Miyamoto felt the cold winds sweeping across his body as he trekked up the mountain. Many of the ice elementals noticed him, but none approached as he soon reached the summit where this powerful beast known as the Northpeak Wyvern should reside.

Admittedly, an environment like this was far from favorable to him, as his water affinity was severely weakened due to the cold, but he was still confident. Its level more or less matched him, and while the vampire raid team described the wyvern as powerful, the mere fact any of them managed to return alive and that they could injure the beast was proof that it shouldn’t be a threat to him.

As described, he found the cavern atop the mountain, and within, he felt the presence of a monster. The last update he got before he headed off from Haven said that the captured vampires were still alive, but he feared things may have changed as he only felt the presence of a single living being within.

If it was so, the least he could do was enact vengeance. The Prima Response Team, as the people in charge of preparing for the Prima Guardian’s arrival called themselves, had designated this wyvern too dangerous to leave alive anyway, so someone would have to slay it anyway. May as well be him.

Walking through the cavern, he was ready should it attack with a breath, as he had been informed the wyvern was extraordinarily aggressive and impossible to talk to, and the design of the cave made it a perfect choke point to-

“Excuse me, can I help you with anything?” a voice echoed through the cave as the Sword Saint stopped and frowned. The tone did not carry the level of arrogance he had expected, but he wasn’t going to let his guard down.

He responded as he infused his voice with energy. “I hope for your sake you can. A group of vampires recently fought you here, and I believe a number of them were captured alive.”

“That… that was all a misunderstanding that has been rectified,” the wyvern responded in a meek tone, making the Sword Saint frown even more. Usually, the data provided by members of his clan was extremely accurate, but the current situation certainly wasn’t in line with his expectations. Had he somehow gotten the wrong mountain? No… no, that wouldn’t make any sense.

“I question your claims, but please enlighten me as to the nature of your rectification,” he responded, not far from his goal.

“It’s… fine if you come to the big cavern to talk…”

Continuing through the cave, he soon reached the inner cave, where he saw the large wyvern nested in the middle. He was ready to draw his sword but felt no aggression as he got a nervous impression from the wyvern.

“Gre… greetings,” the wyvern said, seemingly trying really hard to be polite.

The Sword Saint didn’t respond immediately but scanned the room and saw no immediate signs of any trapped vampires. “What happened to the vampires you captured?”

“They left,” the wyvern responded quickly. “I, eh, I let them go, and they left a few days ago…”

Narrowing his eyes, Miyamoto placed one hand on the handle of his sword. “And why would you just let them go?”

“I saw the error of my ways?” the wyvern responded before seemingly nodding to itself as if to confirm the answer.

“Do excuse me if I question the validity of any creature changing their entire manner of acting so abruptly,” the Sword Saint said skeptically as he looked directly at the wyvern. “Unless there is more than one Northpeak Wyvern, you are known for attacking indiscriminately any who dares set foot atop this mountain, and you mean to tell me that has suddenly changed within a couple of days?”

“Yes?” the wyvern responded, staring unblinkingly at the Sword Saint. “I, eh… learned my lesson and will no longer be a menace, but always talk first and not just attack.”

“Forgive me for my continued skepticism, but what was the impetus for this change?”

“Impetus?” the wyvern asked, seemingly not understanding what the word meant.

“Reason. Cause. What event caused you to have such a sudden shift in behavior?” the Sword Saint elaborated. He hoped the wyvern had a satisfactory answer; if not, he wasn’t averse to doing what he originally came to this mountain to do, even if the wyvern claimed it had suddenly wisened up, as everything could easily just be a ruse to avoid powerful people actually slaying it. It would need a really good rea-

“The Chosen of the Malefic Viper visited, and-”

Yeah, alright, that’ll do it.

More than two weeks passed, with Jake doing almost fuck-all in the progress department. Instead, he spent all this time just relaxing with his family, doing a variety of activities. He watched pretty bad TV shows with his dad, went shopping with his mom, and talked with Maja while playing with Adam.

Caleb sadly still had to do a lot of work, but he tried to be home as much as possible. Alas, he was still the Judge of the Court of Shadows, and he had certain responsibilities he simply couldn’t divvy out no matter how much he wanted to. Jake was sure happy he had managed to outsource all his responsibilities.

