A Mana Shower

Yuri, Sebastian, and Martha Akio, the reporter, headed toward the Domain Company Building. Riding in Yuri's black BMW, Sebastian is driving them there. Yuri had called Botan to go there as soon as possible. He wanted to confirm Botan's and Martha's stories. And if Martha was lying, he would kill her. If she wasn't then he wants to find out what she wants and her true purpose for helping them.

"If what she says is true, then the Yakuza might be betraying us again," Yuri thought to himself. He kept silent most of the ride there, refusing to give any information to Martha, who might be a spy.

Yuri and Sebastian wore casual yet fashionable clothes this night instead of their usual suits, as it was an emergency.

"Where are we going?" Martha asks.

"Shut the fuck up," he tells her.

After getting scolded, she put her palms on her legs and kept to herself as well.

They arrived at the building parking lot. Botan was already there, waiting for them.

Yuri came out of the car.

"Botan!" Yuri said. "Are you finally betraying me, brother?"

"What are you talking about? And who's that girl?"

"I'm just messing with you." Yuri laughed.

"Very funny…" Botan sarcastically replied.

Martha and Sebastian followed Yuri.

"This is Martha, she is the reporter that helped me save Uncle Akira's life. And she just told me that the local shaman, you know, the one selling all the Magitek weaponry, is a member of the Yakuza."

"Or closely tied to them," she inserted.

"A local shaman?" Botan asked. "This is what I wanted to tell you from the start, Yuri. About the Yakuza's seller. He is Daizen's friend. A member of the Valhalla Gang."

"WHAT!" Yuri shouted in anger. He punched Botan in the face, but he was too big to feel that because Yuri didn't have Attribute Amplifiers on.

"Why didn't you tell me!" Yuri was enraged and opened up the anger he had kept boiling inside of him. "Where is he? Why didn't you tell me as soon as you knew!"

Brimming with anger, Yuri's fit is controlled by his friend with a restraining hug.

"Calm down, man! Calm down!" Botan slowly said.

"I don't know where they are yet. But I've already sent people to investigate, good and reliable people. So we just have to wait."

Sebastian, the little boy, came to his master and comforted him by kissing him on the forehead, while Botan dragged him down.

Sebastian whispered, "We will hunt him down, Master. We will burn every cell in his body and regenerate them over and over again, and keep him alive for the next century trapped in a dungeon of pain and insanity. But you must be patient, Master. You must not be weak again. You must not be useless and charge ahead without knowing where you are going. Think of Gaia, Master." The young boy's voice is as soft as an angel and as powerful as a prophet, and Yuri began to calm down.

He breathed heavily. Inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to recover his senses.

After a few more minutes, his breathing was normal.

"I apologize," he said while standing up and fixing his jacket.

"This always happens," he said. "Whenever I remember…"

Botan stood up as well, and said, "I am sorry, brother. I wanted to tell you last time, but you had important business to take care of. I was going to tell you tomorrow. But I guess…" Botan pointed at Martha, "she beat me to it."

"It's alright… It's alright…" Yuri replied. "We have lots of work to do."

Yuri now fully regains his senses and points at Martha, "You too. Please come with us."

His tone toward Martha had changed as she had proved herself to be telling the truth.

"I want to apologize to you too, Martha. I hope you forgive me for being suspicious at first."

"Not at all, Yuri."

Martha hugged Yuri and he could feel her soft chest against him.

He coughed and slowly pushed her away.

"Ah yes. I also want to show you my gratitude. In a time of catastrophe, you chose to help me and my Uncle. That is why he is alive now. If that is not a good reason enough for me to give you a chance of trust, then I don't know if anyone in this world will be worthy of trust."

Just to make sure though, that Martha isn't a Doppelganger, Yuri used the Analyze ability on her.

"Analyze."

[Analyzing]

[Name: Martha Kuboki Akio]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 1]

[HP: 10/10]

[Dexterity: F]

[Brawn: F]

[Endurance: F]

[Finesse: F]

[More Information Available]

"She doesn't seem to be lying about her name, and has attribute boosts so far."

So Yuri decided to trust her because she owed her for saving Akira's life.

"Come on everyone. Let's go in."

They all walked into the parking lot entrance of the building.

"By the way, why is it so dark here, Yuri? And no one in the building is inside? Did the company finally succumb to bankruptcy?" Botan asked in confusion.

"No. I and Sebastian asked everyone to go off and leave everything off."

"You own this building?" Martha asked.

"Yup. Just bought it last week," Botan answered.

Botan was a large 6-feet man, and he was not Martha's type.

"This guy is too big for a small girl like me," she thought. "And his tattoos. He looks like Yakuza."

"Sebastian. Turn on the lights and elevator."

"Yes, Master."

The lights turned on wherever they went, and when they needed the elevator, it started as well.

"How are you doing this?" Martha asked.

"Please…" Yuri was annoyed by Martha's questions.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I won't ask stupid questions anymore."

Although Yuri liked large-breasted women like Martha, especially ones with glasses and had great sex appeal, he tried his best to stay loyal to Yuna, since he was now a father. "This is what it means to be a man!" Yuri thought to himself.

They arrived at the 58th floor of the building. Yuri had the employees move out of the floor and relocate, as he wanted to use the whole floor as his office.

"Pretty huge!" Botan said. "What do you need all this space for?"

