"Have you calmed down now?" Inala asked as he peeked out from behind the Prana Bomb wall and observed its front ridden with needles.
"I was calm all along," Asaeya dropped to the ground in exhaustion and stared at Gannala, "Until she triggered me."
"You caused me a severe rash. So, don't blame me." Gannala didn't relent and was more confident now that Asaeya wasted most of her Prana uselessly.
"Alright, it's time to leave, So, let's stop the fight now." Inala said and gathered the two ladies, "We'll return to the Mammoth Clan."
He then stared at Asaeya, "How's your strength now?"
"I'll reach the 2-Life Stage by the time we reach the Mammoth Clan." Asaeya said in confidence, "It has been close to twenty years after all."
"Considering the amount of information and resources you consumed, it would have been terrifying if you still failed to reach the 2-Life Stage." Gannala snarkily commented from the side.
"Don't we need to clean this place up?" Asaeya stared at the mess she had created. She waved her hand, using psychokinesis to lift six needles at a time, and bundled them up quickly.
Seeing Asaeya ignore her and focus on cleaning up the place, Gannala pouted in boredom before she too began to clean the place of all traces of their recent battle. There wasn't any enmity between her and Asaeya. They just fought to curb their boredom and vent their stress. It was their coping mechanism.
Considering how much they fought until now, it had become their habit. And once Asaeya's new Tertiary Nature took root, she had become strong enough to keep up with Gannala.
Upon completing the cleanup, Inala stared at Gannala, "Equip yourself now."
"Okay," Gannala nodded as she approached the boulder and entered the Tertiary Nature slot of the dazed, middle-aged woman. Immediately in response, the middle-aged woman's eyes opened. It took them three months to obtain this body and after a lot of effort. So, she was extremely valuable.
Mutated Beginner Gold Grade Pranic Beast—Millinger!
It was hard to find a Centinger colony led by a lone Millinger, especially one that was a female. Upon capturing it, Gannala had to spend the past two years influencing its body and mind to finally reach a level where she could control it.
Even now, Gannala wasn't able to fight like her prime in this middle-aged woman's body, but she was getting there. Probably within the next five to ten years, she'll fully influence the body to behave perfectly in sync with her thoughts.
Prime Skill—Gannala!
She had been using it repeatedly. And despite that, the Millinger's body was naturally birthing its own consciousness after some time, thanks to the influence generated by its own Natures, especially Inhibition Dome. It was why Gannala needed such a long duration.
But even a decade was nothing when compared to the strength unleashed by a Millinger, especially one equipped with Gannala's powers.
Primary Nature—Bone-Melting Artillery!
Secondary Nature—Inhibition Dome!
Tertiary Nature—Internal Inertial Gravity, Weaponisation, Cultivator!
Gannala was a powerhouse in this form. Once she influences the Millinger body into being compatible with Mystic Bone Art, her true power could be unleashed, one that would instantly elevate her to the levels of the top experts of Sumatra Continent.
Four strings of Prana jutted out of Inala as two of them coiled around Gannala and Asaeya respectively. The third condensed a Prana Bomb and transformed it into a Sumatra Zinger, beginning to suck in air rapidly.
"Hold tight," Inala said and pointed the Sumatra Zinger into the air to shoot. In that moment, he enveloped the trio in a Prana Bomb and filled it with the power of Internal Inertial Gravity, ensuring they wouldn't be rattled by the shockwaves while also reducing their weight to the limit.
A Prana Bomb shot out of the Sumatra Zinger, coiled around by the fourth string of Prana that rapidly surged Prana into it and instantly increased its weight.
As a result, once the Prana Bomb flew into the air and reached a distance of 180 metres, it pulled the weightless large Prana Bomb—containing the trio of Inala, Gannala, and Asaeya—with it.
After some time, once it had reached the peak of its altitude, the fourth string let go of the Prana Bomb and retreated into the Sumatra Zinger that shot another Prana Bomb, one that increased in weight after leaving the gun.
