Ch 39 – Setting Foot on Land

Seeing the island full of lush greenery, sandy shores, and what seemed to be a mountain full of metals and ore, Kaleido's heart palpitated and his eyes widened in clear joy.

He felt a surge of erratic emotions as he struggled to keep himself calm. Breathing in deeply, he cleared his mind from unneeded excitement and stood up.

Waving his hand, an invisible force grabbed the raft's sails and used the wind's momentum to push it forward. While doing that, he stretched out his other arm and pointed it toward the sails. Wielding his primeval essence, the green Gu marks placed all over his arm glowed, and strong winds pushed the raft forward faster.

After wandering around at sea for a few days already, he managed to encounter many wild Gu. The most abundant type of Gu he managed to gain was from the water path, but he also managed to gather a respectable amount of wind path Gu from his travels.

And that doesn't mention the fact that he has numerous wind path, water path, fire path, and all kinds of Gu belonging to numerous paths inside his formless bubble. Unfortunately for him, the majority of the Gu he has stored over the months have unknown food requirements, rendering them useless after only a day of being used, if not less depending on how much he used them.

Although Gu are the fragments of the Great Dao, they are still living organisms that require food to eat. If not for him reading a bunch of books and deepening his foundation to rely on background knowledge to determine the food eaten by the wild Gu he managed to gather, all of them would have died already.

But with him being at sea, the food problem was mostly solved with him only needing to stress out for his fire path Gu and Gu that produced his own clothes. But fortunately, he also nabbed a ton of plants before he was flung far into the future, plants that numerous types of Gu eat!

'Heh, only those who are prepared are allowed to survive and thrive in this cruel world of Gu!' Kaleido smirked. Watching the sails flutter as the raft moved forward at fast speeds, he nodded his head and went to slow down the raft the nearer he got to the remote island.

A short while later, he saw the island come into full view, showing a lush landscape and beautiful sandy shores. From a mere glance alone, Kaleido could see that the island is abundant with resources and can be developed to grow all types of plants.

But based on his experience, he can also tell that island has many dangers lurking within it, especially when he considered that it lacked any signs of human or variant human life. Maybe a random beast emperor was living within the island, an encounter that Kaleido doesn't want to happen as it might gain "Their" attention once more.

Dismissing his frantic thoughts, he deactivated the exhausted Gu scattered all over his body, and he carefully docked the raft on the sandy shores of the island. Hearing the audible thud from the point of contact, he went and walked away from the raft and onto the sandy shores with a grin.

Feeling the soles of his bare feet touch the warm sand, Kaleido lets out a jubilant chuckle and turned around to stare at the vast blue sea and his docked raft just a few meters away.

Stretching out his arm, an invisible but tangible force gathered around the entire raft, lifting it up from the sea and towards the sky. Upon withdrawing his hand back to his body, the raft floated nearer to him until it stopped just a meter from his face.

Extending his hand out once again, he planted his palm on an invisible wall that wrapped around the raft, and he activated a strange power, causing the entire raft to disappear into nowhere.

'I really don't know how I would have survived up till now if Formless Bubble Gu was also destroyed in the fight against Lo Bai. Maybe I would have starved to death by this point, or perhaps still stranded at sea with crude means to traverse the waters.' Kaleido lets out a relieved sigh.

Rotating his body once again, he stared back at the lush forest ahead of him and grinned, "Perhaps I'll be able to tick another thing off my otherworld bucket list."

'But before that, let's survey the entire island, shall we?' Kaleido stared around the area as he couldn't help but feel slightly excited.

Snapping his hand, one can vaguely see dim white light erupt from his skin throughout his entire body, and Kaleido saw the whole world slow down at a visible pace. No, it should be said that he was just moving at a time rate far faster than the world around him.

Moving his arm that was wrapped in an invisible barrier through the air, he can feel his hand glide through what should have been liquid-like air considering the laws of physics would make air denser at his absurd speed.

'With the help of Formless Barrier Gu, I can deal with the side effects of moving at speeds faster than sound. If I were to run normally, then the dragging force would potentially just lift me up by just even taking a single step, rendering me useless at that point.' Kaleido lifted up his leg and took a single step, and he can clearly see the air around him crack and huddle up as if preparing to release a sonic boom.

'But with my quasi-Grandmaster attainment in space path and time path, I can use Formless Barrier Gu to take drag out of the equation and just run normally without having to worry about stuff like that and ignore the laws of physics for the most part.'

Taking another step, Kaleido watched as the air around him warped like water in slow motion. Chuckling softly upon seeing the mystical sight, he stretched his arms and legs before crouching down on the ground.

