As the metal gate swung open, Fubei Li got a pretty good view of what was behind it. “The Bridges” as the locals called it, was a long, winding and twisting land floating in space. From where they were standing, the “upper” surface of the land was sometimes on their left, sometimes on their right, and sometimes completely upside down. Yet they could clearly see that the direction of gravity remained consistent with respect to the flat surface of the land where vegetation and even lakes and rivers resided. There were floating energy balls in the empty space around the land to provide lighting, and though they were shining in different colors, when their light reached the winding land it all merged together into some kind of warm white light.

This piece of long and winding land might look no different than other floating land one would see in other magical realms or even expensive private enchanted buildings. But Fubei Li knew it was just an illusion, these “bridges” were the same kind of construct with the tunneling space around the realm in which the Grant Academy resided - they were a kind of portals, the kind that traveled through much greater distance than any ordinary portals could, and the kind that lived more much longer time than any ordinary portals.

The reason that this kind of portals didn’t look like portals at all, was that the cost of creating and maintaining a portal was proportional to the distance it shortened with regard to its internal space. And thus, for use cases that required frequent use, stability and relatively low cost this kind of portals with long internal space became the norm.

“This is comparatively the safest detour to our realm.” Perketta said as she extended two of her arms at the land outside of the gate: “The creatures of the gaps flooded the other paths, and would require a much bigger team if you want to ever arrive safely. Even Elemental Lords would have trouble dealing with these beasts in bigger hordes.”

“What are these ‘creatures of the gaps’ exactly?” Fubei Li asked as he followed the team outside of the metal gate: “I have heard of them, but I remain curious on how they could ever come to be. There must be much much more gap space between realms than all the space inside of realms combined. But I’ve never heard of any other cases where the gap space amongst realms gives birth to creatures.”

“Well, we would like to know as well.” Perketta nodded and took a curious glimpse at Fubei Li: “Who are you, mortal? And what are your business with us?”

“Is that really a polite way to address others with mortality the same way you are?” Dave asked.

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“It’s fine, Dave, I am quite okay with being a mortal and being called one.” Fubei Li chuckled and said: “I am just a humble old human scholar here to help. And as for me, for one I am quite curious about the next voidborn and how it comes to be; and for two, I am curious about the elemental realms and some parts of their history.”

“Just follow us and be careful then.” Perketta nodded: “I’ve been to the human world on Earth - and I thought humans stopped being interested in the affairs in the elemental realms ever since the environment started to worsen.”

“Yeah well, who could blame them?” Xyankor was the one leading the team forward, with Perketta right beside him and Dave and Fubei Li behind him: “To conduct successful research or trading quests in the elemental realm, humans would need at least around thirty Earth days in the edgelands and maybe in other realms in order for their journey to bear fruit. But with the current environment, only very few of them could even remain in the edgelands for more than twenty Earth days. Since there were not many traveling scholars and merchants to begin with, it’s really no wonder.”

“And does anyone know of the reason for this change?” Fubei Li asked: “I could sort of sense the environmental properties you were referring to, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it.”

“Our best theory was that it was because of the regular shifts in the energy fields that happened post the Rupture.” Perketta answered: “There were some records of similar changes taking place during ancient times, but back then the elemental realms had almost no interactions with the other realms, so it was unclear.”

“And since this change only affects voidborns - and post rupture elementals minimally, basically no one took an interest.” Dave sighed: “I think many of us - Depth Dwellers had the theory that it was linked to the rise in numbers of creatures from the gaps. But it is yet to be proven.”

“Speaking of.” Perketta stopped and pointed at the piece of land right in front of the team: “There - be careful.”

It was a lake with a small rocking mountain on its side. But what Perketta was referring to was a round creature with spikes all over its body like a sea urchin, the differences between it and normal sea urchins were that it had the size of a car, its spikes were made of translucent energy crystals and were giving off some kind of energy pulses, and its body was floating in the air.

“Road Crawlers.” Perketta said to the team: “One of the tamer kind, let’s just walk around it.”

The team slowly traversed around the lake and the rocky mountain keeping their distance all along the way. The creature was mostly just floating in the air not doing anything. After paying some attention, Fubei Li noticed that it was sucking in liquid from the lake - the lake was not filled with water, but some kind of liquified mineral or gem, and when the liquid was sucked into the air by the creature, it became tiny pieces of pale crystals, and was then slowly absorbed by the spikes.

“Fuck.” Dave said when they were just about to proceed forward.

More creatures like the one they just walked past were floating towards their general direction from the empty space around the land. They varied in sizes, colors and shapes, but there was one thing they had in common - they were trying to escape a creature made of pale green energy that was shaped only like a big mouth with no face, no head and no body, only three long tongues and countless sharp looking forked teeth.

“Fuck, someone must’ve cursed us.” Perketta said in a hurry: “Hide! Hide!”