Cain pulled out a few snacks from the storage and munched on them while contemplating how to turn electricity into mana. He created a magic circle that continuously arced electricity over it and observed how the mana was consumed, transmuted, and expelled as electricity.
Another magic circle appeared to its right; Cain deposited a freshly created 9V battery on top of it with its metal connectors connected to the circle. The magic circle the battery laid on had very little mana within it, making it possible to determine if the electricity was converted without a device to measure mana.
Cain observed the intricacies of the arcing magic circle and tried to replicate the same principles to drain the power from the battery. An hour passed with many snacks consumed in the process; Cain stopped his testing thinking he had some sort of success. He created a table magic circle that held a lightbulb and some wires to the right of the battery magic circle.
Cain connected the battery to the lightbulb; the dimly lit bulb cast small shadows on the stone floor. He created a fresh battery and hooked it up to the lightbulb; setting the old one aside. The lightbulb's brightness overshadowed its previous state. Cain smiled in relief, having finally made decent progress in one of his projects. He spent another hour and countless snacks learning how to convert mana and electricity freely without the need for magic circles.
Cain cast a glance to the sky once his proficiency in transmuting mana into lightning and vice versa reached a point where miniscule practice would no longer greatly affect it. The red-orange gradient cast onto the clouds worried him slightly. There had been no word from the party about dinner yet the sun was threatening to set beneath the horizon.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (7ms)
Cain: Any word from the party about dinner?
Dresil: Yep. They contacted you when you were researching.
Cain: Oh… I guess I was too focused.
Dresil: :nod:
Dresil: I told them you'd join though. They'll be eating in about two hours.
Cain: Thanks.
Dresil: Also, take care of your nails.
Cain: Hm?
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Cain looked down at his fingers, shocked to see talons in the making. 'The fuck…? Oh, I guess I haven't cut them in a couple of weeks.' Cain formed and programmed miniscule magic circles around each finger, converting the excess nail beyond a certain point into mana. Similar to how Cain had magic circles on his face to "shave" his beard every morning, these ran once a day. He stored a few hundred thousand mana inside each one so they wouldn't disappear if he were to forget about them later.
Cain glanced over the to do list once more to see if there was anything he could do to pass the time. Unfortunately, reading manhua/hwa/ga, books, light novels or watching tv, movies, and anime were out of the question. The only ones he could watch were the ones within his memories, but repetition is a pet peeve of his, thus he hardly reads or watches the same thing twice.
'Hm… I guess I could try experimenting with enhancing a brain with mana. I need a subject with zero to little mana; and all of the prisoners I have experimented on so far meet this requirement. Experimenting on their brains also doesn't leave any noticeable side effects until it's too late, so it won't even be reported for a while.
'Not to mention if it would even be reported since there would be benefits attached to the enhancement before the side effects kicked in.' Cain opened a few portals to monitor a few prison inmates. He designated them P_Subject 1, P_Subject 2, etc. up to P_Subject 10, having lost their original subject numbers and to prevent an overlap from the death row inmates.
Cain noticed an increased amount of guards shuffling through the corners of the cells that overlapped with the hallways. Since the portals were created in the top corners inside the cell, his view was very limited. 'Hm… I guess I'll have to knock them out first. …I don't even know how to do that. Meh, now's a good time to learn.'
Cain experimented with various ways of forcing someone to lose consciousness on P_Subjects 1 through 4. From forcing the chemicals that activate moments before sleeping to run rampant to cutting off nerves and messing with the brainstem that regulates body functions. Cain managed to make a breakthrough in his research when he noticed that most of his operations triggered or involved a part of the brain stem.
This part is called the parafacial zone which is located within the medulla oblongata of the brain stem. There are two groups of cells within the parafacial zone that cause someone to lose conscious moments before they sleep when activated. They are the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus in the hypothalamus. Of course, Cain had no clue about the specifics and just zeroed in on the area.
Cain fine tuned his technique on P_Subjects 5 to 7, forcing them to sleep. Cain examined their brain for any damages then had Dresil and Bob triple check his work. Cain checked on the guards once his technique was completed, ensuring he could still continue without being caught. To the guards, it merely looked like the prisoners were napping, thus no suspicion arised.
