Last thing to check out, I guess, was [Domain: Volatile Space]. From what I could tell immediately, this was the skill-turned version of [Unstable Space], which was originally an ability of my halo. The only thing I was unsure about was the 'domain' prefix that preceded the skill. To be honest, I still didn't really know what the prefix 'regalia' stood for either, but I wasn't going to complain about it since they gracefully didn't count toward my skill slots anymore.

  [Domain: Volatile Space:

  An anchor in space if claimed as your own, a domain of power, your internal zone. Disruptive to those not wanted inside, expelled back out, not cast aside. Authority more than a skill alone, a careful use may bring you home.

  Temporarily claim the space around you. (Hint: Misuse of ownership can potentially cause permanent damage to the fabric. Remember to use carefully.)]

  Huh, different than what I expected. I was thinking more in the direction of volatility, but this was actually a lot better than the purely destructive skill that [Unstable Space] used to be. I couldn't really grasp what it truly meant to temporarily 'claim' space as my own, but I'd hopefully find out soon enough when I tried it out.

  Speaking of trying it out, I had nothing better to do except do exactly that. Feeling the skill like an extraneous limb, I carefully invoked it. I wasn't sure what 'misuse' defined exactly, so I wanted to be on the safe side immediately and thus acted with well-placed caution.

  The moment the skill fully activated, I felt like I was suddenly a lot bigger than before. My body was still the same size, but it was as if the space around me was also me. Not only that, I could vividly sense every single detail of the space I 'claimed'. Like a four-dimensional being looking at a three-dimensional slice of space, there was nothing in range I couldn't see through. It wasn't exactly 'seeing' either, it was more like I simply knew everything that existed in this particular segment of space.

  In all honesty, it was incredibly trippy, and I almost barfed the second all those sensations streamed into my head, but I somehow managed to keep it in. Since it felt like my brain would burst if I kept it up any longer, I canceled the skill again, immediately returning to the way I was just a few seconds ago.

  The only upside to this was that I no longer needed a mirror anymore. While I would have preferred a mirror from the perspective of my new headache, at least this was a barely viable alternative when I needed to look at myself again.

  Not like that was the main feature of this skill, but I couldn't really test it here where there was nothing of interest around. Previously, the main use case for this ability was closing rifts by destabilizing them. While the skill had changed slightly in scope, I should still be able to do just that, and even more precisely at that.

  While I used to indiscriminately affect the entire space around me, I could now attack the rifts and anomalies specifically by claiming the space around me and destabilizing only their positions.

  Before going out of my way to do that, I had something else I needed to do first. After who knows how long I spent down here, it was finally time to go back up to the surface.

  Now, I could probably go ahead and bomb or melt my way out of here, but I wanted to test the thing about [Inverted Sky] first. If the 'up' direction in there matches the up in here, I'd have no need to destroy anything and could just teleport my way up the surface. If it doesn't end up working, then it's not like I'd lose anything since I could still destroy everything above me at that point.

  The only reason I was slightly hesitant to go full destruction and just blast my way up was because I didn't know where I was. What if there was an ocean above me, and I'd create a giant hole for all the water to flood the entire Great Labyrinth? What if there were innocent people living above me I'd inadvertently blast to pieces by going up that way? While the premise of blowing off steam and leaving as quickly as possible was enticing, it was way too risky to actually consider.

  Well, no reason to mull about it any longer. Once again I invoked [Inverted Sky] and let the world of strings swallow me whole. Before I called out and unfurled my wings, I created a stationary spike of [Sunfire] pointing upwards to prevent me from veering off course. With a careful flap of my wings, I began my ascent upwards.

  I didn't need to be scared of accidentally touching any strings anymore, but I wasn't too keen on just crashing into them either. Since gravity was nonexistent here, I didn't need to keep my wings out either and just despawned them when I didn't need them in the moment.

  While carefully floating upwards, I pondered my next steps upon successfully reaching the surface. What if I wasn't even close to the Astelios Kingdom anymore? For all I knew, I might have ended up on the other side of the planet by now, even if that seemed rather unlikely in my mind. Still, with no reference point to go off of, I was completely clueless.

  The best-case scenario would be appearing directly in Astelios or in one of its two neighbors. I didn't know of any others, and I wasn't even sure if any others existed at this point. I vaguely remembered the King mentioning something about how this was all the humans had remaining in land, but I wasn't sure if that was true or just a figment of my imagination.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Appearing somewhere in monster territory, like the great wilderness or whatever that was called, would be the worst case. Since monsters weren't the most talkative, asking them about directions would be rather difficult.

  Continuing my ascent, I thought through a couple more possibilities, but none were really that enticing. Landing in or over the ocean was just as bad as the wilderness, and ending up somewhere in space or on an entirely different planet was so absurd that I didn't even really consider it.

