Cid couldn't retort anything about what Hams said.

Because, yeah, girls were the best, did everything for him, and loved him very much. The problem was… Cid wasn't ready!

He wanted to have fun, to play stages, to study magic! Give him a hundred years! Alright, maybe two… Five hundred is all he needs, trust!

…Yes, Cid was having jitters. But try to understand him: even all his previous plans about marriage were in "I'll take the most random and unassuming girl to make a picture of most random and unassuming family" area! There was no love involved!

But in this case everything is different! The girls love him a lot! And Cid himself had feelings for them, too! That's why he was so nervous! What if he hurts them?!

Hams listened patiently to his ramblings, nodded to himself and then slapped the back of Cid's head. Before Eminence could even answer back, Hamster started explaining like he was in presence of the most dumb idiot in the world that the girls themselves opted for the harem option since they realized that Cid himself is too dumb and dense to see them as love interests, which means that they all already see him as their husband. He only needs to answer their feelings, and what's the better way to do that than old reliable marriage?

Cid still had doubts, but Todd came out of the shrine room and noted that it would be better to try and fail (even though that's literally impossible in his case) than to lament missed possibility for the rest of his life. Both Beasts even joked that being practically half-step away from actual sex is fine and dandy, but confirming their love with marriage? Too lewd!

And upon thinking about their words, Cid realized that he was, in fact, too nervous about that. As Hams and Todd said, girls almost had sex with him, with only missing point being, well, the intercourse itself; their reward time was on the border of actual sexual play. Why is he so nervous about that?… Is it because he has never experienced actual relationship in both of his lifes?

Right, it's decided! After coming back he will summon his beloved Shades and ask their hands in marriage! Though…

"Hey, Hams?"

"Yeah?"

"These rings are good, but it's my girls we are talking about. We need the best we can do," Cid stared at the beautiful rings in the box.

"Ah, like using better materials and making them artifacts?"

"Yes."

Cid excused himself from the Messiah; they wanted to call him for some kind of banquet but he had a way more important deal on hand: getting materials for the rings!

And for that he will need something good. So good, in fact, that anything available in Earth's jewelry stores wouldn't even be able to compete. Which means that he will need to go underground.

Thankfully, he had Hams and Todd. Was it because of their manifestation as Greed or something entirely different, they were extremely efficient in finding good stuff. Cid only needed to dig while Hams and Todd were sniffing (he didn't know if metaphorically or literally) the environment and telling him to change directions when there was precious material. That way Cid found himself a quite good amount of gems; Todd already promised to refine them, so for now they are good. Hams, however, wanted more of the gems, with main premise being "Well, better to have than not to have"; Cid couldn't agree more, so they continued digging around while Todd refined what they already collected.

As time went on, Hams developed more precise tools of locating and extracting the gems, reducing the need for Cid himself to work around the rock formations. Ten or so hours later, they managed to accumulate an amount Hams called "barely passable". Now they needed to find something that would serve as, well, the ring. And that's when Cid got an idea…

Despite Hams' attempts to dissuade him, Cid continued digging down, to the Earth's core. Yes, despite being able to craft whatever he wants with practically sticks, Cid wanted to create something of value. Something that he himself could look at and say: "Yes, I made every effort in order to create this". He wanted his masterpieces to not be good just because of rare materials, but because he laid out his very heart to create it.

That's why he was going to the Earth's core. He was currently in mantle layer, and it was already kinda hot for him. Thankfully, both having magic and min-maxing his body was proven beneficial as temperatures that were literally melting everything around him were but a small problem for him.

That, however, quickly changed as he went deeper. The temperature was rising, the pressure made it harder to move, and he was already considering Hams' words at just turning back and do it the normal way. However, upon remembering how much girls laid for him, he gritted his teeth and continued moving.

And that's when a thought struck him: he already experienced it once, back then when he tried to control the Shadow Realm. He wanted to create other Cores sooner or later anyway, right?

So Cid remained calm and concentrated on the feeling of magic energy around him. Surprisingly, there was not much of it; Hams theorized it was because of magic being introduced to this world only a few years ago. Nonetheless, he started collecting it and activated Overdrive.

Immediately he was met with a sharp pain: apparently, the mana that took after the hottest place on the planet (if we exclude inner core of the planet itself) was absolutely not safe compared to the usual environment mana. Figures, considering that humans were more attuned to magic energy in normal environment than whatever the hell Cid is doing on himself each time he tries to do something like that…

Nonetheless, he endured and started repairing the places where the mantle's mana entered. Yes, repairing, because trying to regenerate from whatever the hell remained after a burn of this level was… not feasible.

