The Mechanical Era

It was a bright sunny morning that day. The leaves were already started to fade away from their lush green, to a warm orange instead, as the days become shorter they continue into the fall.

The warm white room was occupied by a few men in white coats, all holding clipboards in their hands, talking to each other about whatever topic interested them. On the table, were a bunch of health potions, a black wooden chest, and some other items.

Other than the researchers, there was one individual; A DEF agent. He was wearing his uniform; a black suit with violet accents, including a violet tie. These men had all volunteered to help discover the extent of Kant's abilities.

Some were there because of the money, while others were there because it sparked their interest. The concept of someone having anti-magical void abilities was a concept only in fiction through plays and literature, often depicting such a character as the antagonist to the magical hero.

Today, their test was there to confirm a hypothesis that Kant had come up with in his experiments, discover any other abilities that a void user like Kant could possess, and the current limits of his reserves.

The room was a little loud, filled with chatter and laughter until the door swing opened, causing them all to turn to see who it was. A man, about 5'11.5 tall, wearing a slim long-sleeved black suit, with a white shirt underneath, and a black tie around his neck, entered the room. He had silver hair and jet-black eyes, all features present on his sleek face.

Everyone in the room stands up straight and shuts their mouth. Kant walks up to the table and examines everything. It appeared that everything was in place for the test to begin.

"Was I late?" Kant asks.

"No, your majesty. You came just in time. We have prepared everything that you ask us to!" one of the researchers says.

"Alright. Now, I assume you all know what the purpose of today is?"

"Yes sir. We are here to answer a few questions. The first is regarding whether there was a difference in void energy consumption in the method by which mana is taken. The methods are; taking mana by drinking, or applying it on a wound itself."

"That is good. Let us begin," he said. He opens the chest and takes out one of the containers.

"0.5 grams of void crystal. Test 1," he speaks. The researchers write it down. Kant opens up the glass container and pours the crystal into his other palm. He then keeps the container down and crushes it. His eyes immediately turn vantablack, and his body gains a huge surge of energy, but not as before. He then takes the knife and cuts the palm of his left hand.

"First test. Applying a healing potion to the wound itself." he proclaimed. Once the researchers came over to Kant and applied 5 ml of it to the palm of his hand.

While Kant concentrated on his foot, the researchers examined him. While some of them check the hand, where they saw the wound disappear, others stared into his eyes.

"Do you feel your energy levels remaining the same, sir?" one of them asks.

"About the same. I feel I have used up a little." Kant replied. They wrote down his statement and the results on the clipboard and continued their study. They repeated the test several times until Kant's eyes return to their normal jet-black coloring. They had to do this 60 times before his original eye color came back.

Kant had his palm washed and dried before moving on to the next test. This time, he was to drink 5ml of the health potion instead of applying it to the wound, to see if there is any difference.

Kant takes another void crystal the same way he did last time, just crushing it in his hand. After that, he made a little cut on his palm before drinking up the potion. Although the wound did not disappear, his Vantablack eyes certainly did. The researchers noticed a stronger change back to his normal eye color than before.

"Did you feel anything, sir?" they ask.

"Yes. I felt as if I had lost some energy," he noted. The researchers write it down. They continue the experiment until Kant loses the vantablack eyes, and the wound is healed up. Once they are done, they draw up their results into some tables and graphs, to visualize the data.

From the data, they found something very peculiar. When the healing potion was applied on to the wound directly, it could about 60 times to use up all 0.5g of mana inside the void crystal. However, when the void user took in the health potion inside his body, he only had to drink 5ml 12 times, before all his void energy dissipated.

The conclusion of the study confirmed Kant's hypothesis. Yes, there was a significant difference in void energy consumption. However, the results of the test sparked a new question in everyone's minds. Why? Why was this occurring? Why was drinking the health potion taking more void energy away than just spilling on the wound directly?

"What do you think sir? Do you have any hypothesis for this occurrence?" one of the researchers asked, pointing to Kant. They were all curious to know what he thinks. Kant observed the data in the tables, presented, before answering.

"Here is my hypothesis. When I consume the health potion, the void energy in my body uses up a lot more of that energy to cancel out all the mana present in that sample, as I have come in contact with a lot more void energy than before.

Whereas in the case of applying the 5ml of health potion directly onto the wound, only a fraction of them came in contact and needed to dissipate.

As we saw earlier, when we pour 5ml of the health potion onto the wound, there was still some left on my hand before I washed it. As the remaining health potion would be mana that hasn't come into contact with my stored anti-mana, it took a long length for it to run out. I suspect that is the cause," Kant proclaimed.

The researchers, upon thinking of it, all agreed. So far, it is the one that had made the most sense, although they will have to do some experiments on them at a later date to see whether this is true.

"Agent Leon? You are up next. Come here." Kant ordered. With the first series of tests concluded, they moved on to the next set of tests; the other abilities that Kant could possess as a void user, especially with a mana user.

This includes whether or not Kant could; weaken a mana user by passing through anti-mana onto them, whether he could nullify a spell that could harm him, and whether a mana user can detect a void user.

They conducted the first test to answer the first question; whether a void user can weaken a mana user by passing through anti-mana onto them. They did this test by simply holding their hands together, while Kant try to pass anti-mana through the hand.

The two made sure to wash their hands first, to get rid of any 'germs' as Kant puts it. Once they washed their hands, Kant took 0.5 grams of crystal, before he held the Agent's hands.

"Do you feel anything, Agent?" asked one of the researchers.

"I do. I feel something. I feel that my hand is slightly weaker. Only a tiny bit." he responded. They waited till Kant used up all his void energy, which was indicated by his eyes.

The DEF agent was then ordered to perform a task using both his hands, to see if there was any difference in strength or magical power. As he cast spells and lifted weights, the researchers recorded the data, before visualizing them on a table. They then compared them to the feats done before the tests. From what they see, they did not see any noticeable difference between the two arms.

"Hm... does that mean that void users won't be able to weaken an opponent?" one of the researchers suggested.

"Not necessarily. It would just mean that his majesty did not use enough Void energy to make a difference, especially onto a powerful magic user like our volunteer." another spoke back.

"Well, to know for certain, we must conduct even more research. We shall take two more tests using 0.5 grams of crystal, before moving on to 1 gram of crystal each." Kant suggested.

With that, the researchers conducted the tests once again, got the agent to test their strengths, and record the data. This time there was a noticeable difference between before and after the tests. However, the differences are minimal.

"Hm... it appears that it does make them weaker. Only slightly," Kant remarked.

"It appears so, sir." The researcher replied. Kant stared at the results before he spoke again.

"Do you think that the previous tests had any effect on our current results?" Kant asks.

"What do you mean, sir?"