An earthquake rocks the planet, as thunderous clashes of metal ring throughout the South Pole. The aftershocks of each clash shook the four continents, frightening their inhabitants. No one knows the cause of these quakes, just that it was the prelude to a major disaster.
Several of these clangs reverberate in the mountains near Cain. After the clangs stopped echoing, it seemed as if the world stood still. Even ants dare not move for fear of being turned to ash under the weary pressure. The deafening silence envelops the plains, until Cain wakes from his slumber.
"Oi, who the heck brought an alarm clock?! If I find whoever is messing up my sleep, I'll make them feel my wrath." Cain grumbles as he shifts his head on Dresil's lap. 'Ah, this familiar feeling. This is heaven.' As Cain lays there restlessly, the sun begins to creep up behind a city. The looming shadow retreats quickly as the minutes fly by.
'Guess it's time to wake up. I still need to form my mana heart anyways. Wait… if all of that wasn't a dream then that means, hehe…' Cain opens his eyes, expecting to see the two glorious peaks once again.
Instead, he is greeted by meadowy hills. 'It looks like Dresil figured out how to dress herself with leaves. She looks like a dryad now.' Cain reluctantly sits up and looks towards the sunrise. In the distance, a blurry city basks in the morning dew.
"Dresil, what's that city over there? That is a city… right?"
"Yes, Master. That is the capital of this nation. Fawkers, Ouroboros. Ouroboros is one of the three human nations on this side of the Hellion Forest."
"I see… Can you draw me a map while I meditate some? I've got some experiments to do."
"Of course, Master!" The pride in Dresil's voice was hard to miss. 'I hope she doesn't still feel guilty, it isn't her fault after all. Oh well. If she's happy to work for me then I'll put her to work!'
Cain moves a meter away behind Dresil and sits cross-legged. After resting the backs of his hands on top of knees and letting them relax to a slight curl, he begins to sense the mana within his body.
'Let's see… According to the martial arts and fantasy manga, all I have to do is condense my mana into a singular spot. The hard part is forming the heart and the veins.'
Cain begins to mimic the feeling he felt when Dresil was absorbing his mana. He moves the mana, like a river heading downstream, from his shoulders towards his fingertips and expels a little bit, then brings the remaining back up.
After several times of repeating this process, he slowly spreads the flow towards his chest, then his legs. Occasionally he will speed up this river into a strong, rapid current, while trying to accurately avoid certain areas, treating his body like an obstacle course. After several repeated attempts and many failures, he finally masters the control of his mana.
'I should be able to control my mana within fractions of a millimeter at low speeds, and within a few millimeters at high speeds now. I lost about 100,000 ish mana though. A worthwhile investment, if I say so myself.'
Cain slowly opens his eyes, seeing Dresil fervently working on a detailed map with some illustrations on the back. 'I'll bother her about food later.' He closes his eyes and begins focusing on controlling every particle of mana within his body.
Cain draws the mana to the center of his chest, below his sternum. The mana spirals towards the center, as if entering a vast whirlpool. After all of the mana has been gathered, he condenses the formless energy into a shape resembling the human heart.
'Hmm… It should have three "arteries" or main passageways. One for my upper body, one for my lower body, and one for my head. From these main arteries I can branch off smaller pathways, or veins, networked through my body. I can then loop them back to the bottom of the heart to continuously cycle the mana.
'There will be two valves at the bottom instead of three. I intend to consume the mana that is sent to my brain instead of cycling it. This should theoretically increase all the capabilities of my brain… Maybe…
'I'll set some magic circles up so that the veins will be made slowly to prevent harming my brain. Hm… I should do this after I've learned more about the structure of the brain and the brain structure of the natives here for comparison.
'Anyways, I have more space to work with than a traditional heart since the mana heart doesn't need muscles or tissue to keep the mana pumping. If something extra is needed, I can use magic circles. I used all of the mana I had to condense the heart and trunks of the arteries though… Time to see if I can absorb natural mana now.'
While focusing on the mana within the environment, Cain attempts to sense each and every source of energy within a 20-meter radius. From the ants building their anthill to the couple of birds that starred in nature's soap opera.
'Unexpectedly, the natural mana is not that different from mine. The only difference appears to be that my mana mimics a fraction of my dna, allowing me to control the mana within my body. Hmm… maybe my mana can reproduce like a pathogen does, attaching itself to its host and absorbing the nutrients.'
