Kaden reported his success and then he flew far from the Lightning Leopard clan. He wanted to ensure there would be no disruptions. After some time he searched for an area where he felt no higher life. That meant no Cari nor High Beasts. Dire Beasts were still simple enough that it was unlikely for them to remember or understand, if they did see something.

That was just the start. After finding such a remote location, Kaden started crafting a formation to hide his presence, shroud mana that others could sense, a barrier, alarms, detectors and even ones that would attack anyone trying to approach.

Kaden was not taking any chances. It took him a long time to produce all that, but he felt it was neccessary. If he could prevent some contingency, that could occur, he would do so.

Once he felt he was safe enough, Kaden entered a small cave that he had also opened up. There he took out all the black fragments he had collected. He placed them together near each other in positions where they seemed like they would connect, but didn't connect them yet.

"No reaction so far", Kaden thought to himself.

Now that he had all the parts there could have been more reactions, but nothing happened. Even the buzzing occured only when there was a part or parts separated by greater distance.

He started to connect the pieces one by one and waiting after each one and observing his formations for any unusual effects in mana.

Still nothing unusual happened. Kaden was almost disapointed by the point he had the one last piece to connect. He had truly expected something to happen by then.

"The completed 'puzzle' will be be roughly a pentagon shape", Kaden though to himself as he held the large piece containing all the other pieces and on the other talon he held the final larger piece. "Its bottom is unevenly shaped, but the top is smooth. There are these markings over it that do not seem to be a formation as far as I can understand."

Kaden felt a little wary about activating a random formation by completing the shape. As far as he could tell it was quite solid piece of material that he still could not determine. The pieces connected perfectly. At the bottom there seemed to be part that, once pressed, could allow them to separate once completed, but otherwise the connection would be basically seamless. Without such a mechanism separating them from such perfect shape would be difficult. Once locked in place it would not forcibly break.

While Kaden had not tried to damage them, he could tell the black fragments were made from extremely durable material. Possibly the most durable material he had ever seen. This is the feeling he got even if he had not tried to measure it.

Kaden pressed the final large piece against the spot where it would clearly slot and lock in.

*click*

Once completed Kaden quickly put the completed puzzle down. He spend relatively long time just observing his formations once again for any unusual effects.

"Nothing?" Kaden finally calmed down and poked the complete black pentagon with his sharp talon.

*click*click*

Nothing happened. He then picked it up. Nothing happened.

It was rather anticlimactic.

Then Kaden decided to trying to sense it with mana. Finally there was a reaction. It was small pulse. It was like the usual buzzing when the fragments had activated, but it was no longer a buzz, but a coherent pulse.

"The fragments are likely now working in sync", Kaden decided the most likely answer. "Each activate once they are near each other. Previously it happened only once the fragments were close enough proximity and at least one was separated. Now they are all connected so its pulsing in orderly manner rather than broken buzz."

Kaden tried to feel the pulse. He had always been curious about the reaction. No one else seemed to sense it and he personally could do nothing about it than sense it. Now perfected, perhaps it would be possible to get some answers.

This did not occur.

"I still cannot do anything, but sense the pulse", Kaden lamented after attempting for some time. "At least now I can sense it whenever I want rather than only when one part is nearby."

After some series of experiment Kaden noted there was some change in the pulsing. It seemed to change slightly as he turned the black pentagon. The part that was the largest piece seemed to be the 'front' and when it was turned to certain direction, the pulse seemed stronger.

It was clearly pointing somewhere.

"It was indeed a puzzle that, once completed, would lead its owner somewhere", Kaden understood. "It is a test. Someone made it and it did not just pop into existence. Perhaps it will lead me to inherit someones legacy?"

Powerful people sometimes did that. They created tombs, mazes and such when they felt like they wanted pass something to the next generation. These places were a bit like remnants. Perhaps one could call Kaden's own caches with the godless mana system as such too even if now they were mostly unneccessary. They could be either bening or brutal tests. If one was able to reach the end they would receive a boon. Treasures, knowledge ... it could be anything.

Kaden tried to sense this pulse more by putting more mana towards that part. He could not see it or sense it with any of his ordinary senses, but he did sense something. It was like a line of something connecting to somewhere. Wherever it was, it was much further than he could sense it. It was like holding onto a rope within deep mist. You knew it was tied to somewhere, but you could not see where.

"Looks like gathering the parts is only the first step", Kaden thought to himself. "Now I will have to find where this goes."

