Chapter 574: A Friend of A Friend Is A Rival

They did not get along.

Well, more accurately, Sylphie seemed to not get along with Sandy in the slightest. She zoomed around the giant worm, making angry noises as her blades of wind tried to harm the giant worm while Sandy, in turn, just laughed.

"He he, the little bird tickles!"

Jake just shook his head and smiled. Sylphie probably could do some real damage if she wanted, but she at least had enough awareness to hold back. Then again, Sandy could also just leave in a heartbeat if Sylphie got a bit too much.

Hawkie and Mystie just stared at the giant worm that wriggled in the air from the constant assault of the peak D-grade hawk. An assault that would tear most D-grades to shreds in seconds, even if it was just Sylphie playing.

"Hi hi," Sandy still laughed as they asked. "So... so you said I can now go anywhere? I did feel something when you focused real hard before."

"That is how things should be," Jake answered. "Give it a go?"

"Sure!"

In the next moment, Sandy disappeared, leaving an even angrier Sylphie behind to miss her blows. Jake frowned as he felt the ripples of space from where the giant worm had just been. A moment later, Sandy popped their head out of the clouds below. "It works!"

Jake opened his mouth to speak but ended up just shaking his head again. "Let's visit Haven then. There is someone else I want you both to meet."

He spoke telepathically out loud so both the hawks and Sandy could hear it, even if he knew Sandy could also hear him if he spoke normally. Sylphie, hearing this, looked at Sandy with a challenging gaze before flying towards Jake with great speed, right into his arms. Jake reacted on instinct and caught her as she nuzzled up to his chest and got herself comfortable, still throwing looks at Sandy.

"I think your bird is jealous," Sandy joked with him. "Ah, but I get it! Wind magic is kind of just worse space magic, isn't it? Must feel inferior. Poor thing."

Sylphie took great offense to this as she screeched. "Ree! Ree!"

"Oh, you got super wind? Well, I got super cosmic space! No! Genesis cosmic space!"

Sylphie momentarily looked taken aback but soon retaliated. "Ree!"

This time Sandy seemed to have taken a hit as Sylphie brilliantly argued that space was just boring wind, and as her wind was kind of green, it was superior to space magic in all ways as space didn't have a color. An argument Jake had no idea even made sense. Especially as Sandy then began to argue that colors actually made things worse...

Which just made even less sense as Sandy had no eyes and couldn't see colors.

I may have made a mistake,Jake realized as he led the two arguing beasts down toward his lodge. He did notice one issue there, though. Sandy was a bit... big. Could probably find a place to lay in the valley, but it would be problematic to bring them around anywhere.

Jake voiced his concern, which Sylphie just took as ammunition to argue she was superior. However, this time around, she had to admit defeat.

"Oh yeah! Well, space magic is so cool it can do stuff like this!"

In an instant, Sandy's body began to shrink. Jake felt the intense movements of space mana doing the work, and Jake knew that Sandy technically wasn't getting smaller; they just compressed the space around themselves and created a pocket of sorts. Jake knew that a good wave of destructive mana would destroy this technique, and it probably also took quite the upkeep, but he nevertheless gave Sandy a thumbs up.

Sylphie tried to show off as she tried to puff herself up by breathing in as much as she could, trying to make herself look bigger to prove she could also grow in size, ultimately just making her look silly. Sandy laughed in triumph as a worm, now about the size of a large horse, flew down next to him. Quite a bit slower than before, mind you. This only hammered home that the impromptu shrinking technique had little to no practical application outside of fitting into spaces Sandy couldn't before.

Soon the valley entered their sight, and Jake frowned as he didn't see Scarlett anywhere. Upon landing, he also didn't see her anywhere within the house. Jake wondered if she had gone to explore the laboratory below the lodge. Rather than wondering, Jake closed his eyes and activated tracking as well as just his usual sensing abilities.

She went down to the biodome?

He wondered what had attracted her there as Jake motioned for the group of birds and worm to follow. On the way, Sylphie managed to zoom over and swipe a newly-formed banana, making Jake shake his head at the audacity of these fruit thieves.

They quickly went down and into the cave, which Sandy commented felt very nice and familiar. Once a sandworm, always a sandworm, it seemed. Jake felt Scarlett ahead, and upon entering the biodome, he saw her walking behind a large troll that motioned to different plants with three smaller trolls following behind.

