[Master, it’s time to wake up.] Dresil attempted to rouse Cain awake. She had Bob open a portal to the Snack Storage, the different scents of food wafting out and blanketing Cain’s face. Cain grumbles and turns, refusing to wake up. Dresil removes the leaf over his eyes, the morning light snuck through the root and vine wall, scattering on Cain’s eyes.

He instantly woke up, sitting and stretching his arms outwards. [How long was I asleep for?] Cain transmitted to Dresil, too tired to use the dms. [About 11 hours.] Dresil communicated back, slowly taking down the cavern. Dang it… 2 hours off from a complete hibernation.

Oi, oi, put the walls back up! My eyes haven’t adjusted yet. Cain complained as the cavern collapsed into the ground, revealing the party making breakfast. Cain closed his eyes immediately, easing the burden on them as they adjusted to the sunlight, his untamed bedhead drifting from side to side whenever he made a slight movement.

“Oh my. Did you just wake up?” Victoria asked Cain as Dresil used her vines to comb his hair down. “Yeah… you guys making food?” Cain turned his head towards them, his eyes still closed. Veronica tried to keep herself busy with other things, embarrassed yet excited of having seen a new side to Cain.

“Yep. We’re going to leave in about 45 minutes.” Jacob told Cain as the latter slowly opened his eyes. “Alriiiiiiiiiiiiiight.” Cain yawned out, getting up to join the others at the fire. When he sat down, he created several table magic circles for Dresil to deposit his breakfast, then waited patiently.

Sinclair stretched his back and front legs then walked behind Cain and laid back down. Dresil deposited a few kilograms of meat and some fruits for Cain the next moment. As he ate, Cain glanced towards Victoria and noted every detail of her third magic circle. “Congrats on your promotion.” He said once their eyes met to avoid creating an awkward atmosphere.

“Thanks. Ah, speaking of magic circles, which one are you at? You seem to be radiating the mana of a mid-5th circle according to Jacob.” Victoria took the opportunity to try and gauge Cain’s true prowess. “My technique doesn’t use magic circles to cultivate, so there isn’t a way to relate the two systems.” Cain gave a vague answer while noting what Victoria said.

I thought all of my mana was disguised… Oh, it’s disguised with 99% efficiency… and 1% of 26.58 mill is 265,800… well heck. Cain deduced why Victoria said he radiated mana when it was presumed to be hidden. “Do you guys need the portal cube still?” Cain asked the others, having realized the night watch system was still active. They all shook their heads or didn’t respond, so Cain snapped his fingers and dismissed the portals with SRI.

“What do you use to cultivate then?” Jared curiously asked, to which Cain almost instantly responded, only delayed by taking a bite of some meat. “Food.” “...is that why you eat so much?” Victoria pushed, trying to figure out if what Cain said was true or false. “Yep, that’s part of the reason. Also because I just like food so much.” Cain replied nonchalantly, finishing a skewer in between his words.

“Lucky…” “Relatable.” Jared and Veronica respectively muttered at the same time. Cain took the pause in the conversation as an opportunity to check the group chat he neglected, after giving some meat to Sinclair.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (25ms)

Rex: Why don’t you just teleport to the capitol?

Cain: Nah, then I’d miss out on these moments and I’d probably wouldn’t even realize my concealment leaked so much mana till a few days or weeks later.

Cain: Not to mention this slow pace is kind of relaxing, I’m not like those manhua mcs who just do scene skips and nonstop action w/o getting stressed.

Rex: Hmm… you sure it’s a good idea to expose so much about your power though?

Cain: It’s all false anyways.

Cain: My 10% limit is also at 1 million mana, physically.

Rex: Oh…

--------------------------

“Hm? Did you just feed it demon wolf meat?” Catherine asked Cain, having noticed his sleight of hand. “Nah, it’s just beef.” Cain replied while eyeing the skewer suspiciously, clearly doubting his half asleep mind. “...is he even ok with you eating meat from his species in front of him though?” Victoria asked, concerned about the pup.

