After feeling the new surging energy within myself, Sharon and I took a look around. Our surroundings had not changed since before the grove evolution began, so we could still see the fleet off in the distance. As we were about to begin flying our way back there, a thought crossed my mind and I reached out to grab Sharon’s wrist, stopping her for a moment.

When she looked back questioningly, I merely shook my head before closing my eyes. There was something that I wanted to try first. So, instead of flying ahead, I pushed my mana sense out as far as it would go. Before, it could just barely cover half of the Ariadne, but to compare my current level of energy to back then would be a mistake.

And sure enough, not only was I able to sense the Ariadne from my current position, my mana sense actually continued to expand further and further, encapsulating entire planets. It did not stop until it had wrapped around the entire solar system. Only at that point did I get the feeling that I could not push it any further with my strength. However, even this was enough.

Using my mana sense, I was able to accurately target an area with my will, and sent a bit of energy streaming out from myself. Within moments, it formed into a circular portal in front of Sharon and I, the other side showing the exterior of one of the Ariadne’s airlocks. Since we were still in the vacuum of space, I couldn’t exactly open a portal inside the ship, or else I would risk the atmosphere being vented.

Nonetheless, this made the trip back much faster. Sharon and I stepped through the portal, and I sent a message to Celeste to open the airlock for us.

“Huh? You’re back already?” Celeste asked, surprise in her tone. Just how long were we gone? I wondered to myself, though her answer came in response to my thoughts. “It’s been about four hours since you ran off with Sharon. However, the vortex only disappeared a couple minutes ago. We were all expecting to have to wait a couple more hours before you arrived.”

Hearing her explanation, I nodded my head. Soon, the metal door in front of us opened up, and the two of us stepped inside. As the atmosphere filled the room, I let out a sigh of relief and quickly adjusted mine and Sharon’s races back to our normal wood elf. I wasn’t that surprised to find the transition much easier to accomplish now, and we were back to normal by the time the interior door opened.

“So, just how much of a boost did you get?” Celeste asked the two of us curiously, speaking over the comms this time so that we could both hear her.

“Hmm…” Sharon spoke up first, shivering as she felt her surroundings starting to warm up after moving deeper into the ship with me. “I’ll have to look through the grove for a while. But… I should have enough companions for whatever kind of situation we get in.” She muttered, unsure of herself.

I couldn’t really blame her for that. Even with our powers to quickly look through our grove, it was still an infinitely expanding universe. There could be any type of lifeform in our grove, but we have to actually know where to find it in order to do anything about it. I could select a galaxy at random in the grove, and maybe look through a hundred planets a day. It would still take me thousands of years to even finish going through that one galaxy. Though, I might be able to just cut it down to one year if I ignored all of the unlivable planets, but still. That is just one galaxy, and we don’t have enough time for her to fully catalogue everything.

On the other hand, once she is able to identify enough powerful creatures within the grove, she’ll be basically unstoppable. Assuming that there are some creatures with a minor control of time in her grove, even I would lose the certainty to defeat her. “Well, what about you, John?” Celeste asked, her question directed at me now.

“I should be able to take on one or two of the New Human Empire ships on my own now, I think.” Considering that I was able to tank a couple of shots from them before, I might be able to entirely nullify their beams now. However, I wouldn’t really know until I tried. “And, if I’m right, I should be able to provide a measure of defense for our fleet in the next battle.”

Compared to Sharon, my benefits were more immediately apparent. With my greater elemental control, having the universe grove vastly increased that. Though, I did turn to look at her with a smile. “Let me know if you find anything interesting in your search.” I said to her. While she could absorb the residents of our grove to increase her power, I could also copy their abilities onto myself to perfect my battle form.

Likely guessing my intention, Sharon nodded with an exaggerated sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go ahead and get started. Try not to disturb me for a while, if possible.” She said, shaking her head as she turned to take a different path, heading towards my quarters instead of the bridge.

“Alright. Now, what have you learned from Yo, Celeste?” I asked, a much more serious expression on my face as I recalled what I had tasked her with after our latest mission.

“Nothing good…” She answered, a touch of hesitation in her tone. “I can say for certain that they have a Xeno-Shifter on their side, or at least someone with comparable skills. And I think I’ve figured out one of their main plans.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in question at that. However, she did not immediately answer me. Instead, she told me to meet her and some of the other senior officers at the War Room so that she could explain it all at once. With a shrug of my shoulders, I turned around and began heading towards that area instead of the bridge.

When I arrived, I found that Celeste, Ackbar, Yo, and holographic representatives of the Qu’Lopti and Deus Ex pilots were seated and waiting for me. “Why do I feel like I just walked into an intervention?” I asked with a curious expression.

“Huh?” Celeste asked with a confused smile. “No, nothing like that. You were just the last to arrive. If you would take a seat?” She shook her head, pointing to the one remaining seat in the room. “Figured it would be easier to only go over this once.”

With another shrug, I moved to sit in the spot provided, as Celeste got up to stand at the holographic display in the center of the room. “Okay, so, in our first few raids of the Empire bases, we discovered some interesting pieces of technology. First, there was the warp core, which we have already reverse engineered and adapted to our own fleet. Next, there was the artificial intelligence implant, which resembled an advanced futuristic technology.”

“This time, we have these robots.” As she said that, an image of the robot that we fought during the raid appeared, the four armed one that enjoyed shooting lasers. “However, this was not the facility’s production goal. Rather, this location was a simple supply base. But these robots, combined with information obtained from the memories of scientists that Yo ‘acquired’, have revealed some startling information.”

