Jake waited expectedly for Sandy to return. As he waited, he also considered an option he hadn’t even thought of before… what if Sandy turned hostile? There was a legitimate risk that the worm would return stronger than Jake was as the evolution could lead to intense power growth. No, it would definitely lead to immense power growth.

Moreover, Sandy didn’t need him anymore. He had helped the worm reach C-grade and even went and did something incredibly stupid like pour all his mana into the damn meteorite. Oh, and then there was the issue of C-grades apparently coming, and as he stood there, Jake could even feel a few approaching auras.

Did I fuck up badly? Jake asked himself.

He had originally only approached the worm to give him a lift. Their entire relationship had been transactional. Shit, Jake had even threatened Sandy. He knew that if someone else had threatened him to either help or die, Jake would have fought or at the very least looked for every opportunity possible to strike back.

Feeling genuinely nervous, Jake considered just taking off on his own. He was damn low on mana and didn’t wanna fight any C-grades showing up, so leaving would probably be safer. Logically, he should leave or at least hide.

Yet he stayed there, waiting. Because despite his worries, he had a good feeling about Sandy. Sandy seemed like a decent worm, and unless Ell’Hakan could somehow mess with Jake’s emotions across the planet, he felt confident in that assessment. Not that he would have time to get away as Sandy was back.

A figure appeared, slowly fading into existence. Instantly, Jake noticed the difference. First of all, Sandy’s body had actually grown a little smaller, now “only” about a hundred meters long. The body was also less bulky, with the entire form quite slender. Color-wise, Sandy had taken on an odd black-purple hue with the occasional small glimmering dot here and there, looking like small diamonds were embedded in the skin. The skin itself also looked far tougher than before, now more like rock than simply very rough skin.

But what struck Jake the most was the aura. He felt as if the area around Sandy was bending slightly and looked off, and he saw some of the sand slowly begin to float up towards the worm. Sandy noticed and stopped attracting it and began to twist and turn to check out its own body. Another difference was that all of this took place up in the air, Sandy moving as if somehow still “swimming.”

Jake used Identify on Sandy, trying to get a feeling for what he was dealing with.

[Juvenile Cosmic Genesis Worm – lvl ???]

Jake stared at the name, not at all sure what to make of it. First of all, it was long. Were long names good? Probably. But more than the number of words were the words used. Cosmic and Genesis were both words that certainly held a lot of “power,” and the juvenile part hinted that a fully grown Cosmic Genesis Worm had to be at least B-grade. Those trying to become dragons became true dragons at B-grade, indicating that a Cosmic Genesis Worm was likely at or around the level of a true dragon.

And true dragons were damn strong.

“Hey, Sandy. You well?”Jake asked as he saw Sandy keep twisting and turning.

“It looks funny when it moves,” Sandy answered in a very amused tone.

Jake looked confused around and saw nothing move besides the giant worm as he asked again.

“What does?”

“The air sand. Umm… just a bit, checking the skill… hmm, cosmic dust it calls it. And sand is pretty much dust, right? You can’t see it? It is everywhere, even all around you, right now. Look, like this,” Sandy said.

As Sandy said this, Jake faintly felt space around him faintly begin to harden as if it became denser. He wrapped his hand in destructive arcane mana and swept it sideways as he destroyed whatever Sandy was doing.

“You can see it! Or maybe feel it? Hm, weird. Anywho, what did you do with the meteorite before? The amount of earth affinity was near-eliminated, and some foreign concept I am not familiar with was just overflowing. Ah, don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining or anything. I am way better now. Oh, did you know I had five evolution options, and only two of them didn’t have sand in the name? Also! Who is the Malefic Viper?” Sandy asked with rapid-fire telepathy.

Jake couldn’t help but just smile a bit. He had to admit that Sandy felt strong now, but Jake didn’t feel the slightest hint of danger. It wasn’t necessarily because the newly born Cosmic Genesis Worm couldn’t threaten him, but there was not a hint of animosity. All he felt was relief at Sandy not changing.

He answered her questions, explaining who Villy was in quick terms, and was glad that Sandy knew what gods were as apparently a few worms had been blessed. As for why Sandy asked… some-fucking-how, an option called “Malefic Transport Worm” had appeared, and it was better than any of the three “expected” evolutions. The description had talked about turning Sandy into a living transportation vehicle or some shit like that, and thank fucking Villy Sandy had not picked that.

“Cool, so you are the Chosen best friend of this god? Sounds super nice,” Sandy said. “Oh! Bummer! I totally forgot!”

