please note that from this chapter onwards, things might get a little confusing with the difference in time due to time dilation and distortion in spacetime. If any of these physics is a turn off for you, please let me know so i can tune it down to a level that pleases most of you. however, if you really cannot take it with the explanations and stuff, please just ignoe them, keeping in mind that time does not travel at the same speed. it is not really a crucial part of the story, but it adds a little finesse to the plot. hope you enjoy this chapter, though it may be a disappointment for some of you.

“Hmmm…” Isana mumbled, staring at the ocean surface.” It seems quite a bit more… desolate… than what I imagined.

Right now, there were 3 titans and one abnormal human cramped into the tiny cave, all staring at the vertical portal on the stone ledge. While the portal took quite some mana to open, it was self-sustaining and did not need any mana to be held open. Hence Kiefer had gone to bring his family into the cave to inspect the portal.

“So? What do you think we should do?” Kiefer asked, looking at his family for their opinions.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to return home? Why are you hesitating now? The solution is right before your eyes.” Isana urged him, encouraging him to enter the portal.

“No, I did say that, but now that the way home has appeared quite ahead of time, I’m not entirely sure what my next step is now. There are so many questions. Since there is no mana on earth, will I still be able to return here after I go back to earth? Will the portal close behind me once I fall through? What will I do if I’m stuck on the other side?” Kiefer bombarded Isana with these questions.

Picking up a fist sized rock from the cave floor, Sher threw the rock into the portal to see if the rock will really go through. She did this while Kiefer was still conversing with Isana, and they did not catch her movements.

“Master look!” Sher exclaimed, pointing at the portal. As Kiefer and Isana turned their attention to the portal, they saw a rock floating in the airspace on the other side of the portal. However, upon closer observation, Kiefer realised that the rock was not floating stationary, but instead falling really slowly.

The portal seemed to have opened horizontally from a height of about 50m above the ocean surface in earth. What should have taken the rock no more than 9 to 10 seconds to fall was now taking it almost a minute. Finally hitting the ocean surface and making a small splash in the slowly moving ocean waves, Kiefer estimated that the rock took a little more than 6 times longer than usual to fall.

This could mean 1 of 2 things. 1, the earth’s gravitational field was now much smaller than what it used to be. Or 2, there is a time dilation effect on earth compared to Aioa as earth might be caught in a far more distorted spacetime than Aioa. Kiefer immediately eliminated the first option, owing to the fact that with a diminished gravitational field, Earth would not be able to sustain a moon in orbit which he could clearly see in the reflection off the water surface.

Kiefer and Isana quickly moved to the side of the cave to discuss their future plans while Sher and Feir continued chucking rocks into the portal in some sort of competition.

“I don’t think we should go to earth right now.” Kiefer whispered to Isana, continuing to raise his concerns. “The time on earth runs slower than here on Aioa. By my estimates, 1 week there would be almost 7 weeks here on Aioa. I’m not sure how long our tri on earth would last, so I suggest coming back only after we have settled everything we could here.”

“True. It would be unwise to leave Mutatis unattended for too long. A few months is not a problem but if like you said, we do get stuck on the other side, it may be years before we get back. I also think its best if we come back here at a later date.” Isana agreed to Kiefer’s argument.

Having made a decision quickly, Kiefer called over Sher and Feir to inform them of the plan.

“Ok, right now, we are not sure what will happen on the other side of the portal, so I will seal this cave up so no one else finds the portal. We will proceed as planned to Isana’s home after lunch and then return to Mutatis.” Kiefer announce. The entire party nodded at his instructions and started heading out the cave.

“Hang on for a moment. There is one last thing I want to test out.” Kiefer said, as he opened his PD. From within the PD, Kiefer fished out a small cream coloured moonstone rock. He channelled his mana into the rock and after a short while, the small cream rock had turned pitch black, indicating that it is now filled to the brim with mana. Next, Kiefer pulled out the ropes he would use to secure the horses at night and tied one end to the black moonstone. He threw the moonstone into the portal and waited to observe any change.

Sher, Isana and Feir got tired of waiting, so they chose to cook from the ingredients stored in Isana’s PD. Kiefer alone stayed inside the cave, his hands holding onto the rope that suspended the moonstone on earth. After 2 hours, Isana returned to see Kiefer still staring intently at the rock. Tapping on his shoulder to break his concentration, Isana held out a bowl of warm soup for Kiefer.

Kiefer finally fished the moonstone back through the portal and inspected it with one hand. The black moonstone had turned a navy blue shade, showing that it had lost some mana. Judging by the time he spent hanging the rock, Kiefer estimated that the rock took about 20 earth minutes to lose that mana, which meant that there was a considerable rate of mana loss once they reached the other side of the portal.

