"Um, didn't we already plan to skip the Milky way galaxy?" Ning asked. Since the galaxy was being influenced by a heavy time warp, he had decided to skip that galaxy and go to the next one where Kumia was.
<Yes, but that was before you found out about the existence of Space Stones.>
"Oh, what does that change exactly?" Ning asked curiously.
Saphandra tried to listen to whatever conversation he was having with the system, but all she could do was hear his side of the conversation. But unfortunately, his words rarely gave insight onto what the system itself was saying.
<Space stones can be used not only for the space inside of it but for the power it gives to manipulate space itself>
"Uhh... does it? No, it does. Right, I just saw with the Space Drive," Ning said. The Space Drive was using Space stones to manipulate the ship into teleporting through space.
"How does that help me exactly?" Ning asked.
<The distance between this galaxy and the Milky way is nearly 4 Million light years. That distance will take you forever to trek through the vast space.>
"Wait, what the hell? 4 Million lightyears? Is that how far the Milky way is from here? What about Kumia?" Ning asked.
<Another 2.5 Million lightyears away>
Ning was devastated. Was that how far everything was normally? He hadn't realized. He had expected the galaxies to be closer to each other for some reason, however, listening to the number made him feel hopeless.
"Do we have any chance to make it back to Kumia in any good amount of time?" Ning asked.
<There is>
<Previously, you had a single choice regardless of if you wanted to visit the Milky Way galaxy or not>
<That was to gather enough energy to open a portal back to Kumia.>
<However, now that you know about space stones, you have 2 new choices aside from the last one.>
<The first choice is that you gather as many space stones as you can so that you can teleport right across without having to ever enter the Milky way galaxy.>
"But that will take a lot of Space stones, won't it?" Ning asked. "I will need about a million or two of the same-sized space stones as we saw earlier, right?"
<Not necessarily.>
<the teleportation from Space stones is done by squeezing the space inside of it to connect to another point in space. If the object you are using to travel in is smaller, then the space can be squeezed even thinner to reach farther.>
<For example, if you alone were to use the space stone from earlier, you would have been able to travel up to 20 times further.>
"Oh, so I could've gone over 300 lightyears if it was just me doing it?" Ning asked.
<Yes, and even further if you switch bodies to something that is smaller.>
"Hmm, say I change bodies to the size of one of those spiritual pearls, how much distance do you think I could cover with a cubic centimeter of space stone?" Ning asked.
For the ship, the answer was about 234 Billion Kilometers.
<You can travel up to 117 Trillion Kilometers if you were about 2 centimeters in diameter. Or in other words, 12 Lightyears.>
"Holy... I should have done that in the first place," Ning spoke out loud. "Wait, there's still time."
However, before he impulsively took action, he stopped. There was more to the system's words that he had to listen to.
Besides, what was he going to do after teleporting randomly without any destination?
"The way you just mentioned is quite good. If I had the stone from earlier, I could've teleported quite far away," Ning said.
<2164 Light-years>
"Holy shit that is far," Ning said to himself. "Still, the distance is 4 million lightyears, which means I will need one that is at least... how many times larger?"
<2000 times larger. You will need a space stone with a volume of 323.47 cubic meters.>
"Cubic meters..." Ning visualized the size of the space stone he would be needing and nearly lost his mind.
"And that is just to reach the Milky Way Galaxy. To cross it and then reach to Kumia, I will need one that is about half that size again, right?" he asked.
<Yes>
Ning nodded. "So, what's the next method?" he asked.
<The second method is to take a shortcut through the Multiverse.>
Ning's eyes shined. "I'm intrigued, to say the least. Go on."
<As mentioned a long time ago, multiple universes are on their way to passing through the Milky Way Galaxy. In total, there are 4.>
<Two of them are already conversing on the Milkyway Galaxy and making the space around it very flimsy.>
<Another one however is on route to getting very close but never crashing onto it. That Universe will go right past the edge of this galaxy.>
<So, if you were to use Space Stone to tear the fabric of the universe when it's very close and then enter it, you can ride that universe to the Milkyway Galaxy and pop out when it is very close.>
Ning's eyes went wide. "You can tear the walls of the universe using a space stone?" he asked.
<Yes, but it requires a lot of Space stones. It is only a viable situation currently because the universe is going to be very close.>
"Hmm," Ning thought for a moment. "What about time? You said I had to take a ride in that universe, right? So I should spend some time there? And considering it will be passing through here, then the time here must be starting to flow slower soon too."
Given how slow Earth's time was because of the galaxies being close to it, now Ning was starting to worry that this galaxy would also have its time slowed down, making it further impossible for him to get back to Kumia fast enough.
<You do not need to worry about that. The universe you will be going to is one that died in its infancy and only has a single sun.>
