Even with the drones gone, the situation was dire. Teresa had limited Mana and a whole lot of healing to do. <Facilitated Restoration> was running low on everyone, they were in a radioactive wasteland, multiple people were hurt and Teresa only had two hands. Sarah and Preston would survive for a little while, but Mathew and Thomas were still pretty fragile.

Both of them had nasty burns that were rapidly being taken care of by <Facilitated Restoration>. Initially Teresa had panicked at their current state, but she had forgotten just how powerful her Restoration Magic was on normal humans. She had managed to save Sarah once from a situation far worse, and Teresa's healing had grown even stronger since then.

Regardless, the drones might come back. Teresa simply didn't have the right skills to deal with flying opponents, and she wasn't confident that <Embers> could even do that much damage against robots. It might fuck with the air pressure and cause them to careen out of control or something, but Teresa probably couldn't even land a hit with that spell anyways. Her spell could definitely melt some metal after prolonged exposure, but it's not like the drones would sit still and let her blast them.

There was one option to handle the current situation, and it was something Teresa rarely ever used. A wooden beam began growing out of the ground as she activated <Totem Of Life>, draining the last of Teresa's Mana. It was a skill with such an absurd cooldown she rarely got the chance to use it, and she often regarded it as one of her worse skill selections.

<Totem Of Life> had a 5 day cooldown, and had only become available for use again recently. Low quality Restoration Mana filled the air as it radiated from the wooden structure, soaking into her injured party members. She could feel its efficacy being reduced by the radiation from the Contaminated Zone, but even so she was surprised at how effective her skill was. It wasn't in the same league as her <Facilitated Restoration>, but leaving it active for almost a week at The Mall had definitely power leveled the skill quite a bit.

She laid back, exhausted. Restoration Mana flooded her body too, she had not realized just how injured she had been as well. In the distance, she heard sounds of battle between robots and dinosaurs, sounds she never really expected to hear. Really? Fucking robots fighting dinosaurs? This was just getting ridiculous. What the hell kind of feud did those two groups have? They were polar opposites!

Ironically, Mathew and Thomas were the first to be fully healed. Being weak had its perks sometimes, healing someone with low Fortitude and Vitality was far easier.

"Mathew! Oh god, please, Mathew, oh my god…" Thomas was saying as he leaned over his unconscious son. Mathew must have passed out from the pain, not that Teresa blamed him. This was a lot for a 14 year old, it was a lot for anyone. Teresa herself could only lay on the ground, she was completely out of it in every regard. "Please! How could you all let this happen?"

"Just… give me a second." Teresa replied, not really processing anything. She got that he was angry, upset, distraught, the whole nine yards. Normally, Teresa would completely get where he's coming from and try to do what she could to help in the given situation. Truth be told, she was in no condition to do so at the moment. Her HP, Stamina, and Mana were all extremely low, she was physically, emotionally, and mentally worn out, and she was pretty badly injured. If there was ever a time to be overstimulated, it was now. Teresa's brain felt like it just wasn't working, her head may as well have been a peculiarly shaped rock. "He's alive, we'll all be fine, just… I don't know, fuck, wait a minute."

"Wait a minute? Look at what's going on! We need to go!"

"Are the drones coming back?" Teresa asked.

"I don't think so."

"Then give it a minute, I can't think right now. Is everyone still alive? Preston got stabbed in the kidney, he only has the one so that's not great. Wait, no, Jake only has one kidney. What am I thinking? I just saw Preston's kidneys, Jake's the one with the horseshoe-"

"Who cares about kidneys, let's fucking go!" Thomas exclaimed, desperately trying to pick up his unconscious son. "Why didn't Sarah shoot the drones down, she has a bow for crying out loud!"

"Shooting a bow is hard enough, doing it while running is harder." Teresa explained, sitting up as she realized there was some truth to what Thomas was saying. They needed to move, soon. "Using a bow while running and giving someone a piggyback ride is even harder. I don't think she has enough limbs for that."

"Are you trying to make a joke right now of all times?"

"What? No, I mean I can't think of how someone could logistically give a piggyback ride and shoot a bow-"

"Quit it! Make sure he's okay!"

"Mathew's fine, he's in perfect physical health, trust me. I can tell, he's being affected by my Restoration Mana right in front of me. He's just exhausted, I can't heal someone awake." Teresa reassured. She got to her feet shakily, she wanted to vomit but was too tired to do so. There was too much going on, if everything could just stop for a minute-

Okay, she was starting to see how that was unreasonable. She needed to move, they all did. Thomas was right, but what the hell could Teresa do right now that she wasn't doing already? She had no resources to work with, by all means her body wanted nothing more than to lay down and go into a miniature coma. Teresa had used <Totem Of Life> already, did that mean it created a second totem near them or did the totem back at The Mall vanish? If that was the case, they might think Teresa died. Whenever they got to another City Monolith, she needed to send a message confirming she was still alive.