"This…" Yuri extended his hand to the floor and said, "This space is big enough, right, Sebastian?"

"Yes, Master."

"System. Forge External Fusion Reactor."

[Forging External Magitek Fusion Reactor]

[Process will be complete in 2 Minutes]

"What are you forging this time, my friend?" Botan asked in curiosity.

"Something I should have made from the beginning, bro."

"What is it?"

[Process will be complete in 00:00:01:30]

"It's what the other Mages have used to produce a massive amount of Magitek Weapons and Equipment in such a short time."

"You just got those powers about 17 days ago, right?"

"What time is it?" Yuri asked.

"It's 3:32 am, Master."

"Yes, it's been 17 days… And they were already able to expand their business and profit from illegally selling Magitek."

[Process will be complete in 00:00:00:59]

Martha interrupted and said, "You mean other Mages are the ones that are the sources of all the supernatural events happening in the world?"

"Yes…" Yuri responded quietly.

"Then are we all safe? How many of them are there? How powerful are they?"

Yuri smiled and replied.

"The real question is… Are they safe?"

"From who?" Martha asked again with concern.

"From me!"

[External Magitek Fusion Reactor Complete]

[60,000 Mana Points have been deducted from your storage]

"Status," Yuri said.

[Status]

[User: Yuri Hayashi aka AI-Mage]

[Current Quest: Find another Mage]

[Level: 5]

[HP: 10/10]

[MP: 2366]

[Dexterity: F]

[Brawn: F]

[Endurance: F]

[Finesse: F]

"Just as I thought. The Fusion Reactor is cheap. Fuck! I wasted so much trying to play hero!"

Botan put his hand on Yuri's shoulder and said, "But you saved so many lives, Yuri. Think about that."

"It doesn't matter. I'll kill that fucker first! Then make every other Mage bow before me. They may be ahead because I wanted to seek revenge first. But that won't matter soon."

The Fusion Reactor finalized its generation. It was a 3 by 3 Meter futuristic metal cube. It had intricate mechanisms and gears that seemed far too advanced to be compared to modern-day microprocessors or any computing technology.

Martha wanted to ask more questions but she knew to keep quiet for now.

"Sebastian, can you operate this thing?"

"Of course, Master. May I?"

"Go ahead."

Sebastian steps closer to the mysterious cube. And he touches it with his palm, and instantly his eyes glow with a grayish light, and his hair starts to be electrified and filled with static energy.

"On."

Sebastian says one word, and the cube opens up its sides with holes with parts and gears exposed, then a blue radiance starts to emit from the reactor buzzing and it seemed like it was gathering atoms from the surrounding area.

It made an echoing buzzing noise that was neither too loud nor annoying.

[Activating Mana Fusion Reactor]

[Gathering Raw Mana]

"Raw Mana?" Yuri thought. Because he still did not understand the concept of Mana, and what it was. But it didn't matter for now. He would probably find out soon.

The cube then opened another side of it and a platform rolled out slowly.

[Processing Mana Complete]

The cube, with its escalator-like platform, moved something glowing that appeared to be a small hand-sized cube of…

"Mana! It's processed Mana," Yuri said.

The cube glowed a bluish aura but it seemed more radiated than plutonium but more stable than metallic elements.

"What is that?" Martha extended her hand to touch the small glowing cube.

"No!!!" Yuri slapped her hand away.

"You'll die!"

"What?"

"Mana is dangerous to you, guys. You are not a Mage like me. If you touch it, you will die, or worse… You do not want to go down that road."

"Why is that?" Botan said.

"It's called Mana Monopoly," Yuri replied. "Whatever gave me my powers, wanted to make sure that I and the other Mages would be the only ones to be able to benefit from our powers."

Martha held back her hand and felt like she was holding her life.

"What do you plan to do with it?" she asked Yuri while grabbing him by the arm.

"Watch…"

Yuri moved away from Martha and stepped closer to the cube. He held it in his hand without fear, then the pieces of the cube started to evaporate and floated towards Yuri's body.

He could feel the processed Mana move through him and change to the form of Mana Points for his system to use. Then he said, "Status - Only MP."

[MP: 12366]

"Each small cube gives 10,000 MP. That's 5 pieces of Lesser Magitek Weaponry or Equipment. The fusion reactor took about 2 Minutes to produce the small processed mana cube."

Martha answers, "That's 300,000 MP per hour. 150 pieces of Lesser Magitek Items per hour."

Sebastian adds, "That's 3,600 Lesser Magitek Items per day, 1 Million 314 Thousand Lesser Magitek Items per year."

Botan wanted to add too, so he said, "That's… That… Every human being on earth wearing full Lesser Magitek Items by the end of the decade."

Yuri then thought, "Imagine what you can do with more than one Magitek Fusion Reactor?"

"WHAT???" Botan said. "You can fucking make more!"

"Yup. There's no limit."

"Then why does it only allow Mages like you to be able to forge items?" Martha asked and answered her question after a pause.

"Mana MONOPOLY."

They all sat down on the small sofa nearby.

Martha was on the left, Yuri was in the middle, and Botan was right while Sebastian sat on his lap.

And they all stared blankly at the huge magic box spitting out mana cubes every two minutes. The cubes started falling to the floor, stacking, like you would see pebbles on the beach at 4:00 am in the morning.