Cain leaned back on the stone cold campsite, the shadow of the clouds providing temporary relief from the blinding sun. He checked the time, shocked to see hardly an hour had passed from his experiments. Cain sat up slowly, grabbing some snacks from the snack storage and feasting during his short 10 minute break. It would be longer, but there weren’t any books to read or tv to watch.

Cain pulled the CPU prototype magic circles from his back, repositioning them in front of him for convenience’s sake. He opened the log from the digital storage and examined the percentage each calculation occupied his brain. Most of them were the same, varying only by a few hundredths of a percent due to the unchanging code and varying difficulty of the operation.

Cain exported the results to an Excel sheet terminal which appeared seconds before. He organized the usage of his brain, the number of digits of the dividend, digits of the divisor, and digits of the quotient. Although the problems weren’t limited to division, their terms were used to describe the position of the data.

With each of the pieces of data separated into columns, Cain exported them into a box and whiskers graph, and a line graph with the percentage of brain usage staying on the x, but the varying digit categories for the y. It took quite a few minutes due to the millions of operations performed since Day 11, a few minutes well spent on snacking.

Cain analyzed the completed graph while stuffing his snacks back into the dimension. The box and whiskers graph didn’t reveal anything Cain didn’t know, but the line graphs proved one of Cain’s hypotheses: With increasing digits in the sample numbers, the difficulty increased. Yet the resulting number of digits did not affect the difficulty.

He spent the next hour improving the CPU prototypes to use less of his brain. From 38.12% of the problem being calculated by his brain to 27.82%. He analyzed the code over a few skewers of meat then spent another hour improving it, bringing the percentage down to 23.34%. Cain stared at the program once more, trying to improve it, yet his efforts only caused him to zone in and out.

Hah… guess I need a break from this before I can improve it again. There’s still a few hours before dinner though. I guess I’ll just try to make a PD&V Immunity prototype. Cain moved the CPU prototype magic circles to their original position; his back on the 1st layer of the skin layers.

Cain stretched his legs, standing up and dispersing any terminals that were still open. His lead legs carried him around the campsite; his arms extending and revolving, breathing life down their dull veins. Cain continued to energize his limbs until satisfaction glimpsed upon his face. He sat back down on the mat Dresil laid out when they first arrived here to continue his next set of experiments.

Hmm… Maybe I can start on the PD&V Immunity. I can’t program too many quite yet, maybe a few million would be good? Nah… this would hardly be a finger though… I’d need to at least program a few hundred billion, but that puts the burden of all those calculations on me since I need to use the reduced mana method… Guess I’ll just have to postpone this until the CPU is done.

Cain’s sour mood hovered over him, catching Dresil’s attention. She deposited a few cookies and cakes on his side, which he devoured when he noticed them. There’s not much left to do then… meh, I’ll just look at the list. He came to a conclusion while slightly annoyed from having to monologue everything for Rex.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (7ms)

Cain: Fuck you, Rex.

Rex: Fuck you too.

Cain: :hehe:

Cain: :middle_finger:

Rex: :hehe:

Rex: Damn… I don’t have fingers

Cain: Hahaha, gottem.

Dresil: :popcorn:

Bob: :popcorn:

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

—Self Dm: Things to Do— (378ms spent checking the list)

–Check telomere sample from self and part; compare them to see if mana enhancement slows aging

–Increase proficiency in healing organs, bones, tissues, blood, etc.

–Find a way to increase permanent mana limit of the body

–Poison, Disease, and Virus Immunity; prototype

–Complete CPU magic circles

–Turn electricity into mana and vice versa

–Figure out how to interface with the hard drives from the ruins

–Turn arrows into nukes

–Find a way to actively increase soul power

–Restrict actions to prevent alerting the group who summoned me

–Information Network through mind reading of tagged beings

–Mana Storage

–Enhancing brain with mana

–Automatic Selective Memory Loss (information seal on maids)

–Extensive tests on the limits of disguised mana; need someone extremely sensitive to mana

–Check on Athena’s progress absorbing the metal on Nov. 28, 2020

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

November 28th… That’s today, huh? Almost forgot to do that. I won’t be able to increase my proficiency in healing for a few days. I suspect the guards have noticed something with how many prisoners I’ve experimented on and how frequent it was.

I need more information for soul power and it looks like Bob won’t be able to tell me anything until I get there. I’ll need an advanced AI to search, index, categorize, and filter billions of gigabytes from thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people at once for the information network. …looks like that one is also waiting until the CPU circles are done.

Mana Storage… I meant that as magic circles right? Should probably clarify that. Anyways, I could work on this and electricity into mana right now. The memory loss will have to wait until I get more data from Myles and Victor. Cain closed the self dm and opened a microscopic portal to Athena’s dimension; allowing him to use thought transmission.

[Yo, how’s the progress.] Athena’s sprite jumped slightly due to the sudden transmission. [Motherfucker! Can’t you give me a heads up or something? Anyways, I’m almost done. Although I won’t be able to transform until I get more metal and mana, or some mythril.] Athena reported the current progress and a new hurdle to overcome.