As soon as everyone could move, they should. Teresa took her Mana recharging staff out of her <Inventory> to recover quicker as she tried to keep her brain active. If she spaced out for too long, she might fall asleep with her eyes open. Teresa had been in plenty of situations like this where she was near death post battle, but to be so drained of absolutely everything? This was rough, even for her. Jake had a higher Fortitude and Vitality than her, and even he had passed out.

Oh fuck, Jake! Teresa hadn't checked on him at all, was he alright? Rather than physically turning to look at him she simply sensed her Restoration Mana around her, feeling it enter his body and put in work. That was easier, at least at the moment.

He seemed alright from what she could tell, though his head was heavily burnt. Shit, was he bald now? Teresa couldn't sense any hair on the guy, maybe she should take a peak. She moved her head slowly to look at him, and saw that he had indeed lost a significant amount of hair. Shit, if he lost a lot of hair, then… don't tell her… was Teresa bald? She patted her head and felt a burnt head of hair, though her eyebrows were suspiciously missing. Damn it, not this again.

Teresa hobbled over to Sarah's unconscious body and grabbed her bow, unslinging it from the sleeping woman in case a drone came back. Teresa was in no condition to fight, but she would rather go down fighting. Her Mana was recharging as quickly as it could, but even if she was in perfect condition she couldn't move everyone. There was no way to describe just how much she wanted to lay back down and fall asleep, but that would probably result in her death.

Environmental Mana seeped into her pores like dust being collected by a vacuum, and her body was naturally recovering Stamina rather fast thanks to her pants that enhanced Stamina regeneration. Even her HP was being fast tracked by <Totem Of Life>, which was recovering her wounds. It could only do so much to help with that, Restoration Mana itself didn't necessarily replenish HP. It just healed her injuries, which was one factor affecting her HP. It was a resource Teresa knew too little about, but now that she understood it was just as real as Mana or Stamina there was an entirely new field of experiments to be conducted.

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Teresa hobbled over to Jake and shook him, trying to wake the man.

"Get up, we need to go." She said, weakly. What was wrong with her? She had been on the edge of death plenty of times, the exhaustion that comes with it should be an old friend at this point. Jake stirred a bit, but she continued trying to wake him. "Get your ass up Jake or we're gonna die!"

"Agh, fuck!" He groaned as awoke. From what Teresa could tell, he probably had a concussion. She was working on remedying that, but Jake had a ridiculous amount of Fortitude. He was the least injured in the party, but also the hardest to heal. "Where are the drones?"

"Fighting dinosaurs, everyone's unconscious but we have to move before they come back."

"Alright, I'm up, I think. How's everyone doing?"

"Mathew, Preston, and Sarah are still unconscious. Mathew and Thomas are physically fine, but I still need to help Preston and Sarah a bit. I can normally heal them pretty easily, but I'm out of Mana and I'm relying almost entirely on <Totem Of Life>."

"How long until your Mana is full again?"

"Probably like, two hours? I'll only need a few minutes to heal them, their Fortitude isn't that high, but refreshing <Facilitated Restoration> in a way that will actually be useful? That's where it gets tricky." Teresa elaborated.

"Sounds like we need to decide how long to stay here with <Totem Of Life>, adventuring around here without your healing buff might be fatal."

"Yeah that makes sense." Teresa's brain fog was starting to clear up and she was beginning to actually analyze their situation clearer.

To use <Facilitated Restoration> once with increased duration would take roughly 40 to 50 Mana, she could probably keep it down to 40 or the high 30s if she wasn't too concerned about doing a good job. She could regenerate around 8 to 14 Mana per minute depending on her environment and a variety of other factors. Considering her current condition, it was probably on the lower end of that range.

She would need to use the spell six times in total. That would mean she needed about 240 Mana, which would take anywhere from roughly 17 to 30 minutes. That was slow, they could not stay there for 17 minutes.

What could she do to speed that up? She was already maxing her Mana regeneration, there wasn't much she could do there. If she weakened <Facilitated Restoration> anymore it would probably wear off before she even got the Mana to use it again on everyone. They were deeper in the radioactive wasteland, even her increased duration <Facilitated Restoration> might have its lifespan cut drastically.