“Hmmm.. this will be troublesome.” Kiefer thought, while feeding himself a spoonful of soup. “The titans can generate their own mana so I doubt it will be a problem for them, but it will only mean I don’t have a way to restore my mana once I spend it. Even if I sealed of my mana leakage, things like my armour and the moon crystal will still lose its stored mana. I guess I’ll have to work on that during the time before we decide to return here.”

Finally sealing the portion of the cave with the portal in it with his orihalcom, Kiefer piled rocks on the orihalcom wall, making the cave look quite a bit shorter and smaller than what it actually was. The portal was completely encased in his orihalcom metal, so wind mages would not be able to detect the mana void caused by the portal.

With lunch out of the way, the horses broke into a light trot as they crossed the river on Kiefer’s mana bridge, heading north towards the shoreline. The trip was rather uneventful afterwards, but that was only because the animals stayed away from the titans and bandits steered clear of the man in complete black armour standing on the roof of the carriage. Kiefer’s performance at the arena made him quite famous in the Shearwood province and he was notorious as the black demon mage. Of course, the man standing on the roof was merely an image that Feir conjured up while Kiefer held the reins to the horses.

The Isana province was separated from the rest of the main continent by a mountain range. The mountains spanned across the lands from the east coast to the west, forming a natural fortress out of the northern province. The temperature dropped steadily the further up north Kiefer and his family travelled. Just crossing Rashael province to reach the base of the first mountain took nearly 2 months, with spring swinging around and temperatures picking up in the rest of Aioa.

The lush dense forest had slowly become sparse and made way for mounds of snow and thick thorny bushes. There were a few fir trees here and there but even they were draped in a white coat of snow. The carriage had undergone quite a severe makeover since they were last at Shearwood lake. Kiefer had bought some paint in a village that he stopped by on the way and redesigned his carriage/ Painting it white with grey shades and a few black jagged stripes, Kiefer’s new artwork was meant to help the carriage blend in with the surroundings.

However, this, and the Titan’s aura did not keep a starving Seraplor from trying to make a meal out of one of the horses. The feline master of camouflage shot out from nowhere and barely grazed one of the horses with its claws before it was taught how to fly by Kiefer. Kiefer took out some steel ingots and molded them using his mana furnace and molds to craft some sturdy armour for the horses. After he was done, the timid horses now looked like veteran war horses with plate armour that covered their backs, necks and the top of their snout.

That attack happened about a week ago and right now, Kiefer was guiding the carriage up the side of a mountain on a winding and precarious path that threatened to break off into a steep fall at any moment. Kiefer was dressed in a light short sleeved cotton shirt and leather pants over his mithril skin. Seated on the driver’s cushion, Kiefer carefully pulled on the reins to slow the horses down as they made yet another hairpin turn up the mountain side.

The family was snuggled inside the carriage while the horses were starting to run out of breath from the thin air. Even then, they were lucky that Kiefer could shield them from the cold and blistering winds that accompanied a trip up the mountains. Within a 10m radius from where Kiefer was seated, snow and ice were melting as the temperature hovered around a comfortable 25 degrees. Kiefer had tweaked his dome shield a little so that the mana particles destroy themselves to release a wave of thermal energy into the dome. The exterior of the dome kept out the wind and any incoming ice and snow that were blowing wildly around them.

“mmmmnn..” Kiefer stretched his tired arms and legs as he looked around him. “I really hope this snow storm clears up soon. I chose to take the slow route to the north for the view. I can’t see anything in this weather.” He muttered under his breath.

Trudging through the snowstorm, Kiefer eventually made it down the mountain back onto a short valley range. The snow covered landscape was bright and glaring. The storm was only present above the halfway point of the mountain, but still blew some snow down onto the valleys. The sun’s rays reflected off the white snow pierced his eyes as the snow around him melted the moment it entered his dome.

*pting! Pting pting!*

Without warning, 3 silvery arrows deflected off the dome shield and embedded themselves within the snow some distance away. Kiefer had not been paying attention, only looking around to find the source of the attack once the arrows had fallen. What followed seemed like a wall of arrows that closed in from the sides, all bouncing off the dome shield and colliding with more incoming arrows.

“Whats going on?” Isana asked, lifting the front tarp to the side and poking her head out of the carriage.

“It seems we are under attack. Any idea who they might be? It IS your province you know.” Kiefer replied, not the least bit concerned with the futile attack. The carriage had stopped moving in the middle of an open field that was littered with snow berry bushes.

