Once the fish scattered and the battle had concluded, Dan began to look at his gains. Only to find that he had barely gained any mana from the endeavor. That didn't make any sense to Dan. Even if most of the fighting had been out of his territory, which it wasn't, he should have still gained a decent amount of mana unless the fish hadn't had any mana, which was not possible. He had gained a trickle of mana but not anywhere near the amount that he should have gotten, given the strength of the fish that were killed. That was even counting the fact that most of the horde still lived. Counting the large fish alone should have given him close to 1000 mana.

So the fact that he hadn't gained any mana meant that something else had happened to it. And the only thing that Dan could think of was the fact that the shard had taken all of it. Thinking back to the fight, Dan hadn't seen a single fish or frog warrior use telekinetic magic. He knew they could, as back with his first shard at the large dead tree, he had seen the animals use it. This realization brought him back to a reality he had dearly mistaken.

For the most part, during this whole time, he had imagined that the rest of the shards worked like he did. Not exactly, as he did, as they didn't have a system or the ability to spawn monsters, but he figured they were limited in the amount of mana that they could store. However, that was not true. At least not entirely. He may have that limitation as a system-enforced rule so he didn’t become too broken. After all, according to the World Crystal, the whole thing had to possess some sense of balance. Otherwise, he would just be able to store an infinite amount of mana and expand without consequence. Something that he imagined Mother Infinity would disapprove of.

So all of this meant that the other shards could store much more mana than he could as long as they could reach that understanding. Thinking back, it made sense why the shard at the tree hadn't reached that conclusion. The thing had been running on pure instincts and the need to expand, so it hadn't thought about draining its controlled creatures' mana. However, the shard that he was confronting now had a decent amount of intelligence, and Dan had to believe that it had reached the same conclusion he had just reached but much earlier on. This meant that the shard had to be absorbing the mana from the creatures it controlled and storing it for the final fight that was sure to approach. That train of thought, however, brought up some inconsistencies.

The more Dan considered it, the more it didn’t make sense for the shard to still be struggling against the frog folk. Sure, it was bad at tactics and trying to capture them alive; however, it didn’t make sense even then. The damn thing could easily wield its telekinetic power to take over the lake without issue, so there had to be something else holding it back. Once again, it made Dan question whether the World Crystal was intervening on his behalf to make his start that much easier. Even if Mother Eternity wanted balance, Dan didn’t think she was a rules lawyer and would be on them if the World Crystal bent the rules a bit. That had to be it; otherwise, the shard would have conquered the lake long ago. Feeling like he was beginning to see the cracks in a carefully laid out plan, Dan got back to it, feeling just better about his future chances.

Dan focused back on the events on hand. Since he didn’t want to misuse the World Crystal's possible help. He had sent some gators and octo-lilies to track the retreating animals, which would lead him directly to where the shard was hiding. And as he waited to hear back from them, he was going to respawn all his sharks and gators while fully recalling all his underwater creatures to the town. He would also send the chieftain and the frog warriors to care for the small village. Dan knew that they would complain, but they would just be cannon fodder in the upcoming fight.

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The frog warriors were not a match against his creatures, and they were not D rank, so they didn't have access to magic as his creatures did, even with their normal rank. Of course, Dan could rework them and give them some abilities, but that would cost way too much mana and take too much time.

Additionally, in order to swing the battle even more in his favor, Dan called for the druid to join the fight. Dena was D rank, even if on the lower end, and she would prove useful. Dan knew that the shard would not be D-ranked, but even then, the amount of mana it probably had access to at that moment would still make it a threat equal to a D ranker, at least a good one.

So, as he waited to get word back from his gators, he began respawning his sharks while letting the ones that had battled rest for a bit. It cost 855 mana to respawn the 17 sharks and three gators he had lost. The cost really made Dan glad that he hadn't had to use any of his mana to convert the 30 enemy frog warriors and turn them back to his side. There had been 35 of them, but five had sadly met their end early, and at the time, they weren’t under Dan’s control, so they could not be respawned.

Still, the other 30 warriors had snapped out of their mind control once the fish began retreating, and upon doing so, they automatically joined his faction. As such, all the frog warriors who had participated in the battle and had survived were currently making their way to the small village back south.

Dena arrived rather fast through the teleporter that Dan had set up. Then, about an hour or two after the druid arrived, he finally got notice from his monsters. A few of them had returned and shared the location of where the rest of the retreating fish had gone. It was some cave in one of the deeper parts of the lake. It was near an island that was then near the northern village.

Having the location of where the shard was staying, Dan began to mobilize his troops. While mobilizing his troops, Dan contemplated one major issue with the coming battle. That was the fact that Dan would not have control over his monsters or be able to keep in contact with them. Most of their communication would be cut as his monsters left his claimed lands. He would still be able to use their shared senses and was even thinking about giving Control to one of his bosses so he could take control of them. However, Dan firmly believed in letting his bosses prove their worth. So, he would outline the plan and allow them to make their own decisions in combat.

The plan itself would be rather simple. They could not allow the shard to escape no matter what. As such, all of the octo-lilies would be put on the perimeter. Dan was confident that the shard would first try to fight, and if that didn’t go as it wanted, it would try to escape. He knew that the weaker of the octo-lilies wouldn't be able to do much, but at least they would be able to delay the shard until one of his bosses could step in. With that in mind, Lory would be the operation's leader. She would sit back and command the forces while also ensuring that if the shard tried to escape, she could restrain it with all her tentacles.

Now, even if Lory was going to be the commander, Dan had given them an outline. More than likely, the shard would send out the frog warriors first, empowered with some telekinesis magic. Dan wanted the sharks and the gators to be the forces that engaged those warriors, with the smaller octo-lilies stepping in if necessary, regardless of their previous orders. Dan believed that his monsters would be able to shred the enemy warriors to the point that it would cause the shard to engage itself. Once the shard engaged on its own Jaws, Billy and Dena would step in.

Once his three bosses and the druid stepped in, Dan was confident they could make the shard use much of its mana. The whole point of the operation was to have the shard use as much of its mana as possible. That way, when it was weakened enough, Lory could step in, capture and suppress the shard with her aura and tentacles, and then bring it back to Dan.

To that point, once the fight began, Dan would teleport to the frog island and make his way to the town so he could make contact as fast as possible and absorb the shard.

Having laid out his plans to his bosses, Dan sent them off into the lake. They would take about an hour to arrive at the cave entrance. However, Dan would be watching the whole time through Jaw’s senses.