Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Before long, Rain realized that things were getting cold outside, and soon he found some pretty big icebergs on the ocean… the last time he had been there, he only found small ones, so that was suspicious.

"The level of mana in this area increased," Rain thought while looking around. "I wonder how that can happen naturally. It can't be a natural phenomena... then again, the enemies knows a lot more than me."

During the last few months, Rain had a lot of time to understand how things in that world worked, and while he still had a lot of things to learn, he had a good idea of the order of the natural things. When people die, their life force and mana spread on the land, but if they are killed, a part of it goes to the killer, that is why they get experience.

When people got stronger, they do so in many ways and all of that is related to the experiences that their skills, paths, and themselves got. That was a bit hard to understand since it felt like they were producing life force and mana out of nothing.

Unless a lot of beings were dying in that area, there was no reason for the mana levels to keep increasing, but then again, if Rain considered that world a living organism, then the world could get stronger by living as well like the people that are part of the system… that wouldn't explain why only that part of the world would become rich in mana, though.

Regardless, it didn't take long for Rain to find some islands along the way, and that one where he freed Branden. Things were pretty much the same there, and things looked abandoned.

"I should keep flying high and using Magic Eyes to find any suspicious places," Rain thought. "I don't think that they will use a base without using a magic barrier against invaders and that would make it easy to spot… if they don't do that, it will be even easier."

That is what Rain originally thought… but eventually, he found several islands covered in snow and nothing on them. The further he got south, the more troublesome the weather got… he had to start to fly low in order to avoid leaving traces on the clouds and also to avoid missing things. It wasn't a lot, but even clouds had mana too, so they served as a good defense mechanism.

In any case, at some point, Rain started to feel pretty cold and he was forced to create more warm air around himself and slow down his ice chamber. While he did that and lost the count of the number of islands, he began to think that something was off.

"The giant monsters came from this area, but how did they cross these places?" Rain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Unless they could swim and they also could freeze the Ocean… even if they could do all that, it wouldn't be weird to see them sinking in the bottom of the ocean."

Now that Rain thought about it, Rain wondered if the shark island that Seadrei controlled was on the same level of the giant monsters in the past that threatened the world… could they be even more fearsome than that? It was kind of hard to believe that.

In any case, the weather got worse as Rain kept moving… snowstorms began to take over large areas and the visibility was terrible, even for Magic Eyes, at that point in time the enemy wouldn't need to rely on such things considered that weather.

"At the same time… the number of islands and their locations seems weird, some are too close to each other," Rain thought.

Rain recalled a bit of what he knew about Indonesia and their Numerous islands, his knowledge only came from Google and suspicious TV documentaries, though. Read new adventures at empire

Indonesia has a vast number of islands, totaling over 17,000, due to its unique geographical and geological characteristics. Indonesia is located in a seismically active region known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, where several tectonic plates converge.

This intense geological activity results in the formation of volcanic arcs, fault lines, and subduction zones. As tectonic plates collide and subduct beneath each other, they give rise to volcanic eruptions and the creation of new land masses. These volcanic islands make up a significant portion of Indonesia. Rain compared that to a large-scale battle that took place in the past…

"Yep… this doesn't add up," Rain thought. "I imagine that these islands appeared thanks to that war between all the other species and the giant monsters. They appeared thanks to the chaos of the battles, or someone created them with magic to slow down the monster's advance."

Now that Rain thought about it, it wouldn't be weird if the enemies had also created underground bases. It was the smartest thing that they could do, and that made Rain's task of finding them much harder.

Still, Rain could only assume that his best bet was to search for the giant Islands in the area… the enemies made some body modifications on the beast and magic people to make them stronger before the war and they modified twenty thousand of them before the war in a couple of months, so their base shouldn't be that small.

It seemed that the best way was to check the big Islands closely since Rain couldn't rely on Magic Eyes, but that would make the enemies possibly realize that he was there and while he didn't want to fight and just making a single discovery would be enough his main goal was not to be found.

After thinking for a while, Rain could only think of one thing that he could do that wouldn't let the enemy realize that he was around… he wouldn't make it rain, he would make it snow… even though it was already snowing. The weather conditions would make him use a lot less mana too.