I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse

Kian watched as Kairos leaped away with a blank expression.

"Do you really think I need to do some sort of trick to complete that part of the mission?"

Kairos continued backing away while charging the pulse spell, not trusting him even slightly. He even extended his future vision to three seconds, just to be safe. Though, he couldn't but freeze in place after a few moments.

Kian smirked as he slowly raised up his hands.

"I've long finished that part of the mission."

His body blackened, while bright green veins appeared on top. As he did so, dozens of massive black trees broke out of the ground around them, their leaves blacking out the sky.

Countless sharp branches shot out, but stopped before they got too far, making the entire place seem like a giant iron maiden.

Kairos looked around himself and began wondering if he would actually be able to fight against something like this. After a bit of contemplation, he realized that he should be able to survive for at least a few minutes by using his future vision and possibly turning it around. But that was also assuming that Kian didn't go any further and bring out more of his cards.

Kairos blinked a few times before slowly releasing the mana he was using for the pulse spell.

"...Alright, I believe you."

Kian gave a small nod.

"If so, hurry up and increase your mana regeneration to thirty. Your prestige points won't be visible, but so long as you have ranked in the leaderboards, you should see them."

Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the giant trees that formed around him. With his ability to see mana, he could tell that the mana within them was unnaturally large. It made him wonder how this wasn't enough.

"Are you sure you need more mana? These trees look good enough..."

Kian shrugged his shoulders.

"I can essentially store as much as I would like, so more isn't going to hurt. Besides, it has been quite difficult for me to get a reliable mana source, which is why I would like your help."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Makes sense I guess."

He let his glasses slide off of his face slightly as he opened up his status panel so that he could look at them without his glasses.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: 55/15000 Evolution Energy - 5000 required for Rankup]

[Objective: Gain 4945 Evolution Energy and Complete Promotion Mission]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 22.1]

[Prestige: 256]

[Stats -

Strength - 29.9

Endurance - 29.9

Agility - 29.9

Willpower - 29.9

Mana Capacity - 29.9

Magic Affinity - 29.9]

[Special Abilities: Alone (D), Water Spell (E), Pulse Spell (E), Fire Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]

[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F+)]

[Hide]

It was then that Kairos caught onto how many prestige points he had. Though he didn't fully understand the value of them, he still felt that it was quite a lot. It was more than what he expected despite knowing he finished first in a top two-hundred and fifty ranking.

There was also a new plus sign to increase his stats that lighted up as golden.

After a split second of hesitation, he pressed it.

[Confirm using Prestige Points to Limit Break Mana Capacity? Yes/No]

Kairos slowly moved his finger over to the yes button before pressing it.

[Mana Capacity 29.9 -> 30.0 | Prestige 256 -> 255]

At first, Kairos felt there was little to no change, almost like he quite literally just used a tenth of a point to increase his stats. But before he could question what the change truly was, he suddenly felt his instincts shift. For just a moment, he felt like he understood everything about mana, before forgetting it once more.

He looked down at his body and saw that the mana was naturally being guided into every single gap within himself, and began snaking all over the place almost like a disease. Previous, the mana within him was stored in a fashion that looked like solid rods.

But now, it expanded out, almost like those rods had grown branches that expanded out into the rest of his body.

Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly as he realized his mana capacity had practically almost doubled. For a second, he was wondering if he could even manipulate the mana that had moved away from the rest of his body properly, and to his surprise, it felt completely natural.

After understanding the effects, he closed the status panel. He wanted to upgrade the rest of them as well, but planned on holding off until Kian wasn't nearby.

Kian chuckled softly.

"You seem to understand why I asked you to do such a thing."

Kairos nodded slowly.

"It really is... a different feeling."

Kian waved his hand dismissively.

"Regardless, now I ask you to supply me with mana."

All of a sudden, a large branch broke out of the ground beneath them and began carrying them through the air. The trees that Kian had created earlier sank into the ground, like they were never there in the first place.

In just a couple minutes, they had arrived at their destination. It was a garden like the one that Kairos had seen before, but there were only three trees there at the moment. Though, there were countless corpses. These corpses were the ones of monsters, and black branches came out of the ground bringing more out every single second.

Kian let out a small sigh.

"Under normal circumstances, I would use humans with mana to create these trees as I require a concentrated mana source to make one. However, with your help, I should be able to use these monster corpses."

He flashed a smile to Kairos.

"We can work a deal out like this. For every three trees you create, I'll provide you with one nature core. You're doing the first three for free as payback for the one I provided earlier."

Kairos blinked a few times before nodding.

"Sounds fair enough."