"What you doing?" Jake asked once he got closer.

Scarlett turned around and bowed, with Rick also turning and doing a big wave.

"I was simply receiving teachings from Sir Rick," Scarlett said. "He attends the garden of the Chosen, does he not?"

"That he does, and he is doing a damn good job, too," Jake said with a smile and gave Rick a big thumbs-up. Rick mimicked Jake and did a thumbs-up back with an even bigger smile.

Jake wasn't lying, either. He really liked the biodome. Did he actually use the garden down there? No, not really. In fact, he had kind of forgotten about it and all of his plans for it, including the artificial sun he wanted to install and all that jazz.

At least Jake now realized that maybe that sun would have been a bad idea, as Rick seemed to do best with underground plants anyway. However, even if Jake didn't use the underground garden much, it didn't make it useless. He could always use what grew there to sell or maybe to help train new alchemists or something. Or, well, to just have Rick have a nice play to live and enjoy life.

"Ree!" Sylphie finally made herself known. Not that Scarlett hadn't noticed the entourage, which consisted of three hawks and a large floating worm. Sylphie seemed to have found yet another rival as she stared up at Scarlett, who stared back.

For a moment, Jake got the feeling that Scarlett was jealous of Sylphie? He looked down at the hawk cradled in his arms, not sure why she would.

"Greetings, hawk of wind," Scarlett said, also looking at Hawkie, Mystie, and Sandy. "Hawk of lighting, of mysticism, and worm of... space?"

"Eh, acceptable assessment," Sandy answered. "Nice to meet you too, white snake!"

Hawkie and Mystie both regarded Scarlett with apprehension as they felt her power. As a mid-tier C-grade, she was by far the strongest among them, and they all knew it. If she was an enemy, they would all be in deep shit, with even Sandy having difficulties. If anyone could get away, it would be the worm, though.

"Anyway, I guess I should introduce you all..."

Jake did the polite thing and had all his beast friends get to know each other. Rick also joined in, very interested in having guests. He even brought over some interesting-looking fruits Jake did not recognize but that tasted extremely good.

On a side note, then no one mentioned that Sandy also happened to be the Chosen of Snappy, or the Boundless Hydra, as fancy people called him. Not doing so was probably a good idea as Jake was entirely uncertain how Scarlett would react, and it would also ruin one of the best things Jake had seen in a while...

A worm, a snake, and a hawk arguing which race was best. Scarlett argued snakes were just better worms, Sandy vehemently disagreed and came up with weird arguments for worms being the best, and Sylphie kept screeching how hawks were the "bestest."

Hawkie and Mystie even backed up their daughter with information on how birds, hawks included, actually hunted both worms and snakes before the system. Scarlett, however, also had memories of before the system and talked about how snakes ate the eggs of stupid birds who just left them lying around... With Sandy then saying that worms didn't care as worms just ate anything, thus proving they were the best beasts in existence.

Now, it was only after Jake gathered all these beasts together he finally got around to asking a quite pertinent question: Why?

Why had he gathered them all in Haven? Scarlett was to bring her to the Order, but did he need to call for Sandy and allow the worm to travel into human territory? Well, no, he didn't have to. Sandy probably wouldn't even like being in human territory due to the lack of tasty things to eat.

So, why? The simple answer was just that Jake had wanted to. He wanted to, at the very least, give the beasts the freedom to go whereever they wanted. It was funny how his mind had instantly made granting them more freedom of movement a priority despite the lack of practical merit.

Also... he had to admit seeing them all like this was amusing. Sylphie had long left his arms to fly around and argue louder while chasing Sandy. Scarlett, in turn, tried really hard to look dignified while three kid trolls poked her and wanted to touch her snakeskin dress.

Eventually, they did get tired of their squabbles, and Jake could finally get to the important part after they at least chimed down a little.

"Scarlett and I will be headed to the Order of the Malefic Viper, and while we are going, I would at least like to offer you all the opportunity to go with," Jake said to the group.

"Meh, I'm good here, still stuff to eat," Sandy instantly shut it down. "And the many-headed guy says that staying on Earth is also all good, so I stay."

Rick shook his head, understanding the sentiment but seemingly happy where he was. Hawkie and Mystie also declined, something Jake had expected.

"Ree!" Sylphie also explained, expertly outlining why she wouldn't go.

