Dimensional Descent

Leonel timed his entry onto Planet Solara using one of its lava flares. He trusted the Segmented Cube to withstand such pressure, though the pressure on himself was a completely different matter. He found himself gritting his teeth, withstanding the jarring impact.

The Segmented Cube had never been great with defense, though it had great self-repair. Luckily, it seemed to have gotten better in this regard after entering its fourth phase, but it was all reliant on energy as opposed to its own physical ability.

Leonel had a bit of a buffer for now in his use of the Segmented Cube thanks to the excess energy it had accumulated within the trial zone. This was what allowed him to use it, at least for now, without much worry. But, if he kept running into danger zones like this, he’d run out sooner rather than later.

Luckily, this Disaster World was likely another good opportunity to absorb more Force.

Leonel quickly landed on a planet, a large distance away from any hubs. He also instantly used his Light Elemental Force to vanish from plain sight, certain that there were maybe even more monitoring stations on this planet in comparison to Planet Vincero.

Leonel had no way of knowing for certain whether he had been caught already, but it didn’t particularly matter to him. Compared to his stint on Planet Vincero, he was even more confident this time around, especially since this planet was dense in the Elemental Force he was most confident in using.

Putting the Segmented Cube away, Leonel took a step out onto the stretch of obsidian land. He realized that compared to the endless peaks and valleys Planet Vincero had, Planet Solara was fairly flat. Most of the terrain depressions and peaks were caused by tides of lava and magma. Surprisingly, though, there weren’t any volcanos, at least not from what Leonel could spot at a single glance.

’My sneakers…’

Leonel shook his head, stripping down to the bare minimum. Eventually, he realized that he had no choice but to be naked. That might have been bad news, but the good news was that this environment that would likely have made most at his level feel like they were on the brink of death felt like a spring breeze to him.

Leonel took a deep breath, swallowing up the hot hair in the surroundings. He couldn’t’ help but feel that compared to his Scarlet Star Force, the heat of this place was sorely lacking. Even though his bare skin was exposed and even though the soles of his feet were touching the scorching lands, he felt unmoved.

’This is good.’ Leonel nodded to himself. ’But, I still need to be careful. Heat isn’t the only danger of this planet…’

If Leonel was suddenly hit was a storm of charged particles, it likely wouldn’t be more than a few days before he died. Luckily, he had a contingency plan for this.

*Bloop

Little Tolly was also unmoved by the heat, but this only made sense. The little guy was used to high concentrations of volatile heat while partnering with Leonel to complete Crafts. In fact, Little Tolly wasn’t only good at withstanding this heat, but was even better an insolating it, something that seemed counter intuitive for a Metal Spirit.

With a thought, Little Tolly coated Leonel’s body from top to bottom turning the latter into somewhat of a metal man. Leonel shielded even his eyes, not taking any chances. He was confident enough in his Internal Sight to continue on in this way. In fact, in a lot of ways, his Internal Sight was more trustworthy in comparison to his eyes.

Leonel felt a cooling sensation all over his body. He realized then that even without his Fire Elemental affinity, just his partnership with Little Tolly alone would make it quite easy to step onto this planet.

Of course, Leonel didn’t need Little Tolly for this. Rather, he was confident that Little Tolly could help him block against the radiation and volatile magnetic fields. As for the rest, that could be left up to him.

With a leap, Leonel dove right into the lava, vanishing from sight as he swam into the depths of the world.

If one could see him now, he would really look like a fish in water. With his Earth and Fire Elemental Affinities working as one, how could this world stop him from reaching its depths?

…

It was truly hard to tell if Leonel had outstanding luck or if it truly was so terrible.

The truth was that it was impossible for Leonel to have reached the surface of the planet undetected. He was simply too unfamiliar with the detection system such large organizations had in place while on the other hand, these organizations treated these resources like their life’s blood. How could they possibly leave it without proper security?

That said, at this moment, Planet Solara was focused on receiving extraordinarily important guests, guests so important that even the hunt for Leonel had been placed on a slight hiatus… Guests so important that even Guild Head Ovilteen had personally made an appearance to greet them.

Everyone was becoming more and more keenly aware of the convergence toward the Milky Way. Silent plots that had been brewing for centuries, sometimes even longer, were slowly starting to bear their fruits and instances like Anya were just the tip of the iceberg.

The next coming decades would decide who it was would rise to the top, and who would find themselves wiped out by the annals of history.

Amongst these individuals beginning to slowly make themselves known were a small group of young men and women, all of which had fiery red hair and charcoal black eyes. Upon seeing them, even Leonel might have had the immediate instinct to draw a line of connection toward the Brazinger family. However, they were lacking in the crimson eyes needed and also had auras that were far different…

At their helm, a young man with shark-like teeth and breath like sulfur stood at almost two and a half meters tall. The air around him warped simply due to the heat his pores almost seemed to constantly release.

He took a deep breath, causing spiraling winds of Fire Elemental Force to jet toward him, his jagged teeth glistening beneath the blinding red-gold lights.

BANG!

An eruption of fire circled around his feet, shattering the sturdy grounds of the Guild House.

”This world is not bad, indeed, Augustus!” Despite being far younger, the young man didn’t care and directly called the Guild Head by his name. ”If the rest is as promised, my family won’t mind providing you the Crafters and backing you need. But, it seems as though a little rat is taking part in my resources.”