New power

Johnathan closed his eyes and focused on his core. Clearing his mind, he moved his mana from his core to his eyes.

Since Johnathan couldn't always stop time, he went for the next best thing. Using his eyes, he would slow downtime. That was the idea, at least. He knew that slowing downtime for everything would've been a lot easier to create, but it would cost a lot more mana than just having his eyes perceive everything slower.

He brought forth his mana. He found out a while ago that mana was split into two categories. One for pure mana, which allowed him to increase his base stats. The other was his element. They were both one, but you turned one into the other with 'intent'.

Bringing the time mana from his core to his eyes was easy. The mana traveled through his body with no setbacks. It felt like how it did when he used 'normal' mana to enhance himself.

He guided the time mana to his eyes, but when he did, a sharp pain appeared. It felt like someone was poking needles into them. "Argh." He yelled in pain.

Ash got up from his spot and yelled "Johnathan," in worry.

"I'm fine!" He quickly yelled, not wanting Ash to interrupt.

He then moved his mana from his eyes back into his core, instantly relieving him of the pain he felt. Taking a deep breath, he thought. 'I can't just move my mana to my eyes. But why? Hmmm?'

After five minutes of thinking, he hypothesized the reason. 'Overload. Mana overload. You focus so much energy on one thing it breaks. I'm lucky I didn't use too much mana. If I'm right, my eyes would've exploded.'

He was right. If you feed one small thing a lot of energy, it explodes. Luckily, however, Johnathan used a lot less than he would've needed to make his eyes explode. But that was the thing. He didn't use too much, yet his eyes stung.

'I should use a tiny amount.'

This time with caution, Johnathan moved his mana to his eyes. The amount of mana was a lot less than before.

When the mana reached his eyes, it didn't sting. There wasn't any discomfort, either. It was a success! Well, kind of.

"Ash, can you move your arm?"

Ash did as Johnathan said and moved his hand side to side, up and down.

'Why isn't it slowing down?'

The only thing that this gave him was better eyesight. It was nothing more than normal mana. Why? He used time mana, used enough to make his eyes not hurt. Why did it not do what he wanted?

Then, as if the gears fell in place, he thought of the reason.

It wasn't hard. He just needed a couple of minutes to put the pieces together. 'Just like the purification process, to make the ability, I'll need the intent and visualization for it.'

That was his thought process. Was he right? He didn't know. But it was his best chance.

So he dispelled the mana from his eyes. He then summoned mana to his eyes once more. This time, however, once it reached his eyes, he imagined his mana turning into a clock. He circulated the mana clockwise, making the imaginary clock hands move. But when he did this, he made it so the clock hands turned slowly.

"Ash, move your hands please," Johnathan said.

Ash did what was requested of him.

Johnathan watched as he moved his hands up and down, left and right. With a wide grin, he exclaimed, "It worked!"

Everything he saw was in slow motion.

He then asked Ash to throw something at him. He stood there with his hands behind his back and waited for an object to be thrown.

Rummaging through a bag, Ash took out a granola bar. He then whipped it at Johnathan.

His grin stayed while the granola was slowly approaching.

Once it was close enough, he tried moving but couldn't. Well... Johnathan could actually move. It's just, he was moving too slow. 'Shit.' That was his last thought before the granola reached him and hit his forehead.

"Argh." He grunted from pain.

Though the object was slowed down, the force behind it was still there. 'Hmm, though everything I see slows down, my body can't keep up and dodge fast enough. How can I solve this?'

'Should I use time mana on my body and speed it up?'

No. That was an idea Johnathan didn't want to try out after all. If he sped up his body with time, the chance of dying was high. Doing that would probably age his body incredibly quickly, which would kill him of old age or even turn him to ash.

'It can be used for a sort of attack, though. I'll need to test it out on a zombie, though. Will it even work on a zombie? Whatever, I'll think about this later.'

Thinking for a while longer, he left it at that for the day. Instead, he tried to see how long he could keep the new skill up for.

Bringing mana to his eyes, he did as before. Time slowed down and Johnathan started his count.

He used all his mana and by the time most of it ran out, fifteen minutes passed.

'This takes a lot less. Well, it makes sense. The only thing slowed down for me is the thing I'm looking at.'

The skill didn't slow the world or the object of focus down. They moved at the same speed. His eyes were just tracking it so fast that everything slowed down.

With his mana almost completely depleted, he sat down and crossed his legs. Closing his eyes, he started drawing in the mana from the air. Every time it moved to his mana core, he purified it. After an hour of doing this, his mana core was filled up once again.

'I didn't imagine it. My mana capacity increased. Albeit not by much.'

When he was absorbing mana, he realized it took a little longer to fill his core. Before, it would take around 55 minutes, but now he needed one entire hour.

Though it didn't increase by a notable amount, he was still extremely overjoyed.

However, even with the small increase, his time stop wasn't extended even by a millisecond.