Jordan checked his watch, before taking a look up. It was almost eight o’clock now, and the sun should have been mostly set by now. From how little of the light of late dusk actually peeked through, it had already begun to get dark.
After finishing what ended up being a very refreshing bath and taking the time to fully dry off, he now stood near the gateway. Or rather, where it would soon be. There would be no harm in getting to it a little early to wait, after. Especially since it would actually be rather helpful to have a specific time known for when it opened, and then closed again later, to most efficiently have his drones farm whatever had the misfortune of living near the other side.
You know? As far as ecosystems go, I really hope that every animal on this planet breeds super quickly. Or else between me and literally every other person killing everything that moves for Experience Points, the ecosystem’s populations are going to be absolutely screwed in the next few… I was gonna say years, but just months might be more realistic at this rate. Welp, not much that can be done about it. It’s not like I can afford to stop getting more Levels, Jordan thought to himself.
Soon enough, the time on his watch finally ticked over to eight. Assuming that this planet had a day that was exactly 16 hours long, it was now the midpoint where day transitioned to night. Now as if it was that precise of a length in a day or if it was like Earth, which Jordan believed was ever so slightly off from 24 hours. He wanted to say that he remembered reading somewhere that like leap years to adjust the calendar, leap seconds were also a somewhat frequent occurrence.
Sadly, on that front, he couldn’t just check the Internet despite still keeping his phone safe in his pocket space. Though that was just his phone. The phones and such of any other person had already been recycled into their base materials and been put aside for future use in the machines he was going to build.
Fwoosh!
At about two minutes past eight, the portal opened. There was a blast of cold air in every direction as chilling wind came through. Jordan took a deep breath of the rapidly cooling air as the environment on the other side brought down the ambient temperature.
He quickly rolled back down the sleeve of his winter gear and covered his watch. Underneath the watch itself was another sleeve of a lighter layer of clothing. But the main layer that would hopefully protect him from the cold was thicker and poofier. The inside was insulated with all the Rabbit fur he’d collected, along with other cloth from after that was all used up. While the outside was made from the synthetic material of other clothing meant to protect from both water and wind.
The puffer-looking style was just from a very vague memory of what he believed researchers in Antarctica typically wore. While Jordan wasn’t entirely sure if that recollection was correct, he would soon find out if it’d be enough, regardless.
I have to see this for myself. If there really is a Kingdom somewhere on the other side, my drones can only do so much in establishing first contact. Not when the only order I can give for a signal is to have it shut down the core and let me feel the TP get cut off, if it spots another person. But if there’s a Mandate that hasn’t been claimed yet because nobody else could survive being dropped in the cold, then I’ll have to be there to claim it myself. Not sure if the drones can even be used to find it, since it could be buried in snow for all I know, Jordan thought to himself.
However, that was based on the assumption that the Mandate would appear as a crown again, which could just as easily be proven wrong. So in that case, if he didn’t know what he was looking for, then the drones wouldn’t be of much help anyway for scouting its location.
Right, well, no reason to delay further then. I’m about as ready as can be. So now it’s just about seeing the other side with my own eyes and going from there. With that, though, he reached out to the portal. The moment a single finger made contact with it, he was gone.
For just a moment, he felt weightless. Then Jordan was on the other side, his eyesight temporarily blinded by the flashbang of sudden light. He felt himself fall by a few feet, until his legs sunk into snow. It was at least a few inches deep, enough for him to feel it go past his ankles and reach a bit up against his shins.
Jordan blinked a few times as his eyes needed to readjust to the sudden change in lighting. Even through his slightly tinted eyewear, the drastic change from night to day took a bit of getting used to. Especially because of all the pure white snow around him, which only served to reflect some of the light of the red sun back up and into his eyes.
But when the worst of it passed and he could actually see again, Jordan felt his breath be taken away by the sight. He was in a mountain range where snow-covered peaks surrounded him in all directions. The sky overhead was currently a reddish gold with the sun just a bit over the horizon. A heavy breeze carried bits of loose snow with it as it circled around the area.
He was currently standing on a relatively flat spot between a couple of mountains. Though even they weren’t the tallest around, as he could see even taller ones off in the distance. However, there was a limit as to how much Jordan could actually see in detail. For the farther out he looked, the more the landscape appeared to be enshrouded in a layer of fog.
It was rather beautiful, in the majestic sense. Jordan never had the chance to actually go mountain climbing before, so this was a first for him. It did mean that he didn’t have any experience to directly compare it with being on one of Earth’s mountain ranges, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about that now.
There were surprisingly few signs of tracks from the land drone treads from before. Though when Jordan looked closely, he did see what appeared to be lines of snow that were slightly more dented than the rest. He supposed that the tracks must have already been mostly covered up by however much it had snowed since then.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Which meant that he was currently pretty lucky to have come through while the weather was in a good mood. He would just need to be careful to keep an eye on the sky in case it decided to be a bit more fickle. If a blizzard or something came in while he happened to be far away from the gateway, then that wouldn’t exactly be ideal.
