As predicted, it didn’t take long for his squadron of drones to return to the clearing. By the time he got down, Jordan had taken a second to wait just inside the door to enjoy the base’s hitting while taking the chance to have a drink of water. But as soon as heard all four arrive outside, he stepped out.
Next to him, the air drone popped into existence. Even if max TP was currently only at 5, he was still regenerating just under 9 TP per minute. So Jordan could basically keep the entire squad of evolved land drones and a single air drone up at all times. Including himself with his Energy Pistol, he was a one-man firing squad of six.
Hopping onto one of his land drones, Jordan sent the air drone ahead to scout out the immediate vicinity around the sphere. Just in case there were any people or creatures around it, it would automatically desummon itself upon sighting any of them. Which as he drove off while it flew ahead of his squad, that brought up an interesting question to think about.
Huh, so when I order to stay within the limit of its range, it’s never been a problem because it understands what that means. But I already know from way back when I used the Skill that if it did go past the range limit, then it would just auto desummon. Yet what about these land drones? Would it be a situation where the TP supply is cut-off, but if I take like one step forward to be back in range, it would automatically reconnect? Hmmm. As far as what the evolution gave me in terms of understanding, yeah, that should actually be how that would work.
Jordan also still needed to test if he was right about the new ability to use the evolved land drones in the Transmuter. Because unlike a normal drone that would desummon after taking a critical amount of damage, these guys just stuck around for however long he supplied the portion of total TP.
That was it; nothing else mattered in terms of whether they stuck around or not. Though he was curious if even the parts of a broken drone could be put into the Transmuter while he supplied the TP, what about the ten minutes after it was cut off?
Since the drone was still functional for that time until it fully disappeared after the delay, would it also still be useable as at least temporary material? Or would that make it just disappear faster if put through the Transmuter. Which now that he thought about it, that could be an interesting way to cheat around the ten minute delay until he got the TP back, if that second option was how it’d go.
Questions for after he checked out the mysterious orb. Which could also just be potentially saved for until the morning after he went to sleep anyway.
In any case, Jordan had to be honest with himself. Riding through a dark forest on one drone as others flanked around him in a formation was definitely up there in the most awesome things ever. Especially because of how dark it was, the dim light of their energy guns could be easily seen as a rapidly moving glow through the shadows. In terms of just pure rule of cool, this choice in evolution was already worth it.
Around a minute and 30 seconds later, Jordan knew that the air drone should have arrived by the sphere. He paid close attention to his mental connection to it for the next few moments, really expecting it to disappear and that something would be waiting for him over there. But then, when no such thing happened, he just slightly nodded to himself with a bit of relief. With that settled, he gave it the updated order to just keep patrolling the immediate area in a circular pattern.
From the very easy math of his land drones moving at half the speed of the air drone, it took him approximately another minute and 30 seconds to reach his destination. Though even before then, it didn’t take a genius to know what he’d been getting close. While the start of the journey had plenty of trees in the way that blocked off his line of sight most of the time, most wasn’t the same as all the time. There were plenty of moments where he still got a glimpse of the purple ball.
Each time, Jordan watched as it seemed to grow bigger as he continued to draw closer to it. He had assumed that it must have actually been pretty big, and had only appeared as small as it did from the roof due to being quite a distance away. And as it turns out, that expectation had been correct. However… that was probably the one less notable aspects of the sphere, as he very quickly came to realize.
“God damn, who messed with the AC?” Jordan asked aloud as his drones were given the order to slow down for their final approach.
Even while holding his body against the always mildly warm metal of the drone, he still shivered as the ambient temperature felt like it’d dropped by at least a couple dozen degrees. It’d already been rather cool at night in the forest, but the kind that would have been fine with a heavy coat and such. But now it was like the bone-chilling cold of winter itself had attacked.
It was hard to get a good look while only being able to somewhat peer his head over the drone while riding it. So when it came to a complete stop, Jordan hopped off for a better look. And what he then fully saw made him raise a brow. Though that reaction was while also pulling his arms quickly around his chest, because it actually had gotten cold as… well, not Hell. But that wasn’t the point!
The orb definitely was pretty huge up close. Floating off the ground, its center was probably something like 25 feet up in the air. Even its bottom-most point was still about five feet away from the ground, just from comparing it to himself in height. A fun fact about Jordan was that if he stood with good posture and didn’t account for boots, his eye level was nearly exactly at six feet.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Yet despite its size, one reason for the low temperature could clearly be seen in a circle around the orb. A thick amount of snow covered the leaves, though from how it looked, it was clearly layered. At the top was a thin amount of fresh snow, of course. But in some spots, he could see ice too, along with evidence of where it’d somewhat melted before refreezing.
