Kaden was feeling unusually satisfied when he finished eating. He felt some extra urges too, such as putting his feathers in order and cleaning up. He also picked up whatever crystal fragments he could find. Perhaps there was some time mana left to be used later once he was more powerful. He checked whatever corpses he found nearby, but found nothing too useful.

Once he completed such tasks, he decided to leave. If saints had anyone watching, they might have already noticed the commotion and perhaps even discovered a beast eating Sacronan's observation group.

He had not noticed any of them, though. Perhaps they were not around due to Sacronan being victorious in whatever battle's ensued during and after the excursion into the great remant. The area was completely open and there were very few hiding places where he wouldn't be able to see, except the opposite side of the great remnant.

At any rate, Kaden did not wish to be hunted down for being a beast by such group, if one existed. They likely had someone like Reverend among them. It was likely churches kept some very loyal members in such groups. Fanatics like the now dead Reverend.

Kaden flew away.

Even normal humans might dream of flying, but Kaden had felt the need and desire to do so ever since his rebirth. He felt the joy that he could finally achieve this action. He even tried some moves in the air to get some extra excitement, but he almost fell down to the ground when he messed it up. He decided to be more careful.

"It seems I have some instinct how to do it, but I'm more like child who just learned how to walk", Kaden felt as he steadied himself.

He even lowered his flying height after realizing a golden wondrous bird in a completely open area was pretty noticeable. In fact, if this wasn't Kaden's first time having a proper flight with his own wings, he would have likely stayed on the ground just in case.

As he flew, he noticed more signs of battle on the ground. These were more recent, but not something that would have just happened. Some bodies, weapons, craters from explosions and so on. It was still in the area that was normally regularly decimated by the mana storms surrounding the great remnant. There were no plants to hide the damage, no people looting or burying the corpses nor beasts eating them and Kaden himself had no plans to swoop down and eat the carrion.

"It is likely the fighting continued even as both sides were already leaving", Kaden determined the most likely answer. "I wonder why they bothered? Did they perhaps carry some loot from the remnant or perhaps they just wanted to kill each other as the chance presented itself?"

Kaden pushed those thoughts out of his mind. Both sides seemed to be gone and even if they had some gains, they were no longer in his reach. He concentrated on dealing with the problem of how to get off Murika.

Was he even flying to correct direction? Would he be able to fly across the sea? He wasn't sure of his endurance and doubted it. He would not be able to buy a trip across on a ship. There would be no teleportation formation to return him either.

"I will see how it is once I get there", Kaden decided. "I will just have to keep distance to the few human settlements here and observe. If nothing else, I might have to live on Murika for a while. It might not even be bad. There could be resources hidden here that no one has yet to collect due to far fewer people around."

He still remembered his original plans of what to do after getting out. There were a few directions where to go, but his goals lied in and near the human empires. To not return or delay return was something he would consider only as a distant secondary option.

With his flying speed, Kaden could have reached the shore in no time, but despite the fact that he was openly flying, he didn't wish to be seen that much, if at all. He hoped, at worst, he would be seen and someone would merely report presence of a strong beast passing by. Specifically passing by and not stopping next to human settlements and attract someone come after him. Even if someone came after him, to gather Condensation stage hunters would likely take some time. In fact, unless someone was really greedy, to go after a Lower Cari was usually not something done casually unlike High Beasts and lower.

So... unless he hanged around, there would likely be no immediate problems.

Therefore, he didn't wish to be seen as a trouble and flew slower. This also allowed him to notice people and fly around them.

There seemed to be only people from Sacronan, as far as Kaden could tell. Indeed, saints probably suffered some kind of defeat and retreated from the area. Whether or not entirely so, he couldn't tell. Yet, after passing by the few military camps, he no longer found more of them. Instead he flew past some weakling hunters who quickly hid to best of their ability.

Kaden didn't bother killing them and let them belive they were not discovered. He was just a beast passing by. Not causing problems.

