Strengthening?

Everyone leaned in to listen to Samuel as he began his explanation.

"Alright, so we have already established that Mana is the cause of all this as well as the thing that fuels our powers right?" Everyone nodded.

"Alright. I did some testing while the Bus drove. Basically, I concentrated as deeply as possible and tried to feel the Mana around and not just the one in my body." He smiled proudly.

"I succeeded. It's not perfect, but I was able to make myself aware of the Mana in the surroundings. When I did that, I tried to pull it into my body. The results were negligible because I suck at it currently. But the little Mana that I did manage to absorb mixed with the one in my body and the quantity increased." Jacob raised a finger.

"Now, if that had just been it then I wouldn't be this excited. However, I noticed that right before increasing my total Mana capacity, the recently absorbed Mana went around my entire body once. And in that brief moment, I notice that my body had become a tiny, near negligibly amount stronger." This statement caused waves.

"So we can get stronger by absorbing Mana?" Jacob asked, his eyes shining.

"That's not all. I thought to myself. Is the enhancement limited to just a single time after absorption? So I took control of the Mana in my body, and while sloppy as I can't control it that well yet, I managed to have some of it move around my body the same way the newly absorbed Mana did. And guess what?!" His excitement was palpable as he spoke, and it was infectious as everyone's eyes glittered.

"You mean your body was strengthened again?" Mike asked and Jacob nodded.

"It seems like with the right movement, the Mana can refine your body and make it stronger. And the by expending it, we can use our actual abilities." Samuel finished his explanation with a satisfied smirk.

"Okay, this changes a lot of things." Shang acknowledged.

"With this, we can at least try to get stronger and have a fighting chance against whatever monstrosities may come our way." Laura nodded in agreement.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Mrs Rita who thank the heavens had a change of clothes suddenly warned.

"It's great that we now have a method of increasing our strength. But let's actually do so before we start thinking about facing whatever is out there." Her words snapped everyone out of their reverie and they all nodded seriously.

They had finally found a path that could lead to theur survival. But they couldn't be careless.

"Anyway, now that that's settled, let's" before Mrs Rita could finish, a huge tremor ran through the ground that caused her who was standing to buckle and everyone to hold on to their seats.

Joe forced the Bus to come to a stop as the tremor only increased in intensity.

Jacob gritted his teeth as he felt the vibrations run through his body. He then forced himself to look outside and his eyes widened.

Deep cracks began to form in the ground and the road began to break apart in multiple areas before it began to, move apart?

Jacob couldn't believe it at first, but the broken parts of the road began to grow farther and farther away at such an exaggerated speed that very quickly, Jacob could no longer see the other part of the road. It was as if the earth was…

'Stretching?!' The thought sounded ludicrous, but the reality was right in front of him.

It seemed insane, but right before their eyes, the Earth was actually growing.

The tremors didn't let up until after almost 30 minutes, and when they did, everyone slumped in their chairs.

"Fuck, I feel like my insides got turned into Jello." Benjamin said through a groan.

"What the hell even was that?" Isabella said while holding her head.

"The planet grew." Jacob said emotionlessly and they all looked at him blankly for a moment.

"Wait what!?!" Ana exclaimed.

"Look for yourselves. We can't even see yhe other part of the road anymore. That's how far away it got." Jacob said and pointed out the window.

They all looked, and as he said, the other part of the road was gone, and instead, a huge space of cracked earth was seen.

And that's when the gravity hit.

Everyone felt as if they'd had the wind knocked out of them as their bodies inexplicably became heavier.

"Fuck." Shang cursed at the sensation.

"Thankfully our bodies were enhanced by our abilities. I think the gravity at least doubled- wait." Samuel suddenly realized something as he looked to the front of the Bus and exclaimed.

"Crap Mr Joe!" His shout made everyone else realize that Joe hadn't awakened yet, so the gravity was terrible for him.