Cain picks up a blade of grass, and in a swift movement, makes a small cut on his hand using the edge. 'Ouch! I forgot doing that hurts…' With his blood trickling down his hands, he mixes some of his mana with the escaping blood then swings his hand in a big arc, splashing his blood across the area in front of him.
Instead of falling, his blood-fused mana spreads outwards and thins until no trace of it can be seen. After a few moments of nothing appearing to happen, Cain attempts to bring all of the natural mana that came in contact with his mana towards him.
Gusts of mana begin encircling Cain as hundreds of thousands of mana is drawn towards him like a black hole, startling Dresil. Dresil stares in awe, as she watches his master recover hundreds of thousands of mana within seconds.
'Wow, this harvest was better than I expected. I shouldn't need to use my blood anymore though. Through this action I've realized that just sending my mana out as if I were to presumably cast a spell is enough to attract some natural mana. Although not as efficient as the blood method, it's not as showy and can be done with the residual mana that should be left from casting a spell. Speaking of which, I still need to do those experiments…'
As Cain begins to condense his new mana into veins, Dresil is still staring blankly. A low flapping can be heard in the background, the stunned Dresil is completely oblivious to it, still staring at her master with adoration.
Cain's voice brings her back to reality, "Dresil… if you leave your map be, it'll fly away." Dresil looks down and realizes the flapping noise was the map desperately trying to escape with the help of the sudden winds. It finally breaks free, leaving a bewildered Dresil chasing it through the air. 'She looks like a child trying to catch butterflies…'
After several minutes of chasing the runaway parchment, Dresil finally clutches it and sits back down. At this moment Cain is finishing the formation of the basic veins.
'I'll need to form the rest slowly to make sure it's done right. Even though this body can hold 30 million mana comfortably, because I made the mana heart using 10% of that, I'll only be able to control that much freely. Although it took about 3 million mana to form the heart, it feels as if it's only 30,000 mana.
'Did the mana and my blood fuse at some point, lightening the load on my body? Or did the condensed heart become a new substance that is only partially mana, and therefore doesn't have the burden of the 3 million mana it took to form? This will need some investigation… For now let's try the new method of absorption and try to cast some spells.'
As Cain gets up and brushes off the dirt and leaves, he stealthily peeks at Dresil's work. 'Looks like she's a quarter of the way done. It might take all day at this rate. Wait, is she using mashed grass and bark as dye to paint? No wonder it's taking so long. She looks happy though, so I guess I should just let her be.' Cain turns to face the dirt paths connecting the blurry capitol and the Hellion Forest.
'Hmm… let's try some fire magic first. Gather some hydrogen and oxygen in the air and use the mana to ignite the reaction.' Cain begins to enact his thoughts by holding his hand out in front of him with his palm facing the sky. The temperature above his palm begins to slowly rise until a fire ignites abruptly.
'Interesting… I can feel some heat but not the complete heat, is it because I unconsciously protected myself with my mana? The drain on the mana was significant at first, but maintaining it is hardly using any.'
As Dresil looks over she notices what her master has done. "Master… did you just cast a spell without a chant or magic circle?" Her voice wavers as she is unable to contain her excitement. Cain answers abruptly, "Maybe…" as he quickly hides the flame behind his back.
'Crap how did I get rid of this thing… Simmer down, disappear, disperse, yeet yourself out of here.' The flame loses its intensity before suddenly vanishing, followed by the remaining mana dispersing into the air, as Cain frantically thinks of ways to get rid of the fire.
'Weird… It looks like I still need to use the right words for some things to work. Or maybe it's the will that's attached to the meaning of the words?' After looking back at Dresil, he realizes she won't be able to focus on the map unless he explains some of what just happened.
"Yes, I just casted a spell without a magic circle or chanting."
"How? Was it through visualization? How did the Master do it, despite having no elemental affinity?" Dresil pesters Cain as her curiosity outweighs all reason.
"Having no elemental affinity means I can use all elements as long as I understand them." Cain replies as he begins to gather each type of element on each finger. A small flame ignites over his left thumb as a small ball of water forms over his index finger. The air around his middle finger begins to condense and rotate as the dust and soil around his ring finger forms a clot of dirt. His pinky lights up like a light bulb, contrasting the center of his palm which absorbs all light. Dresil stares in admiration as Cain shows off his skills.
"But Master, this isn't a spell anymore. These are actual phenomena that Master has created using his mana."
