While it had resulted in a shockwave and monster soup, the explosion also netted me a few levels, pushing me from 76 to 79 and my natural mana reserves to a ridiculous number of 42,780, over 6k points higher than just a few seconds ago. Wasn't [Ethereal Reservoir] slightly too strong? Just getting twenty more levels now would easily double even my new mana count.

  Were individual levels maybe quite a bit more important than I thought at first? From what I'm seeing, mana scales quite heavily with both tier and rarity, which made rapidly ascending in both seem like it granted a lot more than before. If I had owned a legendary class from the start, the jump wouldn't have been as noticeable since I would have had a bigger mana reserve from the get-go.

  Still, that also means that the rarities of the previous tiers, while not unimportant per se, weren't much of hindrance, maybe a few levels in mana difference at most.

  No time to dwell on that now, though, I really wanted to get out of the water right now. I didn't have thalassophobia or anything, but I had an irrational fear of sharks for some reason. I didn't know if this world even had them, but I wasn't necessarily intent on finding out that it did. In all honesty, it didn't even really make sense. I could blow them apart and vaporize them in less than a second if I really wanted to, but the fear was still there.

  It wasn't a strong fear, especially not after everything that happened in recent times, but it didn't particularly make the deep ocean my favorite place to be at.

  Calling out my wings again, uncaring for the now already familiar steam shooting out, I shot upwards at full speed. Even if it wasn't the air quite yet, I was almost as free in the water, which allowed me to fully spread myself for the first time in seemingly forever. No more walls to crash into and no more stone holding me.

  My immediate surroundings were so hot that I was like a bubble of pressurized steam shooting up. While this absolutely killed any visibility I might have had, sight wasn't that useful in an empty environment anyway. The gravity failing to try and pull me down again was enough for me to get the direction I needed to go in, so I couldn't care less about zero visibility.

  In the end, it only took a few seconds at full speed for me to finally breach the surface and shoot straight into the air like a rocket. Tilting my fully extended wings against my velocity, I quickly slowed down and stopped into a hover a few hundred meters above the sprawling mass of blue beneath me.

  There was a slight breeze gently blowing through my hair, and the faint smell of the sea immediately invaded my nose. The sun stood high in the sky, though it was already a few hours past noon from what I could tell. Since I didn't have a compass, it might be somewhere in the morning as well, but it looked like it was closing in towards the horizon ever so slightly with every passing minute.

  For quite a while, I just hung there in the air, soaking in the sun and the wind. Before I even realized it, I felt tears running down my cheeks and dripping into the ocean far below me. Was I crying? I quickly wiped them away with my fingers before I'd actually start crying for real. I had won this fight, but the war wasn't over yet. It was not the right time to get sentimental yet, that could come when I've finally eradicated the false [Hero] from this world.

  Still, I wanted nothing more than just to enjoy the moment. After so long, I was finally free, not of duty but at least physically. I felt really good as well, like I had been freed of chains I didn't even know were there. Only now that they were gone did the constant pressure suppressing my mind vanish. With this mental weight gone, I felt light like a feather, and for the first time ever, I actually realized how healthy my body was now.

  I had never been unfit, but it's not like I was particularly fit either. Just a normal girl like any other. Now, however, my physique was completely incomparable to any regular human's from Earth. I wasn't bulky or lean or anything, but it radiated a kind of strength and perfectionism that felt completely alien yet too familiar. It was me after all, I was the one who was strong and not anyone else.

  Right, I had almost forgotten in all of my excitement, I still didn't have any clothes on me. Good thing that I didn't end up somewhere populated, that would have certainly been awkward to some degree. I had thought about what I could do back on tier two, but it was not doable for me back then.

  Now it was entirely different, though. I had tons of mana to spare, and manipulating [Sunfire] was just as easy as breathing, I didn't even have to do it consciously anymore.

  I began by creating thin strands of dense and solidified sunfire, though cooled down enough to be touchable by human hands and flexible enough to bend freely. All of these properties combined made it the perfect material to make clothes out of. Having it as flexible strings instead of something like a flexible but solid sheet enabled movements and realism completely unmatched otherwise.

  If something needs to look as real as possible, why not copy the real thing directly? Also, since the fibers were my own fire, there was no way I could ever loose any of my clothes during fights. After all, there was nothing more fireproof than fire itself, right? Not only that, it also doubled as a kind of armor, though I doubted I had that much use for it, especially since it would only cover part of my body, which, due to the nature of my race, wasn't in much need of protection anymore.

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  I wasn't suddenly a perfect seamstress, but I had dabbled once or twice, which made at least some concepts familiar to me. Adding on the fact that I had absolute control over all of the strands, weaving clothes out of them was far from difficult, though not trivial either.

  Judging from the sun, it took me maybe an hour in total, but I finished it eventually. Since the climate here was rather warm, I went with a simple skirt, blouse, and safety shorts combo, the very same things I had been wearing before they were burned away in the magma. As evident from the wardrobes back in the palace, this world didn't have much of a concept of safety shorts, but with as much as I was now suited for aerial combat and stuff, there was no need to risk anything.

