“Greetings, captain.” Speaker Thorne spoke up with a pleasant smile, looking towards the kitsune that approached her in the orbital shipyard around Deckan. “Is this the vessel you wish to use?” Her eyes turned towards the large ship suspended in space a short distance away from the station.

This was the newest exploration ship created by the Deckan forces built with the technology that they had researched from the Metong vessels. “That’s right. She’s the Seeker.” The kitsune male nodded with pride, turning towards his ship as well. “With the spatial shift drive you provided, she’ll be able to explore the furthest reaches of space.”

“Have you discovered a method of crossing the dimensional boundaries?” Thorne asked with interest, looking between the captain and his ship.

“With a bit of help from higher powers.” He nodded his head. In truth, it was the Keeper’s Servant that had stepped forward to help them solve this matter when they could find no solution. The Sky Citadel has long since been capable of seamlessly shifting between realms, even before the other worlds had fully explored one another.

When Tsubaki shared the knowledge of this method, Deckan’s researchers were enlightened. The Sky Citadel used a modified temple to channel the power of the Goddess Aurivy. However, it also had a backup mechanism that allowed it to draw purely from mana to create the same feat.

Naturally, not everyone was so favored by the goddess that they could draw from her power at will. Perhaps if they had an abundance of her tokens, but such was not a feasible plan for long-term space travel. Rather, they focused on the alternative method. By studying the plans for that modified temple, they were able to create a functional planar warp.

However, there was a flaw with it as well. Just as the Sky Citadel was built with the globes as anchor points to direct its travel, this new warp drive needed similar anchors. These were the Fairy Rings, items universally recognized for being the center of planar travel. Whenever the Seeker shifted to a new plane, it would be positioned directly above the Fairy Ring, high enough to be outside of even Lorek’s atmosphere.

“Well then, I wish you the best in your search.” Speaker Thorne offered a small bow towards the captain. “I have already passed the ship’s registration to my people to ensure that you will be treated as an allied unit wherever you pass. With any luck, you will have made a positive decision by the time you return.”

The captain chuckled, reaching up and pressing two fingers against a badge on his left shoulder. There was a small burst of mana, and he disappeared from the shipyard, being teleported directly aboard the Seeker. It was time for the forces of Deckan to truly explore Metong space and identify their nature through the traces left behind.

Jana stood atop a high mountain, looking down at the sprawling city before her. The world of Lorek had undergone a great change in recent years, due to the development and understanding of their own cultivation system as well as the importing of technology and methods from other worlds.

No longer were the people restricted to hiding within the ancient cities, fearing the cold of winter with an empty stomach. As long as one was diligent enough, it was a simple matter to find a subject to cultivate in and reach the Lord rank. Of course, for those that did not properly choose their paths, or who were not serious in their training, they would forever be stuck at or below the Master rank.

Only those exceptional few like Jana herself had managed to reach the stage of the Immortals, beings no longer bound by time. From her understanding of the other worlds, this could be seen as the Perfect Self, though modified for each individual’s cultivation method. For Jana, her Immortal Body contained heavy traces of the water element.

However, her level had long since passed that stage as well. Within her internal sky was a vast darkness surrounding a cluttered galaxy. At the core of the galaxy was a single black spot. This spot had become her hint on how to advance to the next stage, beyond the Heavenly Immortal. ‘From the darkness all was created, and to the darkness all returns’. This was the message left by the world.

As Jana was contemplating that, she noticed a commotion in the city below. Furrowing her brows, she stepped forward, crossing hundreds of kilometers in an instant to appear within the city square. People were in a panic, trying to find out what ‘it’ meant. “What’s going on?” Jana asked, her voice immediately quieting down those around her.

“I-Immortal Jana.” One of the ursa turned to regard her. “There… seems to be a problem with our Fairy Ring. It isn’t activating on schedule.”

Jana raised a curious brow at that, understanding the severity of the situation. “That’s not enough for all of this, is it? Have you tried activating it from our end?”

“We have, of course.” The ursa nodded quickly. “The ring refuses to connect to any of the set worlds. Only a random connection has shown any results so far, but nobody dares to step through to check the situation from a random world.”

That was entirely understandable. For all anyone knew, a random world could be completely inhospitable, with poison gas in the atmosphere or lakes of acid. “We’ll wait.” Jana said in a confident tone. “Patience has never been a problem for us, has it?”

The ursa was taken aback, before nodding his head. “Understood, Immortal.” They had been panicking because the severing of the connection could represent a number of things. First and foremost, that they would be on their own, and no longer able to benefit from the development of the other worlds. Alternatively… it could even mean that the other worlds themselves were no longer there.

