Hello all. Once again, I apologise for my late upload. been a really busy week for me. I've been swamped with work, christmas decorations and holiday planning it's so hectic. But nonetheless, I managed to squeeze a chapter out during my spare free time, so hooray me! A few things to note for my fiction going forward from now. (Spoiler alert)

1- the colony ship is going through time at the same speed as Aioa because they are within the same system, while earth's time is moving slower than the ship and Aioa's.

2 - i've had many questions of whether Sher is going to become a love interest of Kiefer. Since i did not put a 'harem' tag on my fiction, im going to destroy all your hopes right now and say no.

3 - in case some of you do not read the comments, I will explain it again here. Kiefer chose not to close the portal to earth because he was not confident in re-opening it again. the time he managed to open it was pure luck and he did not know how it worked, so he chose to seal it instead of closing it in fear that he might not be able to open it again.

4- Do you guys find my plots very predictable? because i read the comments and i see some of you predict what is going to happen and i'm like, noooo... why did you have to spoil it for other people.. but obviously i cannot say that since replying to said comments would be onfirming or denying your predictions, like for example, the whole eco-dome thingy.

Anyways, thats all for me until a little later. Enjoy the read.

“Hoooh… That is impressive. But regardless, I still don’t know you and you me. Why are you offering to help my tribe?” The Dwarf leader asked.

“That’s easy. Because I can, and I want to. And also, my wife wants me to help you, so what better reason is there?” Kiefer replied.

“Your wife? And who would that be?” The leader asked.

“That would be me.” Isana cut in, climbing out of the rear of the carriage. She then changed into her titan dragon form, staring down on the swarm of dwarves who seem to become even shorter in contrast to the titanic dragon.

Immediately, all the dwarves knelt down on one knee, chins down and facing the ground. “Elder Titan Isana! We are humbled to be in your presence!” The leader spoke on behalf of all the dwarves.

“Good. Now lead me and my husband to your village so we can start making preparations to change this province for the better.” Isana ordered, changing back into her human form.

Moments later, Kiefer found himself descending a ridiculously long ladder down underground. The dwarves had built a system of ladders and tunnels underground, the hatches on the surface camouflaged by snow and fake snowberry bushes. It was not a straight climb down though, with resting stops every 50m or so. After 4 resting stops, the family of titans now found themselves walking down a dimly lit tunnel that seemed to bend and split into multiple other tunnels.

“Welcome to my Village” the leader dwarf announced, stretching his arms out to showcase the underground village. The village comprised of 20 odd small wooden huts in a low ceiling cavern. The walls were lit with glowing rocks and it was quite warm down in the ground. The ceiling was only 2m high, but for dwarves, it was enough. The overall atmosphere was a dark and gloomy one, had it not been for the jovial singing of dwarves from what seemed to be a tavern bar in one of the bigger wooden huts.

“Why hello there!” Rashael greeted, his head sticking down from the ceiling, surprising the group.

“Stop messing around Rashael. I’ve got important things to do, and I’m sure you will want to be in on it too, so let’s get to work.” Kiefer replied, to which Rashael frowned, but dropped down from the Ceiling next to Kiefer all the same.

“There are quite a few rich mithril veins in this mountain range, but I have yet to find any orihalcom. Are you really going to build Icarus 2.0? I don’t think I can find another mana stone that big again.” Rashael reported, dusting his cream coloured robe.

“What about iron?” Kiefer asked, weighing out his options due to the limited materials he had to work with.

“We have plenty of iron ores ready to go if you want them. We just have yet to smelt them into ingots due to the severe lack of firewood to run the furnaces.” The dwarf leader replied.

“That’ll do. I can smelt them myself mister…?” Kiefer trailed off, only realising now that he had failed to get the name of the leader.

“Name’s Birune. Why don’t you follow me, the iron store is in another village, not too far from here.” Birune replied, changing directions abruptly to head towards an exit to the left. Kiefer’s party followed him through yet another series of tunnels and finally arrived at a sweltering opening some 15 minutes’ walk away.

“Here’s where we do most of our metal works. We usually use the geothermal vent supplemented by firewood to burn our furnaces but this time of year, the vent itself isn’t very hot, so we would be wasting wood trying to do any work here. There’s our storage house for iron, feel free to take what you need.” Birune pointed.

Kiefer could see a warm red glow between cracks in the ground. Where there were potholes in the ground, the dwarves had set up a furnace with a casting pot to melt the ores in. Right now, only the furnace right in the west corner was functional since it was the biggest. The smaller ones were simply not hot enough to melt metals. Kiefer lifted the warehouse containing the iron ores and stored it away within his PD, slightly surprised that the dwarves were being so cooperative without even questioning him much.

The next few days were spent rallying the entire dwarven tribe to the deposits of rich mithril veins and mining it out. There were 3 that were closest to the valley according to Rashael, and with the help of Kiefer, the Dwarf rehabilitation project was well underway.

They worked in shifts under Icarus’s warm light, supplemented by Isana and Sher’s cooking. Soon, Kiefer had laid out an uncountable number of iron ingots and barely enough mithril ingots to make a smaller version of Icarus.

