“Who are you, lady with the long black hair?”
“There is a beastkin free, grab her!”
“Who are you?”
“Where did you pop up from, fatty?”
The rest of my students have gathered now, and I pull the rest of the stacked loot inside Tree.
“Captain! CAAPTAAAIN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOOOUUUU?”
“Wow, did you see that stuff just disappear?”
“See what?”
“What, there is a rabbit on that guy’s shoulder!”
“Who are you again?”
“Hey sexy blue-haired lady, let’s go below decks and get to kno-” OOF OW AUCH
“Wow, Dave, who beat you up?”
“Huh, I’m beat up?”
“Cap, what is… CAPTAAAIN, SNAP OUT OF IT.”
We gather by the side of the railing, trying hard not to burst into laughter. Angeta is still somewhat timid, but I see a sparkle of humour in her eyes now.
“Who are those people over there?”
“Dave, you still owe me money!”
“Nuh-uh, I paid you yester… ow, I do indeed still owe you money.”
“Thanks… By the way Dave, you still owe me money!”
“No, I just… Yeah, you are right, here… Where is my money, WHO STOLE FROM ME?”
“CAAAPTAAAAAAAIN”
“I love this hat!”
“Rabbit!”
“Who are you guys?”
I jump overboard, ignoring the brawl beginning behind me. I land on the water and start walking to the north again. I hear splashes as my student’s land on the sea surface with varying levels of success. Selis gently steps on the waves, as if softly walking over a pillow. Bord does a cannonball but gets stuck in the sea at waist height.
Ket lands with measured perfection. Angeta slows down with a translucent leaf in her hands and lands with the grace of a cat. A wet cat, as she immediately plunges through the water surface. Vox just bashes the water away with enough speed to cancel out his fall and pulls the soaking furball from the salty wetness. Tess appears from my own shadow and skates across the surface with a black glow around her feet.
The wet furball sputters a bit as we all look the other way. I decide to start running to get some distance from the forgetful crew. I hear more anguished shouts as the crew keep discovering stolen items or destroyed ship parts. More dramatic yells of ‘captain’ keep happening as I hear a single, mournful wail of ‘bunny’. The entire mess devolves into a brawl. The mage - still stoned out of his mind - is just sitting in his chair.
Five minutes of running later, I stop. I hand my necklace to Lola and drop her on the water surface. “I have to modify the ship a bit, be right back.” And I jump inside.
I get to work as soon as I land in the clearing. Jumping towards the frontal mast, I give it a kick. Wooden splinters shower around me as the big tree trunk partially turns to sawdust and shoots away. I make sharp threads of qi and use them like a saw, smoothing the deck over. I have no idea how to sail with two masts, so it was kind of dumb to make the ship like that.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, whatever. I quickly craft some loops and places to tie ropes to from wood and metal. I jam these in what I think are the proper spots and pull a big roll of cloth from my ring. I automate the sail creation process, and watch the white cloth slowly being cut and sewn together with qi-reinforced thread.
More rope goes through a loop on the single, leftover mast that is now missing the crossbeam thing. I realise that I need a keel with this type of sailing, to prevent the boat from drifting sideways when going close to the wind. I think I can remember that sailing against the wind was a close haul, but that sounds stupid to me.
I force some lead bars into a single lump and quickly cover it in wooden planks. I then lift the entire ship, making sure to move the half done sail out of the way, and glue the keel to the bottom of the ship with a strand of augur. Ten seconds later, the sail is done, and I put it on the mast in all its triangular glory.
I am now looking at a revolution of sea transport, the modern triangular sail. Instead of those gigantic square sails, this baby can actually go against the wind! I hope, at least. Let’s find out!
I pull the entire thing through Tree and scare the shit out of my students. They all scramble away; Lola is the only one who is just looking upwards at the approaching thirty-metre-long ship as it rushes down. I grab the fluffball and land on the rocking deck.
