After my manic laughter, I was brought back to reality by a massive pulse of magic covering the wind spirit kingdom. My only thought on the matter was, "Whatever it was the princess could deal with it." I was not going to save her again and getting into space was not the end of my task, only the beginning. I had a lot to do and limited time and oxygen to do it with. Despite this being the case, I took a moment to gaze in wonder at a sight few would rarely ever see. I could see a sea of stars complemented by the light reflecting off the twin moons. Unlike my world that was always bathed in light, the darkness of this world allowed a better view of the night sky but even that paled in comparison to witnessing the stars unobscured by the atmosphere and clouds. It was something truly special. I averted my eyes from the wonders of the galaxy and looked at the planet below. It was obviously smaller than home but it was just as beautiful. The landmass that the people lived on only covered about a quarter of the planet with the outer ocean easily dwarfing the land. It also proved I was wrong, it was not that the planet only had a tropical climate, it was that the land was only in the tropical belt of the planet and the ice caps were so far away as to be undiscovered. it was for easily observable reasons that the people never made it that far since giant storms raged across the oceans dwarfing the 'maelstrom' many times over.

Once again being drawn from my revelry by the suits beep, I began my work. After an hour a formation with the wand at its centre and several small mana crystals circling it like planets was floating in space. It required a bit complicated mathematics to check that it would not be disrupted by the moons orbits or other celestial factors but it had to be done. Stabilising it in geosynchronous orbit relative to the planet to prevent it from losing its mana link was easy, finding the exact location that shielded it from signal interference was not. Having confirmed for the third time that it would remain stable, I placed the last mana crystal into its designated position and activated the formation. Despite the complexity involved, the function of this relay was something incredibly simple. it would store the channelled mana until reaching capacity before sending mana waves into the void with the same frequency as the mating call of my prey.

Knowing my quarry was prevalent all thorough the universe did not make me expect that this would bare results any time soon. The universe was still a massive place after all. In regards to the size of the universal layer and interaction between them, the most common depiction of the multiverse is that of an inverted pyramid. With each floor representing a layer and thus a universe with its own fundamental laws. Alas, this portrayal been wrong. The most accurate way to view the multiverse would be orbs inside orbs. This better displays the magnitude of expansion and prevents some idiots from looking for the end of the universe because there is no such thing, it simply loops back on itself. Though even this representation only works in fifth-dimensional space. After all, each universe is its own fourth-dimensional construct. So while space flight can allow races to find others on their own universal layer, It's not like a person could travel from one layer to another by simply heading in a particular direction.

Deciding to use my time in space to effectively cheat my way to victory during my next fight, I withdrew three large stone pillars from my suits internal storage. These objects were orbital bombardment weapons! I decided to give my enemy a taste of it after having experienced the destruction of a meteor impact first hand. I had embedded mana crystals into twenty metre long, two-metre thick pieces of magically compressed granite. These spikes had a strength almost matching that of diamond and were shaped in such a way as to begin rotating when they encountered atmospheric interference. The mana crystals served a dual purpose namely activating a formation when they entered a mana saturated area to guide the rods to a target and gathering solar energy to detonate with upon impact. These were some of the most powerful weapons I could have produced. Alas, I knew this same thing would not work in the higher layers as the denser mana atmosphere combined with other 'to be discussed later' factors rendered these kinds of weapons almost unusable.

I looked over my oxygen reserves after positioning the rods before deciding to just float in space for a while. If I got incredibly lucky, I would encounter a tardigrade before I needed to descend. If not I could just enjoy the freedom.

After relaxing for an hour, I noticed everything go dark. A shadow had been cast over me and I originally believed that one of the moons had moved between me and the sun. I quickly realised this was wrong as I could see both moons. Turning around I spotted the giant object blocking the light and my first thought was, "That's no moon!" Swimming through nothingness as if it were water was a space whale. These giant creatures have a similar appearance to oceanic killer whales, which funnily enough are also not really whales despite the name. Space whales, however, differ by having three sets of flippers spaced evenly across their body, with the black and vibrant silver patterning instead of black and white and being vastly larger at a few hundred meters long.

This species is an anomaly that has learned to abuse the system and is the definition of a big fish in a small pond. A space whales stats would average around nine hundred giving it the ability to crush natural layer residents like ants. Luckily enough they are pacifists that get their energy from nuclear fusion, devouring the matter released from solar flares and crapping out heavy elements. They abuse the system by ascending two layers during their breeding cycle to conceive on a higher layer before descending back to their home layer to give birth. This allows them to be born with stats of the higher layer but without the rejection and sealing that would normally come from a descent at the cost of never being able to really progress any higher.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Watching this monolithic titan float past was a wonderful scene and a stark reminder. Despite their power, even these mighty beings would be hunted and killed for their skin during their ascent. It was a pity I could not capture this behemoth as my companion because it would be vastly superior to a mere void tardigrade but no one has ever achieved such a feat.

