The morning was a quiet one all throughout the continent. All matter of lifeform that were innately sensitive to mana had passed out from mana exhaustion. Mutatis was no different, being the city closest to the mana catastrophe, she suffered the brunt of the destruction that resulted in the birth of a terrifying being.

Mana exhaustion aside, the shockwave from Kiefer’s transformation left chaos in its wake. Buildings were crumbling, windows shattered and cobbled stone paths were turned over. To make matters worse, being the port city that she is, multiple ships capsized and many others were left in shambles, hanging onto their dear life on nothing but twigs and splinters. There were even masts stuck in the Cliffside like darts on a board.

Kiefer looked at the destruction and mess that was once his beautiful city. To think just yesterday, they were having so much fun, enjoying innocent snowball fights and decorating the tree. Looking about, Kiefer noticed that the city square was about the only iconic landmark that was left unscathed; probably thanks to his runic barriers he had placed.

The most distinguishing evidence of his transformation though, is the gaping 1km hole that was centred around where his home used to be. Nothing was left, not even the ground, trees, or buildings. The protection of the cove was no more, since he had obliterated the eastern wing completely. The waves were lapping up against wet soil, dragging mud from what used to be the meadow on the cliff down into the sea.

“Nehh.. Kii?” Isana called out gently. “What are we going to do about our home?” She asked in a concerned voice.

“Hmm.. how about a change in location? A change in view.” Kiefer replied with a question.

“What do you mean? Where are we going? I thought you wanted to stay close to your city so that you can manage it?” Isana asked again, unsure of what Kiefer’s plans were.

“Yes. But that was before last night. You know, after transforming, I finally understand what you girls meant when u say you don’t know how your skill works. My previous skills were all upgraded, but it seems, they’ve reached their limit. I can sense the knowledge on how to use the skills, but it seems I can’t find a logical explanation to their inner workings. For example, I used to be able to teleport from one place to another as long as I can see it. But now, I can teleport anywhere as long as I’ve been there once. I don’t know how it works or why it works, but it just does. So I can now live anywhere and be everywhere at the same time.” Kiefer explained, half focused on trying to understand his new abilities.

“Feir, take these 2 back to the clock tower. I’ll come back in a while to get you.” Kiefer instructed, pointing at the 2 passed out elves. He then promptly held Sher’s hand and grabbed Isana by her waist before disappearing into thin air. Not knowing exactly what was going on, Feir simply obeyed his master’s orders and grabbed the 2 unconscious elves and teleported to the clock tower, copying Kiefer’s new skill for himself.

Almost 100km north of ground zero, Kiefer appeared in the skies above a rocky and ice-capped mountain range. As they plummeted downwards through the freezing winds, with snow hitting their faces, Kiefer teleported again, bringing the 2 titans onto a ledge that was hanging precariously over the side of a steep cliff. Right now, he was on the south side of the border mountains that separated Wanda’s province from Sher’s. They were located at an altitude where the city and coast could be seen clearly and entirely from over the tree tops of the forest north of Mutatis.

“How about here? During other seasons, it’s quite cooling, and it should be just below the ice-lione of the mountain’s peak. We shouldn’t get a lot of visitors but that’s the point of having a nice home in a desolate place. Gives us some peace and quiet, a place to retreat to relax.” Kiefer commented, looking at the girls to study their expressions.

“Mnn. This is quite the location you’ve chosen. It’s very centralised, not too far from Mutatis and also a short distance from Alluviate, Arigan, and Sher’s lake. I like it Kii.” Isana agreed, relieving Kiefer’s worries.

“Fine. Sher? What do you think?” Kiefer asked the little girl.

“Anywhere is fine master. As long as I get to be with you. Remember the promise you made me when we were on your planet?” Sher asked innocently, hoping that Kiefer had not forgotten his promise to stay by her side.

“Of course. Since we all like this place, Sher can you help me carve a nice platform into the side of this mountain so I can start working on the new house? Then we can test out my new abilities. Personally, I’m quite interested in mana flare and void space. I can only infer what they do, but I won’t know for sure until I test them out. Isana, prepare yourself, we are going to have one of our sparring sessions again.” Kiefer grinned.

As Sher got to work on the mountain side, Isana merely shrugged at Kiefer’s proposal for a sparring match. She had already gotten what she wanted from Kiefer, and she knew she could get anything she wanted, so there really was no point in fighting against him anymore. Not unless he comes up with another enticing incentive, she didn’t feel like going all out.

Sher’s fiery red beam cut a large groove into the side of the mountain, the laser firing off into the distance. Unbeknownst to her or the other titans, the tiniest explosion rang out quite a distance away just before the beam dissipated.