They immediately rushed forward and saw the man slumped on his chair, the skin on his face hugging his skull tightly as blood trickled from his nose, his eyes fluttered as he struggled to retain consciousness.

Without hesitation, Jacob put his hands on the Man's shoulders and without delay, infused his Mana into his body.

"Sir, I know it's hard but don't lose consciousness and try to keep the Mana in your body!" Jacob shouted. There was no way in hell he was going to let him die from such a dumb scenario.

He couldn't really talk and his throat just let out a hoarse sound.

Jacob kept on saying encouraging words as to his surprise, Joe was actually handling the Mana much better than he thought.

'Right, he's on the brink of death, so he's probably more in tune with the Mana as a way to keep himself alive.' Jacob realized. Still he didn't stop hus infusion.

It was only when his hair had turned a shimmering silver that for some reason, Jacob found hard to look at as it seemed to flicker in and out of reality did everyone relax.

His muscles and skin toughened making him no longer appear as if he was about to get crushed to death. However, he still ended up loosing consciousness.

But after Mia checked on him, she confirmed that he really had just passed out.

"That had been way too close. What the actual hell!?!" Ana shouted at no one in particular and seemed to be pissed of at the universe in general.

"Great with Mr Joe unconscious, no one can drive the Bus." Mrs Rita said and rubbed the bridge of he nose.

"Dammit that's right. Until he regains consciousness, we're stranded." Laura facepalmed.

"And if the Earth really did grow, who knows how far away we are from getting back?" Isabella said worriedly.

"Fuck, I should have seen this coming!" Samuel cursed looking genuinely pissed for the first time.

"Oh come on, there's no way you could have known." Jacob said not happy with his friend blaming himself.

"He's right though. After all, if the man was changing the Earth along with us, then it growing was never really out of the question." Shang pointed out and Jacob glared at him.

"Not helping!" He snarled and the guy just shrugged.

"Regardless, this changes a lot of things. I was hoping that we could reach town and hopefully meet up with the army or something. But at this rate, we don't even know when we'll return." Mrs Rita said sounding very agitated.

So much so that everyone noticed the interior of the Bus become a whole lot warmer.

"Mrs Rita, please calm down." Mia immediately said and their teacher took a deep breath, the temperature returning to normal.

"Right, loosing our cool right now won't help. We need to think of plans now." Jacob said.

"How much food do we have first of all?" He asked.

"Well, we were packed for a three day trip, so it should last us a decent amount of we do it carefully." Billy reasoned.

"I'm sorry to say but that won't work." Samuel sighed, putting his mistake behind him.

"Why not?" Ana asked with a frown.

"I didn't want to say anything before, but since things are like this, the situation has become a lot more desperate." He shrugged.

"It seems like after awakening, our strength isn't the only thing that increased. Other than that, our metabolism has risen to meet our body's demands." Samuel dropped a bombshell.

Another wave of exclamations rang through the Bus. They didn't even try to question him because that just made sense. Their bodies performed a lot better, but they'd naturally need more sustenance to keep up with the new performance.

"This literally couldn't get any worse!" Mike threw his hands up feeling defeated.

"Um, guys." Isabella's slightly trembling voice caught their attention.

"Look." She pointed out the window looking as if she wanted to cry. Everyone followed her finger and felt their hearts drop.

In the treeline, they could clearly see the figure of a bull. But it wasn't ordinary any all.

The thing has at least three meters tall at its shoulders and 4 meters long. And even from here, they could see the rippling muscles on its body.

And the same way they saw it, is the same way it saw them.

It breathed out steam from its nose and began approaching the bus.

"Heh, seems like we'll need to see just how strong we actually are now." Jacob said without any humor in his tone.

"Samuel let's go. Everyone else, if you don't think you're up for it then stay here. And if you want to help, try not to cause friendly fire." Jacob practically pleaded the last part before stepping off the Bus with Samuel close behind.