Staring out at the rhythmic churn of the astral sea, the tides glimmer in streaks of violet, flowing like stardust rivers beyond comprehension, reflecting bursts of unseen energy, stretching far into the void.

Ezra stands still, observing, gazing into the expanse.

The constant undulation of stellar currents painted an entrancing image—an ever-shifting ocean of stars, planets, and phenomena that mankind had yet to understand.

His thoughts wander.

"Zydrax" Ezra said suddenly, his voice but a whisper.

Zydrax’s voice echoes within his head seconds later in the calm and familiar cadence

[Yes?]

"Do you know of any ungoverned or undiscovered land? Within the known universe or perhaps beyond it, some sort of base in the astral sea?" Ezra questions, without tearing his gaze from the view.

Zydrax’s response is tinged with chuckles, as though he’d heard something funny.

There was a pause, filled only by an indistinct hum coming from somewhere.

[None] Zydrax responds. [At least, none I know of. And even if there was one, it would have either been taken over or destroyed by now]

Ezra folds his arms, lips thinning into a pensive line, but doesn’t seem surprised.

It would have been suspicious if it were that easy.

He gazed deeper into the void, as though his will alone might part the veils of existence and reveal a new world hiding just past sight.

Ezra didn’t doubt whether or not he could really find new galaxies, what he remained apprehensive about is how long it might take.

Ezra thoughts drift toward the unknown as anxiety slowly heated up in his heart and crawled up his spine.

Sensing Ezra’s anxious energy, Zydrax interjects.

[You’re overthinking it. What you need isn’t a new cosmos] Zydrax said, his tone grounding. [Just one cluster. That’s anywhere from a hundred to ten thousand galaxies. It’s more than enough]

Ezra nods in response, his expression limpid.

[To do that, you’ll just have to find one galaxy, and you’ll likely stumble onto a few more nearby] Zydrax adds. [Galaxies are rarely in isolation]

Ezra blinks, surprised.

[This way, even if you don’t chance upon galaxy clusters, finding four to five galaxies shouldn’t be a problem]

Ezra nods.

Zydrax continues, a thoughtful tone seeping into his voice. [Except for your home galaxy,—Halostar. That place was either an anomaly... or more likely, we simply lacked the time and resources back them to check it’s surroundings]

"I still have the coordinates" Ezra interjects, his tone optimistic. "Perhaps we should return and search the surroundings? Who knows what we might find"

[Don’t ever bring that up again] Zydrax’s tone turns stern. [Or do you think it was for your enjoyment that I made you leave that place as fast as possible?]

There is a pause, as Zydrax’s tone becomes layered with memory and emotion, encasing the feeling of a person having seen the vicissitudes of time.

[The powers that be in the universe are beyond your understanding. I could explain, but it’s meaningless until you grow a lot stronger]

’Hmm...’ pondering to himself, Ezra decides to annul all further questions for the time being.

No matter how much of a dunce he would be, Ezra could clearly sense that Zydrax had touched upon memories he would rather not talk about.

And of course, for a being of his level in this situation, how could there not be a story behind it?

Twenty seconds goes by with neither party speaking.

[Still] Eventually, Zydrax broke the silence, [Even if you found a cluster, that doesn’t mean the journey there would be easy. Especially alone]

[If you truly wish to lead a solo expedition] Zydrax continues, [You’ll require a top-class spacecraft. I have run simulations — anything less and your survival probability falls beneath the minimum threshold for reasonable risk]

Ezra sighs. He had already suspected such an issue cropping up.

The logistics, the danger, the sheer scope of it—none of it was lost on him.

[You’ll need a top-class spacecraft specially designed for exploration, something with full self-sustainability, top notch mobility and most importantly, stealth. Drawing attention in the Astral Sea is an intent to commit suicide]

Ezra nodded slowly before pinching his forehead, "How much do you think it would cost?"

Zydrax: "..."

[Do I look like a communicator?]

"Hehe, sorry"

With a quick swipe through his communicator, Ezra sucks in a good amount of air.

The ones built for true exploration — not cargo shipping or inter-planetary luxury — ranged from 700 million to as much as 2 billion Crypt.

Even with over 300 million he had managed to amass from the deals with the Rosveller Foundation, he was barely scratching the halfway mark.

’So expensive!’ Ezra lampooned.

Sure, 300 million could buy a mid-tier craft now... but to use that on a solo trip, without support? Courting death!

Zydrax had made it painfully clear — solo expeditions required the best.

Not just to get where he wanted, but to survive what he might find.

"Hmm. Zydrax, don’t you perhaps have some stashes of treasures somewhere in the universe at a time like this..." Ezra questions.

[If you’re hoping for a treasure map, I’ve none to give] Zydrax replies dryly, chuckling.

Ezra doesn’t respond.

Regardless of his considerations, the problem has come full circle to right where it started.

Money. He needs money.

A lot more money.

Which meant, for now and until whenever the amount is eventually gathered, his plans for exploration are shelved.

And so he finds himself stuck.

[It seems this matter is concluded for now. I’ll be going] Zydrax states, taking his leave.

Sigh...

His synapsis fires off as he brainstorms possible solutions...nothing.

At least, nothing tangible.

Ezra felt like swearing, but ultimately did not.

Saving the marked out coordinates on his communicator for easy access, Ezra leaves the mission hall back to his residence.

For the foreseeable future, Ezra could imagine that things would not go anywhere as smoothly as he wanted.

Reaching his residence, Ezra enters deep thoughts, trying to grasp all the points in need of his consideration.

