"Y-You!" Sarah's mouth was wide open as she jumped on the spot.
Click!
"Hey! Delete that pic!" The next moment, she appeared in front of him and was about to grab his comm.
Varian cleverly avoided and said. "I will be going to Valos shortly. I can't communicate with you through your comm. That's why this pic."
Looking at his pitiful eyes, even though Sarah knew he was saying those words to keep the pic, she couldn't force him.
Forget it, forget it. It's only with him anyway.
Meanwhile, Varian opened the pic and clicked his tongue. "You're cute. I should've taken a few pics while you were crying—"
He was abruptly cut off by Sarah's cold stare and wisely chose not to continue the topic.
Finally after what seemed like hours, but in fact was only a few minutes, Sarah asked.
"So, what was that? Six divine paths? How?" Sarah looked at him with genuine curiosity.
"Well…I don't know how for sure, but I have a secret that lets me do it. It's a bit complicated, but what I want to tell you is this."
Varian held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes seriously. "I have six paths, I can still be a Sovereign. You too can. Just trust me, okay?"
"…hm." Sarah looked into his eyes and finally nodded. This time, she didn't have to convince herself. She was convinced.
Then she thought of his powers and exclaimed. "Y-You're in level 6 already? And in three paths? Dear heaven!"
"I'll be in six, soon. Catching up to you." Varian smiled and ruffled her hair. "Ouch."
She swatted his hand away and glared. "Unfair. Why can you, who has six paths progress so fast and I progress at the pace of a snail?"
If the other geniuses heard Sarah's words, they'd cough out blood and pass out.
She's only a second-year cadet and both her paths were high level 6. In fact, after the trial, she was about to reach peak level 6.
Just a few more days of practice and her strength would tremendously improve. Without any doubts, she'd be stronger than any other genius, save for Charles.
Even Ashtarh would lose to her.
But Varian…oh well, Varian was a different case altogether.
"If I'm stronger, I can protect you, okay?" Varian leaned forward and said.
"You think I'm a damsel in distress? I need your protection?" Sarah raised her fist and smiled.
"…" Varian decided to sue the drama companies. The fuck are they teaching! This line worked well for all heroes! The heroines melted at this line and often gave…a kiss or something.
Well, he never thought of Sarah as a weak girl anyway. But still, those lessons I picked from drama companies…was all my life a lie?
Sia, just what did you make me watch those days?
Sarah ignored his expression that seemed to doubt life and frowned.
"You are going to Valos…the city of depravity?"
Hearing that ominous title, Varian's lips twitched. He checked a long message sent by Enigma and begrudgingly nodded at Sarah.
"Haaa~" She sighed and looked at him in pity.
"Wait, what?" Varian didn't understand of course. But he felt like he got scammed by Enigma.
He was yet to study his mission's location. He planned to do it later on, but now Sarah seemed to know about it, he was more than happy to listen.
And if the mission was really a scam, he'd fight it out with the masked girl.
Sarah snapped her fingers and the whole house went dark. The next second, a beautiful hologram appeared in the room.
There were two suns at the center with eight planets revolving around them. At a certain distance from each planet was a black flame—their corresponding Abyss.
In between each planet were many planetoids. The number varied with each planet, but the rule of thumb was that the greater the population of the planet, the more the planetoids.
Then there were small dots. Space cities. Every planet had a couple of those.
And finally, there was pluto. Like other planets, it was a sphere, but unlike them, it was covered by dark wisps.
Varian's gaze shifted to one section of the hologram.
Sarah tapped into mid-air and the hologram zoomed-in, leaving only two planets.
And everything in between them.
A huge blue-green planet with twenty-seven moons came into view and far away from it was a giant blue planet.
Uranus and Neptune.
Uranus was an ice giant before Blink and its conditions were hostile to life. After Blink, specific regions of the planets turned hospitable.
After the descent of dungeons in the 300s, humans got stronger and stronger. Their exploration of ruins also increased and at some point, they found a few treasures in the Ruins.
These treasures weren't offensive or defensive or even for any combat purpose but they were deemed as more precious than them all.