All around him, land drones began to appear one by one. He’d figured it would be easiest to just summon them after he crossed to the other side. After the fourth land drone appeared, he then cast Summon Air Drone to bring on the final member of his little squadron.
Jordan looked over to the sun. From the direction it was coming up from, it appeared to still be dawn on this side of the gateway. Which meant that, at least roughly speaking, he really was somewhere on the opposite side of the planet from his Kingdom. Glancing back at the portal, he could now make at least an educated assumption.
The side in the forest appeared at night, while this one’s condition was the opposite of daytime. So, if that were correct, then the portal would close when it got dark on this side. Jordan couldn’t be 100% sure of that, but he believed it at least made sense as a surface-level guess.
His watch was currently covered, but Jordan now felt like it’d been a good decision to just keep between the layers. Had he put it back into his pocket space instead, it would have been unable to continue keeping track of the time. Something that might be an issue, should a sudden blizzard hit and make it hard to keep track of the sun. The metal of the watch would quickly get cold, yes, but it shouldn’t be a problem as long as it didn’t get in direct contact with his skin.
Jordan then clenched and uncleched his hands. When it came to the cold, his extremities were the things that needed to be worried about the most. But for his fingers, toes, ears, and nose, he still felt pretty fine. A little bit of the cold had started to come in, especially for his feet that were fully buried under the snow. But as far as the immediate ability to survive in this kind of environment, it was as good of a start as any.
From his prior test of pushing the drone through it, he knew that anything that went in the portal would come back out from the same relative position. That’s why the snow that would have built up on the ground while it’d been closed was dropped from the bottom, and not the top.
Because if Jordan had pushed in the drone from the bottom, only for it to pop out the top, then gravity would have sent it right back down. And considering that Jordan had never suffered a drone falling on his head, that clearly hadn’t been the case. Something that was probably for the best, as the other way around would have very easily led to some serious shenanigans when it came to portal physics.
But why did that bit of info even matter? Well, it had everything to do with his search for the potentially unclaimed Mandate. If there were any good place to start, it’d be the spot away from the gateway that his own Kingdom would be, when compared to the other side. So while he knew the approximate distance already, being sure of the directions was arguably more important.
Alright then, let’s get going boys, Jordan mentally said to his drones as he began to walk. While the land drones started to spread out in even distanced directions around him, he had the air drone fly ahead.
In this kind of mountainous terrain, its mobility would be more important than ever. So he had it scout ahead and gave it the order to desummon itself if it saw any people, Crabs, or an unnatural structure. Since if someone had already claimed a Kingdom close by, then anything built there would be constricted to that predefined parameter for its territory.
Jordan felt the connection to his land drones as the air drone quickly became a tiny dot in the distance. The other drones would remain no further than a thousand feet from him at all times. So with each of them covering a different side, that basically made for a square of that length of relative protection. Where anything that came by would at least be likely to pass by one of them and activate their order to engage any creatures on sight.
A bit over a minute since he sent it away, Jordan saw his air drone back in the distance, now slowly getting closer. Behind it was a plume of snow being kicked up. Frowning at how soon this had happened, he pulled out his Energy Pistol. At least he’d thought of this, and given it the additional order to start coming back if it spotted anything else that wasn’t what it’d been searching for.
With a mental order, the four land drones began to converge on their flying brother’s position. Considering that it’d taken a minute before turning around, he believed the air drone was about a mile away. With their varying distances away, the land drones would take different amounts of time to reach it. Plus there was the highly uneven terrain to take into account. At the very least, the snow didn’t seem to be too much of a problem for their treads.
But as it drew closer, Jordan then saw a shape in the cloud of kicked-up snow. One whose details were too far to make out, but he could at least tell the general outline of the… animal? It was hard to say; the only outline he could see was that of an upside-down pyramid.
Begin shooting at it, and slow down to be just faster than what’s chasing you. As soon as another drone arrives, just fire from above and maintain the maximum distance you reliably hit it from. Jordan then relayed similar orders to all the land drones. Rather than just stay in place while firing, they were to assume evasive maneuvers if targeted and only focus fire if the enemy’s attention was on chasing a different drone.
At the closest land drone got near enough to begin firing; the thing was still something like three thousand feet away from him. A distance that Jordan decided was more than close enough for him to do something now. With the pyramid shape now more distinct, it should be good enough for Appraise to work.
From what he knew of the Skill from its inherent understanding, there wasn’t really a range limit. The target in question just had to be close enough for him to actually “see it” without any obstruction. So if it hadn’t been for the cloud of snow, he probably have been able to do so while it was still at the edge of his vision. But for the time being…
Species: Ice Spirit
Level: 6
Description: An uncommon spirit found within the mountain ranges of Vervina-C. They are beings that largely spend their time simply wandering around the frozen environment they were born in, only becoming actively hostile when sensing anything giving off more than a certain degree of temperature.
Ahhh, no thank you. I don’t think I want to stick around to watch the drones and see how they do against the strongest thing I’ve seen yet. So I’m just going to… not do that. Yep, Jordan thought to himself. He turned around, with exactly one goal on his mind.
Nope out to the other side of the gateway, and just hope he got a kill notification soon.