Terraformed Mars, Olympus Mons, 2072

“You’re bored, aren’t you?” Elena asked, stepping up next to Isaac on the balcony.

“No?” he asked, confused. He was still wearing the bedsheet, and she was clad in a bathrobe. That had most certainly not been boring.

And quite frankly, even if he had been bored, saying so would have doubtlessly landed him in the doghouse until the heat death of the universe.

Elena laughed, laid an arm around his shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I didn’t mean that, I meant in general. You teach the next generation, you occasionally help out with problems, but I can feel it. You want to be out there,” she gestured vaguely in the direction of the sky.

“I like my life,” he said. He’d already put his arm around her as well, and now, pulled them closer together.

“I’m not going to just run off,” Isaac protested. She wasn’t exactly wrong, there was very little to do that was completely new, he’d fought every kind of monster there was, including most [World Bosses].

There were things to look forward to, like when the “Deathless Arena” finally got out of the prototype phase and he could safely throw down with Sun, or the usual annual big “knighthood” competition Arthur held in Camelot, and he could still seek knowledge to boost [Assassin of the Logos Blade], but there were limits.

Regular existence with the occasional high point was nothing to sneeze at, nothing to bitch about, and yet …

“Never said you were,” she grinned, “But you’re not the only one who’d love to go streaking through the universe?”

Isaac sniggered.

“What?”

“Streaking?”

Elena laughed, “Of course that’s where your mind would go.”

Isaac just shrugged.

“So, Arthur can call back members of the [Round Table] from almost anywhere in the galaxy, once per year, or a lot further, but only once a decade. Why don’t we ask him to earmark that for us, go exploring, and if we ever find ourselves in trouble, out of position, or something goes wrong, well, we’ll be back in a flash. What do you say?” Elena asked.

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“I love you,” Isaac responded with a dopey grin.

“I love you too,” she said, “So, how long do you think it’ll take prepare?”

“Oh, maybe a month at the most?” Isaac suggested.

***

Saying goodbye to everyone had taken a bit, as had grabbing supplies, setting contingencies and ensuring his projects were taken care of actually took one and a half months, but at the end of that, he was ready.

Most of the [Round Table] and their families stood beside them in the hangar bay of the spaceship known as the Scientia Quaesitor, Latin for “Knowledge Seeker”.

“If you start an interstellar war, please tell us before you fire the first shot, alright?” Habicht asked with a grin. He was currently Germany’s defense minister, and him coming out here with zero bodyguards had been a massive fight on his part, but he’d apparently wanted to see Isaac without a whole bunch of them hanging around.

“Sure thing,” Isaac nodded to him.

That broke the damn and almost everyone else felt the need to crack jokes of their own, but eventually, things came to an end.

Isaac and Elena let themselves float out through the forcefield that kept the air in and unfurled their wings. His were just the plain wings of the Void Dragon, but Elena had integrated them into her fairy wings.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Elena took his hand and grinned right back at him, “What are we waiting for?”

First, the [Wings of the Void] began to accelerate them.

Secondly, [True Spatial Warp], which he’d gotten from the Aspect of the Lord of Time and Space, began to warp space around him, shortening distances ahead of him, the effect boosted by [True Spatial Affinity] from the same Aspect.

And thirdly, the [Skills] from the Aspect of the Cosmic Leviathan kicked in. [Stellar Travel] would make him a hell of a lot faster when moving through space, and finally, [Charging to Infinity] accelerated them through the warp.

Ahead, the universe began to glow blue, while behind them, the world became red.

It was a combination that Isaac never would have figured out if Hermes hadn’t told everyone about it in the other timeline.

Alcubierre Bubble (legendary)

The speed of light.

In theory, an absolute rule.

In practice, well, magic exists.

But even when magic is not directly involved, there are ways to … sidestep the issue. Wormholes, for one.

And while no one has built one without the aid of magic, the Alcubierre Drive is also a path to getting around that pesky speed limit.

This is the Skill equivalent of that, the ultimate combination of several Aspect Skills (True Spatial Affinity, True Spatial Warp, Wings of the Void, Stellar Travel, Charging to Infinity) allowing the user to warp space-time around themselves to move at speeds that might technically not surpass light speed, but still allows them to win a race against photons.

There had to be so many other combination [Skills] out there, but in the end, he hadn’t found any. Yet.

However, he had millennia or even longer to experiment. To explore the universe. At some point, actually get married to Elena. Maybe have kids. Go back to the university and find people to try and walk down exotic paths to power in exchange for support so he could see what happened. Perhaps even find aliens, if they existed?

Finis