Chapter 747 (Patreon)

A/N : Sorry for the delay in posting! I was playing Wow forever after I hit post but it aparently didn't go through.

From the next day the training began. While all of House Hearthbound had been there to take the ship out for the first time most of them weren’t there the second day. The trip to their new city alone took a day and a half with a carriage even after the roads were built so without Aurexion to help speed up travel most of them wouldn’t be there to practice since they had other things to do.

Lexi was an exception to this. She thought she had a good chance of getting a trailblazer Skill with her Wind magic and conducting a ship so along with a host of retainers she had remained there ready to take the ship out again the second day. 

“Ready at your command, milady.” Despite the slang form of address for my lady, Theron had adapted over the years to being House Hearthbound’s retainer and his talent has only shone brighter with proper training and decent resources.

Theron had taken it upon himself to control the levers that directed the ship, a few wave hits at the wrong moment the day before had given Ajax a good reason to bring back to the carpenters for changing the levers out with a wheel. The amount of force water could put on the rudder was enough the throw a normal person across the deck. Ajax of course had no issue keeping a strong grip on it but of their young retainers Theron was one of the few Ajax was sure was up to the task. 

“We’ll start slower.” Lexi reassured the rest of the retainers on board. “We need to see if there are any among you that need time to adapt to being on a ship.” 

After a few hours on a ship the day before Jari hadn’t been the only one to get sea sick, he was still the worst of them by a fair margin but that Elija and Judy hadn’t been far from throwing up over the railing besides the monkey beastkin. 

While five people started to adjust the sail as Lexi began to cast for a slow controlled and maintained breeze five more retainers were doing drills down below. Heavy thread bags on their shoulders as they moved from one spot to the next. 

“Keep up the movement.” Their leader said. “According to the duke we need to be able to react to anything putting a whole in the ship, the stuff you’re carrying in those sacks should be able to make a makeshift patch that will last for a couple days.” 

One thing Ajax had taken from Earth’s knowledge of ships was that ‘unsinkable’ wasn’t really a thing, one ship that had been called