The sun peeked above the treeline, its light crept between the scattered trunks. The cubic formation of portals resisted the illumination, its presence stood above the trees but stayed below their leaves.
[Master, it’s time to wake up.] Dresil attempted to wake Cain, yet he ignored her call and slumbered on. His tolerance to waking with such a method slowly increased day by day.
Although he could be woken up instantly if a foreign person entered what he defined as his room, this came with an intense headache and a mild adrenaline rush. With Cain’s physical strength increasing each day, an adrenaline rush could be the final nudge that causes him to lose control over it and accidentally harm someone.
Jared hopped out of his tent and skipped to the campfire, the worry-free night clearly did its wonders. Victoria and Jacob wobbled after him, the laziness of the morning refusing to leave them. Veronica lit the campfire, dragging Jared to put that extra energy to use by helping her make breakfast.
The early atmosphere passed quickly, replaced by the cheery ambience made by the party as they ate breakfast and conversed. An hour before the sun reached its peak, they did a routine inspection of all their items and cleaned their weapons, waiting until Cain awoke.
Damn it… what should I do… Dresil paced around the root cavern. She unmerged from Cain’s clothes, hoping that her presence would be considered foreign and wake him up. Before she did so, she sent Sinclair back to his dimension in case Cain’s casual movement wasn’t controlled properly. Yet her preparations were for naught as the boi still hibernated.
Dresil searched through his memories to diagnose why he didn’t wake up despite her sudden appearance. She had considered that Cain was simply used to her presence due to her being at his side 24/7. This hypothesis was quickly dismissed when Dresil discovered that Cain laid in a half-asleep state after the diagnosis.
Let me explain this mechanism that wakes us up whenever someone enters our room. Just to refresh our minds.
It doesn’t matter whether or not we can hear or see. Even when we’ve had our eyes covered and earplugs in, if someone walks into our rooms we’d instantly wake up. The only case this does not happen, is if we trust that person with our lives. In other words, we no longer track their movement because it is simply not needed.
This is where we are currently at right now. As of this Day, I–er, Cain is starting to rely and trust Dresil to that point. This is proven by Cain’s half-asleep state and is what Dresil discovered when trying to diagnose the issue.
Back the memory exportation….
Dresil paced the confines of the root cavern, momentarily distracted by how much Cain trusted her. She came to her senses a few minutes later and contacted Bob for assistance in disabling the sound-proof magic circles to prepare for her next plan: an alarm.
Not just any alarm would wake up Cain right now. He could simply ignore it or put it on snooze afterall. Drastic measures needed to be taken… It had to be a meme alarm.
While the two worked to safely dissolve the sound-proof circles, she put the next portion of her plan into motion. The second portion had a bit of a time delay, and the timing for this operation needed to be just right in order for it to succeed. Thankfully, dismantling Cain’s magic circle proved to be tedious since Dresil was slowly losing the ability to tamper with his mana.
Dresil sneakily implanted her vines around a mosquito bite on Jared’s arm and slowly drained his mana enough for him to get tired, but not too much it’d be a problem later.
Victoria saw Jared’s hand making its way to said mosquito bite, and thus quickly grabbed his arm. “Ah, ah, ah. Don’t scratch that. It only makes it worse.” She slowly released her grip above Jared’s elbow, careful not to suddenly cause motion since he was cleaning his dagger.
“I know… It’s… just thahaaaAAAATTT… Dang, that was a big one…” Jared yawned mid sentence; he slowly relaxed his left arm as Victoria loosened her grip. He set his tools to the side so he could stretch and get his mind off the itching bug bite.
Veronica snickered on the side, preparing to tease him once more. “Weren’t you full of energy this morning? What happened to the little skipper?” She directed the arrow she was inspecting around the campsite, retracing the path of Jared’s morning skip.
“I don’t know… Maybe I ate too much this morning?” Jared pondered the peculiarities of his drowsiness, feigning a thoughtful look with a hand on his chin, beckoning giggles from the party. A song coming from Cain’s tent picked up in volume as it neared the chorus. Jared picked up his tools and complained out loud to hopefully vent the drowsiness.