Jake knew what Sandy had forgotten as the many auras had been approaching for a while, and now one was close enough. In the distance, a large form rose, far larger than Sandy despite them both being C-grade worms. It was one of the massive C-grade Sand Worms, and it faced the flying worm for a while as they no doubt talked telepathically.

Now, it had to be noted that all Sand Worms were blind. Blind and deaf. But they had some magical sense that gave them a huge sensory range anyway. For the Sand Worms, it was through the sand, and Jake guessed that Sandy had retained that same sense… sand, having been replaced with this cosmic dust, which was essentially space? He wasn’t sure.

Time passed as Jake just stood there waiting. Sandy sometimes made some slight movements but was otherwise completely frozen. He felt a bit out of place but didn’t want to disturb their talk. Things seemed to get heated as both worms wriggled at each other before Sandy spoke to him:

“We’re leaving!” the former Sand Worm said in a huffy tone.

“What happened?” Jake asked, confused.

“Get in my mouth!” the worm just angrily said, clearly more than a little upset.

Jake didn’t want to argue. Sandy opened its mouth and breathed in as Jake felt himself be dragged. He could resist it but wanted to see what kind of new things the worm could now do. Yet, at the same time, Jake felt a faint telepathic connection be established with the massive C-grade in the distance. It was only one-way and just translated to a brief message: “Thank you and take care of them. Show them the world.”

Not sure what to make of it, Jake allowed himself to be dragged in, and he noticed that despite Sandy growing smaller, the inside hadn’t. It looked like a massive dark cave as Jake stared down the worm’s gullet, but the moment he fully entered the mouth, he felt himself shift and next-up found himself within an odd circular room that looked like it was made of stone.

A spatial pocket of some kind, Jake noted.

Inspecting his new surroundings, Jake quickly realized there was no way out. No doors or openings in the dark-purplish rock anywhere. Yet he also got a feeling that he could break these walls if he really wanted to by overloading the walls with destructive mana - overloading the entire pocket with destructive mana.

After roughly a minute, he heard Sandy talk again.

“I would never! Jerks, the lot of them! Sand Worms suck!” Sandy said first-thing.

“Will you tell me what happened now?” Jake asked.

“Okay… I was so excited, right? Just evolved, everything seemed great, and then my old safe keeper appeared, and I am so excited to share my own awesome evolution, but do you know what the bastard said? That I am no longer a Sand Worm and have to leave! That the desert isn’t a place for me anymore. I just got disowned by my own family because I am a better worm! Humph!” Sandy raged.

Jake frowned a bit but now understood the other C-grade worm. Sandy had grown beyond the desert. Rather than being confined to sand, their world was now everywhere in the cosmos.

“This is your fault? I could have become a Massive Veilsand Sand Worm, you know?” Sandy said, sounding sad. “Now, where am I supposed to go? Can I even go anywhere? My quest says I am still not allowed in certain areas of the planet.”

“The world is far larger than you think,” Jake said. “You are a Cosmic Worm now, not a Sand Worm. The entire universe is your home, and while there are some areas you cannot go to right now, that is only temporary.”

“Still your fault,” Sandy insisted. “Guess it all works out for you… now I have nowhere else to go and no other plans. So, where are we going?”

Jake couldn’t help but smile at the speed Sandy just adapted. “Before that, can you do it so I can see the outside world?”

“See? Oh yeah, you got those eye things; I remember someone mentioning that some creatures have those. Here, let me try something.”

The entire cavern-like dome he was in began shifting colors and expanded and retracted a bit. Then, finally, parts of it began to turn transparent. It then spread and encompassed the entire cave, walls, floor, and everything. From Jake’s point of view, it was like he was floating in mid-air.

“That works?” Sandy asked.

“Yep. I do wonder, why do you have a skill to transport people like this?”

“Oh, it is not to transport people but to trap and super slowly eat them. Like, I can do this,” Sandy said as Jake began to feel something change. He noticed that his mana, stamina, and health were all being drained at an incredibly slow speed but drained nonetheless. It stopped just after as Sandy gave some more insight.

It was a bit like Villy’s Palate, where one could slowly absorb energy and even some remnant Records, except Sandy would drink the energies of living beings eaten and actually extract experience from that. From the sounds of it, Sandy still got little to no experience from killing things outright but was more about finding and eating natural treasures. And eating living creatures to slowly extract energy from them, it seemed.

“How many can you eat at once?” Jake asked.

“Depends on how many rooms I make… but probably around a hundred rooms right now? Not sure; I am going by my guts. Heh, guts when I am talking about my stomach skill. Anyway! Where are we going?” Sandy asked again after making a terrible pun.

“That way,” Jake said as he telepathically conveyed a direction. Sandy picked up on it and began worming through the air. It was like Sandy could swim through the air itself, though Jake to admit the speed was not that impressive right off the bat.

