When David woke up, he didn’t immediately rush to test his new ability, Overcharge. Instead, he reached for his laptop and checked the perimeter first. The camera feeds flickered to life, showing the usual patrols—everything looked secure. Though, he noted that the spawns had advanced: sleek, dark panther-like monsters were already prowling the outskirts.

  With that knowledge, David made his way to the lobby. There, a mountain of crystal nuclei was already waiting for him, piled neatly against the wall. The robots had been efficient, tirelessly harvesting the cores, their mechanical arms still slick with the acidic blood of the larger hounds. A handful of them stood beside the glittering mound, motionless until their routines demanded otherwise.

  The supply was steady, but he knew it wouldn’t last forever. Bigger beasts would come, nastier than even the panthers. He’d seen them in the loop before—the ones that spat writhing bolts of dark energy.

  Having checked his "treasury", David decided to continue thinking about his new skill, and then an idea came to him: why limit himself to lightning when his core was brimming with energy? He could push the experiment further.

  He filled his mana reserves to the brim, stuffed a few monster cores into his pocket for backup, and stepped outside. In the distance, still not in range of robots, a panther-monster slinked out of the shadows, muscles rippling, eyes fixed on him. Perfect.

  “Alright, kitty,” David muttered, flexing his fingers. “Let’s try something different.”

  He waited, forcing himself to stay calm as the beast crept closer. When it was within his striking range, he pulled one of the crystals from his pocket and dissolved it in his palm, flooding his already full core with a surge of raw mana. His veins burned with power. The air around him shimmered with frost.

  “Major Law of Ice,” David whispered, and triggered Overcharge.

  What should have been the formation of a clean, sharp spear went completely out of control. The torrent of mana refused to compress into a weapon—instead, it exploded outward, radiating from his body in a shockwave of cold. The asphalt beneath his boots frosted over instantly, then hardened into a sheet of ice. The ring spread outward, crackling and groaning as it advanced across the courtyard. Walls of white breath rose from the ground far short of reaching the panther

  The ice didn’t stop. It surged outward in an expanding circle, swallowing the open yard, racing all the way to the perimeter fence of the complex. The metal bars groaned as frost bit deep into them, turning steel brittle and white. David stood at the epicenter, shivering, his teeth clenched against the unnatural chill boiling out of his own body.

  Then, just as suddenly, the flow stopped. His mana reserves bottomed out, empty in an instant. The expanding circle of ice halted mid-spread, leaving the courtyard transformed into a frozen wasteland. His knees buckled, and he exhaled a plume of mist.

  “…Okay,” David panted, clutching his chest. “That… was not a spear.”

  David swayed, lightheaded from the sudden drain of mana, but he didn’t collapse. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to—his legs were frozen in place, encased in ice that had spread up nearly to his knees. The asphalt beneath him was slick and gleaming, the cold locking him to the ground like shackles.

  Gunfire rattled. Two of his robots had opened fire, their targeting systems locking onto the panther now within range. The beast snarled and twisted, dodging bursts of metal, but the suppressive fire kept it at bay, soon its barrier fell and that was it for the monster, another win for the robot army.

  Meanwhile, David fumbled into his pocket, fingers closing around another crystal. He crushed it into raw energy, pulling the mana into his starving core, then immediately began unraveling the ice binding him. The frozen layer cracked and splintered with sharp snaps, flakes falling away as he forced power through his body.

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  Oddly, the cold didn’t bite into him. He felt it, yes—sharp, invasive, uncomfortable—but it wasn’t pain. It was more like standing in icy water with the numbness just beginning to set in. The Major Law of Ice dulled the sting, reducing it to little more than an irritation.

  Breaking free of the ice, David realized he wasn’t the only victim of his little experiment. A few feet away stood one of his armed robots—frozen solid up to its torso, servos whining faintly as it strained against the crystal-blue prison. Its mechanical head rotated slowly toward him, optics glowing with a pale light that almost seemed… judgmental. For a ridiculous moment, David swore the machine was staring at him with the silent accusation: Are you an idiot?

  “Yeah, yeah,” David muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Lesson learned.”

  He pressed a palm against the ice, funneled what mana he had left, and began cracking the frost apart until the robot was finally free. With a low hum, the drone shook off the last shards, turned without a word—or whatever counted as words for a machine—and resumed its patrol as though nothing had happened.

  “Figures,” David sighed. Robots couldn’t care less about magical disasters. They just marched on, indifferent and unbothered.

  Watching as the robot hobbled around the perimeter, David finally hobbled himself back toward the lobby. He needed a recharge—both for his mana and his pride.

  After refueling on crystals, David decided to move farther from the perimeter this time. He didn’t want a repeat of the last fiasco with the robots, so he picked one of the empty parking lots as his testing ground. The place was wide, flat, and—most importantly—free of mechanical witnesses who might silently judge his magical blunders.

  He extended his hand and began to form an ice spear in front of him. The construct shimmered, jagged lines of frost crackling along its surface. To keep himself full on mana, he devoured a couple more crystals, refilled his core, and then, bracing himself, activated Overcharge.

  The sensation hit like a storm. Multitasking with mana turned out to be far more difficult than he had imagined—like trying to juggle knives while sprinting downhill, people weren't made for that (unless you're Justin Chang, of course). Mana surged out of his body in a torrent, eager to spill into the environment, to freeze everything around him. But David clenched his focus, wrestled with the current, and forced it all into the forming spear.

  The construct swelled. From a neat, deadly lance it ballooned into something massive, the size of a small car. David couldn’t help but let out a breathless laugh. “Great, just what I needed… a weapon fit for the Titanic.”

  But then came the obvious problem—his mana reserves nosedived. The enormous spear was an insatiable drain, and he realized with a lurch that he had trapped himself. If he ran dry completely, the block would just collapse in place, a useless hunk of ice cluttering the pavement.

  Thinking fast, David shoved the last of his mana into the construct, hoping to at least launch it away before total depletion. The massive shard shuddered, lifted sluggishly, and flew—if one could call it that—about fifteen meters through the air.

  It crashed down with a resounding crack.

  Right on top of Kevin’s car.

  David froze, staring at the mangled vehicle beneath a glistening iceberg. “…Oops.”

  David rubbed his temples, letting out a long sigh. If only I’d been near the pool or some other source of water… he thought, imagining how it could have fed the magical iceberg he had created. Then, maybe he would have had enough strength to launch it farther.

  “I certainly hope this will be the last iteration, but it’s going to be difficult to explain to Kevin what happened to his car.”

  David stepped out of the lobby with his mana reserves full (again). At least this time it wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous day’s marathon of crystal devouring—his mana channels weren’t buzzing or screaming from overload. He rolled his shoulders, exhaled, and let his mind wander. What else could he actually do with all this power?

  Recharging his Major Law of Steel didn’t feel particularly useful. He couldn’t materialize steel out of thin air, and the idea of turning himself into some oversized walking magnet sounded more like self-inflicted torture than a practical strategy. Fire was always an option, but the result is predictable, just an overpowered version of fireball, or something like that.

  Darkness though—that had potential. The Major Law of Darkness wasn’t something he’d experimented with much. He tapped his chin, eyes narrowing as an idea began to form. “Yeah… maybe that one will give me something interesting.”