Chapter 55: Speed Amplifier
Scar’s breath caught in his throat. The world didn’t just look clearer; his brain was processing the ambient data at a terrifying, hyper-efficient rate.
Alicia watched his jaw drop, a satisfied smirk finally breaking her serious facade. She knew exactly what he was experiencing.
"The visor amplifies your neurological processing speed," Alicia explained, tapping the side of her own head. "It helps you perceive the environment significantly faster than your normal pace. Also, when you hit high velocities, taking a sharp corner can be dangerous. This visor calculates the trajectory and slows the visual input, allowing you to navigate curves flawlessly without ever needing to decelerate."
"Wow," Scar breathed, genuinely elated. "That’s incredible. Did you make this yourself?"
"Yes," Alicia said casually. "I have tons of them at home. It’s what the majority of professional speedsters in the world use today. I’ve made a fortune selling the visors to them. But that’s not important right now. "She waved a hand dismissively. "What is important is that you always wear it on a long sprint to maximize your efficiency."
Scar stared at her, utterly bewildered by how casually she dismissed a global technological and monopolistic achievement. He knew from Henry’s memories that Alicia was a genius, but the sheer scale of her accomplishments was staggering.
"Take your mark," Alicia ordered, stepping back to her console. "And wait for my signal."
Scar stepped onto the reinforced metallic track, dropping into a deep, coiled runner’s stance. He took a long, steady breath, staring straight ahead as the visor perfectly mapped the curve of the arena.
"Ready when you are," he said into the comm.
Alicia stared at the holographic metrics for a while. Then she gave the command. "Go."
Almost immediately, Scar engaged his musculature, and moved.
BOOM!!
The air violently shattered as he launched himself forward with an explosive force that left a visible, rippling shockwave in his wake. On Alicia’s screen, the speedometer instantly rocketed from 0 to 420 km/h, climbing rapidly to 500 km/h in a matter of seconds.
"Fascinating," Alicia hummed, her eyes tracking the perfectly stable red lines of his vitals.
Inside the sprint, Scar was a blur. The wind violently buffeted his clothes. The world around him blurred into a violent canvas of red and grey. And with the visor active, his passive perception let him track everything around him as if it were suspended in jelly. As he approached the first sharp curve of the stadium track, he didn’t slow down. He engaged his active AP, pushing his perception index to 6.5x.
Time slowed down instantly, slower than he’d ever experienced. The blurred world around him dulled down into an hyper-focused stream of data. The G-force pulling at his skull became manageable, letting him effortlessly lean his center of gravity into the turn, slicing through the curve with the aerodynamic perfection of a fighter jet. His feet perfectly tracked the white augmented lines on the track, and he slingshotted into the straightaway.
After crossing the curve, he accelerated even further.
The speedometer on Alicia’s console climbed relentlessly. 500 km/h... 600... 700...
To her, Scar was no longer a fully visible figure; he had become a red-and-black smear of continuous motion. The sheer atmospheric pressure he was displacing generated a localized gale-force wind inside the stadium, whipping her red hair wildly. The temperature of the air around the track was noticeably rising from the friction. He was unstoppable.
And then, after a little while, he hit his limit.
[Speed Rate: 780 km/h]
Alicia watched the speedometer hold steady for a long time without accelerating. That must be his top speed, she concluded, marveling at the raw velocity.
But then, the numbers flickered, and something unbelievable happened.
[Speed Rate: 785 km/h]
[Speed Rate: 790 km/h...]
Alicia’s eyes widened in shock. "He’s still accelerating?" she whispered, completely awestruck. "But I thought he’d reached his limit."
She looked up from the screen, trying to track the circular motion of the blur orbiting the track. Then she watched as the blur began to move faster, accelerating even higher.
Meanwhile, inside the slipstream, Scar felt his lungs burning, his limbs pumping like heavy pistons. He saw the digital speedometer in his vision tick up to 790 km/h and let out a dark chuckle. He gritted his teeth, ready to push his biology into the 800s—but then he remembered the secondary reason he had come to the stadium today: he wanted to test out his new kicks.
He checked his stamina bar. It was still at a highly decent level. It would be enough for what he wanted to do.
"Okay, let’s test it out," Scar muttered to himself. Then he eased off the acceleration, slowly tapering his speed down.
Alicia saw the numbers drop on her screen and immediately spoke into the comm. "Why are you decelerating? Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No," Scar’s voice crackled back, slightly breathless. "There’s just something I want to try out."
Instead of coming to a slow jog, Scar abruptly cut his angle, waltzing directly toward her location. Then he suddenly stopped, drifting to a halt a few meters away from her.
FWOOSH.
The sheer wall of kinetic wind accompanying his sudden stop washed over Alicia, pushing her back a step and blowing her hair wildly across her face. The ground beneath Scar’s feet was deeply scarred, a trench carved into the turf from his friction brakes.