A lot of people would probably say Jake was wasting his time just relaxing with his family. He barely did any alchemy, only when Adam was sleeping – yes, children still had to sleep – or when everyone else was preoccupied. When he did do a bit of alchemy, he only ever made some potions and stuff, never focusing that much on the task.

Even so, Jake didn’t regret this time in the slightest. He wasn’t in some extreme rush to optimize every single second of his day, and in some ways, he even felt like a moment of downtime like this would be healthy for him in the long run, even from a progress perspective.

This time around, Jake didn’t help Caleb with any kind of presence-resistance training either. Partly because Caleb didn’t want to go with Jake and do it, taking them both away from spending quality family time. Jake wasn’t complaining either, as he was totally fine, not helping train shadow assassins and learning all about what kids Adam’s age played with after the system arrived.

Things had definitely changed for parents and nearly all for the better. Things like sickness weren’t really a thing anymore, and many of the usual woes of children were no longer a factor. Kids were also a lot more durable. Adam could climb a dozen meters up into a tree and just jump down without any issues, and while he was still pretty damn clumsy, he wasn’t ever really hurt, even when he tripped and tumbled down a grassy hill. Instead, he asked to go again.

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It definitely took a bit of getting used to. If Adam did end up injuring himself somehow, a simple healing spell or potion could also instantly fix the problem. Still, Maja was very protective at times. As an example, she rejected Jake and Caleb’s idea of putting Adam in a ball of stable arcane mana and throwing it around up in the sky, no matter how much the three of them begged her to let them.

They ended up doing it anyway but got quite a scolding afterward, even if Adam had a great time.

He didn’t speak to Villy at all during this time either but disconnected as much as he could from that entire part of his life. It was a nice reprieve for sure, and he had formed some good memories. Hopefully, he had also given Adam some positive memories of his cool uncle.

Alas, all things have to come to an end. One day, when he was sitting with Adam playing with stable arcane mana constructs, Jake making whatever shape Adam wanted to see, he got the message he knew would eventually come.

It even happened a bit later than Jake expected, not that Jake was in any way complaining about that. During his entire visit, he had just been waiting for Sandy to contact him for them to begin their own little adventure. He had expected this to only take a few days, but as mentioned, it ended up taking more than two weeks, with Arnold definitely getting a lot of good data from the giant space worm.

In fact, from the sounds of it, when Jake talked to the worm later, Sandy only left because the scientist had run out of snacks the worm’s dietitian approved of. While the dietitian couldn’t go out of Sandy’s stomach, he could check through the things Sandy ate and make the giant space worm spit out whatever wasn’t part of the meal plan.

According to Sandy, even if the worm had left before the scientist would have liked, Arnold had been quite happy and talked about how he could combine the data provided by Sandy with what he had gathered from the spaceship Jake had been gifted during his Chosen Ceremony and what he already knew from researching the ruined ship he purchased during the Treasure Hunt auction.

Jake was already looking forward to what kind of spacecrafts he would make, though it did sound like he was primarily working on improving his satellites before making any ships designed for travel. Plus, knowing Arnold, he would definitely want to do a lot of testing first to make sure he got things right the first time.

Finally… Jake already had a living spaceship available by the name of Sandy.

“I’m wriggling to you now,” Sandy had sent to Jake as they headed off from Haven, which also marked the end of his family visit. “Should be there in a jiffy.”

“Are you sure wriggling is the right term? Not flying or teleporting?” Jake asked semi-jokingly.

“I’m the expert here, and the correct term is wriggling. What else would it be? I am wriggling, after all,” Sandy responded, leaving little room for discussion.

“Alright, alright… I’ll be waiting,” Jake said as he looked at his family, who had noticed his change in demeanor. They had just eaten dinner, and everyone sat in the lounging area on sofas, just talking.

“It’s time for you to head off?” Caleb asked, having realized pretty quickly.

“Yeah,” Jake nodded with a sigh.

“Jake is leaving?” Adam asked, confused.

“Sorry buddy, adventure calls,” Jake smiled as he ruffled the little guy’s hair.

“Where are you going?” his nephew kept asking.

Jake flashed a big smile as he pointed upwards. “To the moon.”

Adam’s eyes opened wide in amazement as Jake’s mom scolded him. “You shouldn’t just make up stories like that.”

“I’m serious,” Jake responded with a deadpan look. “I’m literally going to the moon.”

“Are you going on a rocket ship?” Adam asked, incredibly invested.

“No, something even better,” Jake said. “A big space worm.”

