Walking through the forest while being careful of wild animals, Logan eventually reached the original outcrop but he was surprised when he arrived.

Despite not being excavated, he could see small nodes of purple which were crystalized lightning mana from the scales.

Storm jumped down and was happy as it ran to these small shoots and laid down on it.

The energy instantly began to crawl up its body and the crystals began to shine.

Logan took out the tool that measured mana quality and dug down a bit and found that despite being low quality still, it was more concentrated. This clearly showed that no new egg was placed and sucking up all the mana.

As he dug down, the scales had already clumped into stones and when he reached arm length he reached the tool inside and checked the readings.

"Arm length just barely hits mid quality. So to produce mana veins, removing the alpha eggs is important." He said and grinned as he gripped Arashi on his side and drew it out.

It happily trembled in the area and he stabbed it into the land.

Instantly lightning spiked from it outward first but reached the edges before purple light crawled back and surrounded the sword.

Due to running on external sources of lightning, it was important to fully satisfy the swords capacity which had expanded to include wind mana in the same capacity.

He had yet to try but he was really hoping that he could use Arashi's wind to fly in the future.

For now he left the sword in the ground for a bit until Storm hissed in discontent that it was sucking up everything.

By that time, a small opening had formed as he cleared the area to make a camp.

When he was done, he went and took Arashi out and felt the mana and knew it had sucked up most of the pure mana but stopped at the low quality.

On the way, he had actually talked with it through just talking with his voice and said only to extract the higher quality and not totally drain it as it would likely scare away the lizards who recharged this land.

"Alright, to reduce danger I should probably expand the clearing. Arashi clearly said that it would pull down a tornado and I shouldn't allow dangerous objects in my surroundings." He muttered and from there, he cleared a full 10 meters of trees all around the outcrop.

He didn't know how big the storm would be so he had to be ready.

"I wonder if continued recharge will eventually stabilize the lightning mana." He muttered but just snorted at the thought.

It was unlikely because there was enough to eventually make mana stones, how much mana does that even need. He definitely didn't know but he was sure that neither he or Arashi could contain all that.

Thanks to his boost in strength as well as Lightning clad which buffed his strength, he could move the trees he chopped cleanly with a swing.

When it was clear, his tent being several meters outside the opening and with a magical barrier produced by a tool for deflecting high winds, he was ready and just had to wait.

It took two days for some Crystalback lightning Lizards to appear and he killed them as easily as a lightning weasel would. As Elas said, all it took was asking Arashi and it drained the blood.

He removed the hide and crystal and buried it all into the outcrop as it was what crystalized.

When he killed enough to scare the pack away, the storm finally began to form.

He looked at Arashi, "Are you sure I need to be holding you?"

If someone was around, they would be shocked to hear a faint hum from the sword that only Elas and Logan could understand as it contained the intent of the sword.

With a groan he removed his armor leaving only disposable clothing which he had extra to replace and walked to the center of the outcrop.

Thunder was already rumbling and he raised Arashi with on hand while focusing.

Mana coated him before his full lightning clad along with lightning accelerator perfectly covered his body and his feet were bare and the clad connected to the ground.

When the mana was getting riled up, Arashi lit up and a bolt shot up and suddenly the cloud movement changed.

It began to spin and the lightning began to concentrate over.

Finally, he felt a strange updraft rising rapidly caused by Arashi and this tipped the balance that it had personally formed and a tornado finally formed.

The scary part was that lightning actually got pulled along with it and as soon as it reached the sword, the entire tornado got sucked in but not without consequences.

BOOM!

Suddenly a massive waterfall like wind smashed down, blowing every grey charred scale under Logan and revealed the entire pile of purple mana crystals.

He almost lost his footing until it stabilized but right after, five huge bolts of lightning that burst around the tornado finally gathered and smashed into the sword.

It took five seconds but everything was sucked up while the tornado continued falling on him.

He had to support the sword up with both hands when ten bolts of lightning gathered and this time Arashi couldn’t stop it all and two bolts ran down and struck Logan.