“Man… I just wish someone could…
Until you find it there and lead it back home
“Wake me up.”
Wake me up inside.
“Huh?” Jared stopped cleaning his daggers and looked back towards the direction of the song: Cain’s cavern. Cain slowly walked out with a snide grin, knowing full well what just happened.
“Was that music coming from you?” Victoria asked as Cain walked up to join the party. He filled their cups with water then converted it into soda on his way to an empty seat next to Veronica. It served as an apology for sleeping in late and a greeting.
“Yep, the timing was perfect, wasn’t it?” Cain smirked as he pulled out a few skewers for breakfast.
Jared watched him with a blank face that still portrayed his confusion, completely befuddled due to the song matching up with what he said, word for word, enunciation for enunciation (translation by Dresil).
“What the fuck, you warlock bastard?” In his moment of bamboozlement, Jared’s filter was nonexistent, he blurted out what was on his mind once his confusion subsided enough for his speech to return.
“Hey. Language.” Jared’s second filter Victoria snapped at him coldly while sharpening the edge of a throwing knife. The frightful sight sent shivers down his spine, completely halting any words that may have come out.
Jacob watched everything with awe, yet he could only watch. A wave of loneliness crept up on the 5th wheel. Cain made a donut out of mana and tossed it to Jacob to distract him from his feelings momentarily. The party cleaned up their tools and campsite as Cain finished his breakfast.
—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (324ms)
Rex: …you didn’t wake up for Dresil, but you woke up for a meme?
Cain: What? It was a good one.
Dresil: :blush: Thanks!
Bob: Are you guys not in a rush to start the quest?
Cain: Nah, you’ll find out why from the party soon though.
Rex: :sus: …did you read their memories or something?
Cain: Nope, just their body language when I was half-asleep.
Rex: …can someone nerf this man’s brain?
Cain: Hey now, sleep calculation is necessary.
Rex: I can agree with that.
Cain: How much longer until the effects of the apple wear off?
Cain: I felt some of my control over my strength slip as I walked over here so I need to precisely get used to it.
Bob: Its effects end at the end of today.
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Cain: Sweet. I’ll fine tune my mana and physical control tomorrow then.
Rex: …wasn’t the apple just effecting… affecting? Idk, anyways wasn’t it just doing stuff to your soul?
Cain: Yep, I just don’t want to fine tune both on different days.
Rex: :sus sip:
Cain: Oh, Bob. Can I get the stats of today?
Bob: As of right now, you have 697.74 million soul power, 28.58 million mana within your body, 52.19 million is the maximum amount your body can carry, and disregarding the 10 million forced physical enhancement, your muscles have been enforced by 21.89 mana.
Bob: Today, you’re cycling 21.96 mana throughout the system.
Rex: …huh? I thought yesterday’s soul power was 649.06 mill.
Rex: Also how is the physical enhancement so similar to the amount of mana that’s being cycled…
Dresil: “As of right now.”
Dresil: Maybe we should get Rex’s eyes checked.
Cain: Agreed… Do spirit kings’ eyes get damaged by blue light?
Bob: If it’s Rex, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Dresil: lol
Cain: :kek:
Rex: :Pain:
Cain: For your last question, the cells are being strengthened by only a portion of the mana being cycled since it’s not a 100% efficiency. The strengthening is just a side effect, the real purpose of the cycling is to get my cells used to mana to increase the total amount of mana it can carry.
Cain: It looks like it’s additive too, so it won’t just explosively increase over night. It’s just being strengthened by a portion of what’s being cycled continuously and oh wow… That’s kind of reckless now that I think about it.
Rex: huh…? How so? What about the 30 million mana Cain’s body was able to contain when he was summoned?
Bob: Cain’s body was forcibly modified to contain 30 million mana when he was summoned here, yet this did not strengthen his cells at all. Think of it as the tank being large, but the material flimsy.
Bob: The amount of mana his cells are strengthened by take up negligible amounts of mana compared to the overall volume. Again, think of it as replacing the flimsy material with a strong metal. The difference in volume each of them take up is miniscule compared to the overall volume of the tank.
Bob: Compared to normal people, this would be their base genetic limit, without the interference of mana.