Tensing up the muscles around his entire body, his foot lifted up and he pushed himself forward at immense speeds. Running at what he considered his average running speed of 3 meters per second, for the world around him, that would be 3600 meters per second already. And that's the bare minimum as Kaleido can clearly sense that he was moving much faster than a mere 1200.

If he were to estimate it, he felt that it was much more than 2000 times faster, meaning his dao marks amplification was above his minimum of 300.

Discarding his thoughts, Kaleido instead went to look around the world around him moving at speeds so slow it felt stagnant. The fallings leaves were hanging in mid-air, the ruffling grass below him stood still like stones, and the floating insects remained in the air as if they were stuck to invisible spider webs.

The wonders of the world were shown through him from the perspective of a being who can move at speeds far faster than sound. A world where everything seemed to be standing still was shown to his eyes, and it was beautiful.

In less than a minute, Kaleido reappeared back at the sandy shores of the island and tumbled down to the ground, his entire body exuding steam and sweat. Taking in deep breaths in quick succession, Kaleido hurriedly summoned a ball of floating water to appear in front of him and he sucked it in without any care for how he looked like.

Letting out a satisfied sigh, Kaleido remained laying still on his back on the sandy shores of the island and muttered, "I really need to find a time path Gu that's going to alleviate the problems brought by Quick Movement Gu."

"So what if I can run at speeds many times faster than sound, I would be dead tired already before I even reach the enemy."

'Quick Movement Gu only alters the time around my body while not affecting my lifespan, because of that, the primeval essence drain is ridiculous for its rank. Fortunately for me, that's not a problem. What is a problem is that I can't use it to its full potential if I get exhausted too quickly, destroying my body along the way as I lose my breath.'

'And from my own basic knowledge about time path, there seems to be no Gu that can deal with the stamina and muscle damage. Mending Space Gu only heals the wounds, but using it would clash with the activation of Quick Movement Gu, so perhaps a healing type time path Gu can deal with the muscle damage problem brought by running at long distances.'

'But the stamina is the real issue here. Maybe if I get a Gu that reverses the state of my body to a few seconds ago, I can set it on a loop, but then comes the problem of overusing the Gu and destroying it from overuse. Then if I do find a compatible Gu, I'll also need to create a killer move to maximize the efficiency, elevating the difficulty of the task once more.'

Dismissing his frantic thoughts, Kaleido coated his entire body in Mending Space Gu, relieving the pain his torn muscles brought.

Pushing his body off the sandy shores, he got into a standing position while muttering, "But at least I finished my scouting throughout the entire island."

'The only real danger I found was the dens belonging to thousand beast kings and a few myriad beast kings located all around the island. But I just set up base at the outer periphery of the island, then I won't have to deal with them and live peacefully.' Kaleido lets out a relieved sigh and walked toward the dense trees and lush grass.

"But if they were to attack me…" Kaleido lets out a snort and a black blade appeared from the palm of his hand, "Then they'll have to pay for the consequences of their own actions."

Waving his hand, a crescent wave made from a mysterious black energy shot forward and toward the trees, cutting multiple of them down with just a single slash. Kaleido then waved his other hand and a mysterious and invisible energy wrapped around the fallen trees just like his raft, then they floated toward the sky.

Next, he placed the fallen trees to the side and flicked his fingers up, causing the trunks of the trees to uproot themselves and disappear in the next second. Successfully storing the roots, he then watched as dirt poured out of his storage space to cover the broken ground because he uprooted the trees.

Flattening it down in the next moment, he saw a flat clearing inside the dense forest and sighed, "If people on Earth had access to Gu, then maybe we would have floating continents and colonized the moon and the other planets in the solar system already."

Ignoring his grandiose thoughts, Kaleido walked forward and pressed his hand forward, forming a claw as if to grab one of the fallen trees neatly arranged into a pile. As it floated towards him, Kaleido unhurriedly placed it down in front of him on the flat ground and nodded his head, as if happy with the quality of the wood.

After inspecting the wood, he dismissed the black blade he held in his hand and started to stretch his body around, muttering in the process, "One, two, three…"

Counting down the seconds precisely and accurately, he switched from one position to another as he warmed up his body fully to avoid any unnecessary risks like straining his hand and then being sneak attacked by an immemorial desolate beast by "It" out of nowhere while he was crying in pain.

Finding that his preparations were more than enough, he summoned his space blade once more and muttered, "It's time to live a peaceful life in another world, isolated from human society or any torment brought by 'It'"

AN: This chapter has 2021 words.

(February 11, 2023 – 443rd day of writing)