I nodded, patting her shoulder. The simple contact seemed to calm her down slightly. “Do you want me to take you into the grove?”
The demi looked at me hopefully, quickly nodding her head. “Yes please… I’m sorry… I don’t want to be a burden….”
I patted her head for a moment, calming her down again. “You’re not being a burden. I haven’t taken you with me on any flights before.” I did my best to smile reassuringly to her. She nodded her head shakily, and leaned forward to give me a hug before I sent her into the grove.
My next stop, naturally, was to find Sharon and see how she was doing. I was not surprised to find that she was taking this far better than Yang was… What I was surprised was that she was not wearing pants, dancing in her room with music blaring. These walls are incredibly soundproof... She was just dancing in the middle of the room in a long t-shirt, laughing as Chrome stood on the bed doing his best attempt to dance to the music as well. As soon as I opened the door, Jasmine ran out of the room to escape the noise.
Apparently seeing that her kitten had run off, Sharon turned towards the door, and found me watching her. I could see as he face gradually turned more and more red, before she slowly walked up to the door and pushed a button to close it without a single word. “Celeste..?”
“Yes, John?” I heard the voice coming from the ship’s intercom.
“Why wasn’t that door locked?”
“Who said it wasn’t?” There was a faint giggle from the AI’s voice, and I felt like I had just been pranked.
Chapter 10 - And Beyond
After going back to my room, I decided to do some basic practice with my new psychic power. There were still a few things that I wanted to understand about it, and I had three full days to test! Well, I had three days, but I only really needed one to figure out a few perks
First of all, I quickly discovered that I absolutely could not use this power on living people without intense training. That was because the shape and size of an object had the potential to change when going through my ‘Toybox’. For instance, if I made one round portal, and one square portal, and dropped a round rock into the round portal, it came out as a square on the other side. Likewise, if I connected two portals of different sizes, and dropped the rock into the bigger portal, it would shrink when coming out.
Now, this is cool and all, but imagine if I was trying to create a portal to walk through a wall, or teleport myself across an area. If I messed up the portal shape even slightly, I might end up coming out horribly disfigured. Not exactly how I want to travel…
My next discovery was that it was impossible to set either of my toybox portals inside of a solid object. I even tried to make one that went straight through my rock to try to cut it in half, but the end result was a portal with a hole in the center. Out of curiosity, I tried moving the rock side to side, and found that doing so was completely impossible. At least, it was with my strength. The portals only seemed movable by my psychic energy. That part might actually come in handy.
Next, once I had established a portal it would remain open until I chose to close it. The portal itself would cost no strain to maintain, only to form, move, or have something pass through. However, I did feel a constant light pressure on my mind while having portals opened, due to air flowing between them.
The final discovery I made regarding my Toybox was that it was possible to split a portal. What I mean by this, is that I would set up three portals, and designate two of them as going one way, while the third went the other. This gave two exits and one entrance, but had all of the strain of opening three portals. I nearly passed out when I dropped the rock into this one, because I could feel it splitting in my mind.
When my head cooled down enough to focus, I picked up the rocks and noticed that each one was only about half as heavy as the original. Not only that, but they crumbled into dust in my hands with only a little pressure. It seemed like the mass was evenly split between the two exit portals, which made it incredibly fragile. Needless to say, I put off more complicated portal splitting tests until I had trained a lot more with this.
Dinner that first day was… awkward. Celeste was humming happily and still reading one of her holographic books, while Sharon was blushing furiously and shoveling her food into her mouth like crazy. It seemed like the AI’s earlier mischief was still very much at the front of her mind, because she left to go back to her room with Chrome and Jasmine. Shrugging my shoulders, I went back to my room and began to immerse myself in Void Affinity cultivation. Even did a quick transformation into a void elf just to see if that would help. It didn’t, but it sure felt like it fit.
The asteroid that we were heading towards was one of the ten largest in the entire belt, and was the single largest metallic asteroid. Its designation was 16 Psyche, and we were hoping to quickly get enough metal from it to finish our FTL drive and teleport bay. According to Celeste, the mineral that we needed was osmium, which is insanely rare outside of asteroids, even in the future. Since it doesn’t occur naturally within a planet, then even if it is mined out it won’t be replaced when the hole closes.
Once we arrived at the asteroid, which was roughly a thousand times longer than our ship, I switched over to my Deus Ex body and left through one of the airlocks. While I was out, I went ahead and purchased a radio upgrade, which I hadn’t considered doing earlier. “Sharon, Celeste, you guys listening in?”
“Loud and clear.” Celeste said, though Sharon giggled slightly.
“Yo’s still playing her game. I think she’s going for a world record.” The druidess remarked jokingly.
“We really need to expand her hobbies… Celeste, let’s see about getting some more updated games, at least! That, or some way for her to train her skills.”
“Yeah, yeah captain. I’ll get right on it after making the FTL, the teleport bay, and a robotic body for Jeeves.”
