[Master, wake up. It's noon.]
Dresil's voice echoed throughout Cain's head. He groans slightly and rolls over to his side, covering his face with a pillow to prevent the rising sun from touching his eyes. The blankets stirred restlessly, giving form to Dresil who sat behind Cain, contemplating what to do.
She pokes his body a few times, which only elicited more tired groans from Cain. Dresil tried shaking him awake, but that did even less. She thought about ripping the blankets off him, but quickly decided not to after realizing he'd only be in a grumpy mood for the next few hours if that were to happen. She spent a few minutes searching through Cain's memory, attempting to find something to wake him; only to stumble across the obvious.
[Master, I have food.]
Dresil's voice resounded throughout his head once again. Cain's eyes shot open the moment he recognized the word "food." He slowly pushes the blankets off himself and props his back against the headboard. He raises his arms above his head to stretch them, only for them to collapse on his lap shortly after.
---Dms: Cain and Dresil--- (12ms)
Cain: Where's the food?
Dresil: I've sent some of my clones to the stalls and restaurants to get it.
Cain: Sweet.
Cain: ...is it really noon?
Dresil: Nope, it's 7:12am. I tried waking you up earlier but you refused to do so.
Cain: :yawn: It's a good thing I told you to wake me up an hour earlier than I planned to head out then.
Cain: Aight, let's get this steak.
Dresil: There's no steaks, Master…
Cain: aww…
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A portal appears in front of Dresil, dropping a plate with omelettes and fruit onto her hands. She hands it to Cain and makes some utensils using her vines. He devours the plate within a few seconds, and proceeds to the next one that just arrived. Cain attempted to give the utensils back to Dresil when he was done, but she declined as the portal closed; leaving him to turn them into mana.
Cain observed her body language, looking for any signs of pain. Dresil displayed no such signs though, rather there were no changes in her body language. 'Weird… There also wasn't any resistance when I tried to convert it into mana. I thought it would react in some way similar to Victor's mana, but nothing happened. Did she cut off her connection to the utensils?'
Cain shelved those thoughts for later, realizing that he would only be able to make groundless assumptions for now. He bent forward, stretching his back and legs. A series of pops echoed on the barren walls. '...Looks like I do need to adjust my back.' Cain leaves his bed and performs a series of stretches to put everything back in place; several more pops bounced throughout the room.
---Dms: Cain and Bob--- (14ms)
Cain: Can you shuttle us around, create small dimensions, and other stuff while making the dimension for the star?
Bob: As long as it isn't too taxing, yes.
Cain: Sweet, just lmk if it's too much. I need a simple storage dimension to store the memory foam and some other stuff in the future.
Bob: Why don't you just turn it into mana?
Cain: Heeeeeck no. The efficiency when I was creating that was at 1% or even below it.
Cain: Ain't no way I'm wasting all that mana by turning it back into mana.
Bob: Understood.
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---Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex--- (1272ms)
Cain: Anyone know of a good secluded spot to train for a few hours?
Rex: Oooh, lmk if something interesting happens.
Bob: How… intense is this training going to be?
Cain: :shrug: Preferably a large somewhat open area. Could be destructive.
Dresil: You could go to the Magical Beast Mountain range. Despite the name, there's not many beasts there since it's pretty big and open.
Dresil: I absorbed the memories of a traveller who went there before. He was my first international customer, so I got a bit carried away and looked at a lot of scenery.
Rex: ...since when was looking through memories a business?
Dresil: yes.
Cain: :heh: Bob, can you use those memories to teleport us there?
<1.24 seconds later>
Bob: It's doable. Shall I open the portal right now?
Cain: Yep
Bob: Understood.
Cain: Dresil, how high is the mountain?
Dresil: The location is 3 or 4 thousand meters high? I can only guess based on the landscape.
Cain: No worries. Bob, can you make a portal in front of my nostrils and mouth so I don't accidentally get altitude sickness? Have the intake and exhaust be in the room.
Bob: Understood.
--------------------------
Dresil tosses the plates into the Mana Trash dimension then crawls out of bed; merging with Cain's clothes. A portal revealing a flat campsite area on a mountain appears in front of him. Cain quickly checks the portals around his face for leaks and confirms it with Dresil. After everything was settled, he walked through the portal.
Cain closed his eyes and waited a few seconds for them to adjust to the bright, rising sun. He looked around the circular area, inspecting it for any dangers or other things to be noted. 'Looks pretty normal. Sweet, if only I could smell the fresh air here. Meh, let's get started.' He attempts to take a deep breath while thinking this, only to sigh afterwards.
---Dms: Cain and Bob--- (4ms)
Cain: Can you open a portal where Rex is at, but only allow gravity through?
Bob: Not while I'm making the Star Dimension.
Cain: Ooh, nice name. Also, rip. I'll make do then.
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A giant magic circle appeared in front of Cain; its function was to serve as a floating bed, basically. He configured it so dense pockets of air would act as cushions and constantly shift to support his body. It was essentially a college budget zero gravity bed. Anyways, once it was completed, Cain yeeted himself onto the surface of the magic circle.
---Dms: Cain and Dresil--- (14ms)
Cain: Can you leave my clothes for a bit?
Cain: I'm going to adjust my bones and muscles so they're in the right spot then try to refine them with mana.
Dresil: Of course Master.
Dresil: Is there anything I can do to help?
Cain: Can you send a model of the average human anatomy? Something similar to what you did when I healed Jacob, but more detailed.
Dresil: I can construct one using vines and leaves like last time, but inscribe some words with mana on them to mark different spots.