I close my eyes for a second as I adjust some of the formations. A flash of light creates a new, hidden button on the steering column. I press it, and a shimmering field rushes over the entire vessel. This is the simplest form of concealment that I know of, invisible to mortals but laughably easy to see through when you’re a cultivator.
My students land on the deck one by one, Angeta is dripping wet again. I frown at her. “Why are you wet? Go train your water walking.”
Her bubbling anger wilts, and she shuffles over to the railing. “Vox and Bord, join her. Your water walking can also use some work.”
The trio starts muttering amongst themselves, and I hear a few faint curses. This only causes me to smile. So much better than all that stiff and unyielding bowing and scraping based on the stupid concept of face.
I turn around and start pulling the variety of ropes I added to keep the sail on the mast. I think that these are called lanyards? Other terms like cunningham and jib-sheet cross my mind, but I decide once again that I don’t care enough about sailing to get the names right. The sail rope keeps the sail up, and the other ropes…
I realise that I forgot to add a boom. The sail will work, but… Overtaking? Tacking? Flipping the sail to the other side of the ship will be a lot of trouble. I ponder this with my chin in my hand for a little while. I pull the crossbeam that previously adorned the vessel from Tree and make some modifications.
I stick it to the mast and use my augur to make a crude hinge. It’s a captive ball joint, normal wood would splinter at these stresses, but I simply infuse some more passive qi into the mechanism. I extrude some wooden rings and force the bottom of the sail through these. Augur is a great tool for splitting and reconnecting fibrous materials.
The second rope I use on the ship gets its proper name though, the main rope. Mainsheet, I mean. It prevents the boom from flapping around, a few wooden pulleys and clever use of the flexibility of wood allow me to quickly tighten and loosen the rope.
I let the sail catch wind as I pull it up the mast. It starts to resist, but the mast, rope and sail are stronger than steel, so raising the thing under wind pressure is no problem. The entire ship jerks to the side as the sail flaps taut, giving the ship a tilt. It starts moving immediately.
I walk to the stern and wave at my running students. I infuse some qi in the wind, causing the ship to speed up further. I give them a jolly wave while shouting. “Try to keep up! This is a good qi-control exercise! No food if you guys don’t get on board before nightfall!”
I give another blinding smile while looking at the horror-stricken faces of the trio. There is something intensely satisfying about giving people the proper motivation to succeed in life.
In a good mood, I start walking to the middle of the deck, my heartcore compensating for the small amount of sway the boat now has. What to do next? It’ll take some time to get to anything interesting, and I have enough sailor lingo stored to speak the dialect fluently. I think I’ll do some cooking.
Chapter six
Fishin
T ess has her eyes closed. She is attempting to become one with the world at this moment. She is focusing all of her qi enhanced attention on the singular most important object. There is only that object. Nothing else matters. It is all. It’s her entire universe.
“Got another one!” sounds the happy voice of a girl whose head is covered with short blue hair. Tess’s eyebrows twitch as a new vein pops up on her forehead. Become one with the universe, girl, ignore all that is earthly.
Tess is atte
mpting to ignore all mortal things because she is fishing. The wooden stick in her hands has a thin rope that trails behind the boat. On that rope is a colourful, wooden item that Teach called a float. Beneath that float are several metal weights keeping the line under the water’s surface, followed by a viciously barbed hook holding a shred of mystery meat.
Tess ignores Ket, who is now hefting a wooden spear, it’s sharply carved barbs shining. He throws the weapon into the water with a casual toss. The rope following behind it seems too short, but Ket pulls the spear back the moment the line runs out. Water sprays from the line as he pulls the entire ensemble back up. Skewered on the wooden tip is a beautifully coloured fish, a metre long.
“Hah, eat that Selis. I’m ahead again.”
One with the world, Tess thinks. She is trying to remember the simpler times when all she had to worry about was sneaking through the dungeon. Back then, all she needed to do was keep her back covered in case somebody wanted to backstab her. Such simple times, when a single gold coin would be a risk to carry on the streets. When she could be left behind for dead because she had a piece of bread someone else wanted.
“Thirty-three! Even again, Ket!”
