After finishing their tea, Cain opened an arcane gate to the Maze. He, Alice, Sofia, Selena, and Gracie walked in. They were surprised by the green lush forest behind the magical blue door.
“Mei, where are you?” Cain called.
“Isn’t it Lord Cain? Follow me. I will guide you to the leader.” A small pixie flew toward them cheerfully.
Seeing the small thing fly around, Selena found it hard to resist the urge to jump on it. “Nya!” Selena leaped at the pixie immediately with open claws.
“Whoa! What are you doing?” The pixie cried as she dodged Selena at the last moment. It was clear to Cain that Selena was not going all out. She was just playing.
The pixie flew up a tree leaving a green trail after her. “Nya!” Selena’s eyes tracked the little pixie, Thud! Using her powerful claws and arms, she pulled herself up the tree in a single move.
“Let’s keep moving. Mei should be ahead.” Said Cain as he felt Mei’s magic. Surprisingly this place seemed larger than he first made it. The pixie was known for their expertise in size magic but was on a whole another level.
‘Changing their body size or the size of a wand is one thing. However, I made this space, and they changed its size. That is no small feat.’ Cain’s magic was more resilient than it seemed, Even Zaleria would fail in overwriting control over Cain’s fire magic. However, to have those pixies do such a modification to his magic was scary.
“I can relax right?” Alice looked at Cain.
“Of course, no one is here beside us and the pixies. Feel free to let loose.” Cain replied. Those pixies were still his summons. They could feel all the other devils he summoned so they already knew, Mei even know about Sylph.
Alice took her coat off and stretched her arms. Two thin black horns emerged from her head as the wings stretched from her back. Her black tail whipped around and made a whip-like crackling sound.
Sofia also cracked her neck and back, she tried to force her horns and wings out but failed. Only her face turned bright red from straining herself.
“What are you doing? Need to go to the toilet?” Cain asked as she was squishing herself. Two red veins popped on her neck as she opened her mouth. Cain expected her to yell at him but he instead saw a red flash.
[Fire shield] He managed to activate the spell at the last moment. Cain only ended with slight burns to his hand. The spell protected everything else, even the forest.
“Cain!” Sofia rushed toward him after she realized what happened.
“I’m fine. That was big barf, try not to squeeze yourself that hard in the future.” Cain said as he cast [Lesser Healing] on his hand.
Alice laughed as she watched them, it will be a problem if Sofia started exhaling flames all the time. That fire blast was as strong as a first-tier spell if not a bit stronger.
Gracie on the other hand was squatting beside a small bush and watching a ladybug walk. “There are bugs here. It isn’t just created with magic.” She mumbled.
“Well pixies like to create a whole ecosystem, they must have brought them from another place…” Cain realized what Gracie was worrying about. The pixies are getting in and out of the maze without Cain’s knowledge. They have that much freedom.
“Let’s move. I will talk to Mei about it later.” They kept advancing further. As if she heard them, Mei was awaiting in the pond just around the corner.
“Lord Cain, welcome. It’s been like half an hour since we last met!” She waved her hand at them naked in the water.
Cain extended his finger toward her [Frostbite] “Put some clothe on!”
“Ah! Ah! Cold! Stop!” Mei quickly flew from the water and landed behind them. “What was that for? I was just testing the pond!” She growled at him.
“Better than facing those two.” Cain pointed at Sofia and Alice who were ready to attack. Mei stopped in her place.
“I thought you wanted a pond for swimming. Anyway, I made it a bit warm so it feels nice.” Mei stood and flapped her wings to remove the water from them. She was still naked but Cain could care less at this point.
“Well, Selena wanted to swim and…” Alice wanted to explain but… Splash! They heard something fall into the water.
“What was that?” Sofia yelled.
Shortly enough, a black Jaguar emerged from the water carrying a small Pixie in her mouth. Selena dropped the small pixie and waved her body to splash the water away.
“Did you kill her?” Mei rushed toward the little pixie.
“Leader…My head is spinning…” The little pixie turned around and puked.
Selena captured her in the trees and ran all the way to the water with her inside her mouth. It was both uncomfortable, and disgusting, and induced motion sickness in the small creature.
“Selena, well done.” Cain was more impressed with how Selena managed to control her power and not kill the pixies.
Alice poked him in the side, “That’s not what you should be saying!” She glared at him.
Cain sighed, she was right. “Selena, please don’t do that again. It’s dangerous for the pixies.” Cain scolded Selena. Her tail dropped.
Sofia on the other hand was already sitting at the edge of the water and soaking her feet. The water felt cold and refreshing to her.
“Isn’t it a bit cold?” Sofia asked Mei with a confused face.
“What do you mean, it’s warm.” Mei hurried to check the water. Cain’s spell should not be strong enough to cool the entire pond.
“It’s still warm, what are you talking about?” Mei said.
“It’s probably a problem in your heat sense,” Cain said from behind Sofia.
“Heat sense?” Sofia almost didn’t understand what he was referring to. She knew six senses and that wasn’t one of them (Smell, touch, sight, hearing, taste, and magic)
“The part when you know something is hot or cold. You’re slowly transforming into a fire dragon so that sense seems to have been changing. That might be the reason you couldn’t learn cold magic, since what you cold now is still warm.” Cain explained his theory briefly.
“So I have to make it colder than what I consider cold?” Sofia stared at Cain.
“Precisely, but for the time being try enjoying the place. You can test that later.” Cain smiled, as he was happy she understood quickly. However, in all honesty, he asked her to not try now because he feared she might succeed and freeze the whole pond.
[Creation] is an illusion spell that can create the image of something with magic. Cain used it to create illusory swimming clothes for everyone.
In all practical matters, they were naked. However, the magic made it seem like they were wearing some bikini-like outfit.
“What is this?” Alice touches her body.
“Your hands go right through the illusion. Well, it is an illusion after all. Just keep that in mind.” After saying that, Cain went to one of the trees and looked up.
“You can come down if you want!” Cain yelled, quickly a dozen or so Pixies flew down.
“Hehe…” One of them giggled in embarrassment. Mei has told them to not come when Cain and the other were he but they did anyway.
“Care to join?” Cain asked them.
The Pixies were naturally curious creatures. One of them looked at Cain. “Cain we?”
“Of course,” Cain replied with a smile.
With a flash of golden light, they all transformed into their human size. They quickly stripped from their leaf-like clothes and tried to rush to the pond but Cain stopped them.
[Creation] “Let me get you something decent to wear first, it will be weird if a bunch of you were running around like that.” Cain started creating swimsuits for them one by one.
He could feel Sofia’s piercing glare at his back, it was painful.
“I do remember the days when it was just me and Selena, now there is a whole crowd. They swarm around you like flies.” It was clear that the pixies were more interested in Cain than the pond.
“To us pixies, Mana is everything. Lord Cain has so much Mana that Titania herself will be drooling over him.” Mei said in an ominous voice.