Chapter 28: I am Speed!

Mid Morning - Late Spring : Home

After mother left, I spent a fair while stargazing before falling into a refreshing deep sleep.

My nap lasted around 2 days but I woke up feeling alive and energized. "Uuwwahh." As I woke up, I stood up and stretched. "Mmmm.." -That felt good..- My muscles were a bit tight, which made the stretch feel that much better.

As I sat back down, I circulated my mana to check for any changes. Thankfully the only change was that my reserve had filled up. -Sweet, I got a full tank to work with!-

After making sure nothing else had changed I gleefully walked to the edge of the mountain and looked over the extremely calm and glass-like ocean.

*tap-tap-tap* "Woof!" Ilios walked up behind me and rubbed against my leg.

"Haha, good morning Ilios!" I leaned down and nuzzled against him before turning back to the ocean. "Alright! Now, what to practice today.."

-Offense? Unnecessary.. Defense? Also fairly unnecessary..- After a few minutes of thinking though, a good idea came to mind. -Maybe I could make some kind of magic to make me faster..-

Speed was something I hadn't really touched on since my current top speed had been incredibly overkill till now. -But, if I'm going to go to Kaelallan, I should get faster so I can come home quickly if I need to..-

Currently my top speed was just shy of Mach 2, which, although very fast, was far from satisfactory if I needed to cross several thousand kilometers quickly.

-What could I try first… I could create a vacuum around my body and the top of my wings to reduce drag, maybe..- Although a plausible option, it would only increase my speed by so much. -I guess it can't hurt to test though..-

"Stay here for a bit Ilios, I'm going to do some tests." I lightly rubbed his head before leaping into the air.

Once I got to a decent altitude, I leveled out and got up to speed. -Alright.. let's give it a try..-

I quickly created a thick vacuum around my body, shaping it with a long and sharp front to give me nearly perfect aerodynamics and make me completely silent even when supersonic. The vacuum simply acted as a buffer to allow my wind magic to move the air out of the way before it hit me and created drag.

As the blissful silence of the vacuum wrapped around me, I once again started accelerating and instantly noticed a huge decrease in strain on my wings. -Wow.. To think that issue was so easily fixable..-

Previously, when I flew and forced myself past Mach, the amount of drag on my wings would increase exponentially. Although it was manageable below Mach 2, the strain on my joints kept me from being able to go much faster. -But that's no longer a problem!-

As I realized I was getting a bit too far from the mountain, I turned around and tried another experiment. -What if I push all the air I'm pushing up above me, below my wings as well?-

It sounded a little crazy, but I tried it anyway.

With a bit of tuning, although my speed stayed the same, it massively affected my ability to glide and climb in altitude. -Wow..- It felt like I could glide forever.

Once my speed started steadying out again, I was just shy of Mach 3.0. My couple additions increased my speed by more than 100%.

-That's not enough though… Now what..- Thankfully it didn't take long for another crazy idea to come to mind. -Why don't I try making magic thrusters?-

That was much easier said than done though, since I couldn't just strap thrusters to myself. -Difficulty has never stopped me though!- An excited smile came to my face.

Thinking back to the potassium nitrate breath I used, I used wind magic to focus the explosion and felt recoil from it. -So could I use wind magic to act as the shell of a thruster then?-

To test the idea, I quickly created small quantities of liquid hydrogen along the back of my wings and ignited them.

*Psh-Fwoosh*

-It worked!- Even though it was very minimal, I could feel the recoil from the blast! As long as the wind mana I was controlling to direct the truster came into contact with my body, I was able to transfer force. -So I could use that principle to not only help me relieve more strain from my wings, but also get much faster!-

It was a genius idea, and one that would help me become the fastest creature in this world by a massive margin.

-Now let's just make it bigger!- I quickly connected the wind magic more securely to my wings and massively increased the amount of liquid hydrogen I was creating. -How perfect..-

Unlike what I thought, liquid hydrogen was incredibly cheap to make since there was already hydrogen everywhere. All I had to do was isolate the hydrogen from the air I was already flying through, and let it condense to a liquid before igniting in the thrusters. [1]

Using this method, the faster I went, the more fuel I had! (He still needs to actively make the hydrogen from other atoms at low speeds)

Steadily increasing the amount of fuel, I flew to the horizon and got ready for launch.

As I flew, I quickly noticed that the amount of different magic I had to constantly control and keep track of was nearly too much. -That should get better the more I practice though..-

After only a minute or so, the mountain had reached the horizon and I turned around and took a deep breath. "Hooh.." -3.. 2.. 1..-

*Psshh-FWOOOOSH*

"Ughhhh!" The acceleration made my entire body feel like it was getting crushed and didn't ease up as the spot in the ocean below me vanished. -Too fast!-

I instantly cut off the thrusters as I reached a whopping Mach 14 (4,802 m/s) in a matter of seconds.

As I finally stopped accelerating, my thoughts could finally free up. -God, that is WAY TOO FAST!- Although there was practically no air resistance, going that fast was nearly impossible to control in my current state.

Quickly catching my breath, I noticed that the mountain that was once on the horizon was no longer that far away.

-SH*T!!- I quickly tried to slow down some but at this speed it was useless to try and slow down normally.

In a panic I created a huge amount of liquid hydrogen in my mouth and used my breath as a reverse thruster.

*Pshh-FWOOOSH*

The sound of the flame rumbled through the air like a rocket and the thrust from it felt like it was crushing my neck but I was slowing down extremely quickly.

The issue was, it wasn't fast enough. The mountain that was once all the way on the horizon, was right in front of my face. -Ah sh*t.- I folded in my wings as fast as I could before I hit the rocky mountainside.

*WWHHHAAAAAAMM*

Although the reverse thruster helped a ton, I still slammed into the side of the mountain while supersonic.

*crumble*

The feeling of rubble falling onto my back was a good sign. -Well, I'm not dead.. I don't even seem to be that badly hurt for that matter..- I tried to look around, but couldnt see anything other than rock rubble in the darkness. -Am I embedded in the mountain..-

Although I was strong enough to freely break my way out, I was nervous it might make something worse and instead just cranked up the temperature around me and melted away the stone.

The glow between my scales turned to a bright orange as the stone around me liquified.

-Much better..- Finally able to move more freely, I turned around and saw a short tunnel with light at the end. -I must have broken something and I just don't feel it yet..- I was embedded around 60 meters into the mountainside.

Thankfully the tunnel was just big enough for me to walk through so once I cooled down a bit, I started making my way outside.

The glow between my scales quickly returned to its original purple and blue as I finally made it back outside.

Looking up the mountain, I saw Ilios looking down at me.

"Phew.."-Thank goodness I didn't get him hurt..-

Before heading back up the mountain, I did another quick scan of my body in disbelief. -How.. how is nothing broken..-

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[1] - FOR THOSE CURIOUS: The way this works is that he filters the hydrogen from the atmosphere. As that hydrogen flows past his body through the vacuum, he uses temperature control magic (fire magic) and ambient aura to create extra needed pressure. By the time it reaches the back of his wings, the hydrogen is liquid and ignites in the thrusters.

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If anyone finds grammar mistakes or sentences that don't flow right, please point them out! I'm quite sleepy so I might've missed something.