He instantly gasped for air as his body was overloaded but the next moment, the intense energy of the bolts burst into the ground and pulsed as the ground shined as the scales began to grow from the intense energy filling the entire outcrop.

Finally the tornado burst as the last winds gathered and the cyclone slowly dispersed but the storm was far from over but he was gasping as his arm dropped.

His clothes were already charred but thankfully the lightning clad had properly channeled everything without much damage but Arashi was extremely excited.

“Give me some green lightning if you want me to raise you again.” He said while huffing.

At once a warm wind and warmth came from his hand and excess wild lightning still in his body was consumed and helped him regain his breath as he grit his teeth and raised his arms and Arash called upon an even stronger storm.

What he didn’t expect was that because tornadoes were uncommon, some adventurer groups actually began to gather in hopes of finding an injured monster but as the second storm began to fall, they arrived to find him suddenly being swallowed up completely by the storm and his shouts swallowed by the winds.

His body felt like it was being ripped apart by the spinning force of over 150 km per hour winds while the lightning came down in tens and twenties as if all the energy of this storm was being pulled by Arashi. Of course that wasn’t true as an intense amount was falling all over in different outcrops but his was the most intense and even when he channeled everything into the ground, his body was still intensely damaged by the lightning.

When the tornado was finally letting up as the rest of the wind mana was sucked up and breaking the storm, the vision appeared.

Shockingly, several spikes of middle quality lightning mana stones had formed and the size of the crystal node had expanded by over two times most of all, most of the stones had basically combined into a single block.

He collapsed on one leg and Arash dropped down and the keen edge still sliced into the crystal.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was full, for now.

That said, he was still awake, a big improvement from the first time when he fainted but at the same time, his body could also still move thanks to lightning clad channelling most of the energy into the ground.

He didn’t notice the people until they reached the clearing and a healer quickly ran over.

“Are you okay?! What are you doing in the middle of a storm like that!?” She said and began to cast healing magic.

He chuckled quietly and hoarse, “You… wouldn’t believe me… even if I said it.” He said and using Arashi as a crutch, he got up and walked off the clearing.

“Oh my god! Is that an entire mana crystal!” Someone shouted as he walked off.

Logan looked over and others began to take out tools like the one he used and finally looked down and raised a brow. Because of the storm, the covering had been blown away.

“Hey, did you know this was here?” One of the men asked.

“No… I just used this… place because… it is a crystalback… lizard feeding ground.” He said huffing and walked towards the woods.

At that moment, they actually noticed the camp and walking into the small barrier that protected everything from the winds, he dug into some bags and began to eat several different pills.

Water pill, stamina and healing were the primary ones.

He waved Arashi lightly and began to clear the nearby brush that had been blown near.

A few of them saw the ease an injured man could clear it all and frowned.

“Hey, if we mine this, we can make a killing!” one of the men said.

“Leave some.” Logan shouted, “Leave it or the lizards will abandon this area.”

They looked as he weakly closed his eyes and entered his tent.

“That is strange, he isn’t excited to see all this.” one person said.

“He likely knows.” A young girl said. On her shoulder was actually a crystalback lizard.

“Are you sure?” The party leader asked.

“Yeah, look.” She said and pointed at the camp and at that moment they saw a large lizard green scales and a crystal back cover forming.

“He has a battle pet like you!” He exclaimed.

“His is older, looks about 3 months old. He might be one of the first people to get alpha breed Crystalback lizards so he is likely aware.” She said and took the lizard and let it down onto the mana crystal.

As expected, it hissed happily and lightning began to climb up and it began to gather up.

“Whatever, let’s quickly gather a portion.” the leader said and they each pulled out weapons and enhanced it with mana and began to chop a section and carried it off.

Other parties waited, wry of each other, and slowly broke a piece each until only a tenth of the original size was left.

After a few hours, Logan woke up and saw the remaining mana crystal and shook his head and with Arashi, he broke it down and began to look for the scales but they were scattered. With a sigh, he just covered it with dirt before packing up and leaving now that his preparations were ready.

