There was an emotional reunion when Tommy came back from his search and found Jiushi safe and sound.  

“Momo-chan!!!!” He was wailing as he grabbed Jiushi’s shoulders. 

Seeing Tommy being so clingy, the mute newbie should have been disgusted. But he actually ignored Tommy’s behavior and dutifully tidied up the camp.  

He certainly didn’t feel sorry for scraping all of Tommy’s communication stones with the stray Mana Bullet he fired off. A god has no guilty conscience! 

Jiushi looked at the two men who were behaving absolutely converse. “What had happened? And why is he packing up?” 

Tommy retold what Ace and Jerry had shared about Sepurin Jungle before his communication stones were blasted up. 

“I don’t know more details. They just wanted me to grab you and leave immediately,” Tommy said.  

“I see,” Jiushi was processing the information, “Let’s depart as they told us. I was done with the investigation anyway.” 

“Already? Is it the doing of the demons?” Tommy asked. 

“Yes, I even trapped a sample of the demonic parasite.” Jiushi pointed to the ice cage not far from them. “It’s just a bit annoying that the energy supply can’t be interrupted. It’s eating up spirit stones like a bottomless pit.” 

Tommy was staring at the white glassy cage. The vine inside was wiggling like a maggot; slow and steady. He shuddered, but a crazy idea came to his mind, “Should we give it to Harem?”  

“Nii-chan…” Jiushi was a bit dumbfounded, “Why would you plug the spiritual energy-fueled plant on the mana generator? We do not need an uncontrollable man-eating plant.” 

“He needs to learn how to micro-control his mana,” Tommy explained, “And his mana level is lowered at the moment. It’s better to do it now.” 

Jiushi was skeptical, but Tommy told him about Harem God’s half-filled spiritual core and his innate ability to manipulate mana. He could manifest his mana into different shapes and specify the trajectory to some extent. However, he could control it only with a specific amount. The mana bullet couldn’t contain too much or too little mana, otherwise, he would be unable to maintain the shape. 

Harem God needed training, but they couldn’t stay in Mistore Forest anymore. Letting him take care of the demonic plant wasn’t a bad idea. He couldn’t overfeed it since his mana level was temporarily low and this method of training was inconspicuous. 

They packed up their stuff and left Mistore Forest at once. It was already noon, but with a bit of luck, they could fetch a passing carriage to tramp and wouldn’t need to camp outside. 

Yet, as if targeted, a sudden surge of mist followed them. It wasn’t dangerous, but it slowed down their pace. 

“The next checkpoint is not far. From then on, we only need to walk straight to get out,” Tommy said. 

“Harem, don’t stray too far. The mist has a disorientating effect,” Jiushi said as he turned back. 

However, the person in question already got lost. 

*** 

F*ck.  

I was completely lost.  

The vine suddenly jumped up and I nearly let the cage slip out of my hands. It didn’t fall as I caught it midair, but Jiushi was already out of sight when I looked up again. 

I couldn’t hear him either. Even though I heard him clearly just a few moments before.  

… 

The mist was really annoying. 

I remembered that I had followed them on an even trampled path. But now I found myself surrounded by trees. Instead of roaming around aimlessly, I put the cage down to my feet and leaned against one tree. 

It was going to dusk soon. I needed to do something before that. It was already hard to see what I was kicking in front of me, forget which path I came from.  

I thought about what Tommy had told me about mana this morning. Apparently, it was just a convenient concept for people since it was already a thing in fantasy books and games. Some people also called it qi, chakra, or prana. 

I shut off when he brought up something about different beliefs, but I picked up something about it being pure energy and it being the electricity for everyday life in this world. 

Shouldn’t it be applicable as light then? 

I tried to form a mana ball that wasn’t meant to attack. The first one failed and would have blown me up if I hadn’t thrown it away in the last second.  

A tree across from me was hit by tennis-ball-sized mana and the bark splintered to the ground with a few leaves. 

My second attempt didn’t explode. I resized the ball to be as small as a golf ball this time and didn’t put in as much mana as before, but the light was pretty dim and murky that having it or not made no difference. 

Maybe the size mattered after all? ¹Susfishious tiaf: Yes, it does.

This time I formed one the size of a handball, but I didn’t rush when injecting mana. It was harder than I had expected. 

Mana Bullets were easy. It would explode on the first impact with something. I just needed to pump in mana as much and as fast as I could before throwing them for it to work. But what I wanted now shouldn’t be exploding and short-lasting. 

I could maintain the size of the ball, but the energy I pumped in wasn’t enough to shine in this mist. The mist also got thicker as if to mock me. 

There were only two options left—Giving up and waiting for them to rescue me, or keep filling the mana ball and find out a way myself. 

I chose the latter as a true Harem God. 

The mana in my body flowed into the ball that slowly got brighter and... 

My vision got hazy and my legs lost their strength. I sacked down with the faintly glowing mana ball. 

F*ck, my mana was depleted. 

tiaf

It's a double release! 
I want to say it's a belated Christmas Special, but it's obviously the chapter that was supposed to come out last week. Your susfishious author died at work and was unable to type.

Fear not! Cliffhanger-san is not as cruel as usual.