After nearly an hour of flying through the void, I’m nearly lost amidst the sea of blackness.

With an effort of will, changing directions and slowing down are easy activities, speeding up however is something else entirely. Luckily, even as my stamina drains, I fill myself back up with plenty of vigor from Aspen.

Our connection just grows stronger and I shape a few of his limbs, like they are an extension of my own, and ready to shape a few runes.

If I can’t speed up the normal way… by relying on my will, I just need another solution.

Opening the inner world, I look inside. Water, dirt, trees, plenty of mana and even a few people besides the permanent inhabitants of the inner world.

Water, I could make something of a water bottle rocket.

Just pressurize it and shoot it out on the other end. Before trying, however, I open a portal about ten meters deep in the deepest water reservoir. The centimeter-wide portal turns on like a hose expelling water and pushing me forward imparting a bit of momentum.

The seconds pass, and although I start to lose a bit of control the slow but significant gain in speed is more than I could have hoped for.

Closing it the gate, I watch as the slow moving water disappears into the void moments after it leaves my immediate vicinity.

Plans for improvements start to spin in my mind and I end up starting a small and basic wooden rocket nozzle making it as strong as I can. Around its throat, I put a few force and fire runes aiming outward, while trying to keep it strong and a smooth shape.

I open the portal again carefully regulating the mana output.

As water and mana mix, a water flow is violently shot backward. Steam and droplets of water hit the walls of the chamber and by the mathematical change in momentum, impart their speed to me, in the vector I choose

In barely a minute, the rough work already achieved minimal viability.

The steam backfires and is intermittent at first, but my next iterations improve the results. Though as soon as I keep the steam for more than a pair of seconds a dull burning reaches me.

The sixth iteration is good for 5 seconds before real damage occurs to the roots. I could probably push further if I layered dead wood inside the nozzle, but instead, I start on a seventh iteration.

Two minutes later channels of coolant, obviously water are carved on the insides. I turn it on again and this time I manage to push for about 7 seconds before I start feeling the signs of overheating. On the next few tries, I discover that reducing fire and increasing force, produces less steam at a lower temperature and that pushes the time at the cost of efficiency.

Slow and steady improvements and tradeoffs.

The water vapor doesn’t seem to be supersonic, which is something even a candy rocket is capable of achieving, but I’m in the ‘vacuum’ of the void with ‘infinite’ mass in the tank and even this slow exhaust speed of low temperature steam is enough to slowly add up over time.

Best of all, this time it is real speed, not the imaginary efforts my will could accomplish for short bursts of time.

I can feel that same sense of the system trying to put me to sleep, but with my will and soul stat, as long as I have a steady stream of vigor I won’t be forced into uncosciousness. I don’t push my luck too much and wander around parts unknown still heading back t the instance, assuming that the initial direction the automaton shot me was correct. After all, I couldn’t navigate in this void.

Though moments later I sense the infinitely warping of space in the middle of nowhere, and that faint sense that this is a spot where I could ride the wave to the ground and land safely. I turn slightly and propel myself again adjusting my heading until I come to a dead stop at the edges of the disturbance before just feeling it. Though this is not thousands of kilometers in size that our instance has, just a single kilometer if even that.

There are two explanations in my mind, either this is just a portal to the instance or distances in the Void are not quite the same as in the real universe or such spatial shenanigans.

Without any clues as to which of the two applies in the current circumstance, I push my perception field into the currents of space, not in an attempt to answer that question, but trying to learn more about how they work.

Like last time, I don’t touch the actual folding of space, but instead feel the edgies coming out and get ready to grab one of them, to twist and survive against the powerful streams.

My perception field enters quite deeply getting nearly nothing from most of the blades of space swishing around, but a few return a thousand overlapping pictures that cram into my mind. I see into the void, but manage to hold on. Even as I try to not lose myself, I pulse the perception field again and again, but it is like trying to hear a single note from a piano in a world of noise.

I stop after a dozen attempts, not yet ready for this particular trial and while it might be an option to remain for longer over here, I will need a lot more stats and skills to be able to handle the overflow of information.

After just a minute of getting my bearings and preparing, I have the list of my actions prepared should I be teleported to another instance like last time. I center myself and communicate with not only Aspen who already has a decent idea of what I want, we coordinate the dozens of more developed seeds to be on standby.

None but myself can actively warp space, but they can help my will hold out during the brief moments of transit and their warping space muscles are not nonexistent.

