In a damp, dank cavern, Cain walked through the depths of an underground lair humming a battle tune. He had timed his vanishing act to occur when the platform hovered above the entrance; teleporting directly past it and into the hallway that connected the ground floor to the lower floors.

[Master… did you really need to tell them all of that?] Dresil questioned Cain’s actions, thinking that he had been revealing too much lately.

Relax Dresil. If I don’t do this much then they’ll never be able to open up to me before I leave to take care of my territory. Cain responded in his thoughts to prevent tripping any traps or alerting enemies, but mostly so he could continue humming and pass time.

He wandered through the long passageway, using his Mana Zone like a web to discover traps and potential enemies. The Poison Immunity Prototype continuously replaced the humid, stale air with fresh, pure mountain air. Drops of condensation seemingly formed out of the void when the two types of air met, drawing Cain’s attention.

Odd… He stopped humming as he reduced PIP’s range and walked into an unaffected area, observing the drops of condensation form a few centimeters in front of his eyes.

A cave’s temp shouldn’t change that much year round right…? But we’re pretty close to the surface so the temp should be close to the surface, unless… Cain checked the status of the cave’s opening with the extended Mana Zone, discovering the entrance to be blocked off by a large pile of bones.

Knots of mana weaved through each fiber of calcium; the inanimate pile appeared animate whenever the mana stirred to life. Huh… That should be the guardian of the entrance. Maybe a bone golem? Is it blocking the entrance completely while camouflaging it? Cain tested his speculation by connecting the space in front of the suspected golem and himself with a palm-sized portal, allowing him to see the front entrance.

If he didn’t have his Mana Zone, Cain wouldn’t have been able to tell there was a cavern behind the expertly disguised bones. After taking some mental notes, he quickly closed the portal to prevent disturbing the bone’s sleep.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (51ms)

Rex: Wait how does that translate into random drops of water forming

Bob: A cave’s temperature is generally the average year-round temperature of the region it is in, with the areas closer to the surface experiencing more fluctuation, unless it’s blocked off.

Bob: The air sample Poison Immunity Prototype has stored is from outside and a few hundred meters away from here. It creates condensation due to the temperature difference, the sample being close to freezing.

Rex: So… what does that mean?

Dresil: It’s winter right now

Bob: Specifically, it’s December 14 according to Earth’s calendar.

Rex: Dafuq? All of that just to find the season?

Cain: You’ll see

Cain: But also, shouldn’t there be snow right now?

Bob: This place is similar in position to Southern Europe on Earth, there’s not much snow till late February.

Cain: …shouldn’t it at least be cold then with how high up it is on the hemisphere? I haven’t seen anyone dress for winter

Bob: It may be similar in position to Europe, but the climate differs heavily due to the battles involving fire spirits and mages. Not to mention Rex’s slip up with the sun’s temperature a few weeks ago.

Cain: True… but it shouldn’t affect it enough for a hurricane to form though, right?

Bob: Indeed.

Rex: …a what now? When did hurricanes get tossed in here?

Cain: You’ll see. Prepare for your pop quiz though

Rex: What the fuck is going oooooon :Pain:

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Cain extended the range of the PIP to its original size, simultaneously opening a portal to the mana storage and creating a streaming drone for the party to observe his journey through. A large terminal connecting to the drone’s camera appeared before the party on the elliptical platform.

Cain sat down and ate some snacks while recording the video feed of him eating and making preparations to flawlessly loop it. Hah… Looks like it’s finally time for me to stop being lazy… Cain lamented while initiating the loop and waiting for the transmission to come in.

[We need to evacuate our people as soon as possible.] A gruff, elderly voice transmitted into Cain’s mind, causing him to jump slightly due to its unexpected volume.

[Where the hell should we evacuate to?! We have nowhere else to go!] Behemoth slammed his fists on the table as he spoke.

[That’s why I’m saying we should just contact Cain! He even told us to do so for situations we couldn’t handle on our own!] Erucon passively yelled; the volume of his plea not approaching that of a yell, but the emotion within held the same weight.

[What the fuck is he going to do?! He’s not some god! How do you expect him to deal with a hurricane?!] Another elder yelled back fiercely, unable to put his trust in a human who hardly showed up for a few hours.