“CHAAARGGEEE!!! If we catch them, we get meat for our dinner tonight!!” A single yell rang out through the snow. Following which, there was a thunderous roar of at least several hundred men that shook the ground and threatened avalanches in the nearby mountains.

Then, from under the thick blanket of snow and from behind the thorny bushes, dwarves came dashing out on their short legs, looking like human toddlers that are trying to run.

“MEEEAAATTTT!!!!” They all roared, eyes locked onto the horses as they charged towards the carriage with axes, picks and hammers held in their arms. Kiefer couldn’t help but chuckle out loud at the comedic scene unfolding before his eyes as the first dwarf collides with the dome shield chin first. He was knocked back, only to be pushed forwards again by his brothers, who also collided into the dome shield in succession. Soon, there was a pile-up of confused, disarrayed dwarves with their short legs entangled in the mess of bodies.

Kiefer stepped down from the driver’s seat and stood at the border of his dome shield, watching the dwarves re-establish their ranks in neat rows surrounding the carriage. They didn’t seem to see him, with only the horses in their sight. Then, someone in the corner yelled out a single word, “PINGS!!!”

The dwarves all turned their heads in the direction of the yell like a school of fish, their eyes now locked onto a family of Pingest that were petrified by the roar. With a flurry of motion, arrows were once again fired that did not penetrate the skin of the Pingest. However, they managed to knock the animals off balance. This gave the rushing dwarves enough time to surround the group of 10 Pingests huddled and trembling in fear.

Within moments, the little herbivores were caught and bound by ropes. They were then thrown into an iron basket with the top shut and locked. With the Pingest distraction over, they once again turned their hungry eyes to the horses, to which Kiefer finally stepped out of his dome and yelled.

“STOOOP!!” Kiefer bellowed, but to no avail as the dwarves slowly began taking steps towards the carriage. Finally, they stopped about 10 steps away from Kiefer, inspecting him as if he was some strange creature.

“What is that?”

“Is that thing an animal?”

“But im sure he spoke our language.”

“Can we eat him?”

“Is that more meat?”

“What should we do? The horses look tasty.”

“Call the boss?”

“Yea let’s call the boss.”

The swarm of dwarves all whispered amongst themselves in a hushed voice, all looking at Kiefer with great interest.

“I can hear all of you, y’know” Kiefer answered back aloud. They were blatantly discussing whether or not they should eat him, right in front of him.

“Who are you? What are you?” a single dwarf stepped out from the masses, addressing Kiefer. This dwarf was no taller than Buffon, but was far more ripped, with broader shoulders and thicker arms. If need be, he could be likened to Buffon on steroids.

“My name is Kiefer. I’m a human who’ve come from the south to visit these lands. Might I ask who you are and why you are so hell bent on eating me and my horses for dinner?” Kiefer asked politely, bowing a little as he introduced himself. However, just at that time, Feir jumped out of the back of the carriage in his small dog form, which garnered the drooling stares of all the other dwarves on site. Whispers could be heard within the mass of dwarves, with the words ‘food’ and ‘meat’ being repeated constantly.

“We are the Nemean Tribe. We are dwarves that live underground. I have never heard of any humans making it past the mountains. Seeing as you have made it past safely, I’m going to assume that you are either considerably lucky, or have some way of making it past the treacherous slopes and snowstorms. Either way, you are not welcome here, so please return to whence you came before one of my men decide to take a bite out of your horses.” The leader instructed Kiefer, not even bothering to introduce himself.

“Aha! So you are the guy I’m looking for. Looks like I found you quicker than I expected.” Kiefer replied, not backing down and instead, walking up to the dwarves. As he approached them, they all raised their weapons in precaution, ready to attack at their leader’s orders.

“Oh? And why might you be looking for the Nemean tribe?” The leader turned around once more to ask, amused by Kiefer’s attempt to continue talking.

“I’m here to help you. I might just have a way for you to live on the surface. I’m sure then you will not be so desperate to hunt for meat like you are doing right now, since you will be able to grow and raise your own animals.” Kiefer explained. At Kiefer’s words, all the eyes of the dwarves began to luster with a sparkle that seemed fit only for princesses. It was like they had just met their saviour, and thinking about all the meat they could eat made their gaping mouth’s drool.

“You’ve got my attention now, Kiefer. Tell me exactly how you are going to raise animals in this cold desolate land?” the leader asked once more, though a sparkle could also be seen in his eyes.

“Like this,” Kiefer replied, as a warm light bathed down on the valley that they were currently in.