It was the early the next day.
Gerald was standing in front of a small mirror in his room, observing his sorry figure in the reflection.
He was currently looking at his severely mangled body.
There was a deep scar going across his chest, accompanied by many smaller scars, that went in all directions.
His ribcage was slightly deformed in some places, as the many broken ribs failed to heal properly and they remained misshapen.
He also had many scratches on his face, arm and legs, that were the remnants of the hard-fought battles from the past.
Where his left arm used to be, there was only a palm-length stump of flesh left. It had no semblance of a limb left, not even a little.
Lastly, his once attractive face was now gone. Apart from the scar on his forehead from the Hobgoblin's arrow, he now had a disfigured chin and lips, due to the explosion that killed the Earth Dragon.
Gerald observed his sorry figure in the mirror and sighed, "How did it come to this? Not even two months passed since I arrived and I already came close to death so many times…"
He turned his head and rubbed his left cheek. His sight landed on the Mana Elixirs he made last night.
After the disappointing discovery, he felt like a part of him died. All that excitement and hard work were for naught.
"Nanites. The greatest invention of human civilization, they saved me from poison and death, but at the same time, they are a firm door, preventing me from moving forward."
He didn't sleep well this night. It was too much shock all at once and he felt like his mind couldn't hold on much longer.
A single tear rolled down his cheek before he got his emotions back in check.
"It's hard… Hard to move forward, and even harder to surrender…"
The changes that happened in his body from the consumption of the Mana Elixir did not revert back. His body was now able to contain a bit over 8MP.
The change wasn't great, but it at least gave Gerald some hope for the future. Worst-case scenario, he could create hundreds of Man Elixirs and slowly increase his Mana.
Although a plan like that would probably require hundreds of herbs and years to complete. The amount of money he would need to do so would also be immense.
Not to mention that he would have to be really careful not to reveal his secret. The Golden Pouch was already suspicious of him, he knew that much.
It was a good thing he didn't show them his face. You can never be too careful in a new environment.
"If only there was a way to temporarily deactivate the Nanites… Or somehow overload them so they couldn't neutralize the Mana Elixir…" Gerald spent quite a bit of time contemplating what to do.
Although he acted like he gave up, that was in a moment of emotional weakness. After half a day he was almost back to his old optimistic self.
Of course, he still found the reality hard to accept, and no matter how positive his thinking was, he was noticeable gloomier than usual.
"I should take a bath… Being a stinking cripple will do me no good."
He was almost with the hand on the handle when he stopped and gasped, "That's it! Nanites should protect my body from the poison from coming through the skin!"
Gerald suddenly got a new plan on how to weaken the resistance from the Nanites his body contained.
"If I smear the Elixir on my skin, then most Nanites would try to guard me against that and there would be less to prevent me from absorbing the potion internally!"
Gerald thought for a while and then said to himself. "That's so crazy it just might work…"
He picked up his belt with storage pouches and wore it around his body. Then he proceeded to storm out of the city towards the river.
It was a warm spring morning and the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight, and only small birds and insects traveled across the pristine expansive horizons.
It was truly a wonderful time to be outside, but Gerald did not pay any attention to his surroundings.
"How should I do this?" He sat down on the river bank as he was contemplating the best course of action.
He said to himself, "I need something the size of a bath… And if I want to stay inside for a long time, it has to have warm water at least; I'm not going in that icy water."
After a short while, he decided what to do.
He was going to try and use magic with long chants to better express his desires. It's also going to be a lesser strain on his tired mind.
He lifted his hand and chanted, "By the power I control, shifting dirt, warping stone! I will lead and you will follow, now the ground, make it hollow!"
It was a long magic chant and Mana slowly flowed out of him, creating a hole in the ground near the river. The only problem was, that it was made of soil and mud started to form at the bottom.
And so, he continued.
"Now, walls of stone and pristine water, I also want to make it hotter!"
With a light quake, the bedrock lifted and the sides of the hole became out of grey stone. A good bit of water also flowed inside just as the chant forced it to.
Then in the last few words, a greater amount of Mana slipped out and rose the temperature of the water.
The whole thing now resembled a hot tub.
Gerald inhaled through the nose and then sighed, "Ah, I exhausted all my Mana, but It barely tingled my brain… It's quite useful to cast magic with chants, but only if you have time. In a battle, where every second counts, it would be suicide to try and use it."
"But for a big project, where it's safe, I have to say, it's excellent!" Gerald proceeded to examine his new creation and when he confirmed it's stable, he took off his clothes and jumped in.
"Mn, this feels so nice. I started to miss a proper bath."
Gerald relaxed for a few minutes in the warm water to relieve some stress.
Eventually, he extended his hand and grabbed a Mana Elixir. He brought it in front of his face and sighed as he opened the vial, "Oh man, I really hope this works. It's my last chance…"
He poured the potion in the water and then took another one and did the same. Then he took a third potion and took a small sip from it.
Now he only needed to wait and see what happens.
At first, there was nothing. But then, he experienced the familiar comfortable feeling once again, although this time it was much weaker.
He could feel his body slowly absorbing the potion, but at the same time, he felt itchiness at the surface of his skin, as the Nanites tried to neutralize the foreign substance.
Because it was spread out across his entire body, the Nanites had to spread out and they had a hard time working efficiently.
Also, because Gerald drank only a sip of the potion, it wasn't considered a big threat and so the Nanites allocated to it were way fewer.
The potion's power was slowly waning, but it was happening much slower than the previous day, and Gerald felt no need to vomit like before.
"I think it's working!" Gerald's excitement slowly came back and he allowed himself to hope again.
He didn't have much to do, apart from just floating in the water and drinking the Elixir every once in a while.
He decided to meditate and recover his exhausted Mana, but there was one thing that was bugging him for a few days already.
When he was in mortal danger, in the fight against the lizard, he somehow absorbed a great amount of Mana all at once.
He spent those days recovering at the infirmary, thinking about it, but he couldn't replicate the phenomena.
It did not help that the last fragments of his memory from the fight were unclear and fogy. He could not remember what he did back then, nor the mental state he was in.
"Damn it, I have some amazing abilities, like super Mana recovery or enhanced strength, but I can't use them because I don't know how I did it in the first place!" He already wrote his experiences in his notebook, thinking it might enlighten him, but unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Gerald spent the remaining rest of the day soaking in the water. He had to re-heat it a few times and he spent the rest of the time contemplating his future.
When he came out his skin was all wrinkly and sensitive, but the effect was more than worth it!
"Wooo-hoo! 57 MP! Now the power is all mine! Haha!" Gerald squeezed his fist. Feeling the power inside his body boiling, ready to burst forward at any second.
"Fire!" Extending his hand towards the sky, Gerald let out a single word and a twenty-meter collum of flame blasted out of his palm as if it was coming out of a flamethrower.
"Yes! Finally, finally, I can no longer be considered weak, instead, I can be considered quite strong already. But, overall, my journey has barely just started!"