Feir and Kiefer got to work on the mithril, making short work of the limited supply of the precious metal. The new Icarus was designed slightly different from the first model. It had only 2 wings spanning 20m by 10m, compared to the 6 huge wings of the original. There was no moonstone core but instead, a cylindrical steel fixture that secured the 2 wings together. Engraved all arounf the steel core were runes to aid with the movement and positioning of the device. Of those runes, one was an anti-gravity rune similar to what was keeping Icarus afloat, and another was a mana-link rune.

The next step of the plan was to level out the uneven valley to make space for the new settlement. The valley itself was sandwiched between mountains on all 4 sides, measuring only 10 km on its short side and 15 km on its long side. Kiefer only flattened out what was required, which was a 5km radial circle.

Then, began the most tedious and mind-numbing step of the entire plan. For this, Kiefer had to do it alone as no one other than him could manipulate the metal like he did. Not even Feir had the level of control and the smarts to design the runes like he did. Heating, pulling and molding the steel ingots, Kiefer drew the ingots into long thick cables that he laid out along the circumference of the cleared land.

Then, he created a 2km long steel triangulated frame that he painted in a waterproof paint to minimise rusting in the future. It took Kiefer 3 days to complete the massive structure, along with the help of at least 20 dwarves Sher and Feir to do quite a bit of the heavy lifting.

Kiefer propped it upright in the middle of the circle, hammering it deep into the ground for anchorage and securing it with steel cables anchored to the ground at regular intervals. Finally, to support to radio-tower-esque steel frame, Kiefer made a small 5m umbrella on the top made of mithril with runes carved into it to form a small barrier around the top end of the tower to protect it against strong winds.

With the tower erected, and the 10km wide rune on the ground completed, Kiefer launched the mini-Icarus into the stratosphere. Within moments, the new satellite began working and the mana link channelled mana from the satellite onto the umbrella at the top of the tower. A thin film of silvery mana could be seen slowly extending outwards from the umbrella. At the same time, from the ground, the same film was working its way up from the edges of the rune. Shutting off Icarus, Snow began falling again soon, but stopped the instant the silvery films from the ground and the umbrella met in midair. The slight sheen of silver was almost invisible, but began emitting heat into the large dome

“There, it’s done Isana.” Kiefer said, putting his arm around her waist as they both watched the dome flicker at certain angles in the sunlight. “It’s not exactly like Icarus, but it should work for now. I adapted the idea from my dome shield that I was using to warm ourselves during the trip. They have plenty of space to expand and if need be, I can always make another trip down to construct another dome elsewhere. We can start with one and soon your province will be bustling with these geodomes.”

“Thank you Kiefer. Really. Thank you so much.” Isana spoke softly, smiling sweetly at the sight of the dwarves enjoying the warmth and marvelling at the ingenuity of the tower and dome.

“Birune. I suggest you build a perimeter wall outside the dome, just to keep the rune safe. I’ve placed it underground for now, but you can dig around it and build an underground chamber to hold the rune at a later date. I’m sure a master craftsman race like the dwarves will be able to whip up something like that quickly.” Kiefer suggested, speaking to Birune.

“Oh and also, here take this.” Kiefer continued, pulling out what looked to be a huge metal furnace covered in runic engravings. The furnace was at least 4m tall and could easily hold all the ore that he had just used to build the dome. There was a lever on the wall at the bottom that opened a hole in the wall to drain the molten slag and metals down. The runic markings were designed to activate once the huge lid on the top was shut, pumping out thermal energy straight into the cavity. The entire furnace was picked up using his mana ropes and placed in a spot not too far from the tower.

“I foresee a rise in demand for metal works in the near future. I don’t expect the Grandu continent to be continuing its trade for very much longer, so you dwarves would be the sole provider of metals and ores. This is just to help you get started since there is a lack of fuel in this cold weather. Until then, use it to build your city.” Kiefer smiled wryly to which Birune only shrugged and Sher chuckled.

“Thank you once again, for this new chance in a life above ground you have provided us.” Birune bowed, his head almost touching the ground.

“You’re welcome. However, I really should be going now. There is an urgent matter that I have to attend to. Come Rashael, I drove the whole way here. I need a substitute driver so I can spend some time with Sher and Isana.” Kiefer beckoned, holding Sher’s hands and Isana’s waist.

“Whaaaat.. No matter what, isn’t this going a little overboard? I helped you scout out the metal veins and came all this way alone too. Now you want me to be your driver? No way man. I ain’t going to sit there and hold the reins while you enjoy your time with your family.” Rashael refused outright, not pleased at how Kiefer was treating him.

“Well, you agreed to do the scouting in exchange for the plans for the new Icarus attachment. Plus, you got to witness my new creation which is the geodome. What I’m offering you now will only make you more interested. After all, if you don’t follow us, you won’t be able to find this secret wormhole.” Kiefer rebutted, grinning from ear to ear. He knew he had Rashael right where he wanted and could control this knowledge-thirsty titan however he wanted.

“Ha! Worm hole? Did you forget? I can move through the ground as if it were air. I can find as many worm holes as I want. What is so interesting about yours?” Rashael argued back, misunderstanding Kiefer’s words.

