[Is it far away?] I asked after we ironed out a deal.

  “Quite far.” Naran said and looked at the sky. “It’s a few days of flight in… that direction.”

  I turned to look and then frowned at the dark red sky. [What are you looking at?]

  “The sky… It is slightly different if you look at it. One side is marginally brighter.”

  I stared at the gray clouds, shifting my gaze from horizon to horizon. There was a very tiny difference in illumination. [Huh. It really is. Never noticed that.]

  “Took me a decade to notice myself. Luckily it never changes, so that is something. Before that traveling was a nightmare.” Naran smiled in a tired kind of way. A decade with no sense of direction. That had to suck. I traveled low to the ground so that my sonic boom made distinct lines in the sand, but having distinct cardinal directions in the sky was much better.

  I took a moment to reorient myself, merging the new knowledge with the old mental map of the place and the relative positions of the village and Lee’s grand hall.

  The ruins they discovered were so much farther away if they were to be believed. If we were just a hair off while traveling in a straight line we would completely miss it.

  [When do we leave?] I asked.

  “Soon.” Sonic said. “Just give us a moment to chop up this thing and then we can go.”

  It took a few hours for them to extract the useful stuff from the carcass. The largest part were the skin and bones, while the flesh was turned straight into Essence Orbs for ease of transport. The conversion was terrible and they lost a lot of Essence that way, but at least it was quick.

  “Alright, everyone ready?” Sonic asked and received the affirmative from the other three. I was also ready and waiting.

  [Lead the way.] I gestured to Naran, and the man nodded and rose into the sky. Instead of shifting gravity like me, the others were conjuring tiny footholds and then jumping off them to propel themselves forward. It was less elegant than my technique, but it was just as fast, and they could rapidly change direction with just a tap of their feet. It was clearly a skill they learned for fighting, not long distance travel.

  Each of their jumps generated an incredible pressure wave as their speed was greatest at the beginning of the jump and then quickly fell off due to air resistance. But, as they repeated the action many times a second, there was no distinct impact.

  Also, we were going much faster than the speed of sound, so we didn’t get to hear the sonic boom. Everything was happening behind us, most likely like the roar of thunder. The place was mostly empty, so it really wasn’t like we bothered anyone. We just continued with our breakneck speed for the entire day and then stopped much later to relax for a while. Striking out with your legs as if trying to stomp the ground to death was apparently quite exhausting. Gee, I never would have guessed. That’s why I manipulated gravity instead. It was cheap and easy.

  Also, by simply inverting gravity so that I fell sideways, while also not canceling out my massive weight, I could achieve stupidly large terminal velocity. Enough for a wave of glowing plasma to form in front of me. I was like a comet! Nice and toasty.

  “We should be reaching it soon, spread out. Keep your eyes peeled.” Sonic ordered as we slowed down enough to hear each other speaking.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Days had gone by and the others gradually adopted my way of flight. It was much better for travel than constantly leaping anyway.

  After about an hour of searching, we found it. It was a large flat area with crumbling walls and broken remains of what appeared to have once been a large building. Everything was oversized and clearly built for giants, but just as they said, the place was picked clean. Not even a scrap of loot remained anywhere, just rocks and dust.

  We landed in the middle of all that rubble, on a large square stone platform a few hundred meters across. The floor was all a large one piece light gray rock, with a circular cut in the middle. The circle was further divided into 36 segments, each of which carried its own Rune carvings. Together they formed a complex array, and from what I could discern, it was one for channeling energy. Where or how I didn’t know.

  [This is it, huh?]

  “Yep. This is it.” Sonic nodded somberly.

  [Doesn’t look like much.]

  Ruth snorted. “Maybe you should try breaking it before giving your opinion.”

  [Okay.]

  I instantly struck the ground with a punch carrying enough force to probably maim, if not kill, either of them, yet apart from lifting a cloud of dust, nothing happened. The ground didn’t even shake. Hell, there was no sound of an impact either.

  [Huh?] I cocked my head to the side in confusion. A sword appeared in my hand and I swung it down with all I had. Once again, the fast movement generated a lot of wind, blowing dust and sand all over the place, but the blade felt like it impacted the ground with no energy at all. It just stopped.

  [What the fuck?]

  “Try jumping.” Naran suggested with a grin. I did just that and was even more shocked.

  I bent my knees slightly, and then pushed off! Yet, no matter how hard I tried, my feet would not leave the ground. It’s not like I was glued to the surface or anything like that either. I just… couldn’t jump. I could go on my tippy toes, but my feet simply wouldn’t leave the ground. I could float up just fine, just jumping was impossible.

  I scratched my head. [Does this thing… This thing absorbs kinetic energy, huh? It just… swallows it all. A perfect dampener.]

  “You guessed it.” Sonic came close, with hands crossed behind his back, and sighed. “We’ve tried everything. Can’t even leave a scratch on this damn thing.”

  [Energy attacks?]

  “Swallowed instantly. The only part that shows some reaction is the circle in the middle, but even with all the power we had, we couldn’t make a dent in it.”

  I did believe him, but I still did tests on my own. Arcane flames exploded from my hands like a flame thrower, amplified by all manner of exotic techniques, and yet as soon as they touched the ground, it was like the energy was swallowed by a black hole. Even my Spirit Sense was useless. It told me there was nothing there, in fact, as it was swallowed like the rest.

  I now, of course, know the reason, but back then I was clueless. Like a blind man stumbling in the dark.

  As a final attempt at getting something to happen, I emptied the rest of my tank all at once, blasting the ground with about 500 Spirit Stones worth of energy. Not even a drop spilled over. It was like I was shooting into the void.

  “What do you think?” Sonic asked as I was done.

  [Hmm. This place is freaky. Definitely not made for us.]

  Before moving on, I also tried to scratch the ground with my finger, but it didn’t do shit, so I stopped.

  [So, this is it, huh?] I said as we stopped in front of the circle on the ground. [This is what we came for…] We all remained silent, staring at the unusual design on the floor.

  “I’m getting goosebumps.” Naran said and rubbed his shoulders.

  I was too, but I refused to admit that. That entire place was giving me weird vibes. An old, ruined building in the middle of nowhere, in a freaking Lower Plane of all places. And with a mysterious indestructible floor too, unlike the crumbling stone walls all around us.

  [Okay…] I rubbed my hands together and tore one of the weaker Souls apart for energy. I then aimed my palm at the circle and fired.

  Energy poured out of me, slightly faster than before, it was just pure energy, pure Spirit Qi, carrying no destructive Intent. After a moment, I stopped and tried to feel for any changes. And to my surprise, there were some.

  I sent my Spirit Sense in and got back an immediate response. [It feels like… I’m trying to fill up a well. Or a large hole.]

  “We felt the same.” Irit nodded, together with the rest of them.

  “But we had nowhere near enough, and the energy drains over time.” Sonic added.

  [Not enough…] I chuckled as I sent more power into it, and then paused, examining the progress. I turned to Sonic. [You know how you said this might take 100 thousand Stones?]

  He frowned. “Yeah?”

  [I think you underestimated it… by an order of magnitude.]