From where Kaden was, the direction was roughly north. It was either on northern Frika, which Kaden found unlikely, if it was not burried deep in the desert, or it was in human territories. Even further beyond was No Man's Land.

"I will have to find a way to travel", Kaden decided. He had stayed in the phoenix clan for a while, but perhaps it was time to end it at least for the time being.

Yet, as he was, it would be difficult to get to human territories. His pathetic attempts at hiding his shape previously was not good. Human territories, as far as the reports went, were getting chaotic. Borders were also heavily defended. More so than usual.

"If I can get to Centralean Forest, I might be able to avoid both of the empires", Kaden continued his planning. "I will only have to annihilate all groups of hunters that are after beasts inside to ensure that no reports of my presence spreads."

It was area where humans hunted a lot of beasts. It could not be considered Cari territory like Frika. Nor was it human territory. It was either neutral or contested area. It was also very wide and contained a lot more than just lower beasts and human hunting parties. Having been abandoned for a while there were things such as mana creatures and elementals. Not to mention the greater remnant that was somehow involved with Cari.

That was probably one of the major reasons why Cari had never allowed such remote location to fall completely under human control. There were Cari deeper in that protected the area. Still it wasn't safe even for Cari. Even Anuu must have passed through on her way into No Man's Land and out as she was escaping and Kaden knew very well how that had ended. It was just too close to human territories.

"No matter", Kaden said to himself. "I will find where this leads. This is clearly something that goes against gods and I will require all what it represents, if I'm to go against top of the churches one day and the gods themselves."

It would be dangerous, but it would be absolutely neccessary for his goals.

There were some problems regarding how to leave. Kaden had received much from the phoenix clan and they expected something in return. Kaden didn't want to break his ties with them completely.

"I did give them the godless mana system", Kaden thought to himself. "It could technically be considered priceless. It will allow Cari the potential to conquer human territories in the future. I'll work for them for a while longer and then I will speak with Kranor with this point of view. I have given them already a lot. I cannot stay here in Frika too long."

Kaden put away the now completed black pentagon. He then removed all signs of his presence. There was no need for anyone randomly come there and start asking questions about what were all the defenses for.

Over the next months Kaden received more work. While he did experiment a bit more, there wasn't much progress. The trap version of his control formation was too easy to avoid, if the victim paid enough attention.

Even then, it merely gave Kaden full control of someones body. Forcibly. It was kind of wasteful. Slaves were not entirely unheard of, but most of such things were unreliable. To control someone was entirely possible, but it often was more trouble than it was worth it. For example Serin had controlled people, but they were basically puppets unable to act on their own and tended to break themselves by accident. Such slaves were useless for anything, but degenerate games.

It would be far easier to kill your target and then apply some necromancy to control the body or some other similar method. Souls were always troublesome and could cause disruptions. While Kaden viewed necromancy as something quite useful, it wasn't exactly his style even if it would provide him with functional bodies with no souls.

Kaden was already able to control his mana constructs so that wasn't his problem anyway. A body would be able to contain a lot of mana and even act, but it was difficult to force someone. So either he finds a way to do so or find a way to control it all himself. There were options on how to get 'minions'. Be it clones or slaves or something else.

"I must experiment later", Kaden thought to himself after one of his latest kills. "I'll complete some more work and then bring up the matter of leaving to Kranor."

While he didn't feel like he was in a rush, he didn't want to waste time. Yet, he didn't even have a plan how he would search the human lands for the location where the black pentagon was pointing to. Assuming it was there. If it was in No Man's Land, there would be even more planning and preparations.

One at Condensation stage or at Lower Cari, could probably survive in No Man's Land and, if one was lucky and not randomly disapear into some spatial fold or simply cease to exist. Any lower and ones fate could not be predicted. True Magi and True Cari were safe. Kaden was at there at the between. It was risky, but still something one could expect to survive if they were careful.

Still, unlike in human territories, where humans would be the main danger, in No Man's Land it was the unpredictable environment.

Kaden had not actually seen the No Man's Land, but he had seen directly the times of the Cataclysm and he had even explored the land while it. No Man's Land and its effect should be weaker than the ancient past of the Cataclysm.

"I will merely require a safe location where I can watch and wait for less active period, but achieving that next to human territories might be difficult", Kaden told himself. "Beyond that I must be careful of spatial distortions and other chaotic effects of mana."

At any rate, he would have to discover the location first.