Wonderland Space.
When Nolan returned home, he didn't rush to gather the other girls for cultivation. Instead, he planned to take Mona back to that patch of the universe they had visited before.
The main goal was to use astrology to divine whether there were any planets nearby.
Of course, when measured against humanity's worldview, the scale of the universe was unimaginably vast, so his "nearby" meant any place he could reach within a month or two of flying.
At present, aside from his ability "Interstellar Travel"—which ignored distance and allowed him to instantly appear beside anyone—his fastest movement method was space transfer through the "Lumine's Authority."
The "Hidden in Dust and Wind" ability in its unobservable state was also very fast, capable of instant arrival, but its range was smaller and its consumption unavoidable.
After all, its condition of free, limitless movement inside an unobservable barrier required the barrier to be spread out first. If he wanted to go ten kilometers away, the barrier had to cover a ten-kilometer radius around him.
If he wanted to go a hundred kilometers, the barrier had to cover a hundred kilometers.
Inside the barrier, movement was free of cost, even if he carried an entire city with him. But maintaining a hundred-kilometer barrier was still taxing for him.
The "Lumine's Authority" was different. Its space transfer only required him to sense and lock onto a target location with his mental power, and he could instantly appear there.
At full strength, his mental energy could cover a radius of three to four hundred kilometers. Condensed into a focused line, his perception could extend out more than a thousand kilometers.
As long as the target location wasn't dangerous, teleportation was possible. If his mental projection reached that far and sensed no threats, he could jump there immediately.
In other words, Nolan's extreme limit for a single teleport was about a thousand kilometers.
And if he wasn't afraid of teleporting blind into something dangerous—like inside a star—he could even skip the sensing step.
With all the Harmonized Energy in his body, blind teleportation without coordinates could increase his range more than tenfold, easily letting him reach ten thousand kilometers in a single jump.
And since he could enter the unobservable state, even if he ended up inside a star, it wouldn't matter. Nothing inside could harm him.
The barrier would exist in a parallel overlay with the star's matter, so that material couldn't interfere with what was inside. He could simply teleport back out afterward.
Of course, on a cosmic scale, ten thousand kilometers was nothing. But he could teleport once, return to Teyvat to rest, bask in the sun, recover energy, and then go again.
This way, seven or eight jumps per day weren't a problem. And if he used the Harmonized Energy transfer ability of the "'Beloved by Maidens" speciality to borrow some of Ei's power,
then doing a few more jumps in a day was realistic. Conservatively, ten jumps a day—about a hundred thousand kilometers.
The Earth-to-Moon distance averaged only 380,000 kilometers. In just four days, he could cross that. For a single human, this speed was outright absurd.
At a pace of 100,000 kilometers per day, he could cover three million kilometers in a month. If no planets were found in that range, he could simply change position through that projected spatial dimension.
After a few relocations, eventually he would find a planet worth exploring.
Of course, everything depended on Mona's astrology. Without proper observation methods, if he happened to land in a dark patch of space where no light reached the eye,
then any planet beyond the reach of his mental perception would remain undiscovered.
That was the inconvenience of not having a spacecraft. The power of science was the power of the world itself—an embodiment of rules.
With a ship capable of fifty percent light speed, Earth to Moon would be just two to three seconds. With a ship capable of space-warping jumps,
reaching several light-years away would be nothing. That was exactly why Nolan wanted to raise Teyvat's level of science as quickly as possible.
When Mona heard that he wanted to take her outside the universe, she was surprised.
"You—when did you even run out there before?"
She didn't know much about the lock of the "False Sky," but surely it couldn't block space transfers completely. Otherwise, with so many in Teyvat capable of spatial teleportation, someone would've left long ago.
"It's a long story…"
Nolan briefly explained how his invisibility had broken through a limit, how he slipped into a dimension made of projections, and from there, escaped outside.
"A dimension made of projections?" Mona had never heard of such a place, and her curiosity was piqued. "If we have time, take me there to see it."
"Of course, no problem."
Nolan nodded, then clasped her soft hand.
"Come on, let's head into space and divine what's nearby. Maybe we'll find a planet—and if it has an alien spaceship left behind, we'll strike it rich!"
Hearing his wild fantasies, Mona squeezed his hand, chuckling despite herself.
"If you were that lucky, you wouldn't need to bother going out at all. Just lie at home and wait for the ship to come knocking."
"Oh, mocking me now?" Nolan grinned, sliding his hand onto the curve of her hip through the thin silk of her tights and giving it a squeeze.
"Ow! Bastard!"
Her pale cheeks flushed beneath the pointed brim of her witch's hat as she smacked his hand away.
"Come on, I didn't even use any strength."
Muttering his defense, Nolan unfurled the unobservable barrier to envelop them both, then opened the gateway out of the Wonderland Space and led Mona through.
Beyond was the pitch-black void of deep space. Nolan brought them back to the same spot as before. With the barrier shielding them, weightlessness and cosmic radiation posed no threat.
No need for spacesuits—the two of them stood quietly in the middle of space, or rather, inside the barrier.
"S-so this is the universe? It looks almost like being in a room with the lights turned off before bed…"
As an astrologist who studied the stars, Mona was one of Teyvat's leading authorities on the heavens. But having never seen it with her own eyes, she was still stunned.
"Probably just a dense patch of cosmic dust nearby," Nolan said with a smile. "Try a divination—see if there's a planet or at least a sizable asteroid close by. Let's hunt for treasure!"