Cain begins to pick apart this odd statement. "In other words, most spells use their elemental affinity to mimic certain effects? Wouldn't the power drastically fall?"
"Not necessarily Master. The power can be the same as what you just did, but it'll take a lot more mana to do so. On the other hand, the mages don't need to understand much to do basic spells."
'Interesting. No wonder visualization casting was lost throughout the centuries. The difficulty probably led most people to stay away from it. Laziness at its finest.' As Cain begins questioning the history of magic, Dresil resumes her work.
'Oh well, let's try some magic circles. Let's see if I can use my mana and "will" to form a magic circle. Its task shall be eliminating all of the insects and spiders within a 5-meter radius from me. I hate bugs…'
Cain stretches his palm outwards, facing towards the dirt roads. He expels some mana from his palm with the intention of turning all bugs into ash. A grey magic circle slowly begins to form. Weird glyphs encircle the borders and begin to change while Cain sets the specifics of the spell. The magic circle suddenly solidifies, and pulses of mana begin to be discharged. All insects within a 5-meter radius have been annihilated as piles of ashes appear, seemingly out of nowhere.
Cain inspects the area around him while attempting to move the magic circle which is currently floating in the air to the ground below him. The circle stutters as if an unseeable force is shaking it violently. Slowly its movements begin to solidify and it makes its way towards Cain's feet and rotates until it becomes embedded in the ground.
'That was surprisingly harder than I thought it was. Let's see if increasing the size of the magic circle to a 5 meter radius would save mana instead of continuously discharging mana.' Cain begins to examine his experience with creating, executing, and moving the magic circle while slowly increasing the size of the magic circle.
'From the past few hours, I've noticed that what affects spells the most is what you wish to do with it, or using your will. Perhaps visualization casting is the root of all casting, and it slowly evolved into chanting and using magic circles to lessen the burden on the mind and make it easier to cast.
'When I was trying to extinguish my flame earlier, the flame reacted to my thoughts in real time. Perhaps this is how chanting and silent chanting works, by infusing the so-called "will" with your words and thoughts.
'As for the magic circle, it looks like it can handle specific tasks and perhaps multiple tasks. By associating a certain magic circle with a chant, one can theoretically cast an extremely complex spell without having to visualize every step. This should reduce the understanding of natural and magical phenomena and the time required to cast a spell.
'According to Dresil, this type of casting isn't as efficient as visualization though. As time progressed, I'm guessing the number of people who could effectively use visualization casting in combat dropped as people favored the easy way out.
'Perhaps I should name this insect spell I just made to make it easier to recast, if need be. Insect Annihilator? Bane of Insects? Nah sounds like I'm in a game… Insect Repellant? Wait, this one could accidentally change the spell. Ugh, naming things is hard. Insect Destroyer? Insect Apocalypse? Insect Eraser? Oooh, the last one seems good, it does erase insects from existence after all.
'Now on to magic circles as a whole. While I was failing at names, the Insect Eraser below me wasn't pulsing mana to erase insects that enter the radius. It seems like the magic circle stores some mana to keep itself maintained and the Insect Eraser used some of this mana.
'Since this is the case, then creating magic circles dedicated to storing mana should be possible. If I layer my body with these, I could recover mana from these circles and store 30 million mana within my body again. There's still the issue of only being able to control 3 million at once.
'In other words if I cast a spell that uses 3 million mana, I can use it 10 times before having to meditate to recover my mana. However, casting a spell that requires 5 million mana at once would be impossible for now. Maybe I could find a way to do partial casting, use 3 million at first and solidify it, then use 2 million mana to finish the spell. This might have a danger of the spell going out of control though.
'Hm… I'll have to shelf this topic for later. It doesn't seem like this will be much of an issue anyways since the most I've used at once on a spell was for creating Insect Eraser, and that only used about 20,000 mana. I wonder if this spell can be maintained indefinitely as long as there is mana. Oh, I should add a clause to the spell so that it locks the spell's position relative to me; in case it just stays here when I move.
'Something that I've been wondering is whether or not healing is limited to holy magic only, as is suggested in some manga. I can create new mana veins and control my blood on a cellular level if I focus a lot, so I should be able to speed up my natural regeneration. As for things like my eyes, I can probably just use mana to slowly shape it and the lens into the correct shape.