Removing a scroll containing my contract circle from a storage compartment on the suit. I knew I would not have to wait much longer as my prey would exploit the void whale's movement, in the same way, they would solar winds. After fifteen minutes of looking for the small bug, one of the monsters entered my formation. The next part was simple as I unrolled the scroll and placed the aether core in the centre. Almost immediately, the creature entered the circle and consumed the offering and I felt the bond snap into place. I quickly summoned the creature into my body lest it be killed by the hunters that would surely be close behind.

I fell back towards the safety of the planet just as the next extraterrestrial beings arrived. Wherever there was a space whale the yenan were not far behind. These outer space jellyfish are scavengers that prey on any creature they find outside an atmosphere during their travels. They always followed space wales in order to devour the skin that they shed while they used the excreted materials to reinforce their claws. Luckily, they are lethally allergic to oxygen, otherwise entire worlds would have been devoured by these pests. Some claim they are a remnant of the old ones but in truth they are just stupid monsters driven by three desires, survive, devour and reproduce.

Slipping away from the blanket of stars and back into the embrace of mother earth, I noticed a series of gauges appear. These looked like overlays a person would see while playing a game in VR and freaked me the fuck out. I immediately pulled up my stats to find the reason because I knew a normal void tardigrade familiar would not produce this, and I was right. The cause was a new title 'Void Walker.' This let me visualise my vital statistics in a manner I could understand, which for me, resembled a game interface. It was a reward for surviving in outer space for more than an hour and was not listed in the pheonixians knowledge. This meant either it was something I was not mean to know or it was something generated by the system instead of the pheonixians. Despite all their planning, the system was still a self-regulating thing, meaning it could adapt to survive and create its own networks. This was precisely how the quest system came to be. So while this would not disrupt their rebirth due to their hacks being hard-wired, it did mean even these 'all-powerful gods' did not know everything.

I decided to take a good look at the display while gliding towards the ground. I began mumbling to myself, “The red bar the left and blue bar to the right are obviously health and mana while the dull green bar with a sliver of bright green below the health must represent over health.” There was also a light blue circle in the upper left representing oxygen and a yellow bar under my mana that depicted ki.

Talking about Ki for the first time in a dozen chapters I'm guessing a few of you are wondering why I'm not using it. Well the truth is that ki techniques need a source of power that is different from natural mana to affect the external world and that does not exist on this planet. While I could use it to boost my strength or dexterity it would take to long to recover the expenditure. meanwhile, using it would prevent me from using my titan transformation, berserk mode combination as its presence is the glue that holds me together during that manoeuvre. Without it coursing through my veins and strengthening my body the technique would have popped me like a balloon.

Anyway back to the distracting pop-ups. After a bit of practice, it was easy to turn them on or off as well as adjust their transparency. The only functions I could not find was changing their colour or location. Deciding that all I really needed to visualise was my health and mana, I turned the others off while making the ones I wanted translucent.

With my new 'extremophile' skill, it was time to hunt down my targets and I had to choose between the lava swimming dragon-turtle or the ocean swimming leviathan. The king of the forest was left till last because he was a level 99 mutated monster with the rare blood and soul magic affinities. the longer my space rods charged solar energy the more powerful the resulting strike against him would be. Despite failing to ascend he would have still gained a massive power boost by sacrificing such an insane amount of elves.

Magic affinities are fairly easy to understand with basic single elements, even the incredibly powerful space affinity does what’s listed in the name. The fused affinities on the other hand like blood and storm are a different matter altogether. Some like the storm and ice affinity allow people to use the elements that combined to make them while others like blood trade in the prior abilities to gain something new. Blood, for instance, trades the water and shadow affinities for the ability to directly manipulate the blood of anyone not protected by a space shield or overhaleth, while boosting their own strength and dexterity stat by about thirty percent.

The other reason I didn't go after the king of the forest was because of how little I truly knew about him. Apart from having failed his ascension, using blood magic and being sealed to his domain I knew nothing. There were hundreds to thousands of rumours, but they often contradicted themselves. Some claiming he was a giant bear, others claiming he was a two-headed serpent and some believing that the 'king of the forest' title was an act of retaliation as the monster was actually female. The only recurring factor was that he was incredibly dangerous and even the combined might of the remaining elven kingdoms could not kill him.

I let fate decide whom to target as I was unable to make a decision. Taking a coin out of my storage, I painted one side red and the other side blue with the locally available flora before flipping it in the air.