Once Kayn equipped all of his gear again, he finally felt whole, especially once his rings were back on. He decided to check up on the situation of the war before he vanished, for good hopefully. Unsurprisingly, no country dared to fire anything larger than air to air missiles from fighter jets as they were all worried about being taken out like the United States cabinet members were.
The war turned into mostly a stalemate on all fronts after Kayn imposed the no bombs rule. It even looked like there really wasn't a push to get into other countries anymore and it was mostly just skirmishes over keeping the new boundaries where they were now.
From the hint he obtained from Dr. Elaine, this entire war was started due to the object they found which she called the Seed, but he knew it was a core stone. How it got here, he still didn't know, but now that he had taken every trace of mana from the temples, it seems the countries didn't intend to keep fighting.
This war had lasted for more than a decade now and besides moving some borders, they had little to show for it. Most of the military members didn't even know why they were fighting and had lost moral over the last couple of years.
Kayn chuckled to himself as he never meant to interfere with the outcome of the war, but things just happened and he practically resolved World War III on his own.
With that resolved the only thing left for Kayn was to find Chaos's inheritance and absorb the legacy he left behind. The major issue with this though was, where was it? He knew it was in space somewhere around Earth, but further out than he had gone before supposedly.
He would now truly be traversing space without knowing if he would perish as those before him had on Talgonoth. The only thing he could do was prepare himself for any situation and prepare multiple spells to be used the instant he needed them.
He was far more powerful than when he arrived on Earth or even compared to when he originally went to take out the satellites. His understanding of the elements was extremely high and while he didn't understand space in and of itself, he could make several inferences with the knowledge he knew about it previously.
Keep warm or cool, create oxygen when he needed it, and try not to get lost in the vastness and emptiness of the place. Perhaps while he was looking for the inheritance site, he would gain a few insights into space and how to better traverse it. He really hoped this would be the case too.
The issue with running out of mana also shouldn't pop up. He had finally reached the very beginning of the 1st stage, but his mana was denser and more potent than ever. Spells that would have cost him 5% of his mana when he started this all in the middle of the 4th stage would probably only use 1% of his mana now, which was a fivefold increase.
Just imagining what this meant once his core evolved through the stages again, Kayn couldn't even imagine how much stronger he would become and how much mana he could push into a single spell. Even using a simple Magic Bullet while imputing large amounts of his mana at that point could probably devastate a village or more.
If he was honest, he was nervous about using his offensive spells with his own method of just moving mana and shaping it how he desired before launching it now that he hadn't used them much since his mana began to change.
For now, at least until he had time to practice and get used to his new strength, it would probably be safer to use the spells the traditional way as it used predetermined amounts of mana. Once he had time to throw spells around without having to worry about not being able to get his mana back, he would go back to using his own method.
Sure, he could still manipulate the different elements around, but the initial cost may be far more than what he needed for the current situations needs, so this way was just safer. However, if he came across a situation where he didn't need to worry about holding back, he would go all out without a care.
With the need to conserve his mana as there were no more temples on Earth besides the one that he was looking for, he decided to visit the library of the Villa to look for barrier spells.
With the upgrade to the Wanderer's Villa, he was able to traverse around inside of it with only a thought. This feature would save him the most time when going to the control room as he no longer had to enter the complex code on the door. No one but him was able to use this feature inside of the Villa, so he wasn't worried about someone accessing the control room if they were inside.
He couldn't wait until he had full access to the Villa once more. The zero mana of Earth's atmosphere really restricted the Villa's true functionalities.
While he was exploring the updated information panel, he tried removing Charlotte from one of the allowed residents only to find out that it wasn't possible. Once someone was logged in the system, it wasn't possible to remove them.
That was when it occurred to Kayn how this place actually functioned with other people. In order for them to be able to be transported inside of his soul, they would have to have their own soul bound to his. Meaning that it was possible he held a small part of each individual's soul who had become a resident in the Villa.
How it took part of their soul from a drop of blood was mind blowing, but maybe it just bound their souls and if he forcefully broke that bond then he, the individual, or both of them would receive some kind of backlash? For now, it would remain a mystery.