Returned to the base and rested for a day to heal before heading deeper into the forest where he had several hunting missions to deal with. The targets, 50 lightning wolves, 10 Thunder Leopard and a pack of lesser lightning drakes. Each of them were E rank and among them, wolves were actually a new breed that appeared as a result of requiring adaptation to the lightning mana rich environment.

***

"Urg…" Logan groaned while his head was against a table in the adventurers guild in eastern Eshen.

He wasn't even in armor as it had been shredded when he went to fight lightning wolves.

Despite being a new breed, it had a huge number of still unknown combat patterns and he had been encircled until he killed the alpha but that is when it got worse as they attacked in groups and frenized.

Many tactics and moves using pack mentality and teamwork nearly drove him mad trying to deal with it.

The worst part of it is that Arashi was annoyingly hindered in the forest.

It was a 120cm long sword and in the forest, it is actually annoying to use. If compared to a Nuntip continent sword, Nodachi are like a claymore and use wide attacks. He had felt this problem intensely.

Next to him a laugh came constantly from Olivia.

“You really suck at using Nodachi, you should have already been aware that it wasn’t good for tight spaces. Also you are fighting with it like a quick light katana, Nodachi aren’t light in the least much less fast. You are basically relying on air manipulation and lightning buff to reach the speeds you reach.” she said.

"I think I should have stayed with dual swords, at least I could go one sword in tight spaces.” He said.

Olivia laughed again before reaching into her inventory box and pulled out a book.

“Here, I also learned katana and basically all the weapons dad knew about so that I wouldn’t be caught unprepared like you. You should take the time to go somewhere else besides Thunder forest.” She said.

He sat up and took the book and began to read.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Art of compression.” she said and showed him Hydra and shockingly it was the size of a dirk.

“This is extreme compression I did to make it easy to move around and catch people by surprise and to help move around unsuspecting without having a massive sword on my back.” She said.

She pulled the curved blade out and showed a series of magic runes on the spine which contained the compression.

The sheath was the same and she showed him as she released the compression a small bit and it grew to 75 cm of length into a perfect katana and grinned at him. “I’ve been teaching Hydra every weapon style. I'm even writing down every style to form the core basic fighting style.” she said.

He looked at the book and began to read it.

The art works upon a technique that beastmen and demons use to completely hide their animal or demonic features. The trick is redistribution of mass.

That said, when a living being uses it, their main body grows in size and almost seems to age when they do this. Weapons on the other hand need to compress and combine this with shrinking magic to act as a ‘lock’ on the compressed mass.

The idea is layer segments that are compressed into another generally spaced between 2 and 5 cm and compressing everything in the space of one segment and adding magic runes to lock that compression.

Looking at it like this, he became curious and asked Olivia how she kept the curve and she showed him the trick to not break the balance of the sword after making 24 segments of 5 cm.

They stayed nearly an hour learning and he first learned compressed 120 to 60 cm, the smallest length of a katana, and then a second compression to 30 cm which roughly reaches the required size for a curved dagger called a Tanto.

“This really is convenient. With the double seals, I can control the length just by activating each.” he said. “That said, I am not so good with Tanto.” He said.

“You did learn them though, all you need is a lot of practice. Why don’t you leave Eshen to explore, like a proper adventurer.” She said.

Instantly his face turned fierce and rage burned in his eyes, "I might not control myself if I go to any of our neighbors. Even now they have many of our civilians as war slaves! If I see them, even if they are nobles, I might contain myself by stabbing them dead in broad daylight.” he said.

Olivia stood and pulled his head into a hug and calmed him down. Despite how tomboyish she is, she had not been so greatly affected. Her parents had defended her but they died in the defense but she hadn’t been traumatized like they had done to Logan.

“It’s okay, you don’t need to go through them, there are many countries beyond, you can go straight to them without stopping.” she said gently like a big sister.

His grip loosened and began to breath, calming down. She let go and he called a waiter and asked for a drink to calm down. Olivia smiled and asked to bring him some meat as well.

She knew him well because when it came, he released his anger in cursing about tearing them apart, making her shake her head at how little control he had when the subject were their neighbors. She also hated them but Eshen couldn’t attack them because they lacked military strength to fight on every last side but that was naturally changing.

