“What should we do your highness, He’s the only ninth-tier magic used we heard of in this continent, we can’t let just stay wandering around.” One of the knights said to Noel.
“I agree with you, he is an irreplaceable piece. We have to get him to the capital no matter what.” Noel said with a worried face. “Now that elvish princess has taken the throne, who knows when they will decide to invade us, his skills could play an important role in defending the capital.”
“If he wants no money nor land, how about marriage? There are a lot of noble ladies that could accept him; I bet we can find him two or three suitable ones.” The knights said with a thinking face.
“I could have offered myself but he didn’t seem that interested. Most people would get flustered when visited by a princess but he seemed annoyed more than anything.” She cupped her cheek feeling her defined jawline and hard neck. She then checked her armor and sighed, “I should have probably dressed better; war outfits have no appeal after all.”
Click. The door slowly opened and Cain entered with Alice in tow, “Sorry, the other two have some business to attend to.” Cain said with a smile as he took back his seat.
“There is another thing we wanted to bring to your attention,” The princess said slowly, “Upon hearing about your heroic deeds, you became the talk of capitals and a lot of nobles want to meet you, would you mind paying us a short visit?”
Cain slowly turned toward Gracie; she was standing at the corner the whole time. It was a well-known fact that if a servant or a maid spoke up in an important meeting they can get severely punished. In addition, depending on the importance of the topic, they might be killed on the spot.
“What do you think?” Cain asked surprising the princess, why would he transfer the conversation to a maid? Even the king doesn’t do that with them unless they became queens of course.
“I wouldn’t accept, they were talking about getting some noble ladies to marry you,” Gracie said immediately, infuriating the princess.
Cain quickly turned toward her, “Before you think of any more stupid ideas, she is my fourth wife and I left her, especially for this reason.” Cain sighed and asked Gracie to sit by his side and Called Lexi from the outside.
“Why did you think it was a great idea to discuss your plans in front of her? Your brother would have never done that, this is the main reason you are bad for diplomacy.”
The princess gave him a sharp glare, “Do you think it’s funny to mess with the royal family?”
“Listen, even if didn’t let her hear what you said. What makes you think that I would believe that the capital has heard of me? The only news about me should be that I could potentially help your sister; the king will keep such information confidential and no one would have even heard of my existence.” Cain was right, they only learned about him when they came here, his true power was still unknown and the king’s offer should have been directed to whoever took rule of Ourals, aka, Leon or William in most cases.
The princess stared at him with a confused face, he couldn’t help but wonder why did they let her and the knights be the ones to come? Well, it can be that they were expected to help in the war…
“As I said before, I will come to the capital to check on your sister when I’m done with my current business. As long as you don’t try anything funny that is…” As Cain was speaking, someone kicked the door open.
The woman that entered was covered in bandages from head to toe; she stared at them and growled. “Would you mind shutting up for a moment? I’m trying to sleep up here.”
Cain turned at her and giggled, “Did the spell lose effect? That’s a good sign and it means that your magic is slowly recovering, come with me I will cast it again.” Cain stood up and walked toward her.
“I wouldn’t be wise to voice your complaints to her.” Alice interested the princess before she could speak.
After Cain left, The princess asked Alice who was that.
“Zaleria, the dragon who stopped the meteor. It’s in your best interest to stay on her good side.” The princess’s face went pale as she heard that, for a moment she remembered the destruction they saw in the mountain.
“She said we were noisy, but I’m sure we were talking quietly…” one of the knights asked.
“She is a dragon, her hearing is extremely sharp. Cain was keeping her under a soundless spell buffed to seventh-tier just for her to stay comfortable. However, it seems that the magic leaking from her body was enough to disturb the spell.
Zaleria was having a horrible headache since head-butted a meteor, and with she was finding it hard to concentrate on controlling her magic. It will take her some time to get stable but she was recovering well and her life was not in danger. There was another thing, even if she was injured; she was still able to use her breath weapon.
“Then if you excuse us, we have to go to the lord’s mansion now. We will discuss this again tomorrow.” The princess stood up.
Alice stood as well and guided them to the door. She was a bit happy that the princess was leaving as Cain had other things he wanted to attend to.
After the princess and her knights left, Cain walked to the garden where he saw a maid carefully tending to the tree. She was Jemima and she seemed furious at the blade stuck in her beloved tree.
“Master, first Suzan and now this, can’t you leave the plants alone?” She tried her hardest not to yell.
“Don’t, it’s just stuck in the outer bark, the tree will be fine,” Cain assured her and quickly started preparing to test his magic.
[Arcane Gate] Cain created a magical door and walked through it, he appeared inside his maze, and from there he found the door he created last time and walked through it to his room. He returned to the garden.
This magic can last indefinitely in cast correctly and can serve as a teleportation hub for him and his servants. It will prove useful since he will be traveling a lot from now on. There were two downsides to this magic.
He needs to set the portals personally and anyone could use them. The first problem cannot be solved and he will have to go to Ourals to set an Arcane Gate there for the time being.
The second problem is solved by making the maze, if any unwanted person tried to use the arcane gate, they will get lost in the maze until Cain deals with them.
Cain was now debating whether he should use the S-rank dungeon core as a battery for the maze. That will help him cover the Mana cost while allowing him to create enchanted golems and traps to protect the maze and the hub. In short, he will be creating a man-made dungeon as his teleportation hub.
There was also another point to that, if he kept feeding the dungeon core more Mana and other cores, he might be able to extend the maze enough for it to become a training ground for him to test new spells, create complicated enchantments, and hide his treasures from unwanted seekers.
On the other hand, he wanted to keep the dungeon core as a trump card in case they faced something they can’t win against.
In the end, Cain decided to use the core to create the maze and expand the hub. It might have taken him the rest of the day standing in the cold snow but he managed to get the basic setup.
By using the magic stored in the core, he created an 8 by 8 by 8 cube-shaped maze with a door at each wall. That are interconnected with each other. Any invader will get infinitely lost until Cain himself drag him out.
The Magic was a combination of [Demiplane] [Maze] [Arcane Gate] [Confusion] [Reverse Gravity]. At the time, it lacked furnishing and guards but it was decent enough for the job.
After the long day, Cain had managed to create a resemblance of an original ninth-tier spell, even though it still needed some polishing. He decided to call it [Lisworth’s Infinite Maze]
He asked Jemima to try to walk inside the maze but she ended up throwing up after passing by just a few rooms. She said that since all the rooms were pure white, the doors were white, and the fact she could walk on walls as well as the ground, she quickly started to feel nauseous and couldn’t take it.
However, as soon as Cain gave her permission to use the maze, the first door she opened led her straight to his room.
He decided to spend some more time polishing and populating it with what he needed.