[These idiots…] Aurora’s sigh silenced the bickering demi-human elders. [He can hear you all right now.]

[Oh, oh… Greetings, Lord Cain.] Their collective greeting signalled their resignation and Cain’s entrance.

Meh, at least I got to witness some good drama right there. Cain thought as he stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. On the video stream for the party, he was still leisurely snacking within the cavern.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (59ms)

Rex: So…

Rex: Who’s who

Cain: Aurora is the nine-tailed fox I rescued, Erucon is the only boi who had the courage to suggest to me what they really needed when I visited them for the first time, and Behemoth is the village chief

Rex: But why don’t they believe in your power? You made a castle disappear before their eyes

Rex: Also, how the fuck did you know about this hurricane before they contacted you

Cain: A castle and a natural disaster are two different things though. Not to mention I only did such a feat once so it could be attributed to luck or a crafty trick

Bob: Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a pattern.

Cain: Exactly, most of the time it’d probably take three instances for them to be convinced my power is legit, unless the severity of each instance is great. For example, they should be convinced after this is settled

Cain: Dang… I sounded like a power fanatic right there…

Dresil: Yikes… more food?

Cain: Always.

Rex: Wait… is that why you always made people forcibly kneel before you?

Dresil: …did that finally click? How long has it been since that mage incident… two weeks?

Bob: 15 days to be precise.

Rex: …anyways you didn’t answer my other question.

Cain: Had a gut feeling something was off so I repurposed the magic circle I left in the territory to an extended mana zone and checked on it

Rex: Mad sus…

Bob: It’s reasonable. With Cain’s instinctual senses and with that much mana left behind, the chances of them working congruently to alert him of a major disaster aren’t small.

Dresil: Ah yes. The planets align, the food is divine, I sense someone’s designs.

Cain: Pffft, nice one

Rex: Dang, when did Dresil become a poet?

Dresil: And I didn’t even know it

Dresil:

Cain:

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[Relax… Didn’t I tell you guys not to call me that? Anyways I’ll be right over and deal with the hurricane.] Cain transmitted into everyone’s minds, using the mana left within the territory to distinguish who to send it to with Aurora’s tag aiding in pinpointing the exact location.

Rex, gather what brain cells you can because we’re going to be moving at light speeds after this. Cain entered a fresh portal as he warned Rex, stepping onto a magic platform hundreds of meters above his territory.

—Dms: Cain and Rex— (9ms)

Rex: No pleaseeeeeeeeee.

Cain: Your pop quiz is here. Equalize the internal temperature of the hurricane then distribute its temperature evenly with its surroundings to prevent another clash.

Rex: Damn… Can’t you just convert the entire thing into mana?

Cain: And create a massive vacuum in its place? I’d rather not.

Rex: Fine…

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Cain ascended several tens of thousands meters into the air until his altitude was higher than the hurricane’s. Rex’s flame spirit tattoo flared ethereally, providing continuous warmth to Cain’s body to supplement the heat that dispersed from within PIP’s range.

The spell tirelessly replaced the air within its half-elliptical range of one meter to prevent Cain from suffocating due to the lack of oxygen. The varying densities of the air due to different altitudes caused PIP to continuously drain his mana to make up for the lack of atoms present and to replace those who dispersed.

With PIP still active, he didn’t have to worry about the lack of oxygen. heat continuously poured out from Rex’s spirit tattoo to keep him warm. The varying densities of the air due to different altitudes caused PIP to continuously drain his mana to make up for the lack of atoms present and to replace those who dispersed.

—Dms: Cain and Rex— (14ms)

Rex: Can you help me with the quiz? My tattoo mark thingy is keeping you warm after all :hehe:

Cain: Nice try. PIP recreates every characteristic of the air sample stored within, including its heat.

Rex: :dafuq: How?

Cain: “Heat” is just the kinetic movement of atoms. Even when an object is at rest, it’s atoms are still moving otherwise its internal temperature would be 0 Kelvins

Rex: …still don’t get it

Cain: It’s in the thermo textbook

Rex: Nvm, I get it

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Cain activated all functions of his eyes to see if they could shed some light onto the unnatural appearance of this hurricane. Streams of natural mana appeared before him along with several hundreds of thousands of dots representing the mana of life forms that clouded his view.