Even if they didn't find alien relics, discovering rare ores would be a huge prize.
It might nudge the foundations of material science forward, and if they uncovered some new physical property—so much the better.
Like something on the level of room-temperature superconductors.
In Teyvat, a world saturated with elemental power, such a thing hadn't been discovered yet. Its superiority in transmitting electricity was beyond question.
With it, energy loss could surely be reduced dramatically.
"Oh, right. While you're at it, help me divine the direction of Earth. If it happens to be close by and we miss it, that would be way too unlucky."
The thought suddenly struck Nolan, and he reminded Mona.
"I know, now let go of my hand. Don't disturb me next!"
Mona summoned her divining plate, a deep azure disk like the sea, just as she was about to begin divination—only to realize Nolan was still holding her hand tightly.
"Haha, sorry, almost forgot." Nolan had grown so used to holding hands, embracing waists, and other such intimacies with the girls that he hadn't noticed.
"Almost forgot? You obviously did forget."
Mona muttered under her breath, turning her gaze back to the water disk and focusing on her divination.
Her water-mirror astrology worked by reflecting the stars upon the surface, then reading fate through the reflections. With enough knowledge of the night sky, one could read fate with far greater clarity.
Its advantage was that it required no troublesome materials—divination could be done anytime, anywhere.
Of course, for vague requests like "are there any planets nearby," one had to actually be there in the region to divine.
If they were still in Teyvat, the result would only reflect whether there were planets near Teyvat.
Trying in the Wonderland Space also wouldn't work, as the extra spatial layer blocked it. If too distant, errors would arise.
After all, attempting divination under an unfamiliar sky was risky; the reflected fate could easily be misinterpreted.
Like now—since Mona was unfamiliar with this sky, she first had to familiarize herself before she could attempt to read destiny.
But unfortunately, this region was thick with cosmic dust. With no visible starlight, the water disk's reflected stars appeared dim and blurry.
That affected her work. Brightness, position, orbital paths, presence of companion stars—all of these carried symbolic meaning.
If she couldn't see them clearly, she had to guess—and fate's reflection naturally became unclear.
Luckily, thanks to Nolan being from Earth, Mona had learned many basic physics formulas. She had even published them in journal columns.
She and Teyvat's scholars had derived new orbital calculation formulas and methods of reading fate from them.
By applying those formulas, she could roughly back-calculate details about the blurry stars from the water disk.
Then, with simulated star parameters input by hand, she could run the divination again for a clearer reflection of fate.
But even narrowing it down to a dozen key stars, the process would still take her one or two hours.
"Bring me my orbital calculator and the star-positioning assistant."
Frowning at the dim lights on the disk, Mona thought for a moment and instructed Nolan.
"Yes, my dear Teacher Mona!"
Nolan nodded heavily, then opened a rift to her laboratory. With spiritual threads, he fetched her instruments, fulfilling his assistant's role perfectly.
With the devices, Mona could cut down much of the calculation, greatly speeding up her reverse-engineering.
Now it would take only about half an hour.
She set the two instruments on the "ground" of the barrier. As she bent down to operate them, her legs began to feel numb.
Mona straightened up and glanced at Nolan, deciding to put him to use:
"Sit cross-legged. Hmph! And remember—don't make any unnecessary moves!"
"Ahem, don't worry. Don't you know me well enough by now? I would never do anything I shouldn't." Nolan cleared his throat and quickly sat properly, all serious.
"It's because I know you too well that I'm warning you."
Mona stepped back half a pace, then sat down on his crossed legs. She shifted her body slightly to find a comfortable position. Hm, not bad—soft, like a decent cushion.
Feeling the softness of her tights-clad body pressing against him, Nolan leaned against her back, arms wrapping gently around her waist.
"I'll be your backrest. That way you can relax."
"Hmph. As long as you don't get any funny ideas and interrupt my work."
Mona let her body rest against him, admitting it was indeed more comfortable.
But knowing how quickly hand-holding in a confined space with him could escalate to ending up in bed, she still gave another warning.
Just in case.
"I won't interrupt. I'll just hold your waist—nothing extra."
Nolan patted her shoulder-baring bodysuit as if making a solemn vow.
"You bastard, that's already 'extra'! Who pats a girl's chest to swear an oath?"
Her face flushed scarlet with embarrassment and irritation.
"Hehe…"
Nolan gave an awkward laugh and shifted his hand down to rest on her stomach.
"Hmph."
Mona decided not to waste energy arguing—otherwise she couldn't keep working.
As Mona focused on her instruments, Nolan limited himself to light touches at her stomach or thigh, nothing more.
A promise to a girl had to be kept, after all.
And though the sensations lingered, Mona was used to it. Whenever he visited her lab—whether to watch quietly or to talk—
he would always insist on holding her. And once he held her, his hands would inevitably wander.
Over time, she had grown accustomed. Even in this situation, she could still concentrate.
So she ignored him, keeping her attention locked on the water disk and the instruments.
As time passed, she brushed away his hand when it strayed to her inner thigh, then carefully input and adjusted the parameters she had deduced.
Soon the water disk began to turn again, and a new starry sky emerged.
This time, unlike before, it was much clearer—normal resolution, enough to read fate without issue.
Now all that remained was to see whether the reflection of destiny revealed anything useful!
(End of Chapter)