Jake’s mom once more threw him a look, but the gaze he returned made it clear he also wasn’t joking with this one, making Jake’s dad chuckle. Adam looked a bit skeptical, though, making Jake shake his head.

“You don’t believe me?”

Adam didn’t answer but looked at his mom as if he expected Maja to confirm if Jake was telling the truth.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, I won’t let you meet the big space worm,” Jake said, acting offended as he crossed his arms.

“I wanna see…” Adam muttered, Jake taking the victory. It was not like he had much of a choice because if he knew Sandy, the worm would have absolutely no sense of caution or forethought with how they would approach Jake. He was also sure Sandy would indeed arrive fast and have no issues finding him.

One had to remember that Jake carried around a weird rock-egg-thing Sandy had given him, which was apparently the result of the skill Sandy had gained upon receiving the True Blessing of the Boundless Hydra, better known as the Lord Protector of the Order of the Malefic Viper, and even better known as Snappy.

This weird item allowed Sandy to always be aware of where Jake was by tracking that odd item.

As Jake predicted, it didn’t take long before Sandy arrived in an as chaotic manner as Jake expected. With little warning, a hundred-meter-long giant space worm fell from the sky, landing right in the middle of the road outside, barely missing any of the houses, though definitely doing plenty of damage to the pavement.

Jake’s parents, along with Maja, were shocked as Adam ran outside the house and saw the giant mass of wiggling flesh.

“Big worm!” Adam yelled as he ran forward, Maja going to grab him as they all exited the house.

“Hello, little human! And other humans that are also little, but not as little!” Sandy said in a cheerful tone. “Also, did I stick that landing or not, eh?”

“I am indeed surprised you didn’t break anything. Well, break more than you did,” Jake said as he walked forward and introduced the worm. “This is Sandy, everyone. A friend of mine and my travel companion for my upcoming adventure.”

“More than a travel companion! I am the very mode of transportation itself!” Sandy said proudly.

“Are you gonna ride the big worm?” Adam asked with amazement.

“In a way?” Jake said.

“I’m gonna eat him,” Sandy said.

“That’s not nice,” Adam accurately pointed out.

“It is if you have permission, and sometimes even if you don’t have permission. Just ask Tom,” Sandy responded to the accusations of non-niceness.

“Who’s Tom?” Adam asked, a bit confused.

“Tom is Tom,” Sandy refused to elaborate. “Now, you ready to head off?”

“Yeah, I’m good to go,” Jake nodded as Maja picked up Adam, and Jake turned to his family. “It’s been fun, and thanks for having me?”

“You remembered the token, right?” his mom asked in a concerned tone.

Jake flashed the communication token and nodded, the item allowing him to call them or them to call him. It was pretty much a magic telephone and even had video calls in the form of being able to project images.

“Take care of yourself,” Jake’s dad said as Caleb gave him a nod.

Finally, Jake said his goodbyes to Adam as he saw the kid was sad he was leaving. While it did suck Jake made him sad by leaving, it did make him a bit lucky his nephew at least cared he left.

“I’ll bring you a moon rock; what do you say?” Jake said to Adam.

“Really?” he asked. “A big one?”

“The biggest one your mom and dad will allow,” Jake grinned.

“Okay!” Adam said happily as Maja gave Jake a thankful look.

Going over to Sandy, the giant worm floated into the air.

“See you, everyone,” Jake said as the worm opened its mouth and sucked him in.

“Bye, humans related to Jake!” Sandy said as they turned toward the sky, wriggling, and propelled themselves forward with a final battlecry that no one had any idea how Sandy learned.

“To infinity and beyond!”

As they watched Jake fly off into the sky, Caleb stood staring up with his wife alongside his parents. They saw the two of them disappear into the sky, as Robert commented:

“What an odd creature, I wonder how Jake even met and made friends with it.”

“Oh yeah, you might not know this, but that worm is the Chosen of the Boundless Hydra and probably one of the creatures with the highest status on the planet, definitely surpassing me,” Caleb added.

The others remained quiet as they let it sink in, Debra finally commenting.

“It was a very polite giant space worm, though. Or maybe all space worms are just like that.”

“Can’t say I would know; I am not familiar with that many space worms,” Caleb readily admitted.

“I just hope everything goes well… I don’t think anyone has ever been to the moon after the system arrived,” Maja commented.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Caleb said. Genuinely, he was more concerned about the moon and whatever unfortunate creatures lived there than Jake.