Kian seemed a bit surprised.

"Not going to negotiate at all?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"Your terms are fair enough. I'll respect that and accept it outright."

Kian let out a laugh as he raised one hand, causing a black branch to grow out in front of them.

"I'm glad you're so straightforward. You can start by injecting mana within this branch right here."

Kairos looked at the branch for a few moments before grabbing onto it. From there, he began injecting mana into the branch. Although it was a little confusing at first, he found that it was similar to the process of casting a spell and got the hang of it.

After funneling for about ten seconds, he stopped and began rotating his entire body to get more mana, and to his surprise, his regeneration rate had also increased after limit breaking his mana capacity. Another aspect was that he literally couldn't see because of all the mana around him blocking his vision.

And so, he went with it, channeling as much mana as he could into the branch before regenerating it back a moment later.

Kian was observing silently at first, but his eyes couldn't help but widen considerably after a while. He thought that Kairos was obviously pushing himself to get a strong start, but as it continued on, he couldn't help but marvel at how fast it was.

In fact, he even began to feel a little on edge.

While he had a tremendous amount of mana in store, the problem was that it was limited at the end of the day. However, with how Kairos looked right now, he was essentially a bottomless supply of mana. That meant he could cast devastating spells one after another.

Assuming he had some sort of ability that protected himself well enough, then even Kian didn't have the confidence to face Kairos.

What neither of them knew was that the moment any mana entered Kairos' body, it had fundamentally changed because of his alone spell. So not only was his mana regeneration insanely quick, but the mana that was being outputted was also three times stronger than normal.

After working at it for about ten minutes, Kairos frowned.

"Is the tree still not done yet? How much mana do you even need?"

Kian blinked a few times.

"...Actually, I've run out of trees to grow for now. You've done a total of fifty-four already."

Kairos looked back at him blankly.

"Wait, really?"

Kian slowly nodded.

"...Well, as per agreement, I'll let you have seventeen nature cores."

He held up his hand as seventeen cores conjured out of thin air. Numerous tiny little black branches grew out of the ground and were woven together to become a bag, which he put them all in.

Kian tossed the bag to Kairos, who grabbed onto it with a bit of surprise.

"Huh, you can do many fancy things."

Kian laughed after hearing that.

"I can indeed. You've helped me out quite nicely, so I can consider everything in the past water under the bridge. In hopes that we can continue to cooperate in the future, I'll also offer you this."

He brought out a very tiny, but faintly glowing green seed from his pocket.

"If you ever need some help, plant this into the ground and give it a bit of mana. I'll arrive as quickly as I can."

Kairos expected him to toss it, but this time he held it out, waiting for him. Kairos held his hand out, after which Kian slowly placed it into the palm of his hand.

Kian smirked.

"Don't lose it."

Kairos tucked it away.

"Alright. Should I just come back to the same place later on if I want to grow some more trees with you?"

Kian shrugged his shoulders.

"Sure, but wait a few weeks to give me some time to get ready."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Alright then."

Kian put his hands behind his back.

"I still have some things to take care of for now, so I'll send you on your way."

Kairos let out a soft chuckle.

"See you later then."

With that, the branch split off, sending Kairos rapidly back to where he first was. After being dropped off, he looked at the retreating branch once more before heading back to the city.

It was now well into the night. He felt slightly dizzy because of channeling all that mana, but other than that he was fine. Kairos wasn't really paying attention for the most part, and suddenly felt someone tap him on the shoulder in his future vision, causing him to dash to the side.

Once he did so, he saw Nicole gradually become visible, stumbling over as she tried to reach for him.

"Wha! H-How did you still dodge it?"

Kairos blinked several times in surprise. Though it wasn't as though he was looking out for it, he didn't even catch the slightest sound as Nicole approached.

Realistically speaking, it should've been fairly easy for him to catch her since he was able to make out the mana within her body, yet she still somehow slipped by. The only reason he was actually able to dodge was that he cheated by using his future vision, making him feel a little awkward.

"Haha, to be honest, I almost missed you. I must say, you did much better than what I was expecting."

Nicole couldn't help but smile, but tried to hide it by averting her gaze.

"I-I mean... you didn't expect it this time, but I still was caught by you."

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"Well, the people you'll be targeting won't be expecting it either. You aren't far away from being able to perform seamlessly."

Nicole tilted her head to the side and giggled.

"I'll work hard on that then!"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Anyway, there's something I'm going to be trying out later, so don't mind me."

Nicole put the tip of her finger on her chin.

"Test what?"

Kairos kept looking forward.

"...Something called limit breaking stats."