Mountains In The Distance

Two weeks passed, and the day for Jam's group to reach Afrov had finally arrived. Everyone was beyond excited as they all ran around the ship to see what the planet looked like.

As Jam looked outside the window, he could see a very ugly planet in the distance. Unlike Yhamnigh and Earth, which looked green and blue from space, Afrov looked like a dystopian nightmare.

Not only was the planet covered in hurricanes and fire storms, Jam could tell — even from space — that there were several Sage Realm beings fighting, as the shockwaves and aftermath of each of the Sages' attacks could be felt from where Jam was standing.

Upon noticing these very dangerous conditions, Jam left his room and went to ask Cecily how she expected them to survive in that planet. Most of the other core disciples had the same idea, as they also left their rooms to confront Cecily.

Cecily had already guessed that they would all be asking her about the circumstances of the trip, and had already left her room to talk to all the core disciples in the lounge. When everyone aboard the ship was present in the lounge, Cecily began to explain what they would be doing.

"As all of you know, we left the academy to go to the Titanic Beast Mountain Range. The range is inside of the planet Afrov. However, it's inside a natural pocket dimension, that only Saint Realm beings and below can enter.

As you can see, Afrov is a chaotic planet with no commanding sect. That basically translates to "there being no rules on the planet." We will be going straight to Titanic Beast Mountain range to avoid others.

Also, you guys will have to enter and explore the mountain range by yourselves. I will only take you up to the pocket dimension entrance. Remember, you guys will only have two months in the pocket dimension before I leave."

Everyone had calmed down after hearing that the highest cultivation base allowed in the Titanic Beast Mountain Range was the Saint God Stage.

Cecily navigated the spaceship to enter Afrov. Her spaceship shot through the clouds of a hurricane, a firestorm, a blizzard, and even a tsunami, before reaching a specific part of a barren desert. There, the spaceship landed on the ground and all the core disciples left the ship. Everyone was rather rattled by all the changes to the environment, so they all took a second to adjust to the "normal" desert.

As Jam looked around, his eyes — even in their base Form — could tell that there was a gigantic pocket dimension less than one hundred meters from where the spaceship landed. When Jam switched his eyes to their Seeking Form, they were momentarily blinded by the intense glow of every single color his eyes could detect; all of them coming from the point of entry into the Titanic Beast Mountain Range.

Jam had never seen this happen back in the Delta Heavy Forest. Even if the pocket dimensions in the forest were gold and contained herbs, he would only see a gold color, and not a gold and green color. Would this "pocket" dimension truly be so large, as to have countless other pocket dimensions sprawled within?

Cecily, now standing directly in front of the pocket dimension, opened a portal for the core disciples to enter; not everyone was like Jam, who could enter and exit pocket dimension with utter ease. She reminded them that they would have to return by the end of the two months, or she would assumed that they had died, and would leave with those that arrived on time.

One by one, the core disciples entered the portal, with Jam being the last person to enter. Before entering the portal, Jam looked around to make sure he knew where he would be entering/leaving from.

Then, Jam entered the portal. After reappearing within the pocket dimension, the first thing Jam noticed, was that he couldn't see any of the other core disciples that had entered before him. Tzatziki told him, "Some of the larger pocket dimension — especially the natural pocket dimensions — would sometimes transport those entering it to different places."

Jam was confused. If that really was the case, how would they leave the pocket dimension when the time to leave arrived?

Tzatziki said "When the entrance of a pocket dimension transports people to different locations, conversely there will be various points in space that will let people leave. These point will not necessarily be the same one where the cultivator entered from."

Tzatziki then told Jam to turn around, and said "As you can see, the point in space from where you entered is closed now. This means you'll have to find a different point in space to leave from."

With this newfound knowledge, Jam started his adventure in the Titanic Beast Mountain Range. The first thing he would be doing was to search for opportunities with his eyes in Seeking Form.

Jam only had two months in the pocket dimension, so instead of picking up all the herbs and ores he could find, he would only pick Tier 4 herbs and ores or above. Currently, Jam was in a forest, but he could see ridiculously large mountains in the distance. The forest had tons of spiritual treasures. However, the highest Tier treasure Jam could find was Tier 3.

