Pef focused on the glass factories for now, while also building a legal government in Port Li, implementing the Latin letters and Arab numbers and fashioning a sapphire ring.

And recruiting people to work as glass and brass smiths, book makers and Guardians.

After three months, he felt exhausted and had barely any achievement to show, as personal growth. He was still too weak, to open a pocket dimension.

A couple new loving Guardians, but as a Sky rank he could have a million. He just picked the kind ones. This universe was full of harshness and evil, so Pef took what comfort he could.

Then one day he went to visit Miss Fang again, and noticed she was ready to give up.

"My lady? Are you in pain?" Pef asked while caressing her hair. The woman was frail and weak, and pale as death.

"A little, I do feel sharp pains in my soul. But there's no more time, is it?" she asked with a sob.

"Don't give up now, Miss Fang. I'm close. I just need to learn how to do these formations, but there no one to teach me..." he urged her with false hope.

"Don't worry that much, Pef. I've lived over 200 years. My servants...I barely remember their names, I think one was my cook's son. Six or seven generations ago."

"Okay. I'll take you flying, would you like that? We'll fly over the sea and I'll throw that evil arrow away..." Pef promised while holding the dying woman.

"Only if you cook for me, mister Xi. Your cooking is so good..." the woman whispered as she fell asleep.

When Lady Feng died, she died flying in the skies, with a content smile in her eyes.

Pef cried, and took out the sapphire arrow head from her dead body.

In his hand, the arrow pulsed with strange fractal patterns, diminishing minutely every second.

'Find me a target, glove' our hero demanded in a heated tone.

'Roger, Aspirant. 2000 kilometers north-west. You might die though' the glove said in a flat tone, projecting a course on Pef's retina.

'Funny joke, my orange glove. I have gods to kill' Pef muttered while his senses analyzed the arrow again and again.

The air got colder, but Pef had a dire wolf fur, and enough wood to reach another continent.

The Spirit rank airship was also sturdier than his last one, and flew even faster.

The nine days of anger and gravity sensing slowly clicked, and Pef began seeing the deeper structures. His body became lighter at will, and he could even hover a little over the cradle's floor.

A distant bird screeched, the cold air reverberating from shock waves.

Pef eyes widened as he looked ahead. A huge albatross, with sharp wingtips glistening in the sun. Large as a passenger airplane.

'Are you trying to kill me, again?' Pef yelled inside.

'It's only a Sky rank. You should survive, Aspirant' the glove replied with a smirk.

The bird approached at speed, and screeched again. Pef coughed some blood, and his airship began losing altitude.

Beneath there were a few icebergs and sea animals, wetting their lips in hunger.

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Just as the albatross came close enough to slice the airship with its wing, Pef stored it and jumped, his feet kicking on the fabric of space-time.

It wasn't elegant flying, or even moderately passable, but it was flying.

Pef speared the bird with his Sky rank lance, skidding over a few meters of armed feathers until the lance found a chink and dug in.

The bird didn't like its unwanted passenger and tried to roll and bite him off.

A shard of blue crystal flew through the air and directly down the throat of the albatross.

'Payload delivered!' Pef yelled in joy.

'We have about 7000 seconds to detonation.'

Pef stored the lance and dove towards the ocean. His speed increased and the bird abandoned the suicidal human, who was about to splash into the waves at near Mach 1 speed.

Some 50 meters above the sea, Pef reversed the gravity and powered up his water shield.

Sky ranks are very durable, in fact their bodies can withstand kilotons of force without damage.

And so, our hero survived the impact. 

Pef plunged into the depths and kept going, accelerating again.

He began breathing slower, conserving air. His Spirit focused, bending the water around into a strong shield.

About two hours later, the skies above exploded in fire and radiation, megatons still escaping from the belly of the albatross.

Deep under the ocean, Pef wasn't affected by heat or shock waves, although some radiation still reached him. The glove diverted 99 percent of the radiation away, using the last percent to teach its foolish user another lesson.

People died. And acting from grief wasn't wise. It left Soldiers exposed to enemy manipulations.

Pef's skin melted and bubbled, and he emerged rather cooked from the ocean.

The local animals steered away from the bad smelling human, avoiding him like a piece of radioactive fallout.

Pef kept swimming and heading away from the blast zone, dispersing radioactive fluids as he healed.

By the next week, he took off, flying on his own power. He was now truly a Sky rank.

Another week later, he landed on the Saint continent shores, a new man.

In fact, all his tissues had been discarded and replaced, not even a single atom remaining the same.

He sat on the deserted sand beach, and took out his stove, cooking for himself porridge and spider legs.

'Well, this time I got hurt badly' Pef admitted with a pained whimper.

'And the lesson is?'

'Don't be too close to a nuke?'

'Wrong !'

'Don't give in to impulses?'

'There we go, Aspirant. Now you can craft those rings. They'll be very small inside'

'Yea, later. I need to eat all this. Then sleep a few days' Pef whispered to himself, eating the maize porridge along with his tears.

The glove remained silent. Its job was done for now.

The Manual said comrades die. It was inevitable, and should not affect the mission.

The sniveling crying recruit will grow stronger. Such was the way of the Legion.

A thousand Soldiers died just to kill a single atrocity. A million died every day.

Anger and grief had no place in the Legion. Only revenge, in cold blood.