After saying that, she took a deep breath, though I didn’t really see the point in it besides building dramatic tension. “These are the Orik, the same race that we had previously encountered. However, they appear to have been converted into Deus Ex after receiving the implants we had previously discovered. Likely, this is the upgraded form of their warriors, as each one has a power equal to someone around level one hundred and fifty.”

“According to the information gathered, these are to be the foot soldiers of the Empire. Their original planet has a size much larger than that of Earth or any of the inhabited Gerin planets. With this, their initial population was well over a hundred billion. Thankfully, one of the scientists acquired had knowledge of their homeworld, as he was one of the original Empire members.” She added that final bit with a bitter smile.

“In their initial attack, they wiped out thirty percent of the population as a show of force to cow the rest into submission. From there, they captured ten percent for use as their gold farms, and distributed the rest among their bases as slaves.” She explained, before a vaguely humanoid figure with a question mark on his head appeared next to the image of the robot.

“Ever since then, they have been slowly cycling through the Orik population, sending them to an unknown facility, where they are implanted with the ‘control chips’ and then converted into Deus Ex. Like this, their initial personalities are completely erased, and they become obedient tools for the Empire to command. The scientist in question did not know the location of the ‘conversion’ plant, but his memories did allow me to narrow down the location of their main base.”

As she said that, she replaced the holograms in front of her with that of a large planet being orbited by three moons. “This is the Orik homeworld. Due to the size of the planet, the Empire was unable to construct a proper base, as most of their members could not withstand the gravity. Instead, they have their base on the largest moon orbiting the planet, with is roughly ten percent smaller than the Earth.” Saying that, the hologram enlarged to show the moon in question.

“This scientist had not been to the base for over a year, so his information about their defenses is likely to be obsolete. What he does know is that there are three fully automated shipyards in orbit around the planet, constantly producing the ships we have seen until now.” At this, Celeste seemed to move away from what she knew was there, to what she suspected.

“Given the time that they have had to prepare, I expect that there will be a number of turrets defending the base. Or at the very least, a large portion of their fleet. This was what had always worried me before when considering this attack, because we simply can’t deal with too many of their advanced weapons at once. Initially, I had been concerned that attacking their main base without the combined force of all of the allied races would be suicide.”

“What has changed?” The Deus Ex captain asked in a monotonous voice, staring straight at Celeste. No doubt, he still calculated our odds in the coming battle to be exceptionally low.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Xeta.” Celeste grinned happily, before turning to look at me. “First, according to our good captain here, he has the confidence to block multiple stacked beams from their ships. That increases our defensive potential be a significant margin. If I understand right, he should be able to unleash attacks at roughly the same level of strength.”

“As for the second deciding factor, it is the warp gate that we have acquired. Previously, I had thought it impossible to approach from a distance without first being detected, so there was no possibility for us to have the element of surprise. However, with the warp gate things change. Even if they know we are coming, we can arrive at any time we want without them knowing when we are coming.”

It was at this point that the Deus Ex, who is apparently named Xeta, spoke up again. I’m not going to even comment about why I don’t know every single one of them by their face when they all look the exact same. “Could they not simply have their guns aimed constantly at the portal, prepared to fire whenever we come through? Claiming this as an element of surprise does not seem quite logical.”

“Well, that is true. However, I have an idea that could still give them quite the shock.” She said with a wide grin, turning to look at me again. “John, your mana sense got a major upgrade, right? That’s the only way you could get back here so fast, unless your evolution included a new teleportation power.”

I hesitated for a moment, before nodding my head, finally having a turn to speak. “That’s right. From our position, I can currently cover this solar system with my senses.” She seemed a bit surprised when I reported the extent of my improvement, but that only seemed to give her more confidence.

“How quickly can you store a ship inside your grove?” She asked, almost excited to hear the answer.

Raising my eyebrows, I looked questioning at her, before closing my eyes. First, I wanted to make a safe area within the grove for the ship to arrive in, so I gave a large area of empty space an atmosphere. That way, even if the atmospheres don’t carry over, there won’t be any dangers. Afterwards, I stretched my mana senses out and targeted the smallest of our ships, one of the Qu’Lopti flights.

With a brief moment of exertion, I was able to wrap my mana around it, and send it into the grove. I am unsure how it looked to those nearby, but I saw the ship simply pop into being within my grove, as if it had teleported there rather than being slowly constructed from mana like I was used to.

When I opened my eyes, I saw everyone focusing on my, their eyes wide. Well… aside from the Qu’Lopti representative who was no longer present. “That fast?” I responded to Celeste, a slight smile on my face.

“Uhm… okay, bit more than I expected, honestly.” She said in a quiet voice, before shaking her head rapidly. “Do you think that you would be able to survive long enough to summon the entire fleet, if you stored them in your grove like that?”

It was a risky plan, alright… However… I nodded my head after giving it some thought. “It shouldn’t be hard.” If it was just surviving, I could temporarily stop all attacks with a wall of time. “Just so long as they don’t have a larger version of the ‘anti-druid’ field surrounding their gate. I’m not sure how useful I would be in that case.”

Celeste nodded her head at that. “They shouldn’t be able to, I hope. Otherwise, you’ll need to flee outside of its range before you act.” Well, that’s true. At least I’d be able to survive with my own abilities long enough to escape its effect...