Because in those simpler times, she could control her own fate and wasn’t dependant on how “MUCH SOME FUCKING FISH WANTED TO BITE, RAAAAH!”
Silence spreads across the rear deck of the Ascent after the black-haired girl stops yelling. Selis asks with a worried expression “are you okay, Tess?”
She smacks the wooden pole on the deck with a crack. Seeing the infernal thing undamaged, she stomps on it a couple of times for good measure. “Have fun fishing. Seems it’s not for me.”
Selis and Ket are completely deaf to the sarcasm dripping from her voice and happily continue with their fishing. The massive wooden tubs behind them are currently filled with all sorts of fish. Tess angrily spits in one, venting some of her anger as she stomps down the stairs. Her hands twitch as she hears another jubilant yell behind her, but she continues walking.
She abuses the stairs going down to the below decks by stomping on them with all her might, standing in the wooden hallway breathing deeply for a little bit. She then takes an extra-large breath and shakes her head. “Happy thoughts, girl. Smiling is free, after all.”
With a refreshing smile, the girl walks forward to the place where her teacher is at. She sees him puttering around some wooden bowl that has weirdly glowing stripes and markings on the outside. “How’s it going, Teach?”
The bearded man looks up startled, and Tess sees his muscles tense, ready to spring into a fighting stance. “Tess. Should have known it was you who was sneaking up on me.”
Tess frowns, as she was most definitely not sneaking, but decides to let it go.
“Anyway, the fish are doing fine. I think I finally figured some stuff out.”
Tess recoils when she hears the word fish, a brief mix of fury and disgust on her face. Teach looks at her with a weird expression. “Well, I think it’s interesting; no need to recoil at how boring you think my experiments are.”
Tess stands there hopelessly for a bit. That is not what she meant at all. “No, I meant…”
“It’s fine, the path of a scientist is often a lonely one.” Teach looks off into the distance with such a melancholic expression on his face, such a peerless aura, that she bursts out laughing. She clutches her stomach, trying to get herself under control.
Teach stands there with a single eyebrow raised as her laughing fit peters out. “That’s not what… Doesn’t matter, I wanted to talk about something else.”
“What is it then?” The bearded man takes one last look at the bowls scattered around the small room before turning to the girl.
“You talked about mana and emotions, right?” Seeing a nod in return, she continues, “I think I know what attracts dark mana.”
Excitement spreads across Teach’s face. “I was just about to do some cooking, come and explain it to me while you help.”
‘COOKING COOKING, I CAN MAKE THAT FOOD MYSELF IF I PAY ATTENTION.’ Tess reigns in her boiling excitement and shakes her head to clear it of those kinds of thoughts. What was she talking about again? “I was cycling through emotions, trying to really get a feel for them, but I noticed nothing even if I was seething with anger.”
A small vein wants to pop up on her forehead again, but she takes a deep and calming breath. “At least, until I tried to feel extremely bored. Nothing happened until I got bored of feeling bored. Like I was alone on an endless grey plane, nothing to do, see, hear, smell or anything.”
Teach keeps nodding his head, encouraging her to go on. “Then when I truly felt like killing myself to escape the boredom, I saw some dark strands floating around.”
Teach stops halfway up the stairs. His eyes dim and the light leaves them completely. His expression goes slack-jawed, and he starts looking like a dead guy. “Teach?” No response. “Teacher? What are you doing?”
She starts freaking out when he just stands there for half a minute. When she is about to gather up the courage to slap him, he jolts awake again. Then she feels powerful hands wrap around her waist and carry her upstairs.
Then the world starts spinning. Her legs go flying as Teach whirls her around. “Hahaha, thanks Tess, I noticed some dark mana!”
He plops Tess down on the deck, who stumbles around with legs made from jelly. “N… No problem.”
She stumbles to a railing and starts dry heaving, suppressing the urge to vomit with all her might. Teach is still beaming at her. “I was wondering what the other emotions would be but couldn’t find the specific emotional wavelengths to create a mana connection. Who knew boredom is a primary emotion? This world is really fucked.”