“Isn’t it just a monster? Why would it care?” Catherine questioned Victoria’s use of pronouns. “Based on that wolf’s size, it should have intelligence on par with a teenager or small child. Would it still be considered a monster then?” Victoria fired back. Their silent battle over the usage of pronouns reminded Cain of a meme.

...Athena isn’t going to identify as an attack helicopter when she sees those memes now… is she? Cain pondered the legitimacy of this theory, as he had once seen the designs to an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The glares from Victoria and Catherine reminded Cain of their pressing questions.

[Do you care if I eat demon wolf meat?] Cain asked Sinclair through Thought Transmission. [Nope, they’re all hostile towards me by now anyways.] Sinclair replied while eating some snacks Cain handed him. “He said he doesn’t mind. And Victoria is right, he has intelligence roughly the same as a teenager.” Cain’s official answer ended the girls’ silent feud.

“Wait… he said he didn’t care? How?” Victoria picked up on Cain’s word choice, once again trying to find out a little bit more about the person who would most likely be traveling with them for the next few months. “Hm? Telepathy, how else?” Cain replied as if it were a truth carved in stone. Victoria nodded her head slightly then went into deep contemplation.

The party finished eating then cleaned up the campsite soon after. Cain continued to eat and feed Sinclair while they worked. He observed how they took down the tents, untied the horses, and harnessed them to the carriage in case he needed those skills for a disguise later. Although the chances were slim, he never knew where his quest for knowledge would take him.

Cain boarded the carriage after everyone else, once again preparing to lay across the two benches. “How long is the ride this time?” He directed down the carriage for anyone to reply. “About… 6 or 7 hours? You planning on taking another nap?” Victoria replied and shot a question at him.

“Yep. I recommend learning how to cultivate while laying down, it’s fun.” Cain teased the quick-witted people within the party with his last statement as he propped his legs up on the other bench. Roots emerged from his waist to support it once more, a leaf blanketed his eyes. Cain refrained from putting sound-proof magic circles around his ears to prevent dozing off by accident.

—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (9ms)

Dresil: You shouldn’t tease them too much.

Dresil: Or at least be careful that one of your whimsical lies doesn’t unravel everything.

Cain: :noted:

Cain: It’s not likely since my memory is even clearer now with the digital storage, but I’ll keep it in mind.

--------------------------

—Dms: Cain and Sinclair— (340ms)

Cain: You planning on running alongside the carriage again?

Sinclair: Yep.

Cain: Ok, just make sure to be prepared to go back inside your dimension an hour or so before we reach the capitol.

Cain: I’d rather not have guards try to hurt you because of their own stupidity.

Sinclair: Fine…

--------------------------

The carriage took off towards the capitol shortly after. The party continued their routine swap of the coach driver and cultivating as Cain took this opportunity to plan things out for the next few days.

Hmmm… I should probably disable the Poison Immunity prototype. It’ll just cause suspicion within the capitol and its vagueness makes it easy for loopholes to be exploited. I should have a decent amount of data from the CPU prototypes by now to do something with. I’ll take a look at those either tomorrow or the day after.

Chances are they’ll want to take a break for a few days so I can use that time to test out new things and reorganize some other stuff… I should have seen enough of their gathering techniques to take a few steps in increasing my body’s limit on mana.

Cain disabled the Poison Immunity prototype then formulated some possible paths to take in increasing his body’s mana limit. These were but simple outlines meant to layout his options in more detail. He did the same with Poison Immunity, but realized he wouldn’t be able to make much progress until he learned how to identify poisons.

I guess I can ask Jared if I could meet his master. She seems like an assassin or rogue too so I might be able to get info from her. …I guess it’d be awkward if I just rose up and asked a question right now though since an hour already passed. Meh, I’ll just wait till we get to the capitol.’

Cain analyzed his progress in repairing organs, blood vessels, mucles, tissues (skin, cartilage, etc.), bones, nerves, and managing blood during the operations. He attempted to see if he could progress any of these categories by simulating it in his mind. Only a miniscule amount of progress was made during the rest of the trip in bone repair though.