I shook my head, wishing I could release a sigh from my robotic body while descending towards the asteroid. Looking around, there was almos t no life on the scanners. The little life there was was no real threat, because it was a tiny fish about the size of my hand, and floated randomly around the asteroid. Just to be sure, I had Celeste confirm that it was not a hostile species. Death by tiny fish would not be how I wanted to go.
Activating my laser drill, it removed itself from the inventory and strapped to my arm. The machine itself was about half the size of my body, and honestly looked more like a drill than a laser, with three rotating drill heads that nearly joined together at the tip. I only found out why it was called a laser drill after I started, when each drill head emitted a low power laser that softened the material for the drills to dig through.
As promised with my upgrades, everything that was broken apart by my drill simply vanished, appearing inside my mining inventory. For the most part, I was getting iron and nickel, but my scanner registered trace amounts of platinum, iridium, and osmium as well. Since the laser drill was attached to my arm, and did not create a hole big enough for me to stand in, I had to make several smaller holes and combine them all together to make my little mining cave. “This is boring… next time, let’s get an automated drill bot or something... “
Celeste giggled at that, and I kept drilling for roughly six hours before I had all of the osmium we needed. During that time, I had to dump out all of the iron and nickel twice and absorb it into my grove to save room in my mining inventory. Building a few robotic bodies would not be a difficult job now, I’d imagine…
Once I had everything we needed, I activated my mech wings and flew back to the Seraglio. When they let me in, I dumped off the minerals for Celeste to work with, and went back to the bridge. As my way of relaxing, I got out of my Deus Ex body and back into my elf body. “We all set?”
Celeste’s voice came back over the intercom as she was heading towards her own private workstation. “This should be everything we need. I’ll take us out of the asteroid field while I get everything made. Give me… eight hours and we should be
ready to hit FTL.”
I chuckled slightly as I thought about it. “Well, no need to really rush it. Once we go to FTL, we’ve still got a month before we get to Gerin.”
Beside me, Sharon nodded while sitting at her own chair. “Let’s make sure that we have everything ready by the time we go… Are there monsters that can travel faster than light..?”
There was a pause before Celeste answered. “Well… yes and no. Nothing can truly move faster than light without messing with relativity. However, if you go into subspace, your speed will be much faster than normal. That’s because subspace is a different dimension directly related to our own, but smaller. Traveling for three days here took us just past Mars, but with FTL, that time would have been passed in under a second.”
“So… our normal engine speed directly determines what our speed in FTL will be..?” I hadn’t studied subspace physics during my lessons with Celeste. I simply thought FTL made us go faster.
“Right, but some ships have engines that have improved performance while in subspace, by feeding on the exotic mana. The Nostromo was like that, I think. We never checked out their engines, so I can’t be sure.”
The druidess next to me had a rather worried expression as she heard the explanation. “There won’t be any problems with exotic mana, will there?”
“No, don’t worry, some of the osmium is going towards enchanting the shield emitter as well. Otherwise, we’d be ripped to shreds within seconds of entering subspace.”
…. “Take your time, Celeste.” I gulped as I heard that, and no longer felt there was any need at all to rush the AI in doing her work.
“Y-yeah…” Sharon seemed to fully agree with me, and we each got up to leave the bridge. For my part, I went back to my room, and was about to begin cultivating mana. With a month of free time coming up, there was going to be a whole lot of cultivating going on for me.
Well, that’s what I thought at least. I soon found that Sharon was following me back to my room. When I got there, she stopped behind me. “Uhm… how’s Yang doing…?”
I smiled slightly to her at that. “She’s fine. She’s much happier in the grove, and Yin is watching out for her. How are Chrome and Jasmine doing?” I hadn’t had much chance to see the little furballs, since Sharon liked to play with them whenever possible.
“They’re fine.” Sharon seemed to relax a bit at the question. I had a sneaking suspicion that this could be a very dangerous encounter if she was wanting what I thought she was wanting. “Chrome’s funny, his two heads actually like two different types of music. One enjoys classic rock the best, while the other loves metal. As for Jasmine, she just likes to cuddle.”
“That’s good. At least one of them does.” I chuckled lightly, knowing that Sharon probably loved to cuddle with the little winged tabby any chance she got.
“Yeah… so… could you help me keep an eye out for her? She has been starting to use her stealth ability to run off lately, and it’s getting harder and harder to find her.”
“Uhm.. sure? I mean, there’s not really a problem with it or anything.” I was a bit confused why she was asking that. I mean, girl following you to your room, knowing you’ll be together for the next week… Not a whole lot of things it could usually mean, right? However, she just smiled brightly and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before running down the hall.
“Thanks~!”
...I don’t know whether I want to laugh or cry right now. For the first time, I had actually been somewhat looking forward to possible relationship activities, and she just wanted me to help her watch the cat. With a dejected sigh, I went back into my room and followed the original plan to begin cultivation. I could swear that there was a slight giggling coming from the intercom. My love life, or lack thereof, has officially become a comedy show for the local AI.