“Fuck.” Cain uttered while suppressing a headache caused from the massive surge of information. He forced the muscles in his eyes to relax, preventing the pressure of each one from climbing and causing potential harm. He created magic circles in front of his eyes to filter the mana of every living being, removing the numerous sea of dots.

Small wisps of flames appeared within the edges of the hurricane; too small to be seen by the naked eye. They rode the winds of the storm as Cain fine tuned the filter on his eyes, leaving behind trails of fire in their wake.

Streams of fire circled the hurricane, gathering the attention of every being who could see it, until it spontaneously ignited. The hurricane, now replaced by a raging storm of fire, slowly churned its way to land.

Rex used the fire to isolate the hurricane and equalize its internal temperature. Endless rain returned to the ocean; Rex’s actions having caused massive amounts of condensation to occur at once. Cain finished the configuration of the filter at this moment and observed the process from afar.

An unseen storm laid within a storm, rivers of natural mana following the currents of the wind. Mana from the Aether Veins, the naturally occurring streams of mana, were pulled into the hurricane, reinforcing it even further. Heck… once the hurricane dissipates I guess a mana storm would be next. Cain speculated as some messages came in from the group chat.

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

Bob: I don’t know if you’ve noticed already, but that hurricane isn’t natural.

Cain: Huh… I thought the mana within it was off, didn’t know it was because of that

Rex: Isn’t that natural mana though? How isn’t the hurricane a naturally occurring one then unless a species can control natural mana?

Dresil: Damn… Did Rex pick up some brain cells from somewhere?

Cain: Hmm… I think he’s the type who gets smarter during a test

Dresil: Weird…

Bob: Some species can force natural mana to do its bidding. Dragons are such an example.

Cain: Dang it, I could’ve met a dragon if I came here sooner

Dresil: …how do you know if that dragon isn’t hostile? If a dragon did cause this then they did supposedly send a hurricane towards your territory

Cain: Sec

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Cain’s mana formed several terminals around him depicting graphs of various natures. He inputed data gathered from observation and precise atmospheric measurements of the hurricane, given by Bob with Rex’s aid, into each graph then overlaid the result of one graph on top of his territory.

This was done from Cain’s point of view, meaning to the residents below, the terminal appeared even smaller than the dot that was Cain, if they could even see him past the clouds. The terminal depicted the hurricane's path with several alternate simulations to account for the possible interference of the natural mana.

Even the worst scenario showed the hurricane passing over a small portion of the demi-human territory; the most likely target since he showed more care to it from an outside perspective. It missed most, if not all, strategic locations that one should target. Locations such as the elders’ houses, the place where the castle used to be, and the meeting house.

If the opponent had enough intel to gauge that he spent more time in this territory compared to the other one nearby, then they would know Cain upgraded the houses and that a hurricane assumedly wouldn’t have much effect on them.

Thus a hurricane targeting the civilians, a very small portion at that, would have little physical effect and only cause panic. The chances of such a powerful being doing something complex just to create panic was abysmal, especially when there were better ways to do so without alerting Cain enough to step in and resolve it.

Cain concluded the above within a minute and dispersed his research tools.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (27ms)

Cain: Nah, doesn’t look intentional

Rex: Crazy bastard… you didn’t even think any of that actively

Cain: Ye… :ded: I miss being lazy

Cain: Being productive feels weird

Dresil: :sigh:

Dresil: What are you going to do about the natural mana?

Cain: Idk yet… Bob, is there any way to disperse the natural mana?

Bob: Not with your current capabilities. You also don’t have the time to learn how to control natural mana enough to proficiently do so.

Cain: Heck… guess I’ll just convert it then

Rex: Huh? The hurricane won’t even hit land for a few days.

Cain: …it’s not like the party can stare at a looped video for that long

Rex: Oh… I forgot about them

Dresil: :rip:

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Cain opened a portal that connected him to the hurricane’s eye and fed 600 million of his mana through it from the Mana Storage. His mana entered the eye of the storm then dispersed to the edges of the flames as they disappeared. They cut off the supply of natural mana, enclosing the mana storm in a massive mana net.

Cain created a magic circle below and above the net to monitor and slowly convert the mana storm that still raged on. This should be good to afk now… Let’s meet up with the elders then head back before the peeps get suspicious. Cain thought while creating a portal in the meeting room.