Five years had passed since Kaden settled down into the phoenix clan. Things were happening in the human territories.

"We should blame Sacronan's heretics for all of it!" A higher priest said. "It is possible to prove it all started there! We can turn the common rabble to our side!"

There was a meeting going in deeper parts of the Saint Empire church. Things were not going good.

"We are already doing that", another replied afterwards. "Its not having proper effect. They are saying the same about us. Those accursed cultists are everywhere. We can only increase intensity of the war. Then carefully purge everything. Hopefully before that blasphemous mana system becomes too advanced. Each time be purge another cultist hideout, we discover higher quality versions of it. It is already good enough for lower stages, but even higher ranked can use since it can be used together with ordinary ones!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Continue emphasizing downsides of the mana system. Consequences of blaspheming the god. Also select a few notable random people that are opposing the war and forcibly inject chaotic mana into them until they explode. Say it is due to the use of the godless mana system and that it causes loss of control of your mana. Say that they were using it," said the leader of the current meeting. A cardinal, a True Magus that directly reports to the Archmagi High Cardinals and, if neccessary, directly the pope. "We must continue our efforts and root out any opposition."

Agreeging clamor filled the room for a moment.

There was a bell that rang soon after. The cardinal frowned, but ordered the door to be opened. A priest quickly entered the room and kneeled down at middle of the room. The bell was there so that any sudden information could be provided to the otherwise closed meeting.

"Lord cardinal", the priest said, still looking down and extended his hands holding a special information crystal that was encrypted. "Terrible news!"

The information crystal floated the hands of the cardinal who looked at it. Then a sudden burst of energy was released from him, seemingly due to anger, and the surrounding area disintegrated to dust.

"This has been confirmed?!" The cardinal demanded to know oddly calmly despite his outburst.

"It has", the priest replied.

"Leave", the cardinal said and the priest quickly obeyed.

The doors were closed behind him.

"Lord cardinal?" One of the higher priests questioned.

"We shall blame the beasts instead, but continue with the plans otherwise", the cardinal said. "The blasphemous mana system has spread among the Cari."

"What? Those animals can use it too?!" One of the higher priests shouted. "This is ... this..." He sat down in shock.

"They will grow in power!" Another shouted. "All the while we fight among each other! Surely this is their doing! All of it! It must be them who started it all! Could it be the cultists are working with Cari?"

"Would they blaspheme their gods in such a way?" Yet another question was shouted.

A pulse of mana spread across the room. Everyone silenced.

"The spread cannot be stopped anymore", the cardinal said. "I will take this up to my superiors. All we can do now is to rile up everyone against the Cari. Increase the hunts. A true counter attack will require far more preparation we can put in motion. Gather any and all information you can. Prepare for anything."

"Should we change our plans regarding the war?" A highe priest asked. "There will be a great conflict between humans and Cari very soon."

"Do you want to be the one who calls the shots or listen to the heretics orders?" The cardinal answered with a question.

The higher priest sighed. "I understand."

"I will report this now", the cardinal said. "This meeting ends here. Continue your tasks. For the foreseeable future any action could be critical. To you. To the church. To the gods. Understand this. Personal feuds will be dealt with harshly!"

The room was silent as the cardinal disapeared soon after.

--------

Around at the same time in Sacronan's similar meeting.

"Inconceivable!! Absolutely inconceivable!!!!" A higher priest from Sacronan raged as he received similar news. "You could not find the culprit for all of this over the years and now you are telling me the mangy beasts are using it too? You could not find any signs about beasts even with the clues?! How is that possible! Cretins!"

The other members of the priesthood were quietly listening to the raging.

"This is a catastrophe!" The higher priest finally sat down as he stopped raging.

Someone appeared into the room. No one seemed to be bothered by it. Yet another top tier church official.

"Sanctus demands us to increase our war efforts", A True Magus serving directly under Sanctus announced. "Cari will be coming eventually and humanity must be under one banner at that time. It must be ours. The continuous war must come to an end. True gods are on our side."

"Shall we assume Cari were behind all of this?" The high priest asked.

"The culprit matters very little at this point", the True Magus replied. "Keep an eye out. If you do happen to find any information, we may be able to find motives and other information. As it is Cari are far more important. They will grow in power and we still have to hold them back."

"Then we shall do as Sanctus wills it", the high priest replied.

--------

Kaden had grown in power. He was still in the initial Condensation or Lower Cari stage, but he had seen growth over the years. If he continued his training and studies inside the Caldera Pit, he would advance to mid stages within a few years.

Not that Kaden expected it to take that long. He was nearly able to accomplish the required level and would acquire adulthood status. Then he would go out and fight against the enemies of the phoenix clan and most likely gain direct growth.