Kayn could only shrug his shoulders to this though, it really wasn't that big of a deal if Charlotte was included in the permanent residents. He only had 5/15 slots filled with the upgrade, so it wasn't like it mattered much, especially if he could continue increasing this number in the future.
Focusing his mind back to the task of finding traditional barrier spells, all he had to do was think about the book type he wanted to view and the library would shift to that section right in front of his eyes, at the cost of a small amount of his mana of course. In the future when he was back on Talgonoth it wouldn't require his mana.
He gained a few barrier type spells from the legacies, but they were all meant to be used by beings much more powerful than him. He simply wouldn't be able to use them at this point, and he didn't want to guess what would happen if he did.
Eventually he chanced upon a book filled with tier 11 barrier spells that were meant for 6th stage mages. He wasn't positive that he would be able to cast these properly, but as he could cast tier 9 spells back when he was in the middle of the 4th stage and his mana had increased qualitatively and quantitively since then, he assumed it would be possible for him.
Each of the barrier spells that he chose were a single cast where the barrier would remain active on him until it was either destroyed or a certain amount of time passed. There were a few spells that required less mana initially but needed the caster to sustain then constantly, which he didn't want to risk.
Then, utilizing the barrier spell for each element that he found, he formulated a new spell which would work with pure all elemental mana. This spell would be his trump card for this situation. He only hoped that it would work as he didn't want to test anything before he actually needed to use it for fear of wasting his mana.
Even though Kayn didn't need to wear the Deceiver's Mask, as hiding his identity nor was concealing himself a priority currently, the darkness elemental buffs were extremely useful.
In fact, he specifically searched through the treasury in order to find some type of mana reduction type equipment for each element before he journeyed off into space. He felt a little ridiculous with two necklaces, four rings, including his original two, and two bracelets on, but it was necessary for this particular outing.
Most of the items he found in the treasury were no more than 5% or 10% reductions as they were only rare grade, but a few were 15%. There were a few items which would boost the spells power by a certain percentage, but they were all for the earth element. Kayn assumed that Yvaris only kept a few other elemental items for his personal collection and sold the rest.
Once he finally felt prepared, he extended his wings and flew into the air. He was able to reach the exosphere without any issues or having to use much if any mana at all, it only took longer than before as he wasn't using the wind element to boost his flight speed.
Kayn then created a bubble of oxygen around his head and continued his flight, leaving the atmosphere of Earth completely. He decided not to use any barriers yet as he wasn't sure if he truly needed them in order to traverse space.
His body was significantly stronger than any being that existed on Talgonoth to his knowledge. Adding the legacies of Pele and Takemikazuchi and the benefits he obtained in both changing his constitution and tempering his tissues to his already insane body, he was positive every measurable statistic of his would be higher than any of the known races in that world.
Once he arrived at a Celestial world, he knew that would change and he would be near the bottom of the barrel again, but for now, he was confident to an extent.
After a few moments in open space, he decided to try casting the pure mana barrier he formulated as he could tell something was going wrong with his body. After a quick examination of what was happening, he discovered that small bubbles were forming all over his body within his tissues.
First, he would try the pure barrier to try and alleviate the symptoms, then if that didn't work, he would use the wind barrier spell in order to get rid of the absolute vacuum around his body. There was a vacuum effect in the exosphere, but it wasn't affecting him as bad as it was now that he was completely out of Earth's atmosphere.
Then came the second issue, his flapping wings weren't doing anything because there was no air here to push against. A similar effect should have happened in the exosphere or at least near the edge of it, but maybe he just hadn't noticed as his momentum was enough to keep him moving in the direction he desired.
After casting the pure mana barrier, he sighed in relief as the bubbles stopped forming within his body and things seemed to stabilize back to normal. Now he needed to figure out how to get moving.
Using the example set by the humans of Earth, he focused and forced the smallest amount of fire mana he was capable of at the moment out of his feet in order to gain some kind of propulsion, and it worked.
He was a little awkward at first as moving in a zero-pressure zone like this was different to what he was used to, but he eventually learned to use his wings for direction while slowly adapting to his potent mana in order to reduce the usage even more.
As he finally stabilized himself and his mode of transport within the vacuum of space, dread finally set in. How long was it going to take him to find Chaos's legacy?