  Maybe the sun would point me home? The skill said it'd always stand 'favorably' for me, is pointing out directions included in that? At least I hoped it was. Since I could only guess a direction to pick at random when landing somewhere unknown, I might as well just go straight in the direction of the sun in the moment I see it for the first time.

  Who knows, I might actually get somewhere that way. It felt slightly ridiculous, like I was grasping at straws or something, but what else could standing favorably possibly mean in this context? I was so hung up on this part of my skills that it just wouldn't leave my head for some reason.

  Was it just some flavor text that ended up in the wrong section on accident? I doubted that the system would make an error like that, but I was truly clueless here.

  Well, no matter what, it can't possibly mean anything bad, which is good enough for me already. Since I had been at it for quite a while now, I thought I should take a peak at the real world to see if anything changed. If distance here was one to one, I should definitely be at, or close to, surface level already.

  Resummoning my wings to kill my momentum, I remained hovering for a few seconds before finally canceling [Inverted Sky]. Immediately, a dark cold surrounded me from every direction, and even my very much enhanced eyes had trouble seeing anything at all.

  I landed straight in water, didn't I? While not a problem from an oxygen or pressure perspective, my fire didn't mix too well with water. It was still usable and even very effective, but that's not what I meant.

  The high pressure from the environment combined with the immediate vaporization of water making contact with my wings violently caused bubbles of superheated steam to explode out of them. Water was nearly incompressible at this depth, so the very less dense steam was highly compacted and very volatile.

  I retracted my wings almost immediately and still got flung around by the explosions that occurred behind me. It didn't really do any damage, but it was a bit too uncontrolled and chaotic for me right now. I didn't know where exactly I was, and I also didn't know what else was around here.

  ... As I had feared, I wasn't alone down here. Probably attracted by the high-speed sonic shockwaves created by the explosion, I could see silhouettes of some giant dinosaur-like creatures rapidly approaching me.

  A quick array of [Identify] got me [Deep-Sea Leviathan (Rare+), Lv. 96], [Abyssal Serpent (Epic), Lv. 127], and [Colossal Maw (Rare), Lv. 103], three creatures sitting squarely in the middle of tier three. The me from before this evolution would have maybe feared a direct confrontation in the water, but I honestly couldn't care less about them. They were gargantuan in size and had a home field advantage, but my skills weren't any less potent in water than they were on land.

  Apparently the 'more information' for [Identify] my [Trailblazer] achievement granted me meant getting class grades for the monsters. Did they even have classes, though? The existence of grades seemed to hint towards that, but I could also imagine a different system based entirely on races. It was hard to tell without any further indicators, though, so I'd have to hold that thought until [Identify] gets better again at some point.

  I did wonder if that was the extent of the additional information, though. Maybe it would be even more detailed for beings lower in tier than me? These three guys were all tier three like myself, which made them bad points of reference here, at least when wanting to infer something about other tiers as well.

  I could also imagine [Identify] now providing at least the level or a level range for beings higher in tier than me, though the actual usefulness of information like that was rather questionable. The higher the tier was, the less any actual level really mattered. Knowing the class grade and the tier was way more informational and relevant than getting the tier and the exact level was.

  Unfortunately for my three opponents here, my class grade was a lot higher than theirs, and my skill levels probably were as well. Without hesitation, I readied three oversized lances made of [Sunfire] a good distance away from me before rocketing them at the approaching trio.

  They left trails of volatile steam bubbles in their wake as they torpedoed through the water with almost supersonic speed. Just a single second later, they reached their targets, creating a violent explosion as I triggered them to do so mentally. Each lance packed 10k worth of mana, and the following boom was proof of that.

  Not only did they each have quite a bit more mana than the strongest bomb I had detonated underground, but explosions were far more deadly underwater than they were on land. Even from a usually great distance, the incompressible and dense nature of water made shockwaves travel a lot faster and way more efficiently, enhancing the destructiveness to a level impossible to reach on the ground or in the air.

  Even over a kilometer away from the explosion, it felt like I was standing right next to it when the blast reached me a second after the flash of the explosion. While the physical properties of the shockwave managed to wound my enhanced body severely, that was only from a mortal point of view. Pumping a few hundred points of mana through my body made it regenerate the damage almost immediately.

  When the sea calmed down again, there was nothing left of the three huge creatures apart from some residual remains floating freely in the water. They'd decay soon enough anyway, so I didn't worry too much about the nature of the cocktail I was now swimming in.

  I was honestly a bit more worried about accidentally causing a tsunami or something, but my explosions weren't nearly powerful enough to cause anything on a larger scale. Strong tsunamis were usually created by tectonic movement, which I couldn't possibly match in pure power just yet. If I had to guess, my underwater explosion here would maybe cause one or two waves a bit higher than usual at the very most, if any at all.