  Since my body was entirely impervious to weather and climate fluctuations, I could basically wear whatever I wanted, but I liked keeping it simple and slightly airy. Winter clothes had always felt restrictive and stiff, and while that didn't apply anymore for clothes I made myself, the stigma remained anchored in my mind as a set preference.

  With that out of the way, I could now try making my way back to civilization. I didn't know where I was, so I'd go with the approach of following the sun. Well, even if it stood 'favorably' for me right now, I still didn't know whether that meant 'go towards the sun' or 'go with the direction of the light', so the exact opposite direction. Was it calling me to it, or was it pointing me the way with its light?

  Since I didn't want to decide it myself, I let the decision up to fate. Summoning a two-faced coin with a simplified symbol of the sun and an arrow, I flipped it high into the air. Nimbly catching it on its way down and slapping it onto the back of my left hand, slowly pulled my right hand way to reveal the symbol on the top of the coin.

  The arrow symbol, huh? Away from the sun it is then. I didn't know if there was even any point to this farce, but doing it felt cool somehow, so I went with it for now.

  Lethargically stretching my wings, I gave them a gentle flap to break into flight from my temporary hover. I wasn't going particularly slow, but I wasn't flying at full speed either. While I didn't want to wast time unnecessarily, I wasn't in any that much of a hurry that I'd have to abstain from enjoying this moment of relaxation as I glided over the water with the sun slowly starting to begin setting.

  It was so beautiful that leaving it behind in a hurry felt wasteful. For the first time in a long while, I could see the sparse clouds drifting languidly over the blue sky, and when turning to face up during my flight, it felt like I was swimming amongst them.

  Against my exceptions, it didn't take that long for me to hit land. I had been flying for maybe half an hour or so, before I spotted a shoreline on the horizon. I had no idea how fast I had been going so it was hard to tell how much distance I actually managed to cover. Judging from how quickly I actually arrived at the shore, however, I was pretty fast all things considered.

  Observing the coast from my vantage point in the sky, I unsuccessfully tried spotting any form of path or signs of civilization. There were some traces of past activity visible in the grass and ground, but not anything I could trace back to a major path.

  Just as I wanted to give up and continue flying inland randomly, I spotted a figure sitting on one of the coastal cliffs, motionlessly watching the sunset while sitting in the soft grass. Great, maybe I could ask them for directions, provided that we spoke the same language, of course. If they did, it would make my next steps so much easier.

  Quickly making my way over, I was in front of the figure just a few seconds later, hovering in the air a few meters away from the edge of the cliff they were sitting on. The person sitting there now saw me as well, a justified expression of slight shock visible in his eyes. My entrance wasn't the most unthreatening, but I doubted that I was particularly fear-inducing anyway. Having a halo and wings kind of gave the opposite of that, at least for someone familiar with Earth's fantasy and culture.

  While I didn't know if they had stuff like that here too, they must inevitably be somewhat used to seeing weird things with the existence of a system, magic, monsters, and so on.

  Studying the face of the guy, I felt caught up for a few seconds. He seemed so mundane, and yet he felt distantly familiar. He had medium-length brown hair and the beginning of a stubbly beard that still betrayed his youthfulness. I racked my brain on what he reminded me of, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I just ended up staring at him for a few awkward seconds.

  "Ehm, could you perhaps tell me where this is? I was looking for the Kingdom of Astelios, have you heard of it before? If so, how do I get there from here?" Shit, I haven't actually spoken to someone else in so long that I almost stumbled over my words just now. What a way to start my first encounter with another human after so long.

  For a few seconds, he just continued looking at me before a slight smirk made its way onto his face.

  "This is the Kingdom of Astelios," he said as he turned to point in some direction behind him. "If it helps you, the palace should be somewhere in that direction."

  Hell yes! Thank you, guidance of the sun, I knew that trusting you was the right choice! Thank god that I got that part of the skill from my halo just when I needed it the most. I had already mentally prepared myself to end up in who-knows-where, but this immediately freed me from that concern.

  "Oh, yes, thank you, good to know," I replied shortly after, trying my hardest to keep my excitement and relief from bleeding through. There wasn't really a reason to, but I didn't want to needlessly embarrass myself.

  A few more seconds of awkward silence passed between us before he opened his mouth and reluctantly began speaking again. "...Welcome home, Hanah. It's good that you're back."

  ... Huh? What? How did he know my name? 'Welcome home'? I'm back? Who was this guy? I recognized that he looked ever so slightly familiar, but this immediately confirmed that he knew me from somewhere. Still, my mind was so jumbled up in confusion that I could barely form any clear thoughts. In the haze of my confusion, the words just bubbled out of my mouth as my inability to grasp the situation made itself known.

  "Sorry, what did you just say?"