Alicia brushed her hair back, adjusting her glasses with a scowl. "You did that on purpose." She frowned.
Scar chuckled, crossing his arms. "Maybe I just wanted to sweep you off your feet," he teased.
Alicia scoffed without saying a word, though the corner of her mouth twitched. She looked down at her screen, pulling up the data log.
[Last Recorded Speed Rate: 800 km/h]
Alicia stared at the number, utterly fascinated. "You managed to increase your speed again before stopping," she murmured in disbelief. "Incredible."
Scar smirked. "Sounds like you’re impressed."
"I am," Alicia admitted without hesitation. "Your speed adapted so rapidly on its own after hitting your limit. If you hadn’t stopped, you could have gone even faster. That’s insane... I’ve never seen anything like this."
Scar furrowed his brows. "Why are you making this sound like a big deal? Isn’t it normal for speedsters to increase their top speed just by running and pushing past their limits?"
Alicia shook her head, her expression turning academic. "No, Roy. It isn’t. Not without some kind of amplifier."
Scar was stunned. "What?"
"Speedsters in our world aren’t like the ones you see in fiction," Alicia continued, pacing slowly in front of him. "Their velocity is wholly tethered to mana cells. Which means, how fast a speedster can go, and how long they can sustain that speed, depends entirely on their mana cell count. When a speedster runs, those cells are rapidly consumed alongside their stamina. And until they rest and replenish those cells, they cannot continue to run. And unless they increase their overall mana cell count, they will never be able to increase their top speed."
Scar processed the information rapidly. "So mana cells determine their maximum velocity. The more they have, the faster they get." He deduced.
"Exactly," Alicia nodded. "Unless, maybe they utilize external methods of velocity inducement—like the Velocity Circuit in Felicity’s Speednasium. But even that is just a temporary solution. The circuit supercharges an existing mana cell, exciting it to the point of duplication and making it last longer, which gives you the illusion of running faster."
"Wait," Scar held up a hand. "So the Velocity Circuit doesn’t permanently increase a person’s speed? But mom told me it multiplies velocity."
"She’s not wrong. It does multiply a person’s velocity." Alicia stated. "But to even use the circuit, you must possess an incredibly durable body and already be capable of running at Mach 1 to withstand the G-force it exerts on your cells. And there’s a catch; the speed gained from the velocity circuit only lasts for about a month. Because the duplicated cells weren’t generated by natural biological means, they eventually die, and the speedster’s mana cell count always returns to its original baseline. Along with their top speed."
Scar hummed, a deep sense of enlightenment washing over him. "I see. So what happens when a speedster hits their biological limit and can no longer generate new mana cells?"
"They cap out," Alicia said simply. "That is why the vast majority of speedsters in our world reach their peak at supersonic speeds. Even the fastest man alive, Blitz, is only capable of running at most Mach 20." She paused, looking out over the empty stadium. "All of this, of course, is the exception to Felicity. Because of her unfathomable, almost limitless mana cell count, she is estimated to be twenty times faster than the speed of light."
Scar’s eyes widened. Twenty times faster than light. He already knew she was faster than light, but this was too much to process.
That’s when it dawned on him: In this world, mana cells were the currency of power. Energy levels and ability mastery dictated rankings, but the true value of a warrior was their mana cell count. It determined how strong they could get and how long they could endure a fight. It was why monsters like Felicity and the Amazon Queen stood at the pinnacle of humanity.
"Anyway, because of this biological limit," Alicia continued, turning back to him, "most speedsters rely on amplifiers and temporary boosts. But you... you are an anomaly." She looked deeply into his eyes. "You don’t have mana cells. The laws of biology that bind everyone else do not apply to you. That is probably why your speed increases simply through kinetic adaptation. All you have to do... is keep running. All day, every day. If you keep it up, you’ll hit supersonic speed in no time. And if you train relentlessly, you’ll surpass hypersonic speeds in a matter of weeks."
Scar smirked, a dark, competitive glint in his eye. "Won’t that make me on par with, or even faster than, the fastest man in the world?"
"It might," Alicia conceded. "But you would still be nowhere close to Felicity’s level."
"No," Scar murmured. "Not yet, at least."
Alicia closed the holographic interface on her wristband, crossing her arms. "So. What was it you wanted to try?" she asked, looking curious.
Scar revealed a knowing smirk. He stretched his hands out. In a flash of light, a pair of boots materialized in his grip. The dark gold alloy gleamed in the sunlight, the subtle wing motifs humming with concentrated power.
Alicia raised a curious eyebrow, stepping closer to inspect the footwear. "What is that?"
"This," Scar said proudly, "is the Talaria-X."