Both the navy and the air force were growing constantly in the archipelago. Some islands were isolated purely for military purposes and many of them even tested new weapons, vehicles and more constantly improving their military strength as old models were slowly being replaced with stronger and stronger weaponry.

When Logan finished, he grabbed Arashi’s sheath and shrank it to match the tanto size before putting it through the haulster belt.

Taking a deep breath he turned to her, “So where are you going?” He asked.

She sat back and even tilted her seat back a bit, “I’ve been thinking about jumping over Oblistan and exploring towards the east.” She said.

“Going alone?” he asked.

“For now, I'm not really focused on Hydra as you are. After all, my growth depends on many elements as well as my mastery and development of our Legacy. You know, if you travel while training you could even improve your legacy as well.” She said.

“That is up to fate.” He said.

“True, what about you?” she asked.

He sat back and began to think and looked at Arashi, "I just now learned shrinking so I will take about a week to relearn what dad taught me about all three swords before going west over what is left of Odriacia.” He said.

She nodded and grinned, “Just thinking about their fate makes me smile for starting the war they couldn’t win.” She said laughing.

Logan grinned as well.

Their western neighbor, Odriacia were the ones to start the war and were also the first to start to destroy the western land with magic pulse cannons in dangerous regions such as thunder mountain to make it spread and lower fertile land Eshen could use.

That said, after the first two years, the tides turned and the invading forces were pushed back into Odriacia land and the army was by no means nice.

They used nearly three times the number of pulse weapons. It didn’t matter to them if they took the land later, this was in the off chance that something happened, their already bad land would be completely ruined.

What really ruined the nation was that after ten years of war, eight full years on their land, they surrounded but Eshen didn’t stop as they attacked every military establishment and raided the entire territory with pulse weapons to make sure they would suffer for what they did.

The last thing they did was take a large part of land for winning leaving them nearly half the size it once was while their population had greatly decreased as a result.

It was vengeance and a warning for the three bandits. Once it officially ended, the army returned to western Eshen to reinforce the territory and start figuring out how to deal with the mana problem. At the same time, the entire Eshen government was growling at the three scavenging mutts around them demanding the kidnapped civilians.

Sadly, it was a 3 vs 1 and the army was exhausted.

For now, the movement of adventurers between all the neighbors was completely prohibited and the entire border was monitored by the army at key points where movement was funneled.

That said, international transport was not prohibited as it passed very high above. Leaving further away was also a good way to understand the world and learn.

Of course, as he mentioned, now that he could switch between three sizes, he needed to have full control. He rented a room and in the training room, he ordered a special service which brings out combat puppets at his overall level of strength so that he could battle. The only thing stronger is durability meaning even if he tried, he likely couldn’t break it.

Like that, he first went over Tanto and then Katana usage refreshening himself, to a great deal of relief to his body, to have a katana, though a bit heavy, in his hands again.

As expected, the lightning magic was nearly fluid in the form of a katana as if it had regained its proper shape but surprisingly, wind magic was much easier in either tanto or Nodachi sizes. It made him realize that despite merging, Raitoningu was predominantly a katana for the better part of 10 years already. The instinct was fixed to that size meaning it flowed easier and hit harder. Weifang however only just gained a basic spirit and legend before being combined meaning the mentality around it was more fluid.

This dynamic was quite interesting to work around because he was still a novice at wind magic but in this method, it also made sense.

Using the principle of lightning clad with air mana, in the tanto form, it became an extremely fast sword while in the full Nodachi size, it was many times easier to release massive bursts of powerful wind slashes.

It was a fruitful week as he regained the weapon he always had at the comfortable size it had been and two extra fighting forms depending on the situation where lightning was not suitable.

Before getting on the ship, he purchased introduction books into lightning and wind magic as he had worked only on Maxwell’s knowledge of magic and the instinct of using the elements.

Finally he left Eshen for the first time over Odriacia to the next western nation, Iteno, the country of many rivers and cities built over them.