The Primal Hunter

Who hadn’t, at one point or another, dreamed of visiting the moon? Or maybe Jake was just weird, but he sure had wanted to at least try going there at least once. To see the world from an entirely new perspective, and, more important of all, finally confirm that Earth wasn’t flat like a pancake.

Setting off from Skyggen with Sandy, Jake was naturally eaten and entered one of the space worm’s many stomachs. At this point, Jake had no idea how many Sandy had, but he was sure he would figure that out eventually, as he expected the two of them to spend quite a lot of time traveling together over the next months.

Looking around the stomach he had entered, it was more just one large room. The floors were rock-like, with the walls also reminiscent of being inside of a cave, and the rectangular shape made it hard to imagine he was currently inside of a creature.

Inside this room, he spotted a bunch of furniture as the place was set up like an apartment, and when he looked toward the end of the rectangle, he even saw a sealed-off glass cube with a lot of familiar instruments and tools within.

“Is… this an alchemy lab?” Jake said with raised eyebrows.

“Yep, had some people from the Order set it up,” Sandy responded quickly. “Plus, even if you do poison stuff, it won’t be annoying anymore as it’s sealed within the cube, and I added special ventilation!”

“Do I want to know how you exhaust these toxic fumes?” Jake joked.

“Why would I exhaust them? I put them in another stomach where the fumes are absorbed by some toxin-absorbant materials to help them grow,” Sandy responded as if Jake was being an idiot.

“I see,” Jake muttered, sad his fart joke had failed, as he instead turned his attention elsewhere.

One of the walls of the room displayed not just a wall but was entirely see-through so Jake could observe the outside world. Sandy had even placed windows elsewhere, making it seem as if Jake was flying within a big worm-shaped plane. Of course, Jake knew it wasn’t as if these were actually windows. They were more just screens displaying the outside.

As he looked out, he saw they quickly flew into the sky with speed surpassing anything Jake could do. It actually wasn’t that much faster than he was if he continually used One Step, though, but he knew this was far from Sandy’s top speed. Just going by how fast the worm had traveled from Haven to Skyggen, he knew the worm’s top speed was absolutely insane.

The reason Sandy didn’t go full throttle right now was likely due to the way the sky worked. The atmosphere around Earth, and the sky in general, had several layers to it, and traveling through them haphazardly could get quite dangerous. Especially the outer layers of the atmosphere.

B-grade was recognized as the grade in which one could begin to explore space, and that wasn’t only because that was when one rarely could find worthy foes on their home planets, but because that was often when one became able to even enter other planets safely.

Surviving in space wasn’t that hard at all, and even D-grades could exist there. Sure, they would have to exhaust energy to protect themselves from the cold and the semi-vacuum of space, but it wasn’t that bad at all. It was more akin to just being pretty deep underwater. Granted, there were a lot of threats that could kill one out there, such as rampant blasts of energy just flying across the cosmos or small meteors striking you, but technically, one could live in space. It wasn’t recommended, but theoretically possible.

Thing is… you would be kind of stuck there unless someone helped you get back to a planet or you chose to settle down on a large space rock without any proper atmosphere. Going to a place like Earth was out of the question, and Earth wasn’t even a massive planet by multiversal standards.

Jake, even with his current level of power, would have to go all-out if he wanted to reenter Earth again without the assistance of Sandy, with the atmosphere effectively creating a natural barrier protecting the planet from threats. Exiting was quite a lot easier than entering, but even that was pretty hard. Arnold had only managed to send out satellites and whatnot by coating them in special metals with high resistance to the concepts in the atmosphere, something Jake’s body was definitely not made of.

made of this

unaffected, even as they entered the outer layers of the atmosphere. The dense energies and concepts that sought to tear apart anything they encountered washed over Sandy without any issues, and from inside the worm, Jake saw the grand vista that was Earth’s

rocks entered it were instantly torn apart. It was entirely different forces than before the system that protected planets now, and Jake could only imagine how much stronger the natural defenses of a planet could get if one added their own barriers on top. If the core

a vacuum for a reason, and while there certainly still was a lot of mana, the density was incredibly unvaried. The further they got away

you ready? I will have to turn the lookout holes off when I jump into Sandy’s Sand

I’ll have to do anything, so sure, I’m ready,” Jake smiled. “How long do

reach space, as Sandy couldn’t go as fast in the upper layers as they wanted. Plus, Sandy had also clearly slowed down a lot and absorbed some energy here and there, while allowing Jake to take in the atmosphere. Traveling through empty space would definitely be faster, especially if Sandy’s Sand World, as the big worm called

had been kept roughly the same, Jake reckoned it would take less than a week

a day at most?” Sandy

you just

of rude to bully me like this. Actually, maybe I should just spit you out here and now, and you can just

a point

calming tone. “From speaking to Arnold, the changes in space have resulted in pre-system space travel no longer being viable, as it’s no longer considered a complete vacuum, making the constant

was pretty sure that traveling to the moon hadn’t even taken a week before the system, despite the long distance. Jake would have been impressed if

match it but be a lot faster was great. It boded well for what the giant space worm would be capable of in

ignore everything I just said and keep recognizing my awesomeness,” Sandy said. “Now get ready; we’re

wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be ready

shift. Through his sphere that extended

subspace. He saw reality itself stretch and contract in impossible ways as concepts such as distance became nothing more than relative terms. Despite the headache, Jake held on as he vaguely felt himself and Sandy move. Despite the odd changed space, Sandy still managed to wiggle forward, as if swimming through a world that simply didn’t make any

about doing that unless he wanted to knock himself out. He was curious, true, but not curious enough to potentially deal soul damage to himself by overloading his brain. The chances of it happening

contracted his sphere to relieve his headache, pulled out his cauldron, and went into the alchemy bubble Sandy had created for him. Well, alright, that Sandy had people from the Order create for Jake, but it was the thought that

do much to close the gap, every little bit counted. Seeing as he was good on potions, Jake worked a bit on poisons, and the hours quickly passed as the trip to the moon,

pretty close now,” Sandy said after what

Jake questioned, as the outside world still didn’t make any sense to him as

“Because I’m smart.”

doesn’t really answer anything… like, what’s

the sand, all the sand looks identical, but if you get really close, no two pieces of sand are the same, and sometimes there’s even other stuff mixed in,

say I do,”

Big stuff is like bones and stuff within the sand, while space itself is like every little sand grain. It varies a bit, and when close to bigger stuff, like planets or the moon in this case, every grain is also a bit different. So, it’s just about feeling for that. When I then know I’m close to where I

at least partly, even if it still didn’t make that much sense. It was honestly interesting how stuff like this worked. Sandy legitimately saw the world as filled with sand everywhere, and going into subspace like