After making sure that Mei was comfortable in her new home, Cain returned to Ourals’s keep. Alice had already finished the preparation and was waiting for him.
“What were you doing? I can smell something weird on you.” Alice said immediately as she picked up the smell of the spirit magic on him. Alice did call it ‘smell’ but it was more of the way her body interprets the sensation of magic. She can both see and smell it, she was a devil after all.
“What are you talking about?” Cain replied, failing to guess what she meant. He didn’t remember ever using any perfume lately.
“She is right-nya! It’s like the scent of leaves and flowers-nya.” Selena quickly leaped and started sniffing him, “It’s a female-nya!” Selena managed to single out Mei’s sent quickly.
Alice, Sofia, and Gracie all stared at him suspiciously.
‘A female? She must mean Mei!’ Cain screamed internally as he realized what they meant.
“Wait for just a second, I will summon her!” Cain said as he lifted his hand and started the summoning spell. At the same time, Alice was jumping to grab him with Sofia. They expected him to pull a woman as he can do with Alice.
[Conjure Fey: Summon Mei] The girls talked Cain down just as the spell started.
“Master, you summoned me so quickly…” Just as Mei appeared, she looked down at Cain. Three women were ganging up on him. She instantly went to high alert.
Crackle! Golden lightning crackled as her eyes flashed green. BAM! Her body quickly swollen up to the size of a normal human as she mumbled something incomprehensible to the girls.
From behind her wings, dozens of other pixies flew and quickly transformed to the size of humans.
[Entangle] They all cast the spell simultaneously to separate the girls from Cain. At the same time, Mei had created a wooden spear and was swinging it at Alice.
Even though it all happened in the blink of an eye, the girls were able to react. Selena tore the veins with her incredible strength, and Sofia burned them while Alice was about to unleash her aura. Gracie’s knife was already close to Mei’s neck at that point.
CLAP! [Dispel Magic][Enchanting][Enchanting]. [Lisworth’s Resilient Sphere] [Lisworth’s Resilient Sphere] [Lisworth’s Resilient Sphere] [Lisworth’s Resilient Sphere]… Cain cast his magic as fast as he could before they could hurt each other.
BAM! Each of them found herself trapped inside a transparent sphere that even Selena wasn’t able to break. “Would you all calm down? Keeping all those spells active is exhausting.” Cain said as his eyes flashed deep blue. Alice and Mei who were the most proficient in sensing magic could feel the pressure coming from Cain.
Having multiple spells active and keeping them strong enough to hold everyone. One thing was clear, even if they all ganged up on him, he will win.
CRACK! Suddenly Selena managed to crack her shell. Everyone looked in shock, how she could do that was unknown to them.
“I guess keeping a 20 strength was a tall order for a defensive spell,” Cain said smiling, Selena quickly jumped to his side.
“Lisworth’s resilient sphere is a defensive spell, it’s strong against from the outside but weak from the inside. It can be easily broken with 17 strength from the inside while it will need over 25 to be broken from the outside.” Cain explained.
“You seem to have calmed down so…” Cain then released his magic, and the rest of the girls, Mei, and all the pixies were freed.
Cain then explained how he made the pixies’ room and that it was probably Mei’s smell they picked up. The other pixies were summoned by Mei to help her furnish the room.
Sofia looked around and counted the pixies in the room. They have all shifted back to their small sizes. There were over twenty of them. She didn’t what to think about Cain having twenty half-naked women floating around him. They only wore leaves and didn’t care about being exposed at all.
“You have summoned a lot in a rather small window of time,” Cain asked Mei.
“I was about to start creating soil and growing trees, I also wanted to ask you for more space. Then I was suddenly summoned, I thought you forget to tell me something but I found you being attacked.” She said with a sad face, that she had mistakenly attacked the wives of her summoner.
“But, why was your smell on him, to begin with?” Sofia asked with a suspicious face.
“It was probably the dust from my wings, I did fly close to him when he first summoned me, and the air in the maze is stale,” Mei said with an annoyed face, she know better than to lay her hand on Cain. She can’t imagine the wraith the herald would bring on her if she did.
“So that’s it, we might need them as a last line of support,” Cain said with a straight face, he was expecting to fight more dragons so no amount of preparation was enough. This time no one will run from him.
Meliliana escaped from him twice, Morena escaped once. Next time he was determined to turn them into fertilizer. Keeping the maze active all the time was a form of training as well, that thing was closer to a ninth-tier spell so it was like weight lifting for mages.
“Do you really think we will need all of this fighting power? You already reached the highest form of magic and we’re growing stronger by the day.” Sofia said. She was right if they were normal adventures. Ninth-tier was the highest form of magic, but not really. As mages could create their own version and buff them to achieve new heights.
“Casting two ninth-tiers spells a day would save us from a great wyrm, do you remember that fire blast that took a whole mountain off?” Cain said with a worried face.
Zaleria was badly injured with a single ninth-tier spell, but she was only an ancient dragon and at level 28. If a great wyrm who was above level 70 came, he could take such spells as Sofia would take Firebolt.
“No amount of power is enough, the stronger we get the better,” Cain replied.
“He is right-nya! We can’t be weak-nya.” Selena jumped into the conversation.
“So, what is the goal now?” Mei asked.
“We’re going to the Fenrir village tomorrow, we have business there.” Cain said and Mei replied with a plain “I see.”
“Cain, can I ask something-nya?” Selena interrupted them.
“What is it?” Cain asked.
“I’ve seen the map of the way to the Fenrir village. My village is close to it so can we make a short detour-nya. I would like to introduce you-nya.” Selena said with a shy smile on her face. She had left her village in search of a mate and it was only natural for her to bring him back to her family.
“Why not? I would be happy to meet your family.” Cain said with a smile, hiding his nervousness. He knew one thing about the Black-jaguar tribe. When a girl marry, her father would fight the groom to determine his worth. Cain wasn’t thrilled about fighting Selena’s father.
Judging by Selena’s raw strength, her father should be just as, if not stronger. Male black-jaguar were about a quarter bigger than females. If Selena was standing at almost 6 ft, her father should be around 7 and a half feet tall. In average.
“Selena’s parents?” Sofia wondered what would they look like. Her mother should look like an older version of her. While she imagined her father having a cat-like head.
“Wouldn’t such a tribe be extremely sensitive?” Mei stated she knew that such races preferred to keep to themselves.
“They won’t attack as long as I’m with you-nya, even if they did I will just beat them up again-nya!” Selena said.
“Hold up, again?” Cain asked in surprise.
“Eh…Yeah. They were against me leaving the village so I just fought my way out, more like I ran away-nya…” Selena said with a guilty face. She was a run-away girl.
“Fine, let’s get to sleep quickly,” Cain, said. It was already getting late and they needed to wake up early. He also wanted to save some time to have fun.
Mei excused herself to the maze while Cain put the lights out. The night started.
…
Far away, in the middle of a forest where humans rarely wonder, a woman looked down at her husband that was sleeping under the sunlight.
“Honey, I dreamed that our daughter brought a man.” She said with a gentle voice. Her long black hair trailed in the wind.
“That girl? Let her be, I doubt anyone would fancy her. I remember how she ran away when we said she needed to choose a mate from the village.” He growled.
The woman giggled, “Weren’t you the one who refused the majority? Calling them weak and unfit for her?”
He sprung up, “W-we don’t talk about!” He gasped. Most likely, his daughter ran away since he was beating all of her possible husbands.
“Let’s get back, the meat will get cold.” She said in a gentle tone.