[[On Hope]]

[Sir, I’ve just lost contact with one of the probes. Shall I play back the last report from probe 3?]

“We lost contact? How is that possible? What about the distress beacon?” Palmer asked, concerned about the dangers that might be present on the new planet. For something to destroy the probe, it had to tear through the titanium plating so quickly that the probe’s AI would not have time to react and get away from the danger.

[No signal received Sir. I believe the beacon was destroyed along with the probe.]

“I didn’t know Wellin programmed you with a sense of humour Rowanda. Do you know how absurd your theory is? The distress beacon is designed to be microscopic in size, heat and cold resistant, water proof and can withstand pressures of up to 10 MPa. Even if it fell into a volcano, it would survive long enough to transmit a signal back before melting. How can there be no signal from the distress beacon?” Palmer argued, starting to doubt his decision to land on this new planet.

By his assumptions, malfunction was the only logical explanation. But checks prior to launching the probes indicated otherwise. So whatever attacked or destroyed the probe couldn’t possibly by a living thing. The probes were programmed to fire off a distress signal the moment it came under physical duress or met with something that impeded its progress.

[Sir, I’ve checked the conditions of the other probes. Probes 13 through 18 have their distress signal on. The others are still sending in regular reports. I have the last video feed from probe 3. Shall I display it for you?]

“Yes, please do immediately Rowanda. Also, could you tell me what is wrong with probes 13 to 18?” Palmer replied, quickly turning his display screen on to look at the reports and the video feed.

[I’m transferring the video feed to your terminal screen now. 13, 14 and 18 have suffered physical impacts and attacks, but have since escaped safely. 15 and 16 have shut down due to extreme cold temperatures in the location they crash landed in. Analysis shows that 13 and 14 have detected animal life and were subsequently attacked when executing protocol 2.1.8 to determine the intelligence of said animals. 18 was attacked by an animal with almost perfect camouflage, only barely detecting it through the thermal scans. The video transfer is complete. Please take a look at it.]

Palmer stared at his screen, watching the 15 second video recording. It showed the probe flying over a light green forest canopy to reveal a snowy landcape and a deep blue ocean. And then just before the video feed cut off, he saw something that he was looking for. Replaying the video over and over again, he focused on the last split second before the screen went black. There, just beyond the horizon, sticking out against the white cloud laden sky like a sore thumb, was a tiny figure, maybe only 5 pixels tall. Nonetheless, it had a very distinct shape.

“A ship… hahaha… there is actual intelligent life on this planet. And they are technologically advanced enough to build ships and traverse the oceans!” Palmer laughed out loud. “Rowanda! I want you to change the trajectory of any probes near the last reported location of 3. Send as many as you can to scout the shores of the continent that 3 landed on. I have definitive proof that there is intelligent life on this planet. Go find them now. I want you to convey a message in any way possible that we pose no threats to their society.”

[Yes Sir. Currently, Probes 2, 4, 5, and 8 are within a 100km radius from 3’s last reported location. Shall I redirect them to the coordinates and set that as top priority?]

“Yes do that at once. Then have them move in pairs along the coast in both directions. Should one meet with any impediment, have the other turn back around to join the other 2 that went in the opposite direction.” Palmer ordered, setting up a system that best ensured the survivability of the probes.

[Done Sir. I’ve changed the settings on the 4 probes so that they prioritise mobility over scanning. The last one should arrive at the coordinates in 70 minutes. One more thing sir. I have begun decelerating the ship’s velocity using our fusion generators. We will be in orbit in 100 hours.]

[[Back on Aioa]]

Feir was loitering around the city square, circling the giant Christmas tree. Kiefer was supposed to come pick him up shortly after they left, but it’s been 2 hours since then. Not knowing where Kiefer was, Feir maintained his position close to the clocktower.

The residents of Mutatis were beginning to stir from their knock out after Rashael had healed most of them. As humans and demi’s started trickling into the streets, everybody was eerily silent, still nauseous and unsteady from the mana exhaustion. They all had the same question on their mind, but nobody seemed to be open enough to ask about it – What happened last night?

They noticed the destruction of their homes and many other buildings. Windows were shattered, doors blasted open, and yet all these signs of destruction did not seem to point to a manmade act of violence. It was as if a natural disaster had happened overnight and no one was awake to know what happened.

Then, someone noticed it first. The most observant of the residents stood and stared in horror as the eastern cliff of the cove had literally disappeared overnight. The moment he pointed it out, people of all shapes and sizes began streaming towards the missing cliff, only to find a steep drop into a bowl crater once they reached the last house.