Sinclair trotted through a portal to his dimension once the capitol came into view. Cain slowly got up and sat on his seat properly once they arrived at the gates, the leaf that covered his eyes retreating into his hair. Victoria, who was on coach driver duty at the time, handed the necessary papers to the guards at the gate. They looked them over then allowed their carriage to pass through.

She drove the carriage towards the Adventurer’s guild then stopped it across the street. “Jared and Jacob, you guys go turn in the carriage at the rentals. Ver and I will report the results of the quest to the guild.” Victoria instructed her party, leaving Cain and Catherine’s next steps vague so they could decide themselves.

“We having dinner right after?” Cain asked Victoria after she spoke. “Yep.” “Alright, I’ll go grab a table then while you guys do your things.” Cain replied and hopped out of the carriage. “I have to go to report to my family about today’s results. I guess… I’ll see you guys around.” Catherine awkwardly took her leave after bidding her farewells.

The party then split to their separate tasks, Cain followed Victoria and Veronica into the guild then took a left to find a table after entering. Some gossipers flapped their jaws when they recognized Cain, yet they only repeated common knowledge that everyone knew of already.

Do they really have nothing else to do other than sound like a broken record all day? He thought while getting the attention of a waitress who walked by and ordered some food. Victoria and Veronica joined him at the table after they reported everything to Maddison, taking their usual spots.

“So what’s the plan for the next few days? Also, anything I need to do? I linked your loot storage to the magic circle on Jacob’s right hand within the ruins so you guys should have access to that.” Cain asked once they sat down. The waitress delivered 5 mugs of beer to the table; once she left Cain converted all of them into root beer.

“It’ll take a few days for the mages from the Tower to come by and pick up the goods. So we plan to take a break over the next few days.” Victoria explained their rough plan while eyeing her root beer. “Are they short staffed or something? Can’t we just go there?” Cain pondered over the wait when the Tower was relatively close to the capitol.

“Nope. They’re just extremely busy and focused on their research so it takes a day or so to find a mage who isn’t working on something to run errands. They also don’t let anyone near the Tower because of all the confidential projects going on. They have to send a mage to escort us to drop off the goods then escort us out.” Victoria explained the redundancies of the Tower.

Veronica remembered something when Victoria mentioned the bathhouse, then forgot it while waiting for Victoria to finish her explanation. “Oh, Vicky~. We can finally go to that bathhouse now that we have money to spare.” Veronica excitedly said when she finally remembered what she was going to say..

“Hm? They have a bathhouse here?” Cain asked curiously when he heard them. “Yep. The soap there is amazing. Although it usually costs a few silver per hour, it’s much better than just wiping down with a wet rag.” Veronica unintentionally answered Cain, immediately covering her face with her hands when she realized what she just said.

“Huh? What happened to Veronica now?” Jared asked as he walked up to the table with Jacob. “Oh, Jared. Any chance I can meet your master over the next few days? I have some questions and advice I’d like from her.” Cain swiftly changed the subject to prevent Veronica from feeling too embarrassed.

“Yeah, I’ll ask her tomorrow when I go there to report everything and get my progress checked.” He replied while taking a reluctant sip. When his taste buds recognized the carbonation of soda, he immediately chugged it down after saying what he needed to. “Sweet, thanks.” Cain replied while filling his own mug with water then rootbeer.

“Any plans for the break?” Victoria asked Cain while nudging Veronica with her elbow, trying to suggest something. “Sleep, eat, and maybe some training. I don’t really have much to do.” Cain replied, vaguely hinting that he has plenty of free time. Alas, Veronica was too busy hiding her face from Cain due to her embarrassment to notice they both implied that he had the free time to go on a date.

The party ate and conversed for the next hour or so. Veronica occasionally pitched in here and there, yet when her eyes met with Cain, she’d go silent for the next few minutes. They wrapped up their meal when the sun started to set. Cain created a portal for everyone to use to go back to the inn.

They silently walked through the halls then disappeared into their rooms after saying the necessary farewells. Cain went through his alien washing routine for the first time since he left the capitol, thus a deep clean was in order. He followed his usual nightly routine then dozed off in bed.