Inside Sansara World 2.0. Maya's courtyard.
"So how's the progress so far?"
Eren asked Alephee and Maya as soon as he met them. The strange world created by Sansara Sage had been bustling with activity for a few months, courtesy of Eren's aim to enter one of the Immortal Planes.
The Sansara World 2.0 provided the right kind of environment for the task. It was as if the Sansara Sage himself wanted his successor to get outside of Anfang and find him.
Alephee looked at Maya, gesturing to her to answer Eren's query. The latter looked in a particular direction before answering.
"If things go well, we'll be able to open a stable connection within nine days. Maybe even before that, if we get a bit lucky, that is," Maya answered truthfully while sipping on her tea.
"So roughly a week? That means we are right on schedule," Eren smiled as he looked at the two ladies with an appreciating nod. He knew that both of them worked hard to make this possible within such a short time. Even if they had Sansara Sage's research data and guidelines to work on, it was them who had done all the groundwork.
Eren knew that if it was only him, it would have taken him three years at the very least to achieve the kind of progress the two had achieved in a few months. This was not because Eren's Ranking Status was low or because he was less talented than Maya or Alephee in this field. It was just that the experiments related to opening a gate to traverse the Immortal Planes were unpredictable half of the time.
"Indeed. Have you wrapped up all your affairs here, Eren?" Alephee asked curiously while indulging in the flavourful aroma and taste of the same tea Maya was having. One could say that Maya had turned Alephee into a bit of a tea lover like her.
"Well, I have done all that I can," Eren said while shrugging his shoulders. "However, new things just keep popping up like wild mushrooms," he said with a bitter smile.
***
Eren's last few months were pretty hectic. This was why he had been using his clones to split his workload. He had multitasked like no other, allowing him to make the most of his limited time in Anfang.
It was not that Eren had only invested time in his business endeavors. He had also made sure to bid goodbyes to the women he was involved with personally. Some did not take the news of him leaving Anfang as lightly as Nina. However, all of them understood that it was probably for the best that Eren was leaving.
After all, as things were, one could say that Eren had a target painted on his back. There were just too many Sages who were after his life. They had only stopped themselves from targeting Eren directly because they were afraid of his trump cards.
However, the more Eren stayed idle in Anfang, the bolder the Sages targeting him would get. They were bound to muster enough courage in them to attack Ravendale and deal with the butcher personally.
Sage Zavir from the Anfang Alliance was personally motivated to kill Eren the first chance he got. His son had died because he was unable to survive the half-blood transformation Eren had triggered to execute the Lazarus Project.
The current Anfang was too unstable. The calamities had ended and the world was on the course of recovering itself anew. This was an idle time for the Sages from the Anfang Alliance to get rid of the massive threat they all had in the form of Eren.
Eren needed to disappear from Anfang for some time for things to cool down. Only after his disappearance could Ravendale try to pitch for non-aggression pacts with the rest of the world.
Some of Eren's allies wanted to come with Eren. His monster underlings like Baran, Sharog, and Kaalmaahen wanted him to influence his decision so that he would visit Echidna and they'd be able to visit that world along with him.
Even the S-Ranked monsters like Parmar, Loma, Rawood Khal, and Kayini had somehow got the wind of Eren's eventual departure from Anfang. They too wanted to visit Echidna with him in search of something that would allow them to break past their current ranks.
Thanks to the bloodline memories the monsters had inherited about Echidna from their birth, they all knew that there was a bigger realm out there where the fabled S-Rank from Anfang held little significance. If they wanted to exceed the standards set in Anfang, they needed to step outside along with Eren.
However, Eren didn't want to take all of his monster allies with him. He was unsure about how the Immortal Planes worked and taking these monsters with him might complicate things for him during such a precarious journey.
Nevertheless, Eren decided to respect the feelings of his underlings and allies. He was going to make Sansara World 2.0 accessible to his allies. All so that they could use the arrangements left behind by him to travel to the worlds they desired.
As such, Eren encouraged his monster allies to explore Echidna on their own when the time was ripe. He was sure that after he succeeded in traveling through the Immortal Planes, the data collected from his journey would help those who wanted to leave Anfang after him.
The butcher told his monster army that they would probably be able to meet on Echidna if and when he decided to enter the world meant for the Children of Echidna. In a way, he had asked his monster underlings to establish their own domain of influence in Echidna when they found themselves on Echidna one day.
He hoped that his monster underlings would be able to create their own space in a world full of "monsters". All so that he could rely on them and their potential connections in the future when he finally decided to visit Echidna.
