Kapitel 68: Success!
After months of failures after failures, Lance had hit upon a formula that he thought would work:
Connection + Wishroot = Using Less Power.
Although this was something already hinted by the Castellan, it had required a lot of personal experience to learn just how this worked.
Connection, in this case, was nothing but intent. The stronger his intent to destroy was, the stronger the connection to the IN would be. He had to thank his master for the succinct explanation about power.
And from the equation, the stronger the connection was, the less power would be used by the wishroot.
Lance hatched a plan which would enable him to not lose a shreds of his muscles each time he failed in using the minimum threshold. He knew just how bad his condition had been before.
There was only one way to prevent this right now: to bulk up.
Bulking and cutting were two common terms used in bodybuilding back on earth. The first phase, bulking, meant putting on lots of fat by eating a lot more food than usual. Along with fat, muscle would also grow as the body would sense a need to grow muscle to carry the fat around.
After that, a bodybuilder would 'cut' i.e he/she would follow a high protein diet at a calorie deficit with weight training to preserve the muscle and lose the fat.
Lance only needed the first phase, as the wishroot would take care of the second all by itself.
In a way, it was the perfect cutting method. Only, there was always the looming risk to explode from the inside out.
For 10 days, he set a strict eating regime for himself. Each day. he would gorge on all his favorite foods. From cookies and cakes to wings and steaks, Lance ate them all in the bid to bulk.
10 days later, Lance almost looked like a different person. He still maintained the muscles built by the training and rebirth, but there was again a layer of fat like when he had first entered the first mission.
One bad effect of this was that the foursome of gloves found it much easier to 'play' with him. He almost imagined he could hear them snickering as he lay on his ass struggling to get up.
Now, it was finally time.
Lance stood in front of the PP machine, going over his plan again and again.
The wishroot only needed to give the explosive effect. Thus, his plan now was to send some energy and intent(his wish) into it in the last moment before he hit the target.
In his mind, Lance conjured up images of death and destruction. He imagined thousands of people being abducted and killed every year.
A fury arose in his heart at his powerlessness. He wished he could go out and stop these being.
For lack of a better image, Lance could only think of the aliens as green humanoid beings with bald and elongated heads. But, either because of the fury or his avid imagination, the green being's mouth and teeth dripped blood.
The image of the being superimposed on the PP machine. All he wanted to do at this moment was destroy this gruesome being.
He pulled his arm back, with the whole of his mind concentrating on pushing each and every cell in his body with a single thought:pulverize!
His body moved as one as power started flowing towards his fist. Starting from his legs, each and every part was focused on pushing the punch forward with as much force as possible.
Unknowingly itself, Lance was using one of the most famous stances to punch. The motion was akin to a shot-put thrower, with the whole body almost winding up power in the arms before throwing the ball as far away as possible.
This wasn't the first time he had gotten into this state. In preparation, since the last 5 days, he had succeeded upto here but had never managed to get the timing right to activate the wishroot. Each time, the punch would be over before the wishroot even activated. Thankfully, he could stop it from activating by sending it thoughts saying "STOP!".
This time, it was different.
The instant before his punch touched the pad, the wishroot flashed.
The flash wasn't as bright as before. Lance felt pain all over his body as fat was forcefully pulled away. Thankfully, it was nothing compared to before.
Although the pain distracted him, he did not let his intent waver.
It felt as if something was racing from his dantian to his hand. His hand instantly accelerated to 10 times its previous speed as a resounding "BOOM" was heard.
There were actually two "BOOM"s. The first was a muffled one from the impact of Lance hitting the machine. The second, louder one was from the machine being pushed backwards and hitting a column of the dojo and breaking it in half.
Lance's hand felt as if it were broken. He looked at it to see that it was slightly swollen. Besides that, there seemed to be purple marks all over his body from which a dull ache of pain could be felt.
He waited with bated breath for the result.
As if on its last breath, the machine struggled to give the score.
After a second, it finally appeared.
"14987 kg".
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein