motion.

Just when he was about to give up, all of his attention was focused on the bubbling mana which had been ramming his channels endlessly for the past minute or so. Like a tsunami, it grew in size tremendously.

As his arm was swinging down one final time, the tidal wave of mana rushed into the channels in his arms and hand, filling them to the brim. His hand which held the dagger felt hot, almost causing him to let go of his dagger.

However, he managed to hold on, sending the weapon stabbing into the tree face.

BOOOOM!

The sound of an explosion, followed by the crunching of timber and rattling of trees rang out inside the forest. Jayce was sent flying backwards from the impact, his arm throbbing intensely from the pain.

He quickly got to his feet like an agile cat and dove out of the way of the large tree which was falling towards him. He narrowly avoided the damage, not that it would have done too much to his sturdy frame.

Jayce let out a grunt of pain and fell onto his backside, holding his throbbing arm.

"Damn, why does it hurt so much?"

From the outside his arm looked fine, which was why he was struck with such confusion. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the pain and focus his senses inwards and what he saw made him suck in a cold breath of air.

The meridians in his arm were in shambles, as if they had been torn apart from the inside. He panicked for a moment, before getting a healing potion out and draining the whole thing. However, the pain did not alleviate and continued to throb.

"Shit... I f*cked up." Jayce had thought that he could just casually throw his mana around within his meridians without any consequences.

What he had failed to realize was that although mana felt like an ethereal concept, it was in fact real. And his meridians were exactly like his other organs, made of flesh and blood.

However, if that was the case, then why would healing potions not work for a fleshly injury? Was it because his mana was preventing the effects from working?

The meridians housed his mana, which meant that the healing potion would need to get into his mana before it could heal the affected area. He could only theorize, but it seemed like the most plausible scenario.

If that was the case, then there were only a couple of ways that he could deal with it. Both were not ideal.

The first and most simple way, was to exhaust all of his mana. But that could lead to further problems down the road, not to mention that his mana regenerated at such a high rate that it would be almost impossible to time it correctly.

If he continued to run down his mana all the way, he could possibly contract mana poisoning which could eventually lead to him not being able to regenerate mana at all. This would be nothing short of a death sentence.