With the school closed, Quast and Jerry had nothing to do but wait and play games online, of course the teachers still sent them homework via Email, but it was much easier than the one they were getting when they had normal school.
With the cases of people harbouring mana going up rapidly, and now with the neighbouring countries also being exposed to mana, the governments had no clue what to do, should they have issued an emergency quarantine? They still didn't know what mana was and why the cases of people developing powers were growing more and more.
But even though many people had the power of mana some couldn't yet use magic powers, or as they would get called by the authorities later on "Abilities".
News was spreading faster than anyone could've thought and now a lot of people in countries where mana still hadn't spread to knew about it.
And this global event all began with a clueless 16 year old and his friend discovering their powers.
"My, how far we've come." Jerry said astounded while looking at the news. The friends were now out and about in the city center, they were currently at a fast food place in the one and only mall of the city where they lived, there was another one being built, but it was estimated to be done in a few years.
"Damn, even though we were the reason behind this, I somehow do not feel responsible." Quast said also scrolling the most popular news website 'The I.N.O.N, International Network Of News' on his phone.
"Bro, I wonder what happened to that kid with the lightning." Jerry shut off his phone and deposited it into his pocket, then he started eating by beginning with the fairly expensive hamburger, he agreed with himself to leave the fries for second.
"Eh, I don't know." Quast shrugged. "He probably had some sort of sad backstory as to why he attacked us."
The attacker didn't have a sad past, but he did want a power so he could change his life. The student that attacked the school yesterday had gotten his lightning magic from static electricity, his mana absorbed static electricity and then started producing it too, though in much greater amount. And the only reason the school was a center of attack was because the lightning user hated it there, but he didn't think his actions through, he also didn't expect that his power would bring about the destruction of the 2nd floor windows and evacuation of students, so the only option was to run away, as to not face the consequences.
After being done with their food they left the mall and headed to the school grounds.
Quast didn't arrive by bike today, he had come by bus, so there wasn't any worry about pushing the 3 year old mountain bicycle along. The money for the tickets dangled in the right pocket of his jeans as they walked to where the school was.
There weren't any people there, not even the officials that had inspected the school the day before. At this point it was just closed for the safety of the students.
"Aw man, no one's here." Quast looked at where the lightning magic user originally was, the mark from the impact of the bolt was still located in the concrete ground, with bits of stones on the sides.
"That dude was actually strong though, wasn't he?" Jerry said, not knowing that his mana was the original one, and in this case it meant that it also was the strongest. The flames of his fire magic could reach much greater strengths than those of a normal fire magic user and he could also upgrade his Intelligence attribute which would make his mana even stronger.
"He sure was. To be able to do so much damage after a day or two of discovering his powers, guy probably has some serious talent." Quast remarked, with his eyes on the empty space where the windows were and all the pieces of glass on the ground surrounded by yellow police lines.
"Is there only elemental magic though?" Jerry wondered and asked his friend.
"No, I think not." was the answer to the question. "Mana knows you better than you do, the lightning guy that ran away yesterday, he probably wanted the power for some reason, and the mana granted his wish to some part." Quast remembered when he saw the magical lightning yesterday, he got more knowledge about mana that time. "Of course, I'd suppose that some people aren't as lucky as him and won't get their powers so easily."
"So there can be all types of magic..?" Jerry thought of all the possibilities "Or wait, I guess the name 'powers' is better suited instead of 'magic'." he thought about what the name was supposed to be, and decided that 'power' or 'ability' just sounded better.
"Yes, I think so." Quast however didn't think, he knew that all kinds of abilities could exist.
"Say, is it possible to have more than one power?" this sudden but important question popped up in Jerry's head.
"Surely." was the reply.
And indeed, people could have gained more than one ability by vigourously training their mana until it had gotten stronger to support another power, or if they were just lucky enough to have strong mana and relatively outstanding talent to begin with, however no one knew this yet, because the relatively small amount people that had mana in the grand scheme of things and the even less that had powers were still figuring things out about the weird thing that was beginning to be called mana.
Albert was sitting at home scrolling through all of the ability-related news he could find and being excited about 'The new dawn of Humanity', as almost everyone that was invested in the stuff called it.
"So what now?" Quast and Jerry walked along the sidewalk to the nearest convience store so they could buy themselves something.
"I really wanna test out my strength on one of those punching things in the mall after we're done buying things." Jerry thought about the punching bags in the mall that measured strength in numbers.
"Wouldn't it be suspicious when you absolutely wreck the machine?" Quast asked.
"Yeah. It sure would be, but I still wanna do it." Jerry jabbed at the air, his punches were quite strong and fast, and because of that, some light air pressure was created.
"Oh well, I can't stop you." Quast said as they entered the store, they left with some sour rainbow candy strips, sweet & sour fruit sprays, and some more candy junk food in a small plastic bag, all of the things in the bag had costed just about 4 dollars.
"Do we have enough money for the punching machine?" Jerry asked as he searched around in his pockets and found a few dollars worth of money which were all in coins. "Oh nevermind, I have enough."
With that they headed back to the mall.