This was probably the first time since Medivh transformed to such a large size that she took off from flat ground: although she had already grown large when she left this world before, she hadn’t reached this scale yet. When she was in Vanilla’s world, she was stuck in the valley’s surface rocks, and after returning to Earth, we had never let her fly in her true form (mainly because we feared she might cause a traffic accident; the air traffic in Shadow City is quite busy, and that bird has astigmatism...). As a result, that bird had no idea how much racket her every leap can cause now. When she took off, she blew away a group of people—two unlucky Reviewers were even blown back to where they started just after stepping out of the Dimension Hub’s door.

After Medivh left Shadow City, we temporarily lost contact with them. However, this was expected. It is confirmed that the world where Vanilla resides is far from the Macro World Network, an unknown and very distant region. Although the Void has no concept of distance, each world’s "frequency" differs, and when this difference reaches a certain level, it leads to the necessity of readjusting the Spiritual Connection of Xyrin Apostles to connect (even the Divine Race cannot avoid this issue, which is why the connection between the Star Domain and Huron is not close, so much so that in the Empire, Huron has almost become a Divine System known by name only). Thus, rebuilding the Spiritual Connection from Vanilla’s world to Earth might take a day or two.

Anwina was quite worried about this, afraid that losing contact for one or two days might lead to Little Crow being sold: this is what she thought.

Therefore, we let Lilina and Big Sister follow Little Crow and Vanilla to effectively prevent that silly bird from being sold.

I am not worried about this four-person group encountering any problems because, aside from Vanilla who doesn’t have much fighting prowess, the remaining three can be described as possessing both combat power and intelligence. Unless fighting against the Abyss Army, I firmly believe that Lilina alone can overturn the entire world, and Lin Xue has prophesied that the world is unexpectedly safe.

Thus, everything went smoothly, and the next evening we received the first message sent back by Big Sister: they had safely arrived to their target world. The "landing" process went very smoothly; this time, Little Crow didn’t crash headfirst into the ground. That silly bird has at least one praiseworthy trait: her second attempt at landing in giant size was far superior to a certain foolish Dragon God’s level.

However, Big Sister also mentioned that their arrival still caught the attention of the local natives. It seems that when they glided through the sky, there happened to be a human settlement directly below them. Medivh’s impressive image illuminated almost hundreds of kilometers, and Lilina is already planning to include this landing in the Bible. Big Sister expressed being overwhelmed with mixed feelings about this. Now, they are still working to determine their landing position, because being unfamiliar with the terrain, they couldn’t successfully find the area where Vanilla lives, nor could they search for it. Vanilla herself doesn’t even know Earth is round, and she could not figure out the location of her hometown in the world.

The transmitter inside Little Crow worked successfully, and Shadow City soon received coordinate requests from deep within the Void. This coordinate signal startled us a bit—it was much farther than previously imagined!

It’s nearly beyond the frontier of all Void territories explored by the Empire and the Star Domain combined (meaning, even in the Old Empire’s extraordinarily large map, it’s located on the frontier). The coordinates of that world are strange and unfamiliar, not belonging to any known Quadrant, and they are so distant that Taville initially suspected a malfunction of the transmitter. After analyzing these coordinates, Taville said that it might take her a few more days to calibrate the World Gate well enough to send our family over.

The only thing worth celebrating is that the coordinates are still within the transmission limits of our current equipment; if they were as far as the Huron Divine Domain, we could only send a text message to call back Big Sister and the others.

This time, Shandora and I were truly simultaneously startled, indeed an unexpected "surprise"—coordinates belonging to what is considered a "wild region" in the Old Empire’s Star Map and the Star Domain Divine Race database? How did that silly bird manage to jump over without taking a breath!

"It seems that Medivh’s secrets are more than one," commented Shandora, "Is this also due to the affinity with the Void? Because without any consumption, it allows moving freely within the Void?"

I felt particularly envious, jealous, and resentful, as well as out of balance: "Why is it like this? I myself couldn’t accomplish this."

Lin Xue reassuringly patted my shoulder, "Balance it out, you know the second generation is always more impressive than the first generation. Maybe if you go to the Divine Realm and have a few drinks with Father God, you’ll feel better..."

Facing Lin Xue’s Divine remarks, I was often left speechless; this girl’s ability to find the critical spot is too strong. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

For the experts in the research center, whenever a new thing appears, it brings with it a pile of new problems. With just Little Crow, it triggered more than ten research projects. Originally only one project team was responsible for tracking and observing that bird, now it has expanded into two expert teams, even one of Taville’s Mass Projections personally supervises it. Perhaps their next subject might be to verify that bird’s travel limit within the Void, and verify whether all newly-promoted individuals within the Xyrin Divine System possess this almost unscientific traversal ability—but I think this should be a special case for Little Crow, because although this ability does not count as combat ability, even the Star Domain Gods have never heard of it, in theory, not many of such high-end technology can be mass-produced. Unfortunately, that naughty kid Xiao Xue has grown so large and still is muddled about matters and people around her sometimes, she also couldn’t know how the silly bird flew so far within the Void at once. Upon hearing the news we brought back, she excitedly bounced over to me asking question after question, appearing more surprised than anyone.