As an increasing number of people swarmed around the edge of the bowl, some daring adventurers brought some ropes and started making their way down the crater cautiously, their companions holding on tightly to the other end to make sure they don’t tumble and fall to the bottom. The ground was not dug out. It was almost as if it just disappeared into thin air. There were even spots of blood on the sides of the crater wall where underground animals had been sliced cleanly in half.

With the commotion going on around the crater, nobody noticed the 2 silent machines tracing down the other side of the city. The probes had already begun scanning the buildings and roads, mapping the entire path they had travelled into their data banks.

“Hey.. what is that?” an Arachne lady asked as she pointed out at a grey thing hovering around the Christmas tree in the city square. She was amongst the first few who had decided there was nothing more worth looking into about the crater and chose to return to the city.

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s another one of the founder’s creations? Could it be another winter festival event?” a Diantes man half a head shorter than her answered. “Why don’t we check it out? Look there is another one near that building.”

As the 2 approached the probe, it suddenly spun around while hovering with its 4 rotors. The rotors themselves did not move, but the elongated egg shaped body that hung from them rotated to reveal multiple instruments embedded around the front half of the probe.

The probe immediately began hovering its way over to the 2 new lifeforms it’s scanned, sending the report back to Rowanda. As it got within an arm’s length from the man and the spider, the screen on its front lit up, while a horizontal board extended from just below the screen, eventually pivoting itself to form a second vertical screen.

The top screen displayed information using light while the bottom screen was made up an uncountable number of grey pins standing perpendicular to the screen.

There, the probe began changing the displays on the screen and on the tactile board. First, a circle showed up on both the visual and tactile screens as the probe made a single audible beep. Next, the circle changed into a line on both screens and the probe now made 2 loud beeps. This began attracting more attention as people began swarming around both probes, the second one also performing similar actions to its own audience.

The line eventually turned into a triangle accompanied by 3 beeps, then a square with 4 beeps. Finally, the shapes disappeared and revealed a blank white screen, as the probe inched forwards to the man.

“Huh? What is this? Some kind of a game?” The Arachne lady asked, puzzled by the odd entity’s actions.

“Don’t know. What happens if you touch it?” the man asked, taking a step forwards and slowly extending his hands. He did not know if this was an animal or some weird contraption like the humming thing that lit up the tree. The probe did not seem to move away from the man’s approach, giving him a confidence boost as he touched the display screen. The moment his finger made contact, the probe let out a familiar beep.

As he retracted his finger, the borders of the screen lit up with a flashing red line, with the probe making 2 loud buzzing noises. Following that, the probe back away, turned ever so slightly to face the spider and repeated the same sequence of pictures and beeps, stopping at the square and 4 beeps once again.

Seeing that it’s safe to touch it, the Arachne extended one of her pointed claws on her hand and scratched the surface of the tactile screen. “Maybe it’s like this?” She asked as her claw sunk into the board, compressing the pins underneath while the others remained protruded. The display screen displayed a single dot, which extended into a line as the Arachne lady pulled her finger along the tactile board. With each turn, the probe made a reassuring beep and finally, the Arachne completed a rough, lopsided pentagon.

The probe’s visual display lit up with a flashing green border and it started to turn down the blades that kept it afloat. 6 spiky legs unfolded from the bottom of the probe as they made contact with the ground. Finally, the 4 rotors stopped spinning and started folding upwards. 4 rotors became 2 stacks of rotors that then folded down flat against the body.

“Hey Feir. Sorry I’m late. I got caught up building the new house. What is going on in the city square?” Kiefer asked as he suddenly popped into existence next to a slightly startled Feir.

“Master, these things seemed to have snuck into the city while everyone was investigating the crater. They did not seem hostile so I just let them wonder around. They just flew around and sniffed stuff, so I decided to just keep my eye on them while you returned.” Feir replied, like a vigilant guard dog.

Kiefer quickly brushed past the crowd and saw 2 grey hexapod machines sitting on the cobbled floor with flashing images on their display screens. They had rotors folded against their body while they hummed softly and the distinct sound of a camera click kept resounding every few seconds. On top of the screen of the closest machine, Kiefer saw something carved into the metallic body of the machine – Planetary Probe VIII.

And there you have it. the moment everyone has been waiting for. First contact has been made, albeit not with kiefer, but he's still there nonetheless. Anybody care to guess what his new abilities are? It's rather cliche, and very close to a fantasy template, so it shouldn't be hard. Sorry i have limited imagination. haha