Tess stumbles back from the railing as Teach’s continuous spouting semi-intelligible gibberish. “No.” HURK “No problem, just don’t…” She wipes the cold sweat from her forehead. “Never, ever do that again please.”
“Never say never; now let’s do some cooking.” Teach then waves his hand, and a huge table plops into existence. The entire boat shudders as the object crashes onto the deck. Everyone, except for Teach and Bord, goes stumbling about as the ship settles in its new draft, half a metre lower.
“Ah, that table is super massive, almost forgot.” He shrugs his shoulder as he continues to pull a wide variety of things from his ring, from knives to spice racks to a barbeque. “Come, Tess, you can help me and do some taste testing.”
Her mood immediately improves, and she walks over to the impromptu kitchen area. “I know how to grill meat, but that’s all my cooking experience.”
Teach waves his hand. “No problem, cooking is rather easy. I saw you fishing before; go get some of your fish.”
The bearded man continues rearranging his equipment but looks up after not receiving an answer for ten seconds.
Calm, Tess, calm. One with the world, the world is one. Breathe in EXPLODE “I FISHED FOR HALF A DAY AND DIDN’T CATCH A SINGLE ONE! THEN THOSE TWO…” Tess viciously stabs her finger towards the duo who are still hauling in large fish, one after the other. “…COME OVER AND START REELING THEM IN, WRAAAAG!”
Silence reigns once again supreme until a single brave soul breaks the silence. “Did you ask them how they do it?” Tess focuses her entire attention on Vox, who is lying on the deck without a shirt. “Maybe they use some trick?” asks the redhead as he heals another sunburn. He mumbles about how impossible it is to get a tan with his skin.
Tess then stomps over to the fishing duo. They stopped, metre-long fish in hand when Tess exploded for the second time today. “HOW THE FUCK do you guys do that?” Her glare is hot enough to melt steel.
“I ask the fishes to come over?”
“Scan using minimal qi grid, extrapolate the fish’s movement vector, compensate for water refraction and execute throw.”
These two answers, each as incomprehensible as the other, are the breaking point. Tess just crumples into a heap and starts to suck her thum
b. A big black cat peeks its head out of a deck hatch, and seeing its rider lying depressed in a heap, walks over, licks her face and lies down next to her.
⁂
Tess is acting weird. First, she comes up with this genius dark mana theory, I thank her, and she reacts weird. Then I ask her to bring over a fish, and she explodes. Now she is making baby noises while lying against the railing as she cuddles her mount.
Whatever, I am not a psychologist. “Bring some fish over!”
I stand ready, knives in hand as Ket sends the first fish flying. I punch it back into the sea. “Highly poisonous, next!”
Another one comes flying. I also shove a thread of augur in this one. “Inedible, highly venomous. Those spikes are filled with nerve poison.” I also punch that one back into the sea, the spikes shattering against my fist.
A third one comes flying. “Filled with heavy metals, not good for consumption. Are there any edible fish around?” I walk over to the big wooden barrels as the third fish splashes back into the waves. I look some of them over while Ket and Selis shuffle nervously like kid whose summer projects are being graded publicly.
Then I see it. It looks nothing like a tuna, but its flesh has nearly the same consistency. I pull the small shark from the water while breaking its spine. I paralyse it by scrambling its spinal column, preventing acid build-up from spasms in the muscles. It looks rather disgusting, covered in warts and pustules, but that doesn’t matter if the flesh is tasty.
I look at both barrels and notice a pattern. Selis’ barrel is filled with the ugliest fish of the sea, Ket’s barrel is filled with a mix of normal and ugly fish. I stare at the blue-haired girl with suspicion but decide to let this fish discrimination go.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover. This baby will be delicious.” I drag the flopping mess behind me across the deck. I stop as I see the horrible slime trail it leaves. I decide to hold it out over the railing as I cut off the gross bits, leaving me a beautiful white fish skeleton filled with gorgeous pink flesh.
The Dao of Magic: Book II Page 5