Not wanting to lose my resolve to leave my companion behind, I immediately began flying towards the water spirit kingdom. This kingdom was located at the westernmost coast of the continent bordering the external ocean. It had access to the planets largest Mythril mine as well as the only ocean pearl farm. While normal ocean pearls were useless to me, occasionally a mutated pearl called a 'heart of the sea' would be produced. This treasure was indistinguishable from its normal brethren without identity and could be used to make a post-ascension ring. The trip was also a way to waste time until my bio-suit could be completed. Plus, I did not want to waste the resources needed to teleport a long-distance.

The lush purple forests gave way to the brilliant silvery blue of the nocturnal ocean, It's surface lazily reflecting the twin pale moons. I couldn't help but wonder if such a serene scene ever existed on my homeworld as I crossed from the princesses territory into the inner ocean. Remembering the detailed world map on the wall of the palaces war room, I slightly changed my flightpath ensuring I would make landfall on Pirate Island. Unlike home, this world consisted of two large continents connected by a small northern land bridge with a few small islands scattered throughout the sea in the middle. This 'Inner' sea was the breeding ground for the sea monsters. It was too shallow for the largest creatures to live but deep enough that they could visit. They would journey to it once a decade to lay their eggs, before returning to the depths of the outer ocean. This meant that only the young and relatively weak would normally be found in these waters, making it the central means of marine trade and travel.

During my flight, I was able to witness some incredible scenes while above the clouds. From the passing shadow of a fully grown three-hundred-meter long sea snake to a school of flying fish numbering in the thousands. I had always thought that the seas contained more beauty and mystery than the land and witnessing an untouched coral reef painted with vibrant natural colours reinforced that belief. It reminded me that in the higher worlds, mankind lacked the power to control nature, it was forced to be a part of the cycle.

The predawn light reflected off the surface of the water creating small rainbows from the sea mist in the air and just as the sun crested the horizon, I spotted Pirate Island. With the once dark storm gone, the island was illuminated by the light of day and the result was not pretty. The Island lay in ruins with destroyed buildings littering the land. This damage was not a direct result of the maelstrom failing so I assumed that it was caused by a retaliatory attack from the surrounding kingdoms. Devoid of humanoid life, the sea birds had begun to use the ruined houses as nesting areas. These were not the seagulls of my world, but birds more similar to oversized eagles sporting a five-meter wingspan. From my knowledge, they only attacked fish and were smart enough to leave the sentient races alone. It was rather surprising that this world lacked aerial predators. Apart from a few large scavengers and some other species hunters like these eagles, the air was clear of threats. Looking back, I honestly believe that it had to do with the lack of elevation combined with the overabundance of ocean and forests on the planet. Because other planets I have visited did not have this glaring lack of air superiority.

Deciding to be friendly, I threw a few fish at the birds before wandering into a semi-intact building. Sealing the door with some rocks and summoning my bed, I lapsed into slumber. Flying all night had taken a lot more out of me than I had expected and since I was not in a hurry, I decided to have a nap. Awakening a few hours later, I noticed the island was deserted as the birds had all gone fishing. Summoning a meal from storage while sitting on an intact keg, I inspected the damage. The fight had obviously happened fairly soon after I destroyed their protection with large divots spotting the land and deep pierce marks reminding me of the old elf mage's icicle attack. The mansion looked like someone had flattened it with a hammer and a few empty crucifixes were lying around the place. This battle would not have been pleasant as the pirates had innocent hostages but the result was clear. Taking my time, I made an altar of stone before poring some alcohol over it as was my peoples funeral ceremony. I left the place knowing that my choices that day had lead to the deaths of innocent people but also recognising that they also freed future people from piracy, rape and death.

Soaring into the air, I encountered the eagles as they returned fro their hunt. I expect they were surprised to see a flying human as some of them dropped their catch as I passed.

I encountering nothing but ocean as I headed further west. The path from pirate island to the free trade republic was frequently used by ships and the marine life had learned to avoid it. With nothing interesting to watch, I created a wind barrier and began crafting a magic wand. Wands and staves are the most common mage tool in the universe and can be anything as simple as a precious stone stuck on the end of a branch, to an intelligent and complex rod crafted from true dragon bone.

Almost all wands did the same things. Acting as a personal mana battery, housing a single-use emergency spell and increasing the area from which you can gather natural mana. The wand I was crafting was made from living bluewood with a refined large mana crystal and had a purpose completely different from a normal wand. It would link to a formation and draw natural mana through a spatial magic tunnel in order to allow me to use magic in space. The reason I never bothered creating a normal wand was that a normal wand's abilities were useless for me. I could abuse normal mana crystals as mana batteries through my pheonixian knowledge. I could cast spells as quickly as I could activate the wand's emergency effect thanks to pheonixian magic and my natural mana absorbing area already surpass what this world could handle causing diminishing returns. It would be a different case on a higher layer but for now, they were almost detrimental.

I Put away the finished wand and started to watch the now semi-regularly appearing ships. they appeared more often as I got closer to the ports of the free trade republic. Judging by their appearance, I guessed they all came from the same shipwrights. There were six different designs at most, with the merchant ship that the oracle captained being the most prevalent. Having arrived above the docks and become bored with the ships, I activated the disguise pendant becoming an elf. With my new appearance, I landed at the dock, much to the surprise of the locals, before blended into the crowd while changing my appearance during the commotion.