With little thinking, he marks the first one.

His people, specifically Frederick and the rest, are still very weak in the grand view of things.

The thought of acquiring new galaxies led naturally to what came next—what they would do once they did find new land?

Inevitably, this would mean an influx of a large amount of Transcendents.

Ezra held little doubts about this, after all, very little galaxies would be like the Halostar galaxy with only a Third rank Transcendent being its pinnacle of power.

In such a scenario, Frederick and the rest would inevitably be suppressed by the newcomers, which isn’t something Ezra wished to see.

After all, every new civilization, every sentient species discovered would have their own ambitions.

This meant he would have to push for them to reach nascent rank before inducting new galaxies, preferably.

In hindsight, this meant he would also have to focus on raising his own strength as well.

Thinking up to this point, Ezra clarifies with Zydrax that he indeed isn’t restricted from raising his cultivation level.

Marked down on the agenda, Ezra ponders what other things remain.

The image of a black dragon chained down and suppressed soon comes to mind.

Khasavar.

Honestly, for all his anger towards the dragon, Ezra hadn’t anything to him since tying him down with a chain, wasn’t this too good of a punishment

And thinking of it now, wasn’t this just a waste of manpower?

There simply has to be something more to be done with the fellow.

He needed to be put to work.

As for how...Ezra could think of a few ways.

For one, he would definitely work as a practice dummy for Frederick and the likes to better accustom themselves to fighting while flying at high speeds.

Battles between those at the Transcendent level and above would definitely be much more diverse in nature than the skirmishes on the ground most of them were used to.

Alongside this, there would certainly be other things Khasavar would be useful, Ezra just had to think of it.

Marking that at another point of consideration, Ezra shifts his direction of thinking to perhaps rediscover things he had previously forgotten about.

Almost instantaneously, he recalls the scene of nascent automatons in the desolate madlands secret realm, which seemed to be planning an uprising just a day ago.

....

With little gain in actively intervening, Ezra isn’t too interested in the matter.

’Although...it is probably my fault’

Wincing at the guilt, he deports the matter to the back of his mind with utmost haste, before looking for another thing to consider.

’Hmm...’

Nothing else comes to mind.

Except of course, for the final and most important point!

The need to create new income streams!

To whatever end, he still needed to gather enough money to get the top class spacecraft in an attempt to find new galaxies if he didn’t want to die young!

’But how?’

Ezra rubbed his temples. The gravity of it all was beginning to pile up.

The gears began to turn.

’Should I do mercenary work? No, that would take too long and there’s too high of a chance that I end attracting detrimental attention’

’Then, do I sell things? But what and to who?’ he thinks, once again stumped.

’Or should I just search for a proper target to steal it from?’ he wonders.

The last train of thought gains the most traction as Ezra tries to determine his odds in stealing items worth preferably such amounts.

’I have <Teleportation>, <Gatemark> and <Universal Concealment>....shouldn’t this be enough to steal from most places...?’

While pondering on this point, a spark is lit up as Ezra’s eyes brighten.

"Vorath!" he cheers, sitting upright "I had almost forgotten about him!"

With Ezra speaking of probably his worst enemy at present in such a tone, one could immediately guess that this fellow wasn’t thinking anything nice.

Just as predicted, Ezra’s figure vanishes from the bed two minutes later, and then a slight disturbance is felt a few seconds later.

Reappearing, Ezra finds himself in a familiar environment.

He had returned to the prismatic abyss, the secret realm where Vorath stayed.

Specifically, he had arrived at the inner compartment where Vorath had stashed all sorts of treasures and artifacts he didn’t have a use for!

This is what Ezra imagined when he cheered ’Vorath!’ earlier.

He had recalled his experience not too long ago of plundering quite a few of the artifacts here.

And now, while brainstorming ways of raising the needed 1 billion Cryst or more, it suddenly hit him!

Why couldn’t he just plunder this place and sell the artifacts?

In terms of demand, what could triumph over items that could increase one’s strength and potentially save their lives in crucial moments for higher beings? Nothing!

Moreover, each of the artifacts here or rather, artifacts in general, cost a lot of money in general.

So with such a stash, Ezra is guaranteed to gain far more than the needed 1 billion! Even 10 billion didn’t seem out of reach in face of such a large treasure horse!

Hahahaha!

Ezra arms shook slightly in excitement as he stared down the artifacts.

He held some apprehension that Vorath would have moved it or even destroyed it.

It seemed his worries lay unfounded.

To prevent Vorath from sensing something amiss like last time, Ezra used <Teleportation> to arrive here having recorded the coordinates since last time and had activated <Universal Concealment> beforehand.

<Teleportation> required time to charge up, hence the two minutes.

In anycase, his energy reserves aren’t infinite! So Ezra immediately got to work.

But just as his hand grabbed the first item in a bid to induct it into the sovereign universe, an anomaly occurred.

Strange markings etched into the artifact suddenly became visible, lighting up with a rich cerulean colour.

As Ezra examines it, his eyes perk up in shock as he sees that the entire compartment had lit up in the same cerulean light.

No! Not the walls! But the artifacts!

Every single artifact had lit up with etched carvings shining in cerulean light at the same instance.

And the light only grew brighter!

’OH! THIS BASTARD!’

Ezra subconsciously cursed as the reality of the situation dawned upon him.

Without time to get angry, he instinctively activates <Gatekeeper>

Right this instant... *BOOM!*

All the artifacts simultaneously imploded!