While the magic that held the hole in the reality open was devoid of any real intent that would make it a proper spell, it was still deeply connected to me, allowing me to push one part of the portal directly through the walls of the chamber I was currently locked in, right through the thick layer of the magical barrier that Monica left to keep me safe inside.

Keeping in mind to move the half-sphere with the magic facing outwards to prevent the mater from this dimension being transported to the mirror world or whatever was called the place with the negative entropy, as soon as the other part of the sphere moved past the point where the barrier would block my movement, I once again put the illusion of my body in the same, lotus position before covering myself in the illusion as well and jumping right through the inner part of the sphere.

And just like that, without any mishap, I could finally place my feet on top of the floor of the corridor outside of the chamber. At the same time, I could thank myself for using the illusions on myself, seeing that the doors themselves were guarded by two, not-so-weak disciples wearing dark-blue robes!

But even their official position didn't help them when I simply walked past them, once again repeating the very same path I took while escaping this city before. While deep inside my soul I wanted for something interesting to happen while on the way towards the gates, even after passing them in the air I still hoped that maybe some cultivator or maybe some kind of demonic best would spot me and launch an attack, yet as if this world recognised that my strength was already unmatched in this area, nothing exciting happened to me, allowing me to reach the portal seed even faster than I did last time.

Still holding on to the worries of the portal's capability to do me harm, and in extension, cause Eve to suffer even a bit due to my own stupid curiosity, I didn't dare to investigate the process of teleporting around the place, simply activating the portal and jumping right through it.

To be honest, it felt strange to me to return back to my tower after only a few hours have passed for me, yet I was quite reluctant to actually pay this small world of mine a visit. With how my mind was now fully occupied by the task of not only looking for an important bit for my scheme that I was going to implement in order to wrestle the control over the entire city, but I was also set on making this time as interesting for Eve when she would experience it later on!

And to be honest, doing the administrative work and overseeing the development of a place didn't belong to the category of the things one could enjoy all that much! Even though checking how one's lands were growing month by month could bring some joy to one's heart, with not even a bit of involvement from me outside of all the houses that were already set in one of my previous visits, I couldn't really find any motivation to step down from the tower to the ground level, and risk being subjected to Helia's advances.

With all of that in mind, I didn't even leave the transportation room, where all of my portals would be located, if only I paid any mind to plant them around the places I visited already.

*Bongy, would you be so kind?*

With how my mind was under constant surveillance of my system, I didn't even bother explaining what I had in mind with this request, before another black portal opened right in front of my eyes before moving a bit to the side and locking itself just beside the one leading back to the forest near the heavenly city.

"Off you go… But as I said, doing a local portal is just the beginning. The sooner you learn how to navigate through the abyss, the better for you."

Obviously, even a single exchange with Bonger couldn't end without him scolding my rate of progress… Asking once again, would it kill him to praise me for my achievements, even if only once?

Pushing this entitled thought to the back of my head, I took a moment to familiarize myself with my full strength, before coating myself in the strongest barrier I could create, only to take my time and create two more of them around my body before finally stepping forward through the gate.

After a moment of disorientation, my feet touched the dry ground, devoid of any signs of life. Compared to what I expected to see at the outskirts of the arena city I left realistically not so long ago, the barren wasteland riddled with nothing greater than a small stone the size of my fist gave off a depressing impression.

Taking a moment to recover from the initial shock, I slowly started recognising strange patterns in this place, only to realise that the lines with less tiny rubble on them indicated where the roads once were!

How the hell did this entire place turn into nothing but a pile of ashes and stones?

While I knew that the zombie plague would sooner or later force the local authorities to take up some kind of dramatic step in order to stop it from spreading even further, I would never believe they would simply eradicate everything rather than trying to at least rebuild the city after razing it to the ground!

But while seeing this city as devastated as only a powerful cultivator could make it, since even when entire Nazi german machine tried to destroy Polish capital, the ruins they left still allowed one to recognise where the buildings once stood, was quite depressing and alarming at the same time, in the end, it didn't really matter to me at all.

Yes, it was sad to see that something that I once put so much thought, so much effort to create was now gone, to the extend of me being unable to even locate where that auction house of mine used to be, it didn't change the fact that rather than visiting a place I once lived in, I was here for an entirely different reason!