"Guess it will just be us going then, Scarlett," Jake smiled at the snake girl.

"Yes!" She nodded happily. "I once more thank the Chosen for giving me this-"

"But before that, we must work on that," Jake interrupted her.

"Work on what?" Scarlett asked, confused and nervous.

"You see... I am hiding that I am the Chosen at the Order for several reasons, so you need to not publicly recognize me as such. To not slip up by accident, it would be best if you got used to calling me something else. Something less... formal," Jake said.

"I... I could use My Excellence?" Scarlett tried, though it looked to hurt her to use such an "informal" term.

"Yeah... again, some problems there. It wouldn't make any sense. We both got a Blessing, and the one I am hiding my True Blessing to look like is not that high, so you speaking to me like an authority makes little sense," Jake said, scratching the back of his head.

Scarlett looked lost for words, just staring at him.

"It would be best if you could just call me by my name-"

He saw the poor snake girl's head turn red, and her eyes went wide as she looked just about to melt down.

"-or maybe just call me Lord Thayne still?" Jake tried to save it."

After a while, Scarlett collected herself. "I..."

"Heh! Silly snake! Hey, Jake, she sure is bad at using names, right Jake? You see, Jake and I are friends, so I can call him Jake, and he can call me Sandy!" the cosmic worm clearly bragged to Scarlett while wriggling proudly.

Scarlett clenched her fists. "I- I can also call him...Ja... Lord Thayne!"

It looked like merely uttering the sentence had taken more energy than slaying a hundred C-grades for the poor snake girl. She looked nervously at Jake, who just smiled at her while mentally giving Sandy a high-five for the assist. Not that he was sure Sandy had intended to help and not just make fun of Scarlett.

"Should we get going then?" Jake asked.

Scarlett nodded with delight as Sandy also decided to follow them. Sylphie quickly headed off again with her parents, only telling Jake that she wanted to evolve soon but wanted to "make better friends with the wind first."

Rick, of course, stayed in his cave. He was a cave troll, after all. A cave troll gardener close to C-grade.

Jake did not need to say goodbye to anyone else. Primarily because he could just head home within five or ten minutes if need be.

The trip back to the Mangrove was fast and easy, and they quickly headed down to the formation below the Mangrove where the snake Scarlett called Old Grumpy was still hard to work. Sandy commented on the way how funny teleportation circles were while at the same time talking about how easy it would be to mess with them.

Once they made it down to the large underground tunnel, however, Sandy shut up. The Genesis Cosmic Worm looked lost as they stared at the runes on the walls and began to move around.

"This is... awesome," Sandy said, wriggling closer to a specific wall with a bunch of runes. "So cool! Oh! This one does that? Wha... wait... ah! Yeah, that makes sense... but why does the dust move like..."

The worm was utterly engrossed as Old Grumpy made his way over. "I greet the Chosen and the Mistress. Have you come to make use of the teleporter?"

Jake nodded. "That we have. You said I was ready, right?"

"Indeed! Please follow me... but what is that creature you brought along?" Old Grumpy asked.

Said worm whipped around as fast as a super-shrunk space worm could. "Hi! I am Sandy! Did you make this place?"

The old snake considered the worm for a moment before bowing. "I cannot take credit for such a feat; it is all through the guidance of the Malefic One. It gladdens me to encounter one who surpasses myself. May I know if thee have any criticisms?"

"I wanted to ask you for stuff!" Sandy responded in a very happy tone.

"Let's get us teleported, and then you two can chat, eh?" Jake asked with a smile, happy to see Sandy able to get along with another beast.

"As the Chosen wills," Old Grumpy answered and led them to the central chamber.

Once they stood on it, the old snake did some stuff, and Jake felt the formation hum to life. Sandy looked on interested during it all and even made some small comments here and there.

The connection to the first universe through the void formed and strengthened as Jake felt his True Blessing and his potent karmic connection to the Malefic Viper function as the catalyst to allow the teleportation.

He reached out and held Scarlett's hand to make sure she was brought along. Just as they were about to be swept away, Jake heard Sandy make one last comment:

"Oh! It uses the True Blessing! Does that mean I could use it with my True Blessing from the Boundless Hydra after some modifications?"

And Jake nearly broke his hand from Scarlett tensing up as they teleported back to the Order.