Sitting down in my room, I began to focus on cultivating my Void Affinity while the ship pulled itself away from the asteroid field. Although I was certain we were doing interesting spins and turns to dodge the asteroids, I couldn’t exactly see it from my room. This time, I did not have a window seat. In fact, none of the crew quarters had windows, because of the risk of them being hit.
My cultivation continued uninterrupted for several hours before Celeste told us that we were jumping to FTL. This was one scene I had not witnessed while on the Nostromo, so I rushed to the bridge, where I saw Sharon already waiting to see, and Yo who was simply playing an old Mario arcade game now. Not what I meant and you know it.
“Everyone sit down and strap in, we’re jumping in ten, nine…” Celeste began the countdown while Sharon and I took our seats, buckling in. “ Eightsevensixfiveforthreetwoone blast off!”
A blue ball of light shot out of the front of the ship, and then exploded in a brilliant flash of energy that enveloped the entire ship. A moment later and we were surrounded by rapidly moving specks of light, the former starscape nowhere to be seen. On our end, there was only a momentary pulse of kinetic energy as we moved into subspace, which made Yo splash against her seat as a puddle that landed on the ground and walls.
“I’m okay!” Part of the scattered slime spoke up, as the individual pieces began rejoining. “ That was fun, let’s go again papa! ” She smiled widely, looking to me as if she was a kid that had just gotten off of an amusement park ride. If it wasn’t for her legs having not quite formed yet, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that she was painting the wall a few moments ago…
“Uh… maybe later?” I replied with a somewhat awkward smile, and the slime happily hugged me, acting like I had just made a promise. Though.. with her attention span, she’d probably forget within ten minutes of playing her game again. And sure enough, she sat down and immediately resumed her game. “What… what does she even eat?” It occurred to me that I had not seen Yo at a single meal so far. Even if the meat is artificially cloned, it’s still decent food!
“Oh, she doesn’t.” Surprisingly, it was Sharon that answered. “I asked her about it yesterday. Apparently, all she needs is the ambient mana in the air. And, sometimes she’ll go into the showers to absorb the water.”
“....Well then.” I didn’t really have anything else to say to that. “I’ll stick with my artificially cloned meat, if you don’t mind… I tried that air only diet once on a jungle planet, and did not have much fun with it…” That made her laugh, though it was kind of true..
Chapter 11 - J.H. Phone Home
When I got back to my room, I immediately began cultivating. My goal was to have all of my affinities at no less than 15% by the time we reach Gerin. Given my previous speed, I did not feel like that was too much to hope for. Aside from leaving my room every now and then to either stretch my legs or grab a bite to eat, I continued cultivating almost nonstop.
A couple of weeks after we left Earth, Celeste had us all come out to the bridge, so that we could drop out of subspace. Apparently, she had found a desert planet with an atmosphere, so she wanted us to take a look to see if the flower I needed for my psychic stress relief potion would be here. When we all met on the bridge, there was not much difference between us now and how we had been when we first left.
Since Sharon and I rarely saw each other outside of meals, there had not been many chances for us to talk more and get to know each other. Though, she would often tell me about how Chrome and Jasmine were doing. Chrome’s growth rate was far beyond normal, and after a mere two weeks he looked like he had gained a full six months in his growth. No longer was he able to be held in Sharon’s arms so easily, as he had become too big and heavy. Instead, he would often follow her around while listening to music with at least one of his heads.
As for Jasmine, her growth rate proved to be much slower, and she was still Sharon’s hug pillow. Every now and then, I would see her flying around the ship, using her wings to help her run along the walls as she played with the druidess. Unlike myself, Sharon did not focus much on her cultivation and training during these two weeks. Then again, she didn’t really
need to. Her fighting style focused on her animals, rather than elemental control.
Yo was… well, she was Yo. For the first week, she was content to spend her time playing basic arcade games. After that, she started to get bored and wandered around the ship, before wandering into my room. Every night, she would sneak into my bed and wrap her arms around me while I slept. It was a bit awkward, to be honest. When I asked her why she just said that my mana tasted good. At least she seems to be slowly growing up, and now had the mentality of an early teenager, with Celeste teaching her basic information. Sadly, she still insists on calling me Papa.
Yin and Yang still remained in my grove, though Yin was there mainly to comfort Yang, who was scared of flying in the ship. I would pull them out every day or two to share a meal with everyone, which they appreciated, but afterwards Yang would be eager to go back into the grove. After I spent a few days refining my elements, I made a small house for Yang in my grove, a simple stone one that offered plenty of room for her and Yin.
By now, I had gotten almost all of my affinities to 15%, with the exception of earth, fire, lightning, and light. Each time I practiced an element, I would make a seed of that element and pulled it out of my grove to train. Then, when I was done cultivating the element to 15%, I would reabsorb the seed back into my grove. Though I wasn’t able to perfectly absorb the mana, resulting in not absorbing the same amount that was used whenever I made the seed, it was still better than nothing.
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