Maybe she could just not use the spell as much? That sounded stupid, but did everyone need the healing buff on them? Jake had a ridiculous Fortitude and Vitality, he could probably just tank the radiation and get healed later. Teresa herself had about 20 less Fortitude but she made up for it with Vitality, so she might be fine.

That would mean only four people needed <Facilitated Restoration> cast on them, reducing the total cost down to 160 Mana. That would still take about 11 to 20 minutes, still not a great range.

Unless, she actually could do something about her Mana regeneration. She activated <Inventory> and retrieved an item.

<Human Evolution Feed (F+): lv 99 (MAX)>

Materials: ???

Status: Ready (100% Remaining)

A consumable capable of increasing a Human's race to F+, a necessary step for achieving a Rank Up. Provides a drastic improvement to lifespan with minor debuff resistances.

The item didn't say anything about improving Mana regeneration, but it improved her race. She didn't know what that meant really, but there had to be some benefits from using it. Her options were either sit there and recover slowly while completely vulnerable to any high level monsters roaming around, or take a risk and eat the mysterious object.

Teresa noted she should never visit a casino as she bit down on the magical item, instantly feeling energy flood her entire body.

"What is that?" Jake asked as Teresa ate the orange fruit, her body beginning to radiate a variety of colors.

"Something that's supposed to improve my race, I got it from the last Portal. Figured it's worth a shot." Teresa explained. She hunched over as she had one of the worst stomach aches she had ever experienced. Every cell in her body was being flooded by the energy, some of them being destroyed outright and replaced. Teresa absentmindedly thought about the Ship of Theseus as this happened, how much of her was still the same Teresa who had jumped off that cliff?

A minute of her body flashing various colors passed until eventually it died down, leaving Teresa out of breath. She immediately tried to continue regenerating Mana, and found that unfortunately it had not changed at all. Shit, did she just waste a full minute that she could have spent recovering Mana faster?

"Huh." Jake said, puzzled.

"What?"

"I don't really feel the radiation at all anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Well like, normally it kind of itches, at least your healing does. Makes sleeping a pain in the ass sometimes, but I don't really feel it as much as Preston or Sarah would. Now? I don't feel it at all." Jake elaborated.

"Why not? I'm the one who ate the fruit."

"I dunno man, what is a race upgrade even supposed to do?"

"It improves my lifespan and gives me minor resistances against debuffs."

"Do you think that debuff resistance applies to your magic as well?" Jake asked. Huh. That was a good question.

"Like my Restoration Mana is holding up against the radiation better since that might count as a debuff?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"I mean, I guess that's possible. If that's the case, I can use less Mana on <Facilitated Restoration>, the question is how much less?"

"How long is that going to take to get ready?"

"If I skip you and me since we have the best Fortitude, about 11 to 20 minutes normally. I can use a shitty version of <Facilitated Restoration> on everyone way sooner though, but then it might wear off before I'm ready to use it on everyone again and we won't have access to <Totem Of Life> when that happens."

"How much quicker would the shitty version be?"

"I could get four instances of <Facilitated Restoration> out in like, 6 minutes now, maybe 5."

"Is there really that much of a rush?"

"Do you really want to stick around to see the aftermath of what is effectively a war just a few miles away? The robots probably know exactly where we are, I don't want to be here when they come back."

"Then I guess we're rushing, I'll go wake up Preston and Sarah. Keep focusing on Mana recovery."

With that, Jake left to do exactly what he said as Teresa channeled as much Mana through her staff as possible. The war in the distance seemed to be quieting down, which was not a good sign.

Each minute that passed felt like an eternity, and eventually when the sounds of battle went silent she knew it was time to move, regardless if she was ready. Four instances of <Facilitated Restoration> shot into Mathew, Thomas, Sarah, and Preston who had all finally woken up.

"Alright let's fucking go, now!" Teresa said as she picked up Jake, the heaviest in the group. Everyone got into position, though Thomas notably was glaring at Sarah as she carried Mathew.

Jake must have told them about the situation as Teresa didn't need to explain anything, they were all ready to go and immediately got on the move. Only a few seconds passed before there was a problem.

"I hear the drones, they're coming back!" Sarah exclaimed, everyone already going at their maximum speed.

"Let's hide in a cave, there's plenty of them." Teresa commanded, changing course slightly.

"Isn't that where the dinosaurs are?" Preston asked.

"Yeah, but they were staying away from the radiation, we aren't."

The party darted into the nearest cave they could find, taking cover in the ground. No one peaked outside the cave, everyone remained silent so Sarah and Teresa could listen for any incoming threats.

Drones flew by multiple times, but nothing came down into their hiding spot. It was stressful, and everyone remained quiet, even after the sounds of the drones completely faded.

They were safe, for now.

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