Jam switched his eyes to Detecting Form, to see what the average cultivation base was in the area, and unsurprisingly, Soul Fusion Demonic Beasts are the kings of the forest. The greater the natural treasures of an area, the stronger the demonic beasts living within that area; this rule was almost universally considered to be truth.

As Jam looked toward the direction of the mountains, he could see very bright glowing lights indicating Saints, and higher tier herbs and ores. Jam wanted to train while he was moving towards the mountains, thus he chose to practice Teleportation.

[Teleportation: Travel between two points instantly. Range and accuracy are determined by the user's insights on the Space Dao's aspect of Shifting]

The rest of the techniques for the Spirit Realm section of the True Gravitational Manipulation technique were: Returning Teleportation, Time Locking, and Targeted Gravitation.

[Returning Teleportation: Marks an area for teleportation. Return teleportation always has hundreds or even thousands of times the range of regular teleportation as calculating for accuracy is unnecessary. Range is determined by the user's insights on the Space Dao's aspect of Shifting.]

[Time Locking: Uses Time Dao insights to replicate Space Locking, to momentarily stop an enemy. The technique's effectiveness is determined by the user's Time Dao insights into Stopping.]

[Targeted Gravitational Amplification: Allows the user to change the gravitational pressure a targeted person or group of people experience. As insights into the Space Dao and Time Dao increase, so too does the range of gravity amplification.]

Jam picked up a rock from the floor and practiced his Time Locking and Targeted Gravitation techniques on it, while he teleported toward the mountains. At the moment, Jam could only teleport a couple feet every time he teleported, so he would have a lot of time to practice his Time Locking and Targeted Gravitation.

Jam's Teleportation, when he started, was very sad to look at. Sometimes he would teleport in the complete opposite direction he intended to go. However, over time, Jam started to accurately travel towards the mountains consistently.

After Jam learned how to teleport in the general direction he intended on going, he worked on improving the range of his teleportation. Still, he looked very clumsy while teleporting as his figure was travelling in a zig-zagging manner. But eventually, Jam started teleporting entire kilometers every time he teleported.

By the time Jam's teleportation range reached ten kilometers, he had entered a different biome. Jam had escaped from the forest and entered an icy tundra. Jam was now even more aware of how absurdly large the mountains in the distance were, as he could barely tell the difference from how they appeared when he was in the forest and how the mountains looked now.

Jam had never been to a tundra, and even though he vowed to not waste his time collecting worthless Tier 3 and below natural treasures, he wanted to start collecting the resources nearby as there would certainly be rare ice, yin, and water type natural treasures. He convinced himself to stay in the tundra for a while to improve his teleportation, by teleporting to and from natural resources.

And for a couple hours, Jam started teleporting around the tundra collecting rare herbs and ores. Because he was in a tundra, the ores and herbs Jam collected were mostly of yin or ice nature. Jam could help Rina, Kirin and Evangeline with pills made from these herbs. Or better yet, some of these herbs might be usable with their direct cultivation techniques or martial skills.

Jam's hypothesis that the closer he got to the mountains, the better the resources and the stronger the monsters, was confirmed when he started seeing Tier 5 herbs and False Saint Demonic Beasts.

Since Jam wasn't in need of money at the moment and he was also hard pressed for time, he wouldn't start massacring all the demonic beasts that entered his line of sight. But, he had no issue setting the reckless demonic beasts that chased after him, straight; the demonic beasts foolish enough to come looking for a fight with Jam, would end up as his dinner.

Jam collected a couple thousand pieces of herbs and ore before resuming his journey towards the mountains. His teleportation range had not increased during his time collecting natural treasures, however his accuracy had improved dramatically.

The tundra was much larger than the forest, as Jam had teleported several thousand kilometers and had still not seen the end of the tundra. He was even starting to see Saint Masters. Jam wanted to test his strength now that he had reached the intermediate phase of the Soul Fusion Realm, so he teleported to the nearest Saint Master and challenged it to a fight.

Jam ended the fight very quickly, not even needing to use Spirit Realm core section skills of his various skills. Jam didn't kill the Saint Master he fought, as he didn't see the need to be cruel for the sake of being cruel, and just left.

After his fight with the Saint Master, Jam began teleporting again, and after several hours, Jam finally saw the end of the tundra. After the tundra there was a valley; a thunder valley.