As prepared as I could make myself, I grab and twist space, intuitively knowing what I’m supposed to do to return. For an instant, a cacophony invades my mind, but I filter it all out looking for any signs that I can guide my direction. It makes no sense that my placement would be random.

Instinctive knowledge pours into my mind, a sense of connection, how to navigate around in the simplest of senses, how to make sure you are on the right track. I find a reference frame, but instead of calling home, I just try to lock down a familiar position while leaving the instance I will be teleported in the open.

I’m dragged like a rag doll and it is all I can do to hold my will, but with the help of dozens of beings, most of which are at least my size, I have plenty of this ethereal force. Suddenly, in that instant that seems to last minutes, a jerk surprises me and I’m thrown to the ground so fast, that I twist my ankle.

I fear that It just popped out of place, but the brief instant before the system realizes I’m here is important.

Pulling opening a dozen portals at the furthest range I can reach in a ring and one larger in front of me. I pull out two seed guns and shoot them like automatic weapons. At the same time, Aspen puts out a mana battery and root formation with a seed that volunteered to be installed in this other instance. Our combined will hide the battery underground as I shift the earth an instant before the system reasserts itself.

I’m dragged, in barely a moment back to my instance, not even passing through the void which would give me a chance to screw with the system’s plans.

But a large grin pops onto my face, while I didn’t find an infinite and free slot machine that I only need the time to win all the prizes, I already hit the jackpot.

Reaching out to the network, I sense a tight mesh underground. A mesh that is only present in one place.

Without activating my runic GPS, I know I’m close. I extend my will and sense in a circle. About a mile is the village… my original village.

It all sinks in as I fall to the ground letting my will lose and the sense of tiredness from the last hour catch up to me. I look to the sky, still a few hours until sunset. I should get to my little hut… and benefit from relaxing a little bit. Pando may be a priority, but it will do me no good to spiral into nothing trying to get back. That would be imenselly counterproductive.

I need to keep a balance for when I become a rocket hurtling back through space and heading to Earth.

Now I just need a dozen small things, including a map of the galaxy. The void is large after all, unfathomably large.

I sense everyone preparing frantically in the village, so I turn back in the direction of my little hut in the middle of the forest while leaving a pair of markers pinpointing the stop I returned. I will need a portal here later. It may even become the perfect spot for the new portal facility.

I don’t curse anyone for the ruckus they are causing even if I think there were not the most efficient ways of going about it. To avoid even the smallest hint of their energy getting in the way of sleep, I find myself back in my hut.

A few preparations for the next day, another hour journaling and getting my thoughts organized on what is to come in my planned return to Earth, eating my typical large meal, this time cooked by my own hands. Four hours of sleep. A small morning routine and I get ready for the day to come even before midnight arrives.

Nearly three times longer than if I rushed everything, but while that has its place, it is not today.

I’m weaker than I was, with fewer stats by a significant percentage.

In rough terms, I have some two thirds as many stats as I used to have. My mistrust of the system was always there, but each day it makes all it can to prove me correct, to prove that not relying solely on the system is the correct course. My path has perils and I may find myself cornered one day, but that just means I will have to find a way to make it through.

And I will make it through.

For now… get through the attack at the end of the month and fix up the rocket nozzle so that I will be able to not just fly in the vacuum at low power, but also in a place with gravity. There is no reason I can’t do that and the system can go stuff itself with its restrictions on flight.

Though as the thought occurs to me, I think of a more efficient way.

I don’t need to wait until after the battle. I can start now, after all, what better preparation could I undertake than making real flight a reality? Not the floating platforms limited in acceleration and speed, with dreadful turning speed and high mana cost, but something that I could use in the middle of combat. I may not be able to hit all that hard and fast like the best spear welders or magic users like Merlin, but I’m a hybrid, and so much more and with a whole third dimension to play, maybe that will make the difference.

Ohh, I could use Blackwood’s help.

I don’t need to make the rocket nozzle out of wood, he can make them of metal. I know he can. Other plans may not have panned out, but I tested his capabilities extensively, and he doesn’t need to make a working rocket engine, only the shell of one, while the rest is taken care of by magic.

That way I will be able to raise the exhaust speed through the roof. Well at least after I’m a few meters away from people. Steam burns are nasty and while we had tougher skin than before, few could go much past putting their hands in boiling water. And steam is definitely nastier than boiling water.

I will figure something out.