'I'm near-sighted, which means my eye is elongated and elliptical and/or my lens bulging towards the back of my eye. 20/20 vision, or perfect vision, occurs when the eye is completely spherical and the lens is perfectly elliptical (from a side view). Another way to interpret this, is when the light condensed by the lens in the eye is focused on the back of the eye.
'Let's try it out and see if it works. This could also count as a low-level double casting since Insect Eraser is still being maintained.'
Cain walks around a bit, testing the new clause to Insect Eraser. Several small piles of ash appear as the circle follows him around. Satisfied, he sits down into his meditation pose to begin healing his eyes. As Cain closes his eyes and directs the mana flow in his body towards his eyes, Dresil is putting the finishing touches on her map. She looks towards Cain, expecting some praise, only to be greeted by a pained expression on his face.
The eye will only change by fractions of a millimeter due to the force of gravity or adjusting to the environment. What Cain was attempting was equivalent to growing a meter in one day. Cain desperately changes the shape of his eyes, several millimeters at a time, while Dresil scans Cain's memories she absorbed earlier, looking for a way to help.
After looking through his memories fervently, she finds a solution and sinks into the ground as if it were water. By the time she gets back, Cain has already fainted due to the pain.
A familiar scent greets Cain as he slowly wakes up. 'Ugh, what happened? I think I was trying to change the shape of my eyes… then I fainted?' Cain looks around as he tries to shake off a minor headache.
'It looks like my vision has been restored. There seems to be… some sort of river or stream floating through the air though.' Cain stretches his hand, trying to interrupt a floating stream of blue and teal. He focuses on his hands after no apparent changes appear in the stream.
'Woah, these streams seem to be natural mana. Interesting, how did this happen?' Cain focuses on his eyes and discovers that the lens and some muscles in his eyes have fused with mana, similar to what he used when he absorbed natural mana for the first time.
'The mana seemed to have created a new lens that merged with the original one while strengthening the muscles to accommodate this change. Sweet, this should help with my experiments too.'
As Cain was discovering the new feature to his eyes, he unconsciously looked towards the source of the familiar smell earlier. He sees Dresil cautiously maintaining a fire and what appears to be some sort of meat hanging on some sticks. 'Woah, that's a sight you don't see every day. A former tree is using fire to cook meat.' Cain gets up and sits by the fire as Dresil looks up astonished.
"Master, you looked like you were in pain earlier, so I made dinner. According to your memories, whenever you need to heal you would always eat a lot of red meat." Dresil gestures towards skewered semi-cooked meat stuck in the ground.
"It's dinner time already? Dang… What kind of meat is this and are you sure it's safe to eat?" Cain looks at the sky as he says this. A full moon lights up the meadows as a light wind passes through the fields. 'Brr… Wait, where's my shirt?' Cain shivers as he looks back at Dresil, seeing her leaf-covered body. His shirt seems to have disappeared.
"Yes, Master. This is a demon wolf, found within Hellion Forest. Adventures will sometimes cook them if they are short on food." Dresil responds as he looks at her. "Oh, I sort of… ate your shirt…" Dresil looks down, flustered.
"Wait, you what?" Cain picks up a skewer hesitantly, then slowly takes a bite. 'Oh dang, this tastes so much like beef. It's even cooked rare, just the way I like it.'
After watching Cain's delighted expression while he eats, Dresil's happiness outweighs her shame as she proudly says, "The fabric in your shirt just felt so good and before I knew it, it was absorbed through my skin." Right as she said this, Dresil realized how she said it and urgently tried to cover it up. "Wait Master, I didn't –"
Cain cuts her off as he picks up another skewer. "I know what you meant. If you can absorb my shirt does that mean you can merge with my clothes as well? If so, this would help until we find some proper clothing for you. You can hide in my clothes until we pick out a decent set for you and whenever people are around."
Cain picks up a third skewer while glancing at the loosely collected leaves on her body. 'There's no way the people in the city will let her in like that. On the other hand, I have something to practice creation magic with now.
'Oh wait, I forgot to analyze that earlier. I should probably do that now while I'm eating.' Before Cain can begin analyzing, Dresil responds to his previous question. "I should be able to, would the Master like me try it right now?"
"Nah, we can do it tomorrow. I'm going to finish eating and testing some things out then get some sleep." Cain responds as he picks up a fourth skewer.
Dresil gets up from the fire and walks behind Cain. "Ok, I'll set the shelter up again." 'Shelter?' Cain thinks as he looks behind him. He sees Dresil sink into the ground, knee deep. The dirt slowly breaks as massive roots begin arching over Dresil and Cain like a makeshift cave. She then wanders off the side to prepare a bed.