And so they started brainstorming: how do they introduce the mantle's magic energy to their body properly? Yes, Cid had more magic than all this place combined, but what good would it do if the core problem was in making the body able to handle foreign magic energy without protection of his own? Moreover, there was another problem: mantle was still, by itself, a freaking large mass of molten matter that threatened to make him a part of itself without any magic. Unlike Shadow Realm, this was a real, material thing.

That's when Cid remembered: concepts! Yes, materialized concepts can serve as introduction to the mantle itself! Come to think of it, wasn't there one near him at all times?…

After being taken out of his Soul Space, Radiance complained a lot about masters that forget about their own servants, but calmed down in the end. Now its task was simple: help Cid in locating the other materialized concepts, if there are any.

Unsurprisingly, there were none. Figures, considering that magic was introduced only few years ago. That meant Cid will have to do the same he did in the Shadow Realm: creating a double magic system that would contain Fire (or Magma?) mana, then somehow merge it with his own body and hope everything doesn't explode, blow up, melt, or end bad in any other unsightly way.

Hams and Todd were on the watch in case everything does end bad, but it should not do so because Cid made a solution… get back, Beasts, he isn't finished yet! In short, he would expel his own mana in the surroundings like Reverse Overdrive and mix it with Fire mana. Considering how much superior his own mana is to Fire one, this should reduce its prowess to an acceptable level where he would be able to construct magic channels that would not hurt his own body, but would be able to contain the Fire mana… The same as it was with Shadow mana! Back then he was worried that in case something goes bad he would not be able to recover, but now, with support of his Inner Beasts that monitor everything and the Faith energy that is supposedly a miracle… Yeah, he is sure everything will go well!

And true to his thoughts, once he mixed his mana with Fire, it slowly became more and more docile. Soon he was able to inject it into his body without any damage whatsoever. He slowly started constructing the channels out of it.

He was so enthralled in the process that neither of the three noticed that he slowly went deeper and deeper to the core.

"Akira-san, are my eyes betraying me or…?" one of the scientists looked at the graphs in shock.

"No, I do see what you see…"

Their shock was understandable; it's not every day that the magic suddenly goes up everywhere at the same time. Though they had a suspicion who could be the culprit behind that…

And upon checking the magical signature between mana in the environment and the one they had as sample their suspicion was confirmed.

"So that was the reason Divine Spirit went on his own without attending the banquet in his name…" scientists nodded to themselves.

"So, what does that mean to humanity as a whole?" Akane Nishino was all but sure what this meant, but she still wanted the confirmation from the other side.

"If it goes at the same temp, in a month or so humans will be able to collect magic energy in their bodies in enough quantity that even a civilian will be able to overpower a common Magical Beast," her brother nodded to himself.

"Of course, the Beasts themselves may take advantage of that, too, but unlike the current situation where we have knowledge but no resources to use it, in the future we will have access to weapons blueprints while having all the materials to construct them, which would put humanity at heavy advantage instead," the old doctor explained further.

One of the scientists listened to everything they said in turmoil. Yes, The First took away her loved ones, but…

She looked at the screen.

Was her revenge worth it if it would cost the future of their descendants?

Cid, Hams, and Todd watched with owl's eyes as the Fire magic system slowly integrated into his body and then disappeared. Then his Soul Space suddenly got an addition in the form of slowly enlarging fire near the Sanctuary.

Alright, contrary to his words, Cid did, in fact, use Faith energy to make the process faster and safer! And that was the result: a lot of materialized concepts suddenly appeared around him and started begging to give them home. But what they wanted was no mere rock, oh no! They wanted to live in his Fire Realm! He did not have the Fire Realm, of course, but that was a temporary thing, because soon after his Faith energy, obeying his wishes to create Fire Core, created the freaking Fire Core!

And this Fire Core, being led by Faith and materialized concepts of Fire, slowly increased in size and quality. And then it did the same as Shadow Core: going further into his… soul, yes. It appeared in his Soul Space and transformed into Fire Realm, where all the concepts happily went to, increasing the speed of its formation. Now Cid also had Fire Realm in his Soul Space. The question was: where is the Shadow Realm of his Soul Space?

Turned out, it was hidden in the shadows of everything else; there was a shadow of Sanctuary and shadow of Fire Realm. Apparently, Shadow Realm mimicked everything else he had. Cool?

Well, now he was practically immune to the the temperature and pressure around him. Time to dive deeper and finally make the most wonderful rings in existence!

Cid is very serious in his intentions and is willing to do anything to make sure the girls receive the best thing possible. Girls will sure love how much efforts he put into making his feelings known! What they won't like, however, is what he did in order to do so…