These treasures made planets hospitable!
Through the use of aura in ways humans were yet to understand, the planets' atmosphere was forcibly changed to a sufficient degree that allowed life to exist.
Following that, humans constructed cities on hospitable places on the ground and built floating cities all over the planet.
Uranus and Neptune were also colonized during the same period. Varian could 'see' the cities on the planet with his enhanced eyesight.
But what he was really focusing on was the in-between.
To be precise, a cluster of space cities in between Uranus and Neptune. There were around 20 such cities.
Even though he knew they were artificially constructed, Varian felt like he was watching a work of art.
Each of these cities was the result of the blood and tears of many humans. Scientists, Architects worked day and night. Military guarded everything these projects with everything on the line.
The Abyssals tried everything they can to stop this city from being a reality.
But humans did it. Notwithstanding the enormous resources, the overall cost was a few million lives.
Varian sighed in melancholy. There were many humans who deserved to die—Julius, Charles, Narcis, Kreo. But most of them deserved a better life. Most of the time, the problems came from the ones at the top.
This time, it was Abyssals seeking to exterminate them.
"Varian, you know this right?" Sarah pointed to the cluster of space cities and asked.
"Hm. Uranus Cluster Cities." Varian answered. He read it sometime in the past and his Telepath powers instantly retrieved it and the relevant information for him.
Basically, they were a bunch of cities after Uranus and before Neptune.
"And why were they built?" Sarah raised a brow and asked with a mischievous smile.
"Oh come on! I studied for the entrance test anyway." Varian groaned causing her to chuckle.
"Alright. Just messing with you." Sarah smiled and waved her hand. There was no way Varian didn't know this.
Cluster Cities were built to ensure connectivity between the planets.
As they lived through warring times, the army had an uncompromisable requirement.
Each planet must be quickly reachable. If a war broke out between Earth and Demon Abyss, the army could send reinforcements from all the planets.
With cutting-edge technology, the travel time between Earth and its two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars were 3.83 hours and 7.3 hours respectively.
But the army wasn't satisfied with this efficiency.
Three hours was enough time to cause irreversible damage to the enemy and establish an edge.
This necessity birthed the 'Teleportation Formations'.
They made instant transfers between any two locations possible. Though they cost a tonne of space stones and made many professors—men and women bald, they were one of the cornerstones of the federation's stability.
Each planet was installed with teleportation formations. In case of danger, the reinforcements can enter the formation of one planet and appear on the target planet in moments.
It sounded well and good but teleportation formations had their limitations.
First, they were incredibly expensive.
Speak nothing but the three main ingredients—space stones, spacorts, and space arrays.
Spacorts—defective space stones were the cheapest. But even they were hard to get.
During the early days of his admission, Varian fought hard in a special dimension of the academy to get 'spacorts'.
If even the cadets of Earth's best academy had to work their asses off to get the spacorts, one could imagine their scarcity.
Then there were space arrays. They were to be constructed by space awakeners. But not every space awakener was proficient in them.
The rigorous training it required often ate up training time and other than minority, space awakeners tended to stay away from this line of expertise.
Then came space stones. Expelled from the Inner space. Rarest of the bunch.
All these three ingredients were needed for teleportation formation. And even an unused teleportation formation consumed resources.
Compared to the second problem, this drawback was secondary.
Teleportation formations had limits on their distance. They could teleport from one planet to another for most, but as the farther one went in the solar system, the greater the distance between each planet.
Thus, the teleportation formations failed for three planets.
Saturn to Uranus.
Uranus to Neptune.
Even if you enter a teleportation formation in Saturn, you wouldn't reach Uranus. You'd be teleported to the vast empty space in between.
Given the enormous interplanetary distance, the time needed to send reinforcements was ridiculous.
From Saturn to Uranus took almost 6 days!
Uranus to Neptune took 6.3 days!
If the army really depended on purely space ships and took this much time, by the time reinforcements arrived at the site, the war would've long been over.
So 'Cluster Cities' were constructed.