It carried the trio even higher. Inala repeated the process until their altitude reached six kilometres from the ground. The air was mildly thinner here but wasn't much of an issue. The large Prana Bomb covering them shattered.
Stage 3—Empyrean!
Inala transformed into his Empyrean Zinger form and stretched his wings to the limit, gliding forth as seated on his back were Gannala and Asaeya, eyeing the scenery with refreshed gazes. The altitude of six kilometres was a comfortable height.
It wasn't too high that even breathing would be difficult. And in the same vein, it wasn't too low that Pranic Beasts could spot him and target him from the ground or the mountains.
As there were no flying creatures in Sumatra, staring up at the sky wasn't a habit the Pranic Beasts had. Even the Zingers at the Dieng Canyon only glided between the mountains there, never exceeding the altitude of the region itself.
But here he was, high up in the sky thanks to the mixture of abilities he possessed. As his male form had reached the peak of the Body Stage, he could fully assume his Empyrean Zinger form, for the first time experiencing with his own body what it meant to fly.
Of course, before he tried this personally, Inala had experimented with his Empyrean Zingers to fine-tune the method. That was why the mysterious eye didn't manifest itself to target him, since throughout this process, Inala was simply shooting himself into the sky as a projectile.
And only after reaching the maximum altitude would he begin to glide.
When he wanted to increase his altitude once again, he'd assume human form, envelop his group in a large Prana Bomb, and shoot themselves up in the same method as before. As he was doing this while not having the means necessary for flight, and since his Prana Bomb was only spherical in shape, the eye didn't appear.
During the experiment, the eye appeared once when an Empyrean Zinger made a shot while gliding around. For an instant, its body accelerated while possessing the means to fly. As a result, the eye appeared and erased its limbs, causing the Empyrean Zinger to splatter to the ground.
It was an accident the first time, so Inala was unable to experiment fully. He then left two Empyrean Zingers in a region and made them perform the same experiment while he had fled far away.
In the same fashion as before, the Empyrean Zinger accelerated while gliding, causing its actions to be assumed as flight for an instant, following which its limbs disappeared as the eye appeared.
The second Empyrean Zinger was ready and managed to catch it. After the eye vanished, the Empyrean Zinger that had lost its limbs shrieked to inform that it was okay to arrive, only after which did Inala come to the scene and inspect it.
Even after seeping Prana into the region, the Empyrean Zinger's limbs never regenerated. Inala made cuts at the socket and watched as the cuts regenerated to become stumps. But the limbs never formed ever again, as if they never existed in the first place.
His second experiment was to check if it was possible to reach the Transcendent World through this shooting method. An Empyrean Zinger with a large reserve of Prana Bombs stashed in its stomach biome made the journey, continuing to head upwards.
Soon, the density of the air had become so thin that it was impossible to suck in the air fast enough for the Sumatra Zinger to shoot before the Empyrean Zinger's body fell through the covered height. It then used the reserve of air in the biome of its lungs to continue upward, soon reaching a stratum with air so lacking in density that it could be deemed negligible.
But even then, when it peered up, the size of the Transcendent World remained the same as when viewed from the ground. It meant that the Transcendent Worlds was so far away that the distance covered by the Empyrean Zinger remained negligible.
As a result, Inala concluded that it was impossible to travel to the Transcendent Worlds using traditional means. Even if he figured out a method to have enough fuel for the shooting method, he would probably have to travel for decades, if not centuries, and still not reach a Transcendent World.
It was easier to become a Transcendent and reach the Transcendent World the conventional way. Inala recalled his thoughts from that time as he continued to glide through the sky, making multiple stops along the way to rest and recover.
Soon, sixteen days after he began the travel, Asaeya erupted with Prana as her presence grew stronger, finally reaching the 2-Life Stage. At the same time, Inala noticed far away, near the horizon, a row of moving mountains, smiling as a feeling of nostalgia enveloped him, "We're back home,"
"To the Mammoth Clan."