'Woah, did she do this last night too? No wonder I didn't feel cold. Sweet, now I can begin thinking about creation magic. For these experiments, I'll need something to create to test some theories.
'I'll have to try creating something I vaguely know of, something I barely understand the production process of, something that I completely understand the production process of, and something I know the composition of.
'The fire spell earlier can be seen as a type of creation magic where I understood how the reactions of the atoms and how they were arranged. This can be counted as a complete understanding of the object. The cost of mana for that spell wasn't much and the size was decent.
'I can use my shirt as something I barely understand the production process of. I know the fabric is woven from cotton using industrial machines and cut to corresponding pieces. After this, workers or machines would connect the fabrics with seams to make the clothes. Seems reasonable…
'For the third type, I can use paper since it has a fairly simple production process. As for a vague creation… I guess I can try soap. I know the chemical processes for making soap vaguely, ironically, it's called saponification. I just don't know all of the ingredients, the methods used, or the detailed process since there are so many varieties. Let's try making a shirt first.'
Cain expels some mana in front of him and controls it to form the shape of a shirt. He desperately focuses on mimicking the production process in his head and allows mana to freely flow out of him. After a few minutes pass by, a shirt begins to materialize.
'Holy crap, that took so much mana. I only used the mana within my body to create it, about 500,000. According to the mana streams, there doesn't seem to be any residual mana floating around like that fire left earlier would normally leave. It appears that it consumes the mana directly to make mass.
'If I continuously use this method while regaining mana from the environment, I could end up breaking the cycle of mana (if there is one). I have to be careful to not use this method too often or for big items or else this place will lose all of its mana, presumably like Earth.
'I wonder if it's possible to make items or living creatures turn into mana. Ooh, I should try it with Insect Eraser after I finish this set of experiments. This way I won't have to clean up so many ash piles.
'Now it's time to try creating something that I thoroughly understand the production process of.' Cain tosses the newly created shirt up and down a few times before setting it aside. 'It seems like gravity is the same as Earth. Based on the feeling of the shirt, it weighs a little under 150g. I can't tell exactly so I'll assume a potential 20 grams higher to be safe.
'A normal piece of paper is about 5 to 10g a piece. I'll assume 8g per piece and create 25 sheets of paper.' Having set the specifics of the experiment, Cain begins to follow the same process for creating the shirt.
'Paper is just matted plant matter that's crushed, filtered, squeezed, then rolled multiple times by machines. After the machines are done with the process, it's laid out to dry in massive sheets.' As Cain begins recollecting the process for making paper, multiple rectangles begin hovering in front of him.
They slowly start to form as small amounts of natural mana begins circulating around the transparent rectangles. 'Now that I got the hang of using my mana and natural mana, I should be able to step it up some. Small gusts of mana begin circling the unformed paper. Within a minute, the paper starts to take shape as it nears completion. The newly formed paper floats downwards towards the fire.
'Crap! I need to save some of it so I can inspect it.' Cain frantically grasps at the floating paper as most of it catches fire. Dresil stares in awe and amusement while using her roots to direct the lit papers into the fire to prevent the spread.
'Phew that was close… I managed to get a few crumple pieces and I think one landed to the side.' Cain sits back down as he picks up the stray paper. 'Let's see… The paper seems to be a bit rougher than what I'm used to. It burns like normal paper and is crushed with the same amount of effort. It's just the texture that's off. I used about 100,000 of my mana and roughly 350,000 natural mana to create this batch.
'Mass is assumed to be the same, meaning the mana difference should be due to a difference in understanding. I just need to test to see how vague the understanding can get before I can't create anything anymore. I should probably burn the rest of these though. It could cause a stir, seeing how Dresil was using parchment earlier.'
As Cain reluctantly tosses the newly created sheets of paper into the fire, he begins recollecting what he knows about soap bars. 'Creating one bar should be the same mass as everything else made so far. I really don't know anything about soap… Just that there is maybe some calcium carbonate in it, fat undergoes a chemical process, and it cleans well.
'I've seen some of my shampoo have caffeine listed in the ingredients for whatever reason… I should exclude this though in case I accidentally create soda. On second thought, I should do that soon...'