Rex: …how did Cain’s mana volume increase without his cells being enhanced by mana?
Bob: The turbulence of the spatial rift used to summon Cain broke down and tore apart his cells. They were then rebuilt using the mana that traveled with him in the dimension, increasing their volume in the process.
Bob: This process was entirely physical though. It essentially reconstructed Cain’s genes and cellular limit. Normal people would have died with milliseconds of dimensional transferring, Cain being no exception.
Bob: He’s only alive because he was summoned through the church of a goddess that has healing capabilities. Her power kept him alive throughout the summon.
Bob: For Cain, the summon served as one of your autonomous spells. She knows it went off, but due to how many times it goes off, she does not care or even glance towards who was summoned and by whom.
Cain: Sweet. There’s also a chance I may cycle more mana than the cells are used to in the future since the amount being cycled is increasing by the day.
Cain: Bob, how’s the strain on them? Anything to worry about? If there is a threshold, when will I go past it?
Bob: The strain on your cells will be minimal unless you cycle 1.5x more than they are strengthened. Your forceful enhancement serves as a safety factor, ensuring your cells have the strength to be repeatedly tempered at the cost of energy, or food.
Bob: In truth, with your natural adaptation rate, along with the aid of Rex and I through your left arm, you could cycle 50% more than what your body is used to. That’s where the extra buffer of 0.5 comes from.
Bob: However, if you do this, you’d need to let your cells rest for 4 hours every day..
Bob: It’d also be a good idea to slow the speed of mana that’s being cycled. There’s a good chance this will also increase the efficiency of the permanent enhancement.
Cain: I see… What about the threshold?
Bob: I can’t say for sure due to the amount of mana being cycled through not being the same (as it is merely a margin of the leftover space from your manifested skin layer spells, and we both know that’s going to change.)
Bob: If the mana in your body stays the same though, it’d never touch the threshold. I’d recommended implementing this solution after today and dissolving the physical enhancement within the skin layers to allow for more mana being cycled.
Cain: Sweet ok.
Rex: …what’s the permanent enhancement? Is there a temp. Enhancement then?
Rex: What’s going on?! :panik:
Dresil: Took him 4 milliseconds to recognize something was wrong and another 2 to give up on answering it himself.
Cain: Dang so close.
Bob: The permanent enhancement is from continuously cycling mana within Cain’s mana system. It’s a soft, slow process, but is much more beneficial than the forceful one.
Bob: The forceful enhancement is the 10 million setup within the mana layers on Cain’s skin. The magic circles there force the mana to adhere to the cells and strengthen them.
Bob: Although this method is fast, it’s forceful and rough nature leaves many loopholes and blind spots. One of which is the reason why Cain eats so much. If you go look through his memories on… the 13th day after he was summoned, you’ll see him examining his cells and discovering such effects.
Cain: After today, I’ll be dispelling the physical enhancement of 10 mill, slowing the cycling speed (since it’s sanic fast iirc), and allowing you and Bob to monitor the process to ensure it’s stable.
Rex: …I’m just going to study these notes later then.
Dresil: He actually took notes! :wheeze:
Cain: Can I leave you and Dresil to manage all of my meals until I get used to the lowered appetite? This is only after I dispel the forceful enhancement right now.
Bob: That is a good idea, since you’d have a big discrepancy in your mental and physical appetites.
Dresil: Of course, Master.
Rex: …there’s different types of appetites?
Dresil: You guys have an appetite? /s
Cain: :kek:
Bob: Mental appetites are how much humans think they can eat. Physical appetites are how much their metabolism can handle. Eating more than their physical appetite will cause them to gain fat, eating less causes them to starve.
Rex: :noted:
Rex: So Cain basically needs you guys to manage his food so he doesn’t accidentally eat too much and get chunky?
Bob: Basically.
Cain: pffft, getting chunky would be the least of my concerns. I wouldn’t be surprised if I became a ball of fat if I actually listened to my mental rather than physical.
Dresil: He’s improving :hell elmo: It’d only take a few more years before a brain cell develops.
Cain: :wheeze:
Rex: …dang I can’t think of a comeback.
Cain: Rip.
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