By the time he was reaching the shoreline after a few days, he deviated from his path a bit. He didn't wish to make it seem he was going that way and he also avoided any people before he landed and continued on the ground towards the shoreline. He had a plan.

"I may have to wait a bit", Kaden though to himself as he made himself a little nest on a cliffside near the shore. He decided to make it partially because of the appearance to be seen as a beast living in the area, but also a place where he could attempt to improve his abilities while he waited. Not only he could improve his spells, but also formations. He had gained interesting ideas and understanding in the past from the ancients.

As for what he was waiting for? A bigger ship, of course. One that could take him across the sea.

Obviously they would object. Kaden expected a ship would have some guardians, but he could kill them. They wouldn't be too strong. No one would bother having anyone really strong. Once on the sea, your opponents would be the sea beasts. The ships were equiped to hide from them. You did not want to be noticed by them. If you were noticed ... well, you were probably dead.

The sea was a special beast domain. No humans nor any opponents dewelled there. Seas covered most of the world anyway. The beasts in the sea were, perhap the correct word would be, barbaric. Obviously humans would call all beasts and Cari barbaric, but the sea beasts never put together any sort of society to deal with constant conflict with humans.

At any rate, you hid from them. You did not fight them. In other words, on the ships there shouldn't be no one that could stop him.

He would then force this ship to take him over the sea. Should they refuse, they would die. Kaden could easily fly back and wait for next ship. A few ships disapearing was nothing unusual.

As for when such ships would pass by, Kaden didn't know, but the combat at the great remnant and its surroundings was over. There should be some brave material collectors now that the danger was over and the mana storms had not returned yet. There should be good chance to collect more materials than usually. These materials would have to be taken over the sea.

Kaden had chosen the place he was at because he could see far from there. It was close enough to a shore town, yet far enough that few people would wander at his direction. It was also far more efficient to go gather the materials from near the great remnant than go hunt some beasts.

Why Kaden bothered with all this was because he didn't know his limits. Could he fly over the sea? A True Magus or Cari could totally do so, but they were beyond limits of physical body. Condensation stage and Lower Cari were still constrained by it. There still existed thing like exhaustion.

If none of the ships would take him over and he would be forced to sink too many of them, he would have to think of another plan, but it was acceptable for the moment.

"Shame I don't know how Emina gets across", Kaden though to himself. "Perhaps she simply bought trip over. She can do that where I have to take such roundabout ways."

Kaden settled down and started to upgrade his mana system. He wanted to merge his new discovery to it and increase the efficiency by being able to collect the hidden mana. Additionally, he knew it was not going to be very difficult to mix the two mana gathering methods. They had very little in common nor would they interfere with each other.

It would be as easy as to put the new method gathering into the process. Most complicated part was where he would have to understand the concepts he wanted. It only made the mana system slightly less automatic.

What was going to take a bit longer was to learn more about the new method and make it more efficient. What he had discovered was the most basic way.

Over the next week, Kaden could see only smaller ships. These were made to to be used closer to shore where they could hunt weaker sea beasts. That is basically glorified fishing ships. He had seen not larger ones going out.

There was also a certain interruption.

Kaden had already completed the extra addition to his mana system and was thinking of methods of upgrading Devour. The previous upgrade was a very shoddy fix. He wanted to fix it for good. After becoming more powerful and having some new and fresh ideas, he was experimenting with some ideas as he sensed a beast slowly approach his nest, a High Beast at advanced stage.

The beast, some feline beast that Kaden didn't recognize was carefully and slowly approacing. It was carrying something, it seemed to be some kind of a herb. Kaden had not really used too many of them. He was able to use more direct sources of mana with good efficiency so trying to refine some herbs for roughly similar efficiency didn't interest him much.

"This is likely the High Beast that rules, or ruled, this area", Kaden determined as he stood up and went to see the High Beast. "I'm much stronger so technically I'm the ruler here now. I have no intention to do so, though. This cat is smart and wants to get on my good side with a gift."