However, in the end, she inadvertently revealed a piece of information. Xiao Xue muttered a phrase: "No wonder I saw ’Messenger Crow God’ mentioned in a religious pamphlet before."

"Messenger Crow God?" I felt as if I grasped some future little secret, "Like a Messenger Pigeon?"

Xiao Xue shook her head and recited: "The Crow God is the Supreme God’s Messenger, traveling with storm and thunder, capable of instantaneously reaching any world—I picked up a pamphlet with this sentence in school when I was little, but I never paid attention to it. Do you think this implies that Sister Bird has phenomenal crossing ability in the Void?"

I casually patted the girl, "Girls shouldn’t always say ’phenomenal’ all the time."

Lin Xue nodded in agreement, "Exactly, your dad is right, girls should be mindful of their upbringing..."

I glared at Miss, "Isn’t it you who taught her!"

What Xiao Xue said should be true, so if that’s the case, Medivh’s ability seems to be unique: having transiting abilities surpassing any God in the Void? I cannot attribute this to combat strength, but it’s indeed a decent special ability, due to this technique, that bird in the future is regarded as the Messenger of Gods; this really is a Xyrin-flavored divine story...

We ended up being unexpectedly delayed at home for several days; previously, Taville’s calculations were too optimistic. Establishing a reliable and stable transmission channel to a totally wild quadrant with only the coordinates known was quite a test of technology, especially since the ones going to depart are a group of leaders from the Empire, she dared not leave any risks. Therefore, everyone only prepared to depart on the tenth day. During this time we kept in contact with Big Sister and others, Lilina reportedly started winning over the natives as believers, she’s actively testing Medivh’s divine power form, apparently forgetting that she’s supposed to be a follower of the Life Goddess. However, most of the time, Big Sister still just chatted with me idly, she only mentioned everything was fine in her situation, whatever Lilina was working on, wait for us to go and see the "surprise": which aroused my curiosity more and more.

This time, I almost took all the idle people at home along, including Little Baobao and Sayaka—they both took special leave from school to join this family expedition, but it’s said that Sayaka wrote "going to war with Imperial Brother" as the reason on her leave note... Well, at least it fully proves she’s totally mixed in with us.

Little Baobao’s leave note was written with Bubbles’ help, stating the reason for the teacher as "following Father Emperor to battle".

I genuinely wonder how the respectable teachers at Imperial Military Academy regularly deal with these cheeky royal relatives.

After an experience more dizzying and stomach-churning compared to past transports, with even Shandora furrowing her brow in stating this transmission’s stability is too poor, our vision blurred, and we arrived in another world. The white light hadn’t yet dispersed from our view, first rushing into our nostrils was the exceptionally fresh and slightly cool air, carrying the scent of grass and earth—seems we landed in a well-conditioned environment.

Though it can’t compare to the area near the World Tree and Avalon.

"Oh, it seems like this world has done a good job with environmental protection, or maybe we’re just in an uninhabited area," Lin Xue looked around and then greedily took a deep breath of the fresh air, "I love the smell of earth."

Here was a prairie, or perhaps it was more accurately a terrain of very gentle vegetative hills. I looked around, seeing only a vast expanse of endless green grass like an ocean of emerald rippling under the breeze. In the distance, I could see some gentle sloping mounds, surrounded by low shrubs and brightly colored unknown plants. Above was a clear, almost cloudless sky, with the bright sky making it seem exceptionally high, to the point where gazing at it for a while would bring on dizziness. The time should be near noon, with a sun here that looked larger than the one seen from Earth but did not appear scorching or dazzling—perhaps the star structure in this world is quite different from Earth. Overall, this is a place that makes one feel very refreshed.

"Look at these materials," Bingdisi bent down and pulled up a wild grass, which immediately twined around her finger as if in pain, "the material composition method is quite similar to Earth, but the cellular structure differs greatly. Taking a deep breath—I can smell many familiar basic particles and particle pairing rules, with twelve fundamental material composition methods suffusing the world... Ha, the foundational template of this world definitely comes from a place I’m familiar with, possibly where the Star Domain bordered the Old Empire back in the day."

I felt a bit confused, but I basically understood her meaning: "Are you saying this world might have been created by the Divine Race? Then why would it be in such a desolate place?!"

"Not made by the Divine Race," Bingdisi shook her head decisively, "I didn’t sense any remnants of world management terminal information, but there’s a hypothesis that naturally generated worlds also have foundational templates used for categorization. Based on experience, I judge this world probably emerged near Divine Race territories because its inclination toward order is very apparent, a result of the Star Domain’s influence. As for why it’s here..."