[Hm? Why so?] Cain transmitted, perplexed from the sudden addition of materials. [What I did just now was akin to repairing the bones and skin of a body. I still need to replenish the muscles and veins.] Athena transmitted back; a hint of excitement underlined within her tone.

[How come you didn’t tell me this before and how much mythril do you need? I got quite a bit from the ruins a few days ago.] Cain messaged back, a tinge of annoyance appeared within the first few words, yet was quickly smothered afterwards.

[I need a few kilograms preferably. And I didn’t want to scare off a contractor with such interesting designs.] Athena replied somewhat meekly. Although it appeared she was being sincere and giving way some, her fierce nature remained prominent thus creating a mix of signals.

[Hmm… ok. Let’s also get you setup into the dms so we don’t have to keep transmitting like this. You’ll have to contact Bob to help you there since I don’t know what to do for your circumstance. Tell him I gave you permission to take as much mythril as you need as well; just be sure to leave a few kilograms for me. Message me when you’re done.] Cain issued his instructions then bid his farewells.

[Thanks! You’re the best!] Athena managed to transmit before Cain closed the portal used to connect them. ‘...it really is like I’m raising kids. I should probably check in on Sinclair while I’m at it. Ah, I also need to put parental controls on Rex.’ Cain grabbed a few more cookies from the snack storage and ate them as he dm’d the pup.

—Dms: Cain and Sinclair— (280ms)

Cain: How’s everything in there?

Sinclair: Good. Stuffy, but good.

Cain: Want to roam the forest until dinner?

Sinclair: Can I?

Cain: Of course, lmk if you have any other requests.

Sinclair: Can… you help me take revenge on my pack that betrayed me?

Cain: I’ll give you the power to do so, but you must do it on your own.

Sinclair: Perfect.

Cain: Wait for a bit, I’ll hook you up to SRI so you can leave and enter your dimension freely. Just lmk if you get into trouble or if something suspicious happens.

Sinclair: Ok.

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

—Dms: Cain and Bob— (12ms)

Cain: Can you help me program my magic circles to detect Rex’s and Sinclair’s mana signature so they can use them freely or be restricted by certain things.

Bob: Sure, give me a few minutes to finish setting Athena up.

Cain: Sweet, is this not too much while doing your other tasks?

Bob: No, you’ll be doing most of the work anyways; I just need to point a few things out and take care of the spatial traits.

Cain: True.

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

Cain finished his batch of cookies while Bob worked on setting Athena up to the dm system. She decided to also refrain from joining the group chat due to the lack of familiarity of the new system. Sinclair and Athena don’t type like Bob, Rex, Dresil, and Cain do; they simply use thought transmission focused on the magic circle. This simplistic method takes longer, but suits them who have not read Cain’s memories of keyboards and computers.

Bob and Cain spent the next half hour configuring SRI so Sinclair would be able to use it. Cain bookmarked a few operations that Sinclair would be most likely to use, such as “Enter home, Leave home, Portal to Forest; random, Portal to Cain, etc.” He then sent a quick guide to Sinclair along with the bookmarked actions.

Sinclair hesitantly tested the system out, slowly sticking his head out the exit portal. The lush forest and dense mana greeted his senses, causing him to rush out and run wild. Cain observed him for a few moments, ensuring there were no problems with SRI and Sinclair’s surroundings. He joined Bob in enacting parental controls on Rex shortly afterwards. They spent another half hour imposing and configuring the restrictions on Rex to limit his access to r18 materials.

Cain dispersed every terminal in front of him once the parental control was finished. He muted the group chat for the next few minutes to ignore his whining. So electricity to mana and mana storage circles… Do I even need the latter because of the Mana Storage Dimension? Hmm… no, the knowledge itself will still be useful for circles I can’t monitor for weeks or months at a time. Cain created a few magic circles in front of him, slowly increasing the amount of mana each one stored.

Circle 1 had no task programmed, making it an empty circle. Circle 2’s programmed task was to hold mana within it. Circle 3 was programmed to circulate the mana through itself and Circle 4 was the same except it was limited to a semi-sphere above it. Cain observed the magic circles with all functions of his mana eyes enabled.

Circle 1 shattered a few minutes after channeling additional mana into it, unable to bear the burden of the increased mana density. Circle 2 followed shortly after, yet the reaction was more violent. Cain felt a slight pain in his head, indicating that if the contents were greater, this could potentially damage his soul.

Circle 3 and Circle 4 lasted another half hour of continuous increase in mana before showing signs of stress. Cain dispersed them shortly afterwards having gotten the data he needed. Circle 3 was the best option for most cases due to its compactness yet massive storage capacity. Circle 4 had the best stability and capacity among the four.

Circle 3 was able to store a few million mana before showing signs of stress whereas Circle 4 showed none whatsoever. These were tiny magic circles as well, palm sized bois of roughly 10 centimeters in diameter. This is why Cain dispersed them before they shattered; if such tiny magic circles could withstand millions of mana, then he’d have no problem with other projects that won’t even touch that threshold.