At first Kaden had wondered how fast he would be able to do it, but as it turned out, it wasn't as long as he had believed. The layers in the Caldera Pit didn't increase in power linearly. Only the last two levels were for Higher Cari. The next few before that were for the True Cari. That is to say, most of the levels were for Lower Cari stage. Getting to the halfway was basically the limit a bit past mid Lower Cari. Since Kaden was able to almost do it before being that stage, he was seen to be pretty talented.

Kaden had found out his style of doing things was still quite humanlike. This made sense considering his body and how it worked, but he was kind of missing the phoenix side a bit. He was almost passively taking advantage of it. With the training he was working hard to put them together.

Some of the phoenixes had also wanted to examine Kaden in detail. They had come to a conclusion that Kaden was indeed a phoenix and not some mutant, at least physically. Technically, that is. It seemed whatever influence the birth flames being mixed into his being had eventually mixed the phoenix parts to him perfectly probably due to them being stronger than the human parts. Yet, his body structure was similar to that of humans rather than that of phoenixes. While he had a core, the mana that was infused in his flesh was far more precise and allowed spell casting easily which was a human trait. He was also a bit smaller.

Eventually none could come to a true conclusion. Kaden still held onto his belief that he was still a perfect mixture. Best parts from both sides. Strong body from phoenixes and the top tier spell casting ability from humans.

It was still of great interest to phoenixes. Something like that was apprently possible? In fact, many who researched it came to a conclusion that it should not be possible. Yet, Kaden was proof it was. Perhaps it is possible due to some special conditions of the situation that allowed it. Kaden was near dead at the time, perhaps? So was Anuu? Or perhaps it was somehow related to Kaden having accidentally prepared his body for it by absorbing chaotic mana? There were many specific conditions. None could really say.

The argument was still going on. Not that the phoenixes would be using it to birth more people like Kaden. To begin with birth flames were already extremely difficult and dangerous to acquire. Also the only reason they accepted Kaden was because of the context of why Anuu did what she did and that Kranor accepted him and that Kaden was not shameful and so on. Despite all of that, it was still valuable information for their information vaults.

Kaden himself pondered that since it was extremely unlikely to happen, perhaps he had already been causally protected by the requirement to be able to go into the great remnant in Murika. There was no way to prove that, though. Yet again, Kaden didn't really care. It had succeeded. He had grown strong. He had the ability to strike back at his enemies and exact his vengeance. It didn't matter whether he was a human, a phoenix or some kind of freaky mixture of them. He was he. He was alive. He was strong.

Whatever the phoenixes thought of him, it didn't matter as long as they didn't bother him.

While this Kaden had taken full advantage of the Caldera Pit and all its features. Not only his cultivation stage had grown, he had gathered quite a bit of knowledge too.

Such as the simulation formations. Kaden was somewhat surprised to find that sometimes phoenixes captured their enemies and then brought them in. Then used them to make the formations. Spells and formations dealing with souls were rare, but these enemies were bound into the simulation formations. Their bodies long since broken apart or eaten, but their souls lasted for much longer.

Souls were often considered domain of gods and messing with them was frowned upon. Not that the binding was permanent. Eventually all souls would slip free. Not exactly destroyed like in Vengeance, but still apparently quite used up. Even after that, the formations had a record which it was able to simulate. The quality of the opponent would degrade, but as far as Kaden cared, they were more than good. What mattered was the information.

It wasn't the soul that made it work, but some kind of mana related to life. Some kind of 'record of life'. What someone is and does and has done. It was somewhat deeper mana type, but actually not too deep.

He was very interested in these formations. While he wasn't sure, if he could incorporate that into Vengeance, the ability to generate simulations that were able to fight, could be useful. If he could produce a good enough recording somehow, possibly even from memory or some preexisting set of moves, and then simulate an autonomous fighter at will. It just made sense. Kaden wanted to make use of this idea somehow.

Kaden had looked into the formations as soon as he had learned of their true nature. Using them wasn't quite as easy, since things like mana requirements were a bit prohibitive, but perhaps if unnecessary features were trimmed out, something useful could be produced. The formations were also pretty large and complex, but yet again a trimmed down version could work. If as nothing else than as trumpcard by spending a bit of wealth to power it up.

Apparently phoenixes had tried it, but it had not gone far. Kaden felt he could perhaps attempt to incorporate some new ideas, such as the programming that he learned from the ancients. Simulation of a battle golem/robot made out of mana?

Kaden wondered, if there was some reason such an idea had not become popular. It shouldn't be a comletely new idea to humans either. Perhaps it was the stuff related to souls. Churches would frown at it, at the very least. Still, that didn't count out simply replacing that with the set of orders, like Kaden was planning, if souls wouldn't work out.

At the moment, Kaden was preparing for his next attempt to pass the test at the middle of Caldera Pit. He had tried it a few times, but was defeated by the simulated opponent. Barely, that is. With few improvements, he should win.

"While this training period has been extremely good for me, I want it to be over already", Kaden thought to himself. "I have things to do."