Time passed by very quickly, and nearly 1 month into this venture, Merlin had not have much luck.
In a fit of rage, Merlin cursed the system.
"Damnit System! Can't you do something about this?!"
Unexpectedly, Arcania responded with something that shocked Merlin.
[Please Wait…]
[Calculations complete. Estimated time until Soul Fragment encounters lesser plane in phase 1 of transformation process: 12 min 53 seconds]
"Huh? You could do something like this the whole time? And you didn't bother to tell me?"
However, the system deemed it beneath its status to respond to such a barbaric form of questioning and simple remained silent.
"Damnit! Why are you not speaking up now!"
After about 7 minutes of cursing the system with the most vulgar and disgusting curses available to him, many of which were inter-planer abuses he learned from some 'not-so-sophisticated' books, Merlin calmed down and decided to plan his next moves.
Currently, he was still in that same room, having left it every now and then to get some fresh air. Any form of dirt or sweat could be removed using mana, allowing him to skip showers, although he still indulged himself.
The feeling of a hot bath was something no human could deny.
"Alright Mecha. Be prepared. Send a small part of yourself into by blood. I'm not sure if the rest of your body will be able to survive the trip, especially since you will have to protect me from the forces within the inter-planer void."
"Yes Master. I will have all your pain!"
'Sigh. You are turning more like a maso by the day.' Merlin sighed in a part of his mind which could not be heard by his tamed creatures.
Anyway, Merlin had less than 3 minutes before his soul fragment made contact, and he intended on not mating any time after that happened.
The first thing he had to do was to ensure that he had a secure anchor in Earth's plane. For this, he already had a strong enough impact on Earth, in the form of Cayden. All he needed was the planer coordinates of Earth, since all planes were continuously moving through the planer void, he needed the exact coordinated of Earth's plane at the instant that he wanted to return, as well as along the journey.
A person travelling permanently away from his home plane did not require such things. However, someone who wished to return needed both these. An anchor would allow him to re-enter his home plane, by using the anchor as a sort of identification of his native origins. If one did not have this, the world itself would consider you an invader, and would move the forces at its command to eliminate you.
Sort of like the immune system of a human, with the anchor being proof that you were once a cell of this body.
The coordinates would be what allows you to find your way back in the emptiness of the planer-void.
To get these coordinates, Merlin had a simple plan. He would just allow Phillip to give him the coordinates through his dimensional connection, and if that didn't work, he would allow Phillip to send the required data through Cortana.
The last thing he needed to travel was an outer layer which could hold both mana and air, and one that could be disposed of when required.
He had learnt that there was something called Void corruption, which would affect everything in the void. It was a sinister thing that can only be blocked by Tier 10 beings of higher. This corruption was something that would eat away at one's mana capacity, and if one were to stay in the planer void long enough, they would be completely corrupted, emptying both their mana, and mana capacity, and filling it with Voidal energy. This energy was the sign that one was now a Voidal creature, forever banished into the planer void, unable to enter any lane, even your own home plane with an anchor.
For this role, Merlin had decided on Mecha. And due to its ability to reform from the smallest of articles, Merlin would use most of Mecha's body as armour, allowing it to become corrupted, while keeping a small part of Mecha uncorrupted.
This way, as soon as he reached his destination, he could immediately destroy his corrupted suit of armour, while bringing Mecha back into its original size my supplying it with mana.
With all the preparations complete, Merlin suddenly felt one particular soul fragment being tugged slightly, before reaching a sticky wall, which both held it in place, while corroding it away.
This was also a part of the self-defence of a plane; a Planer shield. Every plane had these, and this acted as a gate, to allow those with anchors to enter, while corroding and destroying anything it can. In this case, Merlin's soul fragment was too weak, weak enough to be compared to a normal human's soul. Therefore, the shield was destroying it, however, the shield would not be able to do much to Merlin himself.
With this in mind, Merlin used his soul as a communication platform, extending a thin tentacle of it from his body into the air.
A few seconds later, his soul tentacle was tugged slightly, causing Merlin to feel severe pain.
However, this was all according to the books. With this, he had formed a soul connection with the planer will, from which he could ask for passage to the void from the esteemed and noble planer will.
However, the voice that came was very much a shock to Merlin.
An aged yet melodious voice spoke, "My Lord. You have finally contacted your loyal subject after a whole year! I have been waiting for this moment since the day Arcania told me about my lord's existence. So far, I have been alone. The sole being that spanned the known plane, or what human's call universe. It was extremely frustrating for there not being any sentient race in my entire being, other than the humans on their planet called Earth, for eons! However, Arcania then told me about my name; Earth, as well your existence, my lord Earth's Monarch!"