Project Overworld

- "Nice." Someone gasped.

The Starise group reached a satisfying cruising speed with around ten percent of fuel left within the tanks of their rocket.

They were still in the expectation to see whether they would actually reach a stable orbit or not, but as time went by, they could not help but think their dream might come true.

Leyla was meticulously controlling the rocket to better optimize some parts of their trajectory and help to actually reach orbit.

Eric was entertaining his chat by explaining where they were traveling towards, and how far they could go with the fuel left in their tanks. Alongside the din provoked by the power output of the engine, Leyla found it quite hard to focus on her tasks.

However, she could not resolve herself to make Eric go silent for now. Her mind was also full of expectations and she hoped everything would go according to plan.

After a full hour of flying through the skies, the Starise group's journey stalled out as the tanks of their rocket were being emptied out. According to the screens the c.o.c.kpit was equipped with, their trajectory actually ended up at a whopping one hundred and ten miles of altitude. The program was still making calculations regarding the projection of this trajectory, but it did not seem like their altitude was changing by much as minutes went by.

They all expressed their elation by congratulating each other for their work on the rocket. Back at their base, the two remaining members taking care of the construction of rocket also jumped in excitement.

Only Leyla was still focused on her screen and taking notes on the changes happening to their altitude. Thanks to these, she would be able to find out whether their orbit was stable or not. Regardless, the situation was actually quite dire for them, contrary to what the others were thinking. They did not realise that with the tanks of the rocket being almsot emptied out, they would not be able control their trajectory a lot more and that their flight would be elongated quite a lot.

'Damn...' She thought. 'I guess we should have expected this much. Well, it's actually not that bad, the few molecules of air up here will slow down the rocket until we eventually get back home. 'I'll let them enjoy the ride for now and I'll start the decelerating maneuvers in approximatively forty-eight minutes.' She used the computer to process their current landing point based on their speed. 'Let's do this.' She motivated herself.

_______________

After finalizing the design of his space shuttle, Keith went onto assembling the whole structure in a few days. It was quite a lot smaller than an actual rocket, and only two times bigger than one of his latest developed satellites. However, it has been a really challenging vehicle to build.

First, this thing needed to be totally isolated from the space's void, just like one of the module that would be integrated in his final space station. Regarding that, although the modules were all flying on the same orbit, Keith actually needed to go there and connect each and every one of them to before launching the various remains of the rockets back on Earth.

His space station had a long way to go before being habitable. Besides, for the purpose of working on his spatial base, he also had to develop a space suit to maintain him alive while floating through the void of space. Overall, he had a lot more to do before the day the Starise group decides to conquer the Moon.

Though, he was quite confident in his odds. After all, they had not even started thinking about crafting space suits yet, so he had quite the advance with the various designs he had been making during the past few weeks.

Going back onto the matter of the space shuttle, it also needed enough fuel tanks for a round trip to the Moon. This had been a real headache to resolve for Keith since he did not know the exact distance from his station to the Moon. In the end, he decided to overshoot the number of tanks being installed on the vehicle since they would be empty during the launch anyways. Unfilled, these would only weigh around one hundred to two hundred pounds so compared to the several dozen tons of the whole shuttle, it was negligible.

Anyways, once the vehicle built, Keith has been quite busy meticulously testing it. Apart from supplying it with energy and individually testing some of its functionalities, he also managed to check whether its engines were working as intended by filling up its various tanks with a small amount of fuel.

Satisfied by the result, he burnt off the remaining fuel and used some various cranes to straighten it vertically at the middle of his spatial room.

Now, Keith only needed to build its launcher and he would have a working space shuttle ready for the round trip to the Moon. Well, he still had to do a few tests to accomplish in real conditions, but he would be able to modify it in space anyways.

However, beforehand, he still needed to work on that space suit. Without further ado, he went back to his designing room and got busy for the rest of the evening.

_______________

- "Welcome everyone to this fifth edition of Inventopia. As you may already know, participants this time around has had to choose between two themes for their invention to fit in. Those themes are Exploration and Electricty. We will rate the creations based on their design, their usefulness as well as their proximity to one of the themes given, or even both. Let the festivities begin!" Amber exclaimed.

She has been quite hyped up for this event, both for the inventions themselves but also for the huge announcement she would be doing by the end of it.

Throughout the event, she was able to witness new and improved cars with headlights, alternative ways to produce electricity, as well as revolutionary sh.i.p.s that traveled at around thirty miles per hour.

It has been really pleasant to participate in this Inventopia, and their whole society would come out bigger than before.

Once the final votes had been made to choose the best inventor of this event, Amber straightened back up and spoke :

- "It had been quite an enjoyable tournament this time around. Congratulations to the winner, and to all of the other contestants. However, I still have an announcement to make." She took a brief pause in her speech. "As all of you may know, during the past few months we have been mapping out the world and choosing names for the various continents and islands we came across. The popularity of Project Overworld grew by each day and we've finally hit a point where both Midgard and Niflheim are busy at every hour of the day. It is a really pleasant sight to behold, and the municipal team and I have decided to enlarge our influence over the world. From today onwards, we're going to build a city on every continent of the globe, equipped with its own harbor. The goal is to have an interconnected city network allowing people to install wherever they feel like it on Earth. Also, I've been contacting a lot of inventors recently and we are developing a new kind of transport that would facilitate travels around the world. You'll be notified of it during the following weeks." She concluded.

The audience roared in excitement after this huge announcement and were already imagining what they would be doing after those cities were being constructed. Their dream of traveling through the world could also be accomplished within this game while also being at the front rows of the recreation of human history.

'Well, looks like it had the expected impact on the population.' Amber thought, back at her office. With this announcement being made, people would also be less enclined to establish clandestinely onto other continents, so it meant less troubles for her. 'Keith also calmly learned the news, so he should not be a problem in the near future. Let's hope nothing unexpected happens during the following months.' She silently prayed.

_______________

'The announcement has finally been made.' Keith realized after going through the forums of Project Overworld.

It would not really be bad news for him, as the first continents they would start settling on would be the ones closest to Niflheim. Fortunately, Shyram was not one of them and he should have at least a month of delay before those settlers started invading his continent.

Regardless, he was already finished developing his spatial suit and was on his way to assemble the launcher of his shuttle. Regarding this matter, it would actually be a bit different than the 'Space Station Launcher' series. In fact, since his space shuttle would be quite c.u.mbersome to be transported on the head of the launcher, it would instead be fixated to the side of the rocket.

That was why, Keith needed to reprogram its computer so it would take this new weight into account while creating more powerful side engines to better stabilize the trajectory of the structure.

All in all, he estimated that he would be finished in two weeks and that he had another two weeks of delay in case something went wrong with this launch.

'It seems like everything is going according to plan.' Keith thought. 'I can't wait to start working on that space station!'