The journey to Skyggen was one Jake had made before, but this time was far faster in every way. Jake’s One Step had upgraded, allowing him to go further than ever before, and he was fast approaching the city. It did help that he also ignored everything in the way… except one thing.

Curiosity had always been one of his strong traits, but the last time he had gone to Skyggen, he had listened to the logical part of his brain. A massive mountain appeared before Jake, one reaching far into the sky above the many layers of clouds. It was bonkers how big it was, and Jake faintly felt a powerful aura from the top. A C-grade aura. Jake had not wanted to go the last time he was there as he was not quite ready to face a C-grade, but this time it should be fine, right?

Right?

Jake rapidly approached the mountain, which only looked bigger the closer he got. It completely put any mountain on Earth to shame, and based on how massive the base was, Jake estimated its height should not be measured in tens but hundreds of kilometers.

Kind of makes sense, Jake thought. The C-grade – or C-grades if there were more than one – had to live far enough up on the mountain due to the system restrictions.

The climb wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow either. By climb, Jake meant running vertically with One Step as he teleported up in the air like he had just unlocked infinite teleporting double-jumps. Soon, he made it ten kilometers up. Then thirty. Fifty. A hundred.

For every step, the mountain narrowed a little. When he reached the hundred-kilometer mark, Jake guessed the mountain had to be around three hundred kilometers tall. He did spot many caves also while making his way up and many creatures living on the mountain. Thousands of birds made it their resting place before heading out into the merciless skies again, some of which found themselves hunted by predators lurking on the mountainsides.

None of them paid him any mind, and Jake didn’t bother them either. It did not take him long before Jake finally reached the layer of cloud that allowed C-grades, and he instantly felt the shift. The air suddenly turned chilly and white snow covered the mountain. He saw now that the rest of the mountain was covered in white, but more than that, he felt something else there. A presence that seemed to seep into the mana itself.

Curiosity still had hold of him as Jake went to investigate. He flew closer to the mountain and landed as he saw several tracks. Areas where the snow had been disturbed by what looked like a giant claw print.

He kept going forward until he saw a massive cave that seemed to burrow straight into the middle of the mountain. Icicles covered the sides of it, and Jake felt an intense chill coming from within. Enough for him to use a barrier of arcane mana to defend himself from it.

As he stood there, he also felt something from his boots. As he was earthbound, he could detect natural treasures, and from within that cave, a powerful sensation came. Sense of the Malefic Viper did not react, meaning it was not a toxin, but that did not mean it would be useless to him.

Not that Jake thought he could claim it… for he also felt a powerful aura.

Mid-tier C-grade? No… not quite… but still strong, Jake thought. Whatever creature dwelled within also seemed to become aware of him as its presence swept out from within. Jake was ready to retreat as two blue wisps of light lit up within the unnaturally dark cave.

A rumble sounded as he heard the sound of claws scraping stone. Soon, the creature became visible as it slowly walked out of the cavern, the chilly air cooling down as it got closer. Jake knew upon feelings its presence that It was a creature of pure mana. One of the natural masters of magic in the multiverse.

The blue scales covered its body as vapor exited its slightly open mouth. Two claws dragged it forward, each attached to large leathery wings, with two legs being the primary method of moving when not in the air. For some reason, Jake did not feel any fear but only had a stupid smile on his lips from finally meeting one in the wild.

[Northpeak Wyvern – lvl ???]

Wyverns were not dragons, true. But they were the second best. Even a powerful hatchling of a True Dragon often could not match a similarly-leveled evolved wyvern. The reason was simple… the requirements for a reptile to evolve into a wyvern were incredibly strict, and they needed to have insane levels of innate magical talent.

“Your smell is familiar,” a voice echoed out from the wyvern. “But you are not kin.”

Jake smiled. “No, I am not. It is a pleasure to-“

“Then die.”

His danger sense exploded as the wyvern opened its mouth. Jake reacted as fast as he could and activated Arcane Awakening and crossed his arms in front of him as several layers of arcane magic appeared. Just in time too.