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Heading to the house we hired previously, I listened in on the local gossip to see the world's reaction to the princess regaining her throne. Apparently information does not travel as fast in a world without computers, because I arrived before the rumours did. Taking out a brass key, I entered the cottage, only to be met with a pleasant surprise. The tube containing my environment suit was displaying a green light. I had expected its completion to still be a few months away, but luck must have had other plans. Cracking the glass to remove the suits sealed form, I held the thick circular disk in my hands. In this sealed state, the armour appeared to be a series of wires wound around a glass core, encased in a segmented metal shell. Cutting my finger, I placed a drop of blood on the glass section dying it red and bonding the armour to me. As much as I wanted to deploy the armour to test it out, I needed to charge it first. So while holding it under my arm and feeding it mana, I made myself some tea.

The completion of this object completely rearranged my priorities, placing my trip into outer space first on the list. Both for beneficial reasons and because it was cool. The people of my world had only just started exploring space inside large machines, so the idea that I could play around up there wearing nothing but a skin-tight suit was irresistible.

Hearing an audible 'ding', I knew the suit was charged but it would have been a mistake to immediately attempt to escape the planet. I set the draining formation for my wand in the centre of the house and tried to sleep in order to relieve my fatigue. Sleep came unwillingly since I was like a child waiting to play with a new toy but it did eventually arrive.

Waking up late the next morning, I dashed out of bed and made sure everything was finished before pressing on the centre of the sealed unit. The external metal liquefied while the wires expanded like a released spring. Wrapping around me with such force that I originally believed I had made a mistake and it was trying to strangle me. As the pressure lessened, I realised this was just the suits form of calibration. Looking at the armour covering my hands, it was comprised of a black chitinous scale with a small glass orb on the back of each of my hands. Wearing it felt like being wrapped in a warm wet pulsating cloth and took a while to get used to. Walking into a side room, I gazed at my reflection in the body length mirror. The same material covering my hands extended to my elbow like grieves before sliding up to meet pauldrons. It covered my chest like a breastplate, ran from my knee down over my feet like oversized boots and lastly formed a domed helmet with each piece containing a similar glass half dome. The sections not adorned by the scales appeared to be covered by a black leather containing red veins. All in all, the suit was freaky and alien.

I began to study the multiple functions of the armour as the pheonixians had only listed names, not descriptions. I quickly realised that the orbs called 'movement points' were gravitational thrusters that abused magic to allow movement in space while negating a portion of the planets. It seemed to do this by using law runes to vastly magnifying the distance in the gravity equation. Unfortunately, neither of these abilities could be activated in the atmosphere. Among the armour's other abilities the two I was most interested in were 'vitality' and 'compartmentalised'. It turned out that the suit was also actually considered semi-alive and had its own health shielding in addition to its physical defences while the entire thing could be either retracted into the chest section or removed to reform the sealed unit. There were multiple versions of this suit that could be produced with different materials, including a weaponised version, but mine was the survival type since I didn't even want to know what the 'Kamehameha' was.

Wearing the suit allowed me to understand what the pheonixian knowledge referred to as a neural link. I gave it a mental command and it began collecting oxygen in its internal storage. While it was completing that task, I was practising shape-shifting and gravity manipulation. The day passed and as night descended, I decided to risk leaving the planet. Now, you're probably thinking I could just fly up and into space. Well, that is both true and untrue. My wings are magic and use a combination of different powers to achieve flight, with the most powerful being wind control. But at higher altitudes, not only does the air become thinner lowering the effectiveness of my magic but the mana itself thins out limiting magic in general. This is why despite all their power pure, magic societies rarely leave their planet unless they have access to a space gate.

Taking all this into account, my orbital exit had three elements. Firstly, abuse magic and gravity to reach incredible speed by flying straight down. Secondly using space folding to appear in the upper atmosphere in a reversed direction following an orbital escape trajectory. Lastly, activate the suits gravity control to reduce the planet's gravity and provide enough acceleration to maintain a geosynchronous orbit.

With the plan in mind, I left the city and ascended into the clouds. After reaching a height where my wings began to fail, I formed one end of my space warping tunnel before accelerating straight towards the ground. Reaching an incredible velocity, I formed the other end of my tunnel before passing straight through it. The spell was not instant and I had smashed through it before it had fully formed, thus continuing towards the ground. I managed to pull up in time but the first attempt was a failure. Learning from my first attempt, I activated the spacial tunnel while travelling at a slower speed allowing it to fling me to the moon, only to run out of velocity and begin falling back to earth. The third test was too fast, the fourth test had the upper atmosphere gate pointing down and the fifth try had me colliding with a migration bird during my descent.

Angry, annoyed and covered in splattered bird guts, I gave it one last chance, positioning the portals before attempting the dive. This would mean I would need to be accurate but also allowed me to achieve maximum velocity. Turning my frustration into speed I gave it everything I had, including adding a few fire magic jet thrusters. Passing through the event horizon, I felt the space distorting feeling of suddenly reversed gravity, so I knew I was at least travelling in the correct direction. Knowing my personal mana supply would be useless and that regardless of success or failure it would be my last attempt of the day, I jettisoned it in a directional mana explosion. Left with nothing but the suit and momentum, I waited for my body to fall back towards the planet. Yet after a moment, I realised that the falling feeling of failure had not arrived, I was free from gravity and floating in space. I could not help but laugh and only laughed harder when I realised, no one could hear me.