"Haven’t we encountered enough strange things?" Lin Xue shrugged and waved her hand, "Let’s just consider it a super drift phenomenon. I can’t figure out the cause and effect, so what can you deduce? Speaking of which... where is that bird, anyway?"

I looked as far as I could into the expansive prairie, but even with such a wide field of view, I couldn’t see the silhouette of that gigantic silly bird, so I used a Spiritual Connection to contact Big Sister: "Sis, we’re here, where are you?"

It seemed Big Sister was momentarily surprised before responding oddly, "Right near the coordinates where you teleported. Didn’t we send you a set of coordinates? We haven’t moved since arriving here, so just follow those coordinates to teleport."

I quietly surveyed the surroundings: a vast prairie, endless and desolate.

"Sis, we’re currently at the coordinates you sent over. Something might be a bit off. We’re in a prairie, in the distance only..." I hadn’t finished when Big Sister interrupted herself: "No, we’re in mountainous terrain, with a human town nearby. Prairie? Based on what we know these days, there’s no prairie or anything like that nearby."

"What’s wrong?" Qianqian asked with concern upon seeing my odd expression.

"Something’s not right," I explained the situation, "it seems we’ve gotten separated from Big Sister and the others... Not exactly separated, I’m sure the coordinates are correct, but we’ve been teleported to a different place. Lin Xue, could you take a look?"

"No problem," the Prophet Girl immediately closed her eyes to search for the truth we overlooked, but moments later, she opened her eyes, perplexed, "Kaleidoscope..."

Holy crap, did you awaken the Sharingan?

Luckily, I held back that remark, managing not to voice it at a time when it wasn’t appropriate to jest, or else this Miss might throw another fit.

"I saw a fragmented world structure with many things collapsing chaotically together, forming a pattern like a shattered mirror, with something puzzling on each fragment. These scenes fractured my vision... Fine, it seems you’re dizzy now, let me spell it out: at our current position, there are several worlds collapsed together like the pages of a book. Now, we and that bird are on different pages."

"Are you saying, parallel worlds?" I thought of a very close term.

"Broadly speaking," Lin Xue waved dismissively, "but it’s definitely more complicated than that. If it were typical parallel worlds, they wouldn’t interfere with an Empire Technology-made teleport conduit. Even from Shadow City over here, it shouldn’t be like this. Intuition tells me the layered state of this world has a very complex origin, and its structure goes beyond just parallel worlds."

Lin Xue’s words left me half understanding and half not, and meanwhile, it seemed like the others were discussing as well. After a while, Lilina’s voice came through: "Boss, we asked Vanilla about it, and she said you might have landed in the Ancient Garden."

"Ancient Garden?" I looked around, "There’s only a big prairie here."

"That’s the Ancient Garden; this world seems to have many marvelous places we didn’t expect. Ha, I’ve been here for several days, and this is the first time I’ve heard that term. Just now Vanilla mentioned there are periodic occurrences of ’miracles’ in this world. When ’miracles’ happen, many mysterious zones appear before people’s eyes, and the Ancient Garden is one of those mysterious zones. Boss, I guess this might be a phenomenon of parallel spaces opening up. The regions for the upcoming miracle will include the Ancient Garden, so the parallel space barriers became fragile, then you guys teleported to the wrong place..."

Sandora, who was listening in, frowned and asked, "Why are we just learning about these things now?"

"There’s nothing we can do; a world is too complex, and many phenomena that seem perplexing to us are regarded as longstanding habits by the locals," Lilina’s voice sounded mature beyond her years, "Just asked Vanilla, and she always assumed that Shadow Space being related to us was just the ’miracle’ phenomenon of this world. She never mentioned such settings in this world, and while we were here, we hadn’t encountered anything like it, so naturally, we only just found out."

I quickly organized what Lilina said. Though it was still not enough to understand the strange state of this world, it was sufficient to comprehend my current location: very likely a parallel space to where Big Sister and the others were, same coordinates but in another dimension. I looked at Sandora, voicing my thought: "Do you think it seems like a naturally occurring Shadow Space?"

"Who knows?" Sandora didn’t care much, then unfolded her Personal Space and pulled out a bunch of things. "The Void is too elusive; what kind of world it might generate is anybody’s guess, even one with inherent stratification."

"Uh, what are you planning to do? That pile of stuff is..."

"Probes. Without knowing the structure of this world, punching through parallel spaces rashly might destroy inhabited spaces. I plan to release some probes first to at least know how large this so-called ’Ancient Garden’ parallel space is, then find a safe breakthrough point to rendezvous with your sister."

Sandora said as she deftly activated those small, exquisite Probe Launchers. Hundreds of silver probes emitted a low buzzing sound as they swarmed upward toward the sky. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)