A chilly wind hit Jake, followed by blue light. To lessen the impact, Jake tried to redirect some of the force as he was shot backward. The arcane barriers froze and shattered one by one as he felt like he was in the middle of a blizzard. Within a second, the final barrier shattered, and the cold energy hit Jake directly. His skin froze, his armor cracked, and he had to close his eyes for them not to freeze solid, the already summoned Scales still managing to absorb most of the force.

Luckily he was also being pushed away at an alarming pace. He flew back rapidly as he summoned a healing potion into his mouth to fight the cold energy that invaded his body and sought to freeze his insides.

Soon, he at least stopped accelerating as the power of the wyvern’s breath dissipated. That just left Jake flying through the air like a comet down toward the ground. The entire front of his body was frozen, and Jake gritted his teeth as he managed to move his frostbitten limbs and brace for impact before he smashed into the ground, creating a large crater.

The cold emanated from his body, even freezing his surroundings. Feeling pretty damn chilly, Jake sat up in the crater, the mountain still visible far in the distance.

“What a rude wyvern,” Jake muttered.

At least he had been hurled in the direction of Skyggen, so could this count as a shortcut? Definitely not, but Jake wanted to justify his curiosity somehow.

Still more than a little miffed at the lack of courtesy from the frost wyvern, Jake got up as his entire body was stiff, and his skin and scales cracked from the frostbite. It was damn annoying, and even with his vital energy working at high speed, it would take some time to eliminate all the frost energy in his body. The breath of a wyvern was far less potent than that of a true dragon, but it still held incredible conceptual power nonetheless.

Moving forward at a slower pace, Jake continued his journey. He complained a bit under his breath and swore: the next time Jake went to that peak, Jake would show that damn wyvern what true rudeness looked like.

Caleb looked down at the sleeping toddler as he smiled. He and Maja had many discussions during the pregnancy on how to deal with a newborn, especially with Caleb working early hours and whatnot as a school teacher. At least that hadn’t been an issue considering he no longer needed to sleep at all. Adam did sleep a lot, and according to his mom, relatively normal hours too. At least compared to Caleb.

As a baby and toddler, Jake had been a weird one. Mom talked about how he would always wake up when you entered the room, almost as if he could detect you in the room… something he, in retrospect, clearly had been able to.

“I still feel a bit jealous,” Caleb heard his dad, Robert, say from behind. “Back in my day, we had to get up every two hours to a crying baby and soldier through the day on four hours of sleep.”

“In all fairness, I am not even getting four hours a week,” Caleb smirked.

His dad ignored him with a huff as he looked at Adam sleeping. “I had feared how everything would be for a newborn… but he seems normal. Part of me had thought that maybe kids would grow up to adulthood within a few months or have superpowers, making toddlers even more menacing than before.”

Caleb definitely concurred on that one. All of it. He had feared what kind of life a child could have in a world where battle and killing were so common, and perhaps more, how the system would mess with someone growing up.

The system had definitely led to changes for children, but surprisingly enough, it was generally positive. How exactly the status menu of a toddler looked, he couldn’t know for good reason, but one thing was clear: their stats did not match their level. At least not their effectiveness.

Adam was already level 3, which meant that by pre-system standards, he should have more stats than a regular adult man. Or at least close. At least he should be far stronger than he was. Okay, he was still stronger than a normal kid, but it was not extreme, so even if he could crawl faster and had quite the grip, it was not at a level where he could lift his own dad off the ground. He did not seem to display any particularly supernatural traits besides one aspect: durability.

It was weird analyzing his own son like that, but he also couldn’t ignore reality. Like with any kid, Adam liked to sometimes do less than intelligent things. Things that would usually make a kid cry, such as bumping his head or hitting himself with a toy, he ignored. The few times he managed to scratch himself, the wound would also heal within the hour. He had also not been sick once, and he needed less food than pre-system children.

Caleb was, needless to say, thankful that the system seemed to have made life for both children and parents easier. No longer did you need to be so fearful of anything and everything going wrong. Parents no longer needed to have several children to ensure some made it to adulthood, and even without medical professionals, children would be fine.