The feline beast stopped and dropped what it was carrying. Kaden noted it was some crystaline looking roots. He didn't recongize the herb either, but from the looks of it, it might have been collected from closer to the great remnant.

The beast was trying to appear small and harmless as it took a few steps backwards after dropping its gift. Kaden felt the herb wasn't going to be useful, but he intended to take it.

"I'll accept this", Kaden said to the feline beast filled with intent. This beast had never interacted with the beasts from the other side of the sea so intent would serve as means of communication. "Do not disturb me. Do not agitate the humans. I will leave eventually and you will have your territory back."

For a moment Kaden wondered, if he should give the beast an information crystal containing the godless mana system, but he decided not to. If someone or something killed the beast and discovered its posessions, it would easily link it back to Murika and the great remnant. Kaden didn't want that to happen too early.

Kaden picked up the roots instead and returned to his nest. While at this the feline beast remained still and only left once Kaden had gone back.

"Truly, it is strength that beasts care about", Kaden muttered to himself. "I merely had to come here and I have been made a ruler. Its not like this is the first time either."

After giving a good examination to the roots, he noted they were somewhat dense in mana. It seemed the plant had absorbed mana in them. Perhaps before his evolution he might have cared about it, but now it was barely a snack.

"Perhaps I can use this for testing", Kaden thought as he was again thinking his ideas for Devour. "I want some purification function to it, but I want to extend mechanism too. I want to be able to use Devour in combat. I need life mana."

Kaden wanted to literally absorb life mana from living things. An obvious source. Usually could be achieved to some level by killing and eating the said living being. Devour was a short range spell.

What Kaden wanted to do was to directly target the life within things. He could sense it now very well, even in other beings.

Even the herb in front of him, while it had been separated from its source already a while ago, there was still a lot of life mana among rest of the mana.

Kaden used the Devour spell, but this time he was extending it further than before. He now could back up the spell with his power and senses. The crystaline roots started to dry up and then started to disintegrate. While this was happening, Kaden could sense stream of mana enter him.

"It seems I can indeed extend Devour further away from me now", Kaden nodded to himself.

*crash*

"Hmmm?" Kaden turned his head and noted a tree near his nest fell down. All its leaves had turned gray and, its bark had cracked and broken. Inside the tree was similarly gray and also, it seems, brittle dry matter. It had fallen over. Kaden looked around. Foliage near his nest and also all living things around his nest had died and dried up and shriveled. "This ... I see, I extended my life sense, but I didn't direct it. It seems I absorbed whatever morsels of life I could from my vicinity. These plants and insects didn't contain even enough mana for me to notice it."

While it sounded good, it meant Kaden couldn't, at least not yet, control his life sense and if he was planning on tying Devour to this sense he would have to do so without precise control. For absorbing life, in general, it was very good.

"Perhaps I can concentrate the sense and kill things directly with it", Kaden thought about the discovery a bit. "It was a bit slow too, but that should become faster with practice too. There is also the matter of purification. I was able to consume the roots completely, but the things around me, that I didn't concentrate at, I only took life mana."

After his evolution, Kaden had been able to directly sense life mana. Yet, he was pretty sure he would be able to sense mana better in general. This mana sense was perfectly normal thing that grew as one grew in power. Like a True Magus could sense obscure stuff like spatial mana and so on.

Kaden before had sensed easily things he was good at, fire, wind and such, but what would he sense now?

"Perhaps I can use this to produce purification for the mana I Devour", Kaden though to himself. "My sense for mana should have reached high enough level that I can add some inspection routine to the mana I take. At the very least, it will be more accurate than the previous method I used which was to directly have the mana pass through my own body to see what was harmful."

This felt like a good idea.

"It will work", Kaden rejoiced as he thought it more. "I should call this something else. While its Devour function still exists entirely, I intend to use it to consume life so that I can grow. Phoenixes need life mana. Perhaps... Life Well. That sounds good."