Cain begins expelling some mana and pulling all of the natural mana within a 5-meter radius towards him. Once the mana is somewhat packed together, he begins forming the soap bar. The enormous amount of mana is condensed into a small rectangle. The soap begins to take shape as Cain slowly opens his eyes, unable to bear the anticipation.
After all the mana is condensed into the rectangle, it appears the bar of soap is getting its color. A faint sweet smell is emitted from the semi-transparent mass. Cain looks at the soap, imagining the days he can finally take a shower. Dresil looks over, attracted by the smell.
The bar of soap begins to solidify while releasing some bubbles. Right as it nears completion, the bar collapses inwards and disappears, leaving small amounts of bubbles floating in the air. Dresil giggles as Cain stares off into the empty space left by the bar with pure disappointment.
'You've got to be kidding me… What happened?' Cain examines the surroundings of where the soap was being formed. 'Oh… all of the mana here has been used up… Dang… I was sure there were at least 2 million packed in here. I think I used 400,000 of my mana as well. I never knew this was so inefficient…
'For future creations like these, it would be better to try experimenting with the production process and already created items to understand them more. I could even try creating it by hand first. So far creating inanimate objects is a success.
'It would be best if I tried creating small animals somewhere else in case the creation draws unwanted attention.' Filled with disappointment, Cain looks down as the dim light of Insect Eraser radiates throughout the cave. 'Oh right, I still need to test some things out with this.'
Cain lets out a big yawn as he meditates on the giant magic circle laid out under him. 'It seems like the residual mana left in the circle was enough to keep it maintained for now. Let's put some more in and change it to converting insects into mana. As for the process, breaking them down automatically and using existing natural mana as a blueprint for conversion into mana should be good.'
As Cain irons out the details to the changes, he reaches for another skewer. He grasps air several times before opening his eyes. 'Dang it… I ate them all already.' Disappointed, Cain finishes changing Insect Eraser as a few moths are drawn to the fire.
'Perfect. Some specimens arrived right on time.' The moths come into range of the Insect Eraser and instantly dissipate. Several huge bursts of mana are released violently as huge amounts of mana is drained from Cain. He coughs several times unexpectedly.
'Dang… Wasn't expecting it to use 200,000 mana per moth all of a sudden. It looks like it released about 300,000 though. I should change the magic circle to absorb some of the mana the insects release to ease the burden. Actually, let's make it self-sufficient. Otherwise, my body would be just like a leaking bucket whenever I try to replenish my mana.' After making the necessary changes, Cain puts on his new shirt. Satisfied with the similar texture, he finishes any remaining thoughts so he won't be disturbed while attempting to sleep.
'The shirt feels like normal. Some parts feel weird though. Looks like understanding and the will to create or cast have major influences in magic overall. Mana can be used to overcome one or the other at a great cost though.
'We should head into the city tomorrow; we can't keep living like this anyways.
'I also need to find ways to strengthen my body, become immune to poisons and disease, read minds or develop an intelligence system to stay one step ahead of potential enemies, and the limits of regeneration if I want to be completely carefree in this world. I also lack a lot of combat experience.
'Signing up at the adventurer's guild and doing quests should expose me to opportunities to find the answer for all of these as well as getting some combat experience. I'm going to need to find a sparring partner to get some human combat experience since fighting humans and monsters are different.
'There's also the big question as to why I was summoned here. Wait, was I summoned or reincarnated? I couldn't see without my glasses before, so it seems like my original body was brought here. That's good… I won't have to waste time getting used to moving around in a new body.'
Cain gets up and heads over to the newly created bed Dresil made. Dresil floats over to the fire and collapses the ground beneath it. The fire gets swallowed by dirt and is extinguished. The ground lays still for a few moments until the remaining wood and charcoal are abruptly spit back out.
The cave glows eerily as the Insect Chaser spell is being maintained. Dresil floats back and lifts Cain's head up while squeezing her lap underneath. Leaves sprout from the ground as they cover Cain like blankets.
'Was that a ghost? Oh, no, it's just Dresil. Scared me for a bit. All I could see were her knees and up, this lighting didn't help either. The ground seemed to move around her as if it was liquid. I was kind of hoping she would join me in bed for cuddles… Meh, at least this pillow is nice, soft, and warm. Time to hibernate…'
Cain drifts into a deep sleep while Dresil inspects his body. She notices that Cain's mana is being constantly replenished from the surroundings. She can't hold back her excitement as she begins to slowly absorb some of it before calling it a night.