“We are lucky,” Caleb just smiled as he looked at Adam sleeping.

He left the room shortly after with his dad, going to the living room. It was only the two of them in the hourse, and Caleb would have to leave soon, leaving his dad behind to babysit. Yes, even with the system and all that, there was no way he and Maja would leave Adam without a babysitter.

“How is Maja settling in?” Robert asked.

“She is doing well,” Caleb smiled. She was spending some time with her own parents these days and had gone a route like many others when it came to figuring out what she wanted to do. Her prior ongoing education in law did not prove the most useful post-system, but she still wanted to at least work somehow tangentially to it, so she had decided that since her husband was a Judge, she should at least do something to help him do his job. Hence why she went into the business of making contracts. System contracts and general administrative work. It was honestly a good thing, as Caleb felt a lot better having someone he could one-hundred percent trust at his back.

The two of them chatted a bit more before dad suddenly seemed to remember: “Didn’t you say something about Jake coming by?”

“Yep,” Caleb nodded. He had to say Jake was really lucky. Adam being born and everything being so hectic had distracted mom and dad enough for them not to get too annoyed at his lack of contact. Not that Caleb blamed him, Jake was busy and had a lot on his plate already.

“About time,” Robert still grumbled.

Caleb just shrugged, there not really being much to say. It was definitely not an argument he was going to try and have again.

“So, when will he come?” Robert followed up.

“Not sure of the exact timeline, but last I heard, he was on his way. I have no idea how fast he is these days or if he has any errands on the way, but it shouldn’t be too long,” Caleb answered.

Dad just nodded, not talking about it further. Caleb was halfway looking forward to and halfway dreading the talk they would have when Jake arrived. He wasn’t sure how it would go after all the stuff with Arthur. Would Jake get mad at the Court for having helped Arthur? Would he get mad at Caleb? Or would he do as he usually did and not really care?

At least Arthur was gone. Last Caleb had heard, he was headed toward Haven to try and do some damage control. An understandable move, as Arthur truly believed Jake was an unhinged maniac who was seconds away from genocide at any moment. The leader of the United Cities Alliance genuinely feared that Jake would go on a rampage and ravage cities in retaliation and hoped to give himself up and lay down his life to appease the monstrous Malefic’s Chosen.

It was a stupid thought, but… Jake was hard to understand for people who didn’t know him. Everyone seemed to have expectations as to how he was supposed to act and viewed everything he did as something pre-approved by the Malefic Viper, and every action he made only one to further the goals of the Order of the Malefic Viper.

Let’s hope things work out,Caleb just sighed as he walked towards his office to finish up some paperwork. He had no idea what Jake was planning but was sure he was about to find out soon.

It ended up taking nearly ten hours before Jake was back to full speed after his wyvern encounter, resolving himself not to annoy moody frost lizards anymore. The cold energy had lingered far longer than expected, and with Palate useless against it, it had been a struggle to eliminate it all. However, when he was at full speed, he made rapid progress, and it did not take long before Jake closed in on Skyggen.

Only after he entered the fake Skyggen did he realize that he could likely have made it a lot faster if he had just figured out what teleporters were functional again and found a city that could take him there.

Earth was rapidly restoring what had been lost, and it should not take long before a new teleportation network was up and running. One that would even be better than the one before as all those responsible for making it had gotten stronger and more skilled in the meantime. Chances are that even areas like the Grand Mangrove River could be passed through by the teleporters with just a bit of tweaking. If not, then it should be possible to make a teleportation checkpoint in the middle.

Shaking his head, Jake did not want to waste time thinking about it as he saw the streets of fake Skyggen and how it barely differed from before. It was evident the beast tides had not reached the city at all, and all that had happened was them expanding as more sought the safety of larger cities.

Remembering the route, Jake passed through the city and went towards the real Skyggen.

It would be good to finally spend some quality family time… and talk to his parents about his plans of quite literally taking over the world.