“Just so you know, a worm hole is not a hole made by a worm you numbskull. A wormhole is a term used on my world to refer to a tunnel through space that acts as a shortcut between 2 points in space and time, essentially warping reality to create a channel for something to pass through. And this wormhole I found, leads back to my home world. You interested yet?” Kiefer teased Rashael.

At the point where Kiefer mentioned returning to his world, Rashael’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. He kept silent immediately and climbed up onto the driver seat, turning to look at the family and asked, “Well, what are you waiting for? Didn’t you say that you were in a hurry?”

[Captain Palmer, reporting current ship status. 43% of circuit boards affected by the radiation fixed. Current ship voltage lowered to 85% original voltage. Estimated increase in radiation intensity will lead to further decrease in voltage. Postulated final voltage at 65% upon arrival within the solar system of target planet.

Propulsion systems online. Current velocity: 0.57c.]

“Good. Thank you Rowanda. Put me through to the materials science team and then the medical team.” Palmer spoke into the terminal attached to his arm like a wristband. He got up from his seat, picked up his food tray and deposited it into the wastes chute while he waited for a reply from his terminal.

“Sir! We have collaborated with the particle physicists on board and they are still unable to identify the nature of the radiation. They are requesting permission to thaw out their respective teams to fire up the collider. There has been an interesting progress on our side, but I doubt it will satisfy your demands since we are lacking the relevant resources. Bismuth, thorium or lead seem to be unable to block out the radiation. Instead, the radiation seems to be speeding up the decay rate of any unstable isotopes we have tested so far. However, there are promising results from an artificially created isotope of silver, Ag-110. We noticed that it seems to be able to collect and store the radiation in an energised state within its atoms. We are still carrying out more tests with other isotopes. I will send you the full report in a few hours.” A very enthusiastic scientist reported from his lab, his voice projected through the terminal attached to Palmer’s arm.

“Good job. Keep working on it. Tell the physicists that they have the green light to work with the collider. I’ll get Rowanda to start the thawing process for the rest of the science team.” Palmer replied through the terminal, this time heading out the canteen doors. He looked out the side window, staring at the distant stars shoot past the window repeatedly as the section of the colony ship rotated non-stop to simulate artificial gravity using the centripetal force of the rotation.

[Sir, I’ve begun the thawing process for all 211 science crew. The medical team has some urgent news and is requesting that I begin preparations for thawing out the rest of the colony civilians. Patching you through to them now.]

“Captain. We have urgent news. It doesn’t look good on our side. While the radiation had no visible effect on the plant life samples, our mice colony is suffering from an unknown disease, most likely due to radiation poisoning. Most of the mice have begun falling unconscious in the past 24 hours ever since the radiation intensity hit past 10% saturation. If we are to proceed further into this galaxy where the radiation concentrations will be higher, I suggest thawing the civilians out so that we can monitor their health accurately. If not, the shock from the intense radiation will most likely have lethal effects on a human fresh out of cryostasis without any time to adjust to the increasing radiation.”

“Ok. Wait for my decision. Meanwhile, figure out a way to counter the symptoms of the radiation poisoning. Even if it is a temporary relief, it will work fine. At least it will give us more time to develop a cure or find a suitable radiation shield.” Palmer replied through his terminal.

“Vladlena. How are things on your end?” Palmer asked after tweaking with the dial on his terminal a little. However, only silence greeted him as he walked briskly down the corridor towards the gravity transition chamber. The chamber acts as a middle man between rotating sections and non-rotating sections. It serves to ease the transition between zones with gravity and zones without. It works by first rotating together with the gravity enabled section. When a person enters it and locks the door, the chamber slows down its rotation slowly until it comes to a complete stop where the person within will experience zero gravity.

“Vladlena?” Palmer asked again, standing within the chamber and waiting the 15 minutes it will take to stop rotating. “Vladlena! REPORT!” he yelled, this time ditching his casual tone and giving out an order.

“Huff. Huff.. haah.. ye- yess captain… huff..” Vladlena replied in an exhausted voice.

“What’s going on down there? How are the drones?” Palmer asked, worried that there might yet be more trouble.

“No- nothing’s wrong.. haaah… sir… Hey who’s that? Shh!! It’s the captain! Ahh.. AH! Sorry Sir! The drones are functional again sir! 2 of them are outside fixing the hull from asteroid impact damage.” Vladlena replied.

“Is that Wellin with you?!? What is he doing in the engineering bay?” Palmer asked, hearing the mixed voices coming through his terminal.

“See! I told you to keep quiet! He heard you! Ahh sorry captain! umm.. we are.. well.. we were just umm... uhh…” Vladlena stuttered through the comms.

Facepalming, Captain Palmer simply raised the terminal in front of his mouth and spoke once more. “Enough. Whatever. I don’t need to know. Just make sure it doesn’t affect your work, and try to keep your amorous activities to a minimum.” With that, Palmer’s chamber eventually came to a stop as he floated off the floorboard. Yanking a lever down to open the blast doors, he made his way back to the cockpit.