Edward stood above Gobéliard with pride in his eyes, the city was unrecognizable. In but a few months Leyla had established a vast rune array around the city to concentrate the local mana. Most of the mana was gathered in a tower where magical crystals were artificially grown, said crystals could then conveniently be utilized for different usages without having to depend on volatile and diluted mana. This opened the path for magical engineering although it was still in its infancy stage.

Leyla hadn’t stopped there, while Edward was gone, she had extensively studied all of the Damkinan’s knowledge about portals and space. This wasn’t to build portals leading to other worlds, but rather the exact opposite. The dimensional membrane was already weak, one of the main reasons for the surge, and the Andherian invasion had further damaged it. If they didn’t want a repeat of the previous events in a few thousand years, the dimensional membrane had to be repaired.

They may be in a better situation than before, but they had learned from the Damkinans’ mistakes. There were lots of different worlds out there, and a connection went both ways. Connecting to an unknown world was extremely dangerous given that it could very well be hostile with superior power or technology.

Leyla had drawn a schematic for a rune array, it would need to be installed at each place where the dimensional membrane was weak. This meant essentially any place where a portal to another world had been opened. Everything wasn’t ready yet, but the first location where it would be installed was the forest where Edward had defeated the spiders.

Edward had also allocated one of his clones to secure the way through the Vipin Forest between Gobéliard and Agripin. The number of monsters daring to cross the path decreased steadily and he was confident that with time his clone wouldn’t even be needed, the monsters learning that it was a forbidden zone to them.

With the end of the surge, Edward had also taken the time to secure Agripin once again, even though few monsters had settled over there, the lack of food and humans to snack on had been its best protection. Most of Agripin inhabitants had chosen to go back to their homes, with the difference that this time the path to Gobéliard was kept open and without dangers.

Meanwhile from Ignis’ side, the situation had stabilized as well. He had dispatched the army to help deliver supplies, and Alaucacha, Nagh Kuldohr, and Zakrens held strong not fearing a famine or local monsters anymore. Even Spurius had come back feeling the situation turned for the better, he had claimed that he had been on a mission to eliminate dangerous monsters. However, Ignis with the support of Adotinus had ensured that Spurius lost most of his political power, and most of the funds needed to rebuild Pescara came from his pocket.

Pescara had been completely leveled, but Ignis was determined to rebuild a coastal city, especially knowing that Gobéliard was blooming. Already there were talks about establishing a trading channel. Rebuilding would take time, but the prospects were looking brighter than ever.

*****

Edward was sitting with a cute animal that looked like a Quokka on his lap, Leyla had her own as well and several of the cute critters were clumsily trying to climb on them. The mammal Edward was holding was giggling and wiggling as he was giving him belly scratches. He was near the spider forest, on the mountain where had found a grass slope with numerous burrows. At that time, he hadn’t been able to see the animals resting inside but they looked damn cute and he had promised himself to come back to check it if he had the time later. It turned out it was worth it, the small mammals were pure soft round bundles of love.

He had also taken the time to check on the cavern near their habitat, discovering a dozen-meter-long centipede at the predator level alongside numerous small bones obviously belonging to the small mammals. After killing that monster, the Quokka-like creature behaved a lot more freely, and now they didn’t hesitate to come out of their burrows even during the day. It had become Leyla and Edward's favorite place.

*****

Another day, Edward was alone in the Vipin Forest leaning against a branch high in a tree. Below him, a Wyrm was peacefully resting curled up on itself. The monster was oblivious to Edward's presence, as he was using his shadow spell, he was invisible and his presence was masked as well. Edward was holding a notebook and his tongue was coming out of his lips as he was giving his best as sketching the Wyrm below him.

He wasn’t good at drawing but he had the time to improve, and he was determined to publish his own handbook of monsters. He had traveled far and wide and encountered much more monsters than the usual person. Apart from the hobby part of it, publishing a detailed monster handbook was something that could save lives, as adventurers were much more likely to die when meeting with a monster with unknown abilities.

Information about rare and or dangerous monsters was extremely rare as few had even managed to survive such encounters, and those who had certainly didn’t have the time to sketch the monster coming for their life. This wasn’t a concern for Edward, at his level of power those monsters didn’t pose any threat to him. As for sketching them, he wasn’t the best at it, but with his teleportation and the range of his aura, it wasn’t hard for him to find any monster he wanted.

While Leyla was leading a breakthrough in rune and magic engineering, Edward had hope that his monster handbook would also lead to interesting discoveries about monsters’ physiology, habitats, and behavior.

Now that the surge was over, monster aggression had drastically reduced, and Edward wanted this world's inhabitants to interest themselves in the strange and powerful creatures leaving with them. They were part of the ecosystem as well, and exterminating them all was something Edward wanted to prevent. Showing those creatures as something else than monsters was the first step in this direction. After all, people protected only what they loved, and there was no way to love something you knew nothing about.

******

The surge may be over, but that didn’t mean Edward would stop going out and using his powers. Ever since he had had to teleport himself several kilometers in the air to find the center of that sandstorm near Nagh Kuldohr, he had wanted to experience sky diving. At that moment he had been on a timer not knowing when the Andherians would attack and he couldn’t afford to lose time and possibly injure himself. But now he could experiment as much as he wanted.

With a grin on his face, Edward used his teleportation, reappearing five kilometers higher, the air grew thinner, and the temperature dropped to minus fifteen degrees. Edward laughed and let gravity take hold of him, diving through the air with his arms wide open. From up there he could even slightly see the planet's curvature. He laughed with glee as the air whipped his face, he could travel at incredible speed thanks to his teleportation but he wasn’t exactly moving and it was far less exciting than free-falling through the air.

His teleportation couldn’t change momentum, but with its range and a cooldown of only two seconds, he had discovered he could free-fall perpetually if he wanted to. Once he was too close to the ground he only had to teleport himself upward once again. At first, he had been worried about his speed increasing without limit until his teleportation wasn’t able to keep up anymore, but it turned out his speed couldn’t exceed a maximum velocity. Even while high up in the atmosphere, there was still air and he wasn’t in the void, which meant there was air drag as he was falling. After several tries, he estimated his maximum falling velocity at 190 kilometers per hour, a movement speed that was far below what his teleportation could achieve.

Granting, even without a collision falling at such speed with freezing temperature, thin air, and air whipping his skin wasn’t something that most humans could survive. But at his body's current level, this only brought him exhilaration.

As for when he had to stop his fall, at first, he had formed aura steps whose speed he adjusted to his fall so that it slowed him down gradually. But after more practice, he directly controlled a layer of aura around him. After all, if he could control his aura and make it move as he wished, this meant he could control himself as well through his aura if he was surrounded by it. By controlling the layer of aura around him he was able to fly directly without relying on aura step, however his speed was rather lackluster for now. Without even talking about his teleportation, he was still faster running on aura steps than by flying through his aura.

However, even though it was slower it didn’t make it any less enjoyable. After having his fill of free falling, Edward flew above the ocean a mere few meters above it, he was as free as one could be, his current reality a dream come true.