Dimensional Descent

Leonel hopped out of the military jeep only to be tackled into a bear hug by Milan.

"Oof—"

Though Milan wasn't nearly strong enough to knock the wind out of Leonel, the latter still feigned weakness. Unfortunately, that didn't garner him any sympathy as Milan just squeezed him harder.

Before Leonel realized what was happening, he was suddenly dog piled. In fact, the only two who didn't move were Allan and Arnold. The two looked toward one another and shook their heads. It seemed that they were in lockstep when it came to matters like this.

The driver and passenger of the military jeep looked on incredulously. That was a Prince of the Empire, what was going on? Since when could you treat a Prince like that?

Thinking about Prince Noah and how stoic he was, not to mention the cold, short haired beauty that was always by his side… This Leonel was really too much of a drastic difference from the kind of royalty that they were used to.

"Alright, alright!" Leonel muffled groans sounded beneath the six man pile. However, they seemed to have no intention of letting him go.

"Hehe, consider this a little punishment for leaving us for so long, Cap." Franco's voice rang through the pile, his big mouth being the first to open. Maybe if he could see Leonel's sly grin from beneath the pile he wouldn't have been so cheeky.

BANG!

Suddenly, six bodies went flying in all directions, flying up and outward completely out of their control and releasing squeals along the way.

Leonel rose from the sand with a grin, patting it away from his body and winking toward Arnold and Allan who seemed to have guessed that things would end this way.

"Captain, you're in the Fifth Dimension already?" Allan shook his head. Last time they met Leonel, he was still in the Third and he had already been stronger than them back then. Now, he had suddenly leapfrogged them all. Wasn't this a bit too ridiculous?

Of course, they had also grown far more powerful in the last year. So, they couldn't compare to their former selves as well. But, this was still too much, wasn't it?

Raj spat out a huge mouthful of sand, his rotund body rolling out of a massive dune.

"Fifth Dimension? That's bullshit, Cap! You can't just shoot up PED's just cause there's no athletic commission to check on you anymore!"

[Author's Note: PED's are performance enhancing drugs. Steroids, essentially]

"Oh? I had some for you, but if you don't want it, forget it, forget it." Leonel shook his head and sighed as though he was lamenting something.

"Fuck that! Give me the drugs!"

The six recovered quickly, surrounding Leonel with their eyes lit up. They didn't need to be a genius to know that Leonel had brought back good things.

"What happened to doling out punishment?"

"Oh Cap, you're a broad-minded person, right? You wouldn't fuss over such a little thing, right?" Franco's eyes blinked innocently, but the movement of his big ears made it look like his head would fly away any moment now.

Leonel laughed. "To tell you the truth, I did bring back some good things that should help you get to the Quasi Fifth Dimension very quickly. But, I'll still need to see whether your bodies can handle it."

While on Planet Solara, most of what Leonel had found were precious Ores. Most of the Urbe Ore had already been handed to Elthor to feed the Oryx for the next month. As for the other Ores, they had been kept by Leonel for the sake of Crafting. However, aside from these Ores, near the core of the world, Leonel had found a small patch of Force Herbs.

For these herbs to grow in such harsh conditions, it wasn't a surprise that they were exceptionally valuable. Leonel had to rely on the dictionary to identify them since plants and such weren't part of his expertise. And, he wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

They were a Fifth Dimension Herb known as the Bone Burning Rose. According to the dictionary, in the hands of a Force Pill Crafter, such an Herb could be used to cleanse and strengthen the body all the way through to the Quasi Sixth Dimensional level.

The bad news was that Leonel wasn't such an expert and Aina was no longer with him. The good news, however, was that there was a cruder method that required blending and diluting the Herb with Cleansing Waters.

Though it was a bit of a waste to use the Force Herb like this, it was for the best. Taking in a Fifth Dimensional Herb of such potency was obviously too difficult for their current bodies. But, when diluted like this, it would take just enough edge off.

In addition, thanks to the Segmented Cubes new abilities, as long as he saved a single stock of this Force Herb, he'd be able to make more of this Herb in the future so long as he absorbed enough Fifth Dimensional Force to do so—something the Segmented Cube had ample of.

That said… According to the dictionary, the best state to take this crude concoction was after being pushed to your very limits. So, Leonel needed to run his brothers through the gauntlet first.

Seeing the evil grin on Leonel's face, the eight suddenly felt a cold wind nip at their necks. They fused the image of the current Leonel with Coach Owen, causing traumatic memories of suicide runs in 40 Degree Celsius weather to resurface in their minds.

Just as Leonel was about to explain, his head tilted in a certain direction. In the distance, he could see rolling black clouds heading in their direction. They were still several hundred miles away, but Leonel estimated it wouldn't be more than two or three hours before they made it here.

Still, this wasn't what Leonel was looking at. It seemed his cousin was on this coast as well.