Cain then spent the next few hours creating mana models of P_Subject 6 to 10's brain and storing it in the same dimension where the other brain models existed. He changed the existing model's magic circle that sustained them to display words made from mana in front of their model showing their owner's name and the date the model was created. Cain then lined up the models of similar owners behind each other, creating neat rows of rotating holographic brains.
After storing the fresh models, Cain dragged some natural mana into P_Subject 6's body, introducing it to the remnants of the subject's mana, thus converting it. Cain directed the mana to their brain. His mana's nature mimicked that of natural mana while behaving like the mana pathways of P_Subject 6's body, thus fooling their mana into following it blindly.
P_Subject 6's mana floated about throughout their brain, tempering any cells they came across. Cain performed the same process to P_Subject 7 to 10's brains while differing their enhancement method. He checked their brains to ensure no damage occurred during the setup then programmed their tags to create mana models once every day and store them in the dimension.
P_Subject 7 had pathways that focused on the cerebrum and the brain stem, thus theoretically enhancing their thinking capabilities. P_Subject 8's pathways focused around the limbic system and brain stem, theoretically increasing their emotional responses to situations.
P_Subject 9's pathways focused on the prefrontal cortex and the brain stem, theoretically increasing their judgment capabilities, planning, and regulation of emotions. P_Subject 10's pathways enhanced every area equally, yet with less density since the same overall mana was used amongst every subject.
P_Subjects 11 through 13 had the same pathways as 7 through 9, except the brain stem was not included in either of the former. P_Subjects 14 through 19 was an exact copy of 7 through 12, except no definite pathways were created inside their brain.
The sudden increase of mana models shocked Rex greatly due to the amount of work he'd have to do to keep them maintained. He didn't even know of the existence of this dimension before since he just handed the mana to Bob and he directed it to the mana models.
Cain made it part of his night time routine to convert the created mana into his own and distribute it to the magic circles sustaining each mana model. Each circle had roughly two or three days worth of mana in case Cain forgot to resupply them or fell asleep before doing so.
With the sudden addition of the mana models, Cain expected Rex to be unable to cope with the increase in burden, thus he created a massive magic circle on the floor of the dimension, underneath the models. He stored 10 million mana in there from the Mana Storage and programmed the circle to distribute it amongst the mana circles evenly each day.
This way, Rex would have some buffer to bring his productivity to match the increased demand of mana. Cain informed both Rex and Bob about the changes and told Bob to just direct the mana near the magic circle on the floor.
'Ha… I really need to figure out how to automate converting natural mana into my mana…' Cain lamented while leaning back. He dismissed the grid of portals that monitored each of the subjects and stared at the night sky. 'Dang, it's already close to 7:30. Dinner should be soon then.' Cain checked the time as the starlight danced throughout the campsite.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (5ms)
Cain: Want to go to dinner early?
Cain: I've got nothing to do here.
Dresil: Yep, just let me clean up.
Cain: Ok.
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Cain dispersed any magic circles he left out and dispersed any forgotten materials into mana as he stood up. He paced around the campsite performing stretches every now and then to ensure none of his limbs fell asleep. Dresil cleaned the areas Cain vacated; the two danced around the pit from the Griffin Rave in this fashion until the campsite was cleaned.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (30ms)
Dresil: Master, someone left another note again.
Dresil: They slipped it under your doorway.
Cain: Hm? What does it say?
Cain: Wait, why did you check the room just now?
Dresil: I always check it before we leave and enter the campsite.
Dresil: It used to be to make sure no one tampered with the portal mask since it was created in your room, but every since we got that coupon, I've continued even after Bob moved them into Sinclair's dimension.
Cain: Ah, makes sense. That's the only spot there most people know for sure I'll be at since I keep hopping around.
Dresil: Yep.
Dresil: The note was from Jessica. She said that you would need to come into the weapon shop and provide proof of the contract.
Dresil: From the diction and tone of the note, it seemed like she really pushed for them to just accept it, yet they still refused.
Cain: Sweet, I'm rather glad they won't cut corners even for those who are high up and powerful.
Dresil: Yep.
Cain: Let Athena and Jessica know we'll visit tomorrow or the day after depending on how long things take with the Magic Tower.
Dresil: Ok.
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Dresil finished cleaning shortly after Cain closed the dms. Cain glanced over the campsite to make sure they didn't leave anything then opened a portal to the Guild. Dresil merged into his clothes moments before he entered the portal.