Cain: That works, thanks.
Dresil: Of course, Master.
--------------------------
He closed his eyes and laid there, seemingly staring at the sky through his eyelids. Dresil leaves his clothes and walks over to the side, setting up a chair and a screen. A portion of her vines and branches are left behind and form a model human below Cain.
He uses his mana zone to inspect each and every bit of it, matching the proportions with his and marking the areas that need to be adjusted with his mana. He marks his right shoulder, all of the muscles on the right side of his back, his right hip, the lower vertebrae of his back, and parts of his neck. 'Well dang, according to my body, my age should be 80, not 20…'
Cain double checks the marked areas, then measures how much they need to be adjusted. Magic circles form on the marked muscles and vertebrae, preparing to pop them into place. Although it is only the bones that need to be popped into place, if the muscles aren't positioned correctly, then they'll gradually shift the bones out of place. This can either be done by moving incorrectly, an injury, having the muscles relax into the wrong position, etc.
After triple checking everything, Cain pops all of the marked vertebrae into the proper position. The magic circles on his muscles stabilize the position and calms any twitching. He compares the position of muscles and vertebrae on the model to his own body, then inscribes another set of magic circles. Another round of pops echoed throughout the campsite. He continued this three more times before everything was properly positioned.
---Dms: Cain and Dresil--- (7ms)
Cain: Dresil, can you make an exoskeleton to help me move properly?
Dresil: Is something wrong Master?
Cain: Nah, I'm just too used to moving when everything was in the wrong spots, so any movement I do rn would be as it was back then; which would slowly undo my work.
Dresil: Understood Master.
--------------------------
Dresil's anatomy model decomposed into mana as an abundance of vines split from her and wrapped themselves around Cain, forming an exoskeleton. Her main consciousness was within the exoskeleton, monitoring Cain's movements and making sure everything stays aligned. Her clone was left in the chair so she could finish watching her episode of anime on the screen.
The budget cut zero gravity bed slowly rotated until Cain was standing on the ground with his feet, the magic circle on his back hung like a vertical halo. Cain dispersed the magic circle and allowed the pockets of air to flow freely. He walked around the campsite in circles, straight lines, figure eights, and a path that would look like a scribble from a bird's eye view.
He began to do a light jog around the campsite and slowly shifted into a half sprint. Unfortunately, the campsite wasn't big enough for Cain to maintain his full speed without having to slow down due to the turns.
After about 10 laps, Cain walked to the center of the campsite and did some stretches for a few minutes. Once his heart rate calmed down some, he started doing burpees, pushups, situps, and a variety of other exercises to get his muscle memory coordinated to moving along the proper, aligned path.
'Dang… it's been a while since I've done any exercise…' Dresil's exoskeleton disassembles and merges with her clone as Cain plops down on the ground, panting slightly. His breathing stabilizes within a few seconds though, causing Rex to question his existence once again.
---Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex--- (22ms)
Rex: I thought you were out of shape, how can your breathing go back to normal so fast? Also how do you have that much energy?
Rex: :sus: You aren't human, are you?
Cain: ...I'm still human. I've always had enough energy to go on a 50 mile bike ride at any time though (when I was in shape) and roughly 20 miles when I'm out of shape.
Bob: How fast though?
Cain: 25mph - 30mph, depends if I have my bag or not.
Rex: ...your bag?
Cain: Ye, my school bag. I used to ride to school on my bike. In high school it was the only time I rode my bike except for the weekends.
Rex: :sus: I still don't think your human
Bob: You're*
Rex: Anyways... Dresil is awfully silent. @Dresil
Dresil: Hm? I'm binging anime, leave me alone. :idle whip:
Cain: Bob, open up a portal to the Mana Storage.
Bob: Understood.
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'Crap… It's already a little past 9 am, I'll have to speed this up some. I need somewhere to put these magic circles though… Perhaps on a separate layer of skin? No… that won't work, the layers aren't separated evenly… Meh, I'll just make some.'
Cain adjusts his position so he can sit comfortably and focuses on his body. A model of his skin at a side view appears at the same time as the portal to the Mana Storage opened behind him. Cain created 7 partitions on the model and used it as a reference to do the same on his skin. Each partition was separated by a film of mana, preventing any interference between magic circles of different layers. The 2nd layer held the magic circles that maintained this set up.
The first layer, the one on the surface, held the drone transmitter, his watch, the tag UI, and the magic circles that managed the group chat. He combined the tag UI, watch, and drone transmitter into one magic circle, placed at his wrist. The group chat stayed unaffected just above it.
The 6th and 7th layer, the one closest to his muscles, veins, and organs, is where Cain planned to place the magic circles that would refine his body with mana; the 7th for the sub circles, and 6th for the major circles. Cain pulls 10 million mana out of the storage dimension and directs into his body.
Magic circles form on his arms, legs, chest, and head. 2 million was directed to each limb, the skull, and the chest. Since his left arm was occupied by Rex and Bob, Cain siphoned some additional mana into the underside of his left hand; the only area not occupied by the spirit kings. The magic circles were further divided into sub magic circles. On his arm, it was divided into the forearm, upper arm, hand, and each segment of the fingers; the same was done to every other limb.
'I'll hold off on refining my brain with mana since the risk that something will go wrong is very high. I don't know much about the brain's anatomy, let alone the effects mana will have on it. As for the magic circles… It appears that if I treat my skin as a folded piece of paper, and set up the magic circle with that mindset, I can curve it to match the features of my skin perfectly… Time to start the refining process now.'