Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"Right, you explained the magic itself, but not what's your plan for the camp!" Al shouted out roughly an hour after the two groups rejoined and started their slow return to the camp. 

'Huh?' Layn thought, startled, unable to figure out just where did that question came from. "Isn't it obvious? I planned to turn it into a magic academy from the very beginning, didn't Irea tell you that?" Layn asked before moving his confused eyes on the girl.

"I told them, but they then came up with various problems regarding this solution," she explained as she shrugged her shoulders. 

"Excuse me, what?" Layn brought his eyes back from the girl on Al before shaking his head. "Wait, let me reiterate, even though everyone knew what this place was supposed to be while I was away, they still dared to make some plans for it?" Layn asked for clarification. 

"That's more or less it," Irea confirmed while nodding her head. 

"You know it's not that simple," Al sighed before rushing forward for a bit so that he could talk while walking right beside the archmage rather than shouting through a distance. "Once you left, there was a need to pick a direction, pick an objective. No matter how big or small, a tribe without an objective will fade away," he stated before hanging his hands behind his back. 

'For someone of your posture, this kind of gesture doesn't make you look smart, you know?' Layn asked his idol in his thoughts before shaking his head to get rid of those useless thoughts. 

"Well, now that I'm no longer away, there is no problem with just sticking to the original plan... Or so I would love to say, but it's no longer possible," Layn announced before looking at Sitra just a few steps away. "After all, we are going to have all sorts of people coming to this place, and I will need to accommodate them all," he added.

"Huh? You will need to accommodate them?" Irea asked, puzzled by the way Layn put those words together. "Isn't that plain supermassive? Wouldn't it be easier to just let the people settle wherever?" she asked, raising her eyes to look at Layn's face. 

"Once again, this isn't that simple," Layn replied with a sour expression. 

"Why don't you just tell her?" Sitra suddenly entered the discussion with a question on her own. "Wouldn't that be easier than coming up with some elaborate lies?" she continued, clearly set on burying a grave for the archmage. 

"Excuse me?" Irea moved her eyes on the other woman in the group. "If Layn is not telling me something, I fully believe he has reasons for it. I don't know what the two of you went through while he was away, but I don't think you have the right to scold him like that," she stated with a grim look in her eyes. 

"I'm sorry, miss, but you do not need to be so overprotective to your boyfriend!" Sitra countered with a wicked smile. "I understand that you can't find a single redeemable feature about yourself outside of this voluptuous body of yours, but it's not something you should force others to go along with as well!" she continued, clearly set on angering the girl. 

"Both of you, stop it," Layn ordered, already annoyed by this kind of bickering. "Sitra, you went too far. If you don't know something, you are ought not to try to make up for your lack of knowledge with your guesses. Just like now, they are wrong, making you appear like not only some barbarian brute but also an arrogant piece of shit," Layn informed the girl with a cold look in his eyes. "And what's more, while I'm going along with you right now because I have high hopes for cooperation with your tribe, don't try to push your borders. Just like you said, Irea is my girlfriend, and I won't stand for someone insulting her," Layn finished his part before moving his eyes on the aforementioned girlfriend of his. 

"As for you, you actually don't need to be that overprotective that I will give to Sitra," he said while placing his hand on top of Irea's head. "I'm really grateful that you feel obliged to do it, but this time, I was in the wrong," Layn said, unwilling to hold back the responsibility of his own actions.

"It's okay. I won't pressure you to explain something if you are not ready to do it," Irea rephrased her earlier statement before grabbing Layn's arm and hugging it with her entire upper body. "I will be happy if you tell me what she meant, no matter how long you will take to do so."

'Dang, how can she be so adorable?' Layn thought while staring down at Irea's deep eyes. Even though Sitra just attempted to put a small wrench in their relationship, Layn could only see trust, affection, and unending loyalty in her pupils. 

"Well, what kind of man would I be if I didn't do my best to make my girlfriend happy?" Layn asked out before shaking his head. A natural smile returned to his lips. "What Sitra was trying to force me to tell is that the moment I killed the Overlord of Origin, I became a ruler of sorts of the area that used to be governed by that monster," Layn explained while shaking his shoulders before casting a sharp look on the girl in question. 

"What? How did you..." Sitra couldn't hold back her shock caused by Layn's words. She only managed to stop herself from revealing more when she noticed Layn's cold gaze.

"While you didn't teach me even a shred of the magic of your tribe, it doesn't mean I'm an idiot," Layn stated with the same cold tone as the coldness in his eyes. "I know more about magic than your entire tribe combined. As such, it was pretty easy to figure out where the influence of the Overlord of Origin comes from," Layn added while squinting his eyes. 

'Well, I said that, but it wasn't easy at all,' he thought, going back to the memories from just a few hours ago.

Ever since he left for this scouting mission, he was absorbing the energy from the space around him, as if he still had some magic particles roaming around his blood flow or flesh.

'Yet, I'm positive that I burned through every last particle when fighting that wolf-like overlord,' Layn thought, actually going over the entire notion just now. 

A major part of Layn's image of someone capable of everything was the fact that he never really revealed his full capabilities to anyone. As such, in a situation like the current one, no one doubted the claims he made, even though they resulted from the logical analysis he did on the go. 

'As such, there is only one way for me to gather the energy from the area passively... And for some reason, I was unable to suck the mana anymore once I stepped into the area of another Overlord.' Layn lined up all the facts before coming to a conclusion. 

A conclusion that would be unimaginable if he wanted to just guess it, but quite practical and logical now that he did the background work for it. 

"So, you know..." Sitra spoke in a disappointed tone before hanging her head to the back and releasing a deep sigh. "Well, that defines how far we will be able to go once our negotiations start, am I right?" she said as she looked sweetly at Layn. 

"Partially, but let me explain it to others first," Layn said as he nodded his head. 

"Basically, this entire place is split between spheres of influence. Each of those spheres is controlled by an Overlord of Origin. What they are, where they come from, and why one needs to fight them to own the area on its own... I have no idea," Layn said and smiled at the same time as if he wanted to nail the point down that this lack of knowledge didn't bother him in the slightest. 

Which, for people that knew Layn long enough to understand just how massive his thirst for knowledge was, would easily find out to be a lie. 

"The thing is, the entire area that was under the influence of the Overlord that I killed is now under my influence," Layn announced with a wide smile that soured pretty quickly. "I don't have any idea how I can use this influence, whether the area I can control is going to change... There are so many questions to which I don't have answers right now," he added before taking his time to calm himself down. 

"In the end," Layn spoke up after a moment of silence, "the idea for the academy is no longer plausible. Even if we ignore the entire spheres of influence stuff, the lake by which we have settled appears to be the only water source in the area. As such," Layn raised his eyes and looked coldly at Sitra. "If we want a massive amount of people to migrate here, we will have to use every last ounce of strenght, manpower, resources, and geography around us to prepare."