And so, Jana stood by the gate, patiently waiting. Every day, they would attempt to connect once again to another world. It was only a week later that this connection was finally stabilized, and by that point the residents of Lorek were truly beginning to worry. However, when they discovered the source of the problem, they no longer knew what to think of it.

“Lorek?” A voice spoke up over the transmission device on their side of the ring. “Is there a problem?” The voice on the other end sounded genuinely confused, as if Lorek had not been cut off for a week already.

Jana was naturally one to pick up on that oddity in their tone. “That is one way to put it… I would like to ask… how long has it been since our last contact?”

“Almost four hours. According to our records, a merchant caravan passed through with some immigrants from our side, and your side sent some students on a… I think it was listed as a cultural exchange study?” Jana turned her head to look at those nearby, wanting to confirm these claims. When she saw a dwarven man nodding his head, she let out a sigh.

“I see… I would like to petition for the League to allow Lorek extra time slots where appropriate to connect with other worlds.”

That request was clearly unusual for the man on the other end. “I’ll need an appropriate reason to pass along…”

“The supposed four hours on your end has been a total of eight days for us.” Jana informed him. “It appears that time is no longer flowing at a fixed rate in Lorek, and we will need to adjust for it.” After saying that, she stepped away from the device, no longer interested in pursuing the conversation. She had long grown bored with politics and managing the people.

When she left the city, she considered the matter and decided to inform the rest of the populace about this new development. Her stride was casual, but each step seemed to connect one mountaintop to the next, covering the horizon in a matter of moments. With every city she passed, she left behind a simple message.

“The world has changed. Seek Fairy’s Watch to learn the truth.” Fairy’s Watch was the name of the settlement where the Fairy’s Ring was kept. As Jana couldn’t be bothered to explain the entire story again and again, she left only that brief explanation behind.

For three hours she walked, crossing over the hundred cities of the continent and spreading the word. Along the way, she met with numerous star beasts, but they all made way for her. Within the world, there was not a single beast that had reached the level of Heavenly Demon, the monster counterpart to Jana’s current realm.

Such monsters did exist, however, and she had often gone to deal with them when she felt them drawing near. It was simply uncomfortable to remain outside of the atmosphere for too long and endure the energy storms. Though they were good places to cultivate, they were ripe with ferocious beasts.

While she was passing the message along, Jana considered the various implications behind this new time disparity. Clearly, the flow of time was somewhat in flux, as it was passing normally during her conversation with the man on the other side. Otherwise, his words would have seemed incredibly slow, and hers would have been incomprehensible.

If one were to discount the time that they were connected, it could be estimated that time was flowing at a rate of roughly fifty times faster on their end. The reason that they had been unable to connect to other worlds at that point would be quite simple. The other worlds themselves would have been doing their regularly scheduled transfers at that time, preventing the connections.

Is that going to become the new norm? Is the flow of time fixed, or is fifty simply the average of different periods over this week? Jana couldn’t answer these questions on her own, but knew that they would be known eventually. For now, all she had to do was be patient. Patience was something she never lacked.

“I almost forgot to take care of that.” I chuckled dryly after setting up the time dilation around both Spica and Lorek. The idea had come from Balu during the previous meeting, but I hadn’t gotten around to actually implementing it yet after I returned.

Sitting across from me, Ashley rolled her eyes, holding up the cards in her hand. “Think they’ll be able to adjust like you want?”

I shrugged, not knowing the answer to that myself. “Either they’ll adjust… or we’re going to be a lot busier in the future. Six of Eyes?” I glanced down to my own cards, calling out one at random.

“No such luck.” Ashley grinned, forcing me to draw a card. We were playing a modified version of ‘Go Fish’ built on a popular playing card deck from Desbar. “Well, hopefully this will give them an incentive to explore the rest of their world. Three of Horns?”

I clicked my tongue, pulling the card I had just drawn from my hand and tossing it to her. “I don’t think it will be that simple. Most people are only reaching the Binary Union stage, but monsters on Lorek can go as high as Stellar Expanse. Only Jana herself is at the ‘Void Giant’ realm and can dominate all monsters in the world. For everyone else, they’ll need to be more careful of powerful monsters.”

“Maybe… but it’s better than when they were stuck at the opening stages, forced to hide within mountains, right?” Ashley offered with a slight shrug, placing down her last cards from her hand. “And that’s you doing the dishes tonight.”

“But… we don’t have dishes.” I reminded her, blinking. She seemed surprised by my comment, before giving a slight chuckle. Back when we knew each other on the old Earth, we’d often use random tasks like that as bets in games. She appeared to have slipped back into those habits for a moment.

“Uhm… I get to pick movie night, then?” Ashley corrected herself, her cheeks a darker shade of red.