anwhile, the others tried to make sense of the sudden darkness surrounding them. From their point of view, it had beco night all of a sudden.
Their first thought was to assu they’d teleported to a dark place.
But Xaren, he knew better.
The sudden shift in air pressure and the montary lightness in their bodies that reminded him of when he used his gravity magic confird his thoughts.
They had broken past the atmosphere and left Planet Zorix behind.
The darkness stretched endlessly around them, and then, slowly, like a mountain erging from behind a cloud of shadows, it ca into view.
It was a massive vessel, floating far above them. At first glance, it was at least 20 tis the size of their current craft, but the closer they got, the larger it revealed itself to be.
Lights dotted the surface of the colossus of black panelling, from windows, caras, and sensors of many kinds, all blinking silently.
Jet boosters the size of skyscrapers glowed faintly at the rear, radiating a steady neon-green light, powered by a fuel source far beyond their understanding.
The tiny vessel they were in began to fly towards it, drawn closer to the looming fortress in the void.
The ship slid smoothly into the belly of the massive vessel, silently executing its landing sequence. As the docking clamps locked in place with chanical thuds, Naephas stood up, turning his gaze to the pressurized doors which opened with a hiss.
He didn’t say anything as he stepped out and just motioned for the others to follow.
Xaren, Ilya, and the other three followed after, stepping out into the vast interior of the hangar.
The mont they did, they felt it. Or rather, they did not feel it—no pressure under their feet, no firm contact with the floor, and as they tried to move forward, they wobbled and stumbled, their legs floating up unnaturally as though subrged in water.
Ilya instinctively reached for the nearest wall to steady herself, while the others flailed around, trying to regain so sense of balance amidst the sudden weightlessness.
Naephas noticed imdiately and turned with a twitch of irritation on his brow. "Why haven’t you switched on the artificial gravity?" he demanded.
The operator flinched at the tone of his voice. "Sir, we—huh?"
"Modulate the artificial gravity. We have first-tirs here," Naephas ordered, his words snapping the surprised man out of his daze.
"Yes, sir!" ca the quick reply, followed by the rapid tapping of a control panel nearby.
Within seconds, a huge amount of energy was pumped into the air, causing the pressure to return. Ilya and the others felt the gravity reassert itself, firmly pressing their feet down onto the floor and returning the weight to their limbs as the artificial gravity engaged.
They landed with slight stumbles—so managing to catch themselves, others dropping to their knees with quiet groans—but once their orientation returned, they quickly got back on their feet.
All except Xaren.
He had not stumbled or floated like the rest of them. From the mont they stepped out of the ship, his body had remained grounded, unaffected by the lack of pressure.
The sense of weightlessness that had tripped up the others had not touched him at all, and he hadn’t even noticed that they were struggling—he had been too busy admiring the vastness of the hangar, comparing it with the spaceship docks he’d seen in his past life.
It was only when Ilya’s hand brushed past his that he realized the others had been floating, while he alone had remained stable.
The operator’s confused reaction when Naephas gave the order stemd from seeing Xaren unaffected, standing as though nothing had changed.
As for Xaren, he did not need to be a genius to understand why. His Unique Skill was called ’Child of Gravity,’ after all.
Thanks to this occurrence, he had discovered another passive ability of the Skill he hadn’t known existed before.
Gravitation Adaptation—The ability to automatically adapt to different gravitational pressures.
The ti required for adaptation varied depending on the environnt, but in this case, since the ship’s gravity wasn’t that much different from that of Planet Zorix, the adjustnt had been near-instantaneous.
While he looked through his skill description to see if the passive was listed there, the group followed Naephas across the hangar, walking beneath towering support beams and passing several docked spacecraft along the way.
Eventually, they reached the far end of the hangar, where a set of doors slid open to reveal a corridor.
To the left was a room with soft foam-like walls that resembled those in psychiatric wards, and directly across from its transparent wall, on the right side, was a long bench.
Xaren and the others didn’t get the chance to take in these details, however, as a crushing pressure hit them the instant they entered, forcing them to their knees.
The source of the oppressive pressure, a broad-shouldered, muscular demon seated casually on the bench opposite the padded room, looked over at them with a raised brow.
Naephas stepped forward first, his expression darkening as he closed the door behind him. "Tone it down, you idiot. There are Low-Ranks here."
The tall demon didn’t move an inch. "Huh? And why should I care about a bunch of asly Low-Ranks?"
Naephas didn’t answer with words. Instead, he slowly raised his hand and conjured a swirling orb of green fire in his palm, its presence distorting the space around it.
"Tone down your damn aura."
At that, the demon lifted his hands in mock surrender and scoffed. "Geez. So violent."
Still, the pressure eased, and once it did, Naephas let the swirling fireball in his palm vanish before turning to open the door and speak to Xaren’s group.
"Co in."
They entered the corridor, and Naephas imdiately pointed to the empty room on the left and instructed.
"Get in there."
No sooner had he spoken than two demons materialized out of thin air, saluting him with crisp precision before walking up to the door.
As soon as he spoke, two demons quite literally appeared out of thin air, saluted Naephas and walked up to the door of the room. One of them tapped a few buttons on the side panel, opening the door and gesturing for Xaren’s group to enter.
As they stepped inside, one of the demons held up a radio and spoke into it, his voice audible through the room’s intercom.
[This is an artificial gravity chamber ant to get your bodies used to the harsher gravity of your destination.]
That was all the explanation he offered, not bothering with the chanics of how the chamber worked—there was no point explaining sothing they wouldn’t understand.
Once he hung up the radio, the second demon at the door pushed a few buttons and a low humming sound filled the room as the artificial gravity intensified.
Within seconds, their legs felt heavier, knees buckling slightly and backs straining. Xaren, of course, remained unaffected.
He tried to mimic the others’ struggle, bending his knees slightly and forcing a grunt or two, but the two demons stationed outside the chamber saw through his act instantly.
’That one’s faking.’
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