Jake decided to not rush Sandy as he could feel the worm was getting used to the new evolution. Instead, he wanted to test something else out as he took out his cauldron and began crafting a batch of mana potions. The process was simple as usual, but his goal wasn’t really to brew it but test the effect it had on Sandy.

“Hey, Sandy, can you absorb the extra mana from me doing alchemy?” Jake asked the worm as it wormed its way forward.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I do feel something in the stomach. I have to absorb it manually as I don’t have that effect active right now,” Sandy said. Jake once more felt the suction effect from the walls, and the mana that had spread in the room from Jake’s crafting was absorbed.

“Okay, now let’s try something else. Do be on alert and tell me if anything bad happens,” Jake then said as he tried to craft something a bit different.

Whenever Jake made poison, it had the effect of leaving the surrounding area a bit… contaminated. Back in his valley, he had his circle of death where he killed all grass in a large area, and in the Order and even his lab back in Haven, the entire place was designed to resist and contain his poison. This entire effect only got worse as time passed, and Jake knew that if an S-grade crafted poisons without bothering to try and contain the environmental effects, entire planets could find themselves contaminated.

He began his crafting as usual and felt that Sandy was keeping an eye on it. The toxic vapors soon entered the air without the worm saying anything about it. As he kept going, he felt a bit of it be absorbed into the transparent walls and disappear. Still nothing. Jake finished his crafting and finally asked:

“So?”

“All fine? The energy took a bit to filter, but otherwise, it was all good,” Sandy answered. Jake felt relieved and nodded.

“How far are we going anyway?”Sandy asked.

“Hm… far,” Jake answered. He had not actually truly reflected on how far there was… and damn, was there far.

Due to the size of the Earth having grown to ridiculous levels and him having been flung to the other side of the planet, Jake estimated he had a little less than two million kilometers back to Haven.

Now, this did seem extreme, but it wasn’t actually that bad. Jake could easily travel faster than a thousand kilometers an hour using One Step Mile repeatedly, so without rest, he could pass around twenty-four thousand kilometers a day or just shy of one hundred and seventy thousand a week. Factoring in fights and some issues, along with a bit of rest here and there, passing just a hundred thousand kilometers a week was likely more realistic. This would mean it would take Jake around five months to return… which happened to be just shy of the World Congress that would happen in roughly four months. At least he remembered it being in around four months. He did not have a timer counting down or anything, and he had to admit that his time-keeping when highly engrossed in alchemy wasn’t the best.

“Damn far. I have around two million kilometers, and I am not sure how much of that you can come along for, being a C-grade and all,” Jake answered.

“Hm, okay,” Sandy answered. “Do we have to hurry?”

“A little? But I also think it would be a good idea to make some stops along the way to hunt some C-grades,” Jake said. “It all depends on how fast you can travel.”

“So I can go fast?” Sandy asked.

“Well, yeah. Is it fine if I just do alchemy and meditate meanwhile?”

“Is alchemy that the thing where you make the mana come out? Sure! It is tasty. I want to practice too,” Sandy answered.

“Alright,” Jake said with a smile. Sandy was currently flying only about two hundred meters a second, which was slower than Jake using One Step by a lot. He hoped that Sandy would be fast-

Everything suddenly seemed to warp as Jake saw the terrain all around them move incredibly fast. Sandy shot forward as if digging through reality, carried by space itself. He had no way to estimate how fast they were going… but it was fast. Faster than Jake could travel even if he pushed himself fully with One Step and Arcane Awakening.

“Can you keep up this speed?”Jake asked, wondering if Sandy was pushing it.

“Yeah? This isn’t that fast, is it? Definitely faster than before, but I am an awesome worm now, so it makes sense, right? I can go faster but not for as long, and I am still learning, okay? So no judging,” Sandy explained very logically.

“Alright. Don’t hesitate to contact me if there is anything,” Jake said.

“I will tell you when I need someone to kill another C-grade so I can steal its stuff, and I can get some proper compensation for you getting me disowned,” Sandy said with the usual joking sassiness

“You do you,” Jake kept smirking as he watched them fly for a little longer. Even if their speed was a lot faster, it was still just desert with a few large red rocky mountains all around for as far as the eye could see. Even Jake’s eyes.

Closing said eyes and entering meditation, Jake began once more working on upgrading Wings of the Malefic Viper. Over this period, he had gotten some good ideas, but the problem was he had no way to practice. In order to truly practice and figure out if his ideas would work, Jake would need some kind of isolated space which he could try and escape from, but where the hell would he find something like tha-

Wait a second…