Something which seemed to be evidence that the snow hadn’t just arrived, but had been here for quite a bit. Even now, Jordan could see new snowflakes falling from the orb and slowly landing on the ground. With how bright the glow of its purple light was, the immediate area around it was clearly lit up, which made it easier for him to see.
Aside from everything else, the sphere itself was strangely… unassuming. Or at least that’s the best way he could think to put it. There were no crackles of arcane energy or the humming of some otherworldly power. It was just there, completely still and calm across its entire surface. It produced no noise, or at least nothing that a human being could actually detect. And if it weren’t for the light it produced, the whole thing might as well have been a sculpture with how totally neutral its behavior was.
“Okay then, this is… not anything I was imagining,” Jordan said as he could now see his breath. “Damn it, it’s just way too cold! I need to layer up if I’m going to just keep standing here to stare at the thing.”
From his pocket space, Jordan pulled out some robes and such that hadn’t been turned into something else by his Transmuter yet. While he was a fairly tall guy, his build was also on the leaner side of things. Which made the robes a pretty good fit on him, since even those that were made for someone shorter still went past the knees in length. So that bottom being more like his thighs was still completely fine with him.
Jordan shivered in the minute it took for him to layer up, but once it was done, he pretty quickly felt better. But as just one last thing, he then pulled out something that was basically just a strip of extra cloth and tied it around the lower half of his face to protect it from the cold.
Alright, now that I’m not slowly freezing to death, let’s see what this thing is really all about. What does Appraise get me? Jordan asked himself right before using the Skill in question. Yet as soon as he read the top of the screen that immediately popped up, his eyes became fully widened.
Name: Planetary Gateway
Description: A rare but natural phenomenon in the multiverse that can be found on Vervina-C. The gateway functions as a portal that is connected to at least one other gateway at another location on the planet. Anything that touches it will be instantly transported to the other side. These portals often have varying requirements for when they appear. Some are active at all times, others are tied to environmental factors such as the time of day, and others still may require any variation of general or highly specific conditions.
“Oh shit, you’re not for real, are you? Like… for real, for real?” Jordan asked the System itself as he had just finished reading the text. This was just something that happened to exist within only a couple miles of his Kingdom?
Nuh-uh. No way that was just some random coincidence for something that even the System had described as being rare across the whole freaking multiverse. Like even if they were rare in general but there were a ton on this planet due to the Merging being a special event; what were the chances that it’d basically act as his neighbor?
Depending on how big the planet itself was, the random odds of that would be super close to zero. Yet it if wasn’t random, and instead specifically tied to the fact his Kingdom was close by and intentionally placed as such by the System…
Is there another Kingdom, or at least the Mandate for one one somewhere near the other side? Because if yes, then it becomes more probable that this could be a feature that every Kingdom gets. Actually, hold on. If that is how it works, then those Kingdoms would make a lot more sense! Jordan opened up a specific leaderboard, just to see where that was out now.
Mightiest Kingdom:
1: Golden Empire of the Eternal Golden Prince (Rank 1)
2: Golden Empire of the Eternal Golden Prince (Rank 1)
3: Kingdom of Clan Qorath’zyrunch (Rank 1)
4: Vervina’s Heartland (Rank 1)
5: Golden Empire of the Eternal Golden Prince (Rank 1)
…
8: Industry (Rank 1)
When he got to the bottom of the list. Jordan found something that he hadn’t been sure about, but was now confirmed. Considering the speed of the Mandate claiming before he had also finished the Quest, it made sense that all 25 spots had already been taken by now. Something which should mean that the Quest was now fully over for everyone. Yet, it seemed that when it came to the world of new Kingdoms being built, that Quest could now be confirmed as not being the end.
26: Golden Empire of the Eternal Golden Prince (Rank 1)
Of course, it’s another one of these Golden Prince lovers. Which… I guess these are all Crab Kingdoms, huh? Unless they’re not like us, and actually had multiple sapient races back wherever they came from. Plausible, but anyway. I know this is a bit of a leap in logic, and even something a fallacy to confirm one thing by using it as the explanation for a separate subject. But if every portal comes with each Kingdom and attaches two together, then it would explain how they’ve expanded so damn quickly.
Plus, the System had very intentionally added “at least one other gateway” to what the text read. So that was a very obvious way to say that one was just the minimum, with an unknown max of connected portals that could allow someone to potentially hop all over the planet.
From his pocket space, Jordan pulled out his ever-reliable set of notes. He was already here, after all. There was simply no way that he was going to just go back and head to bed before figuring out how this thing actually functioned. So even if it hadn’t been his intent for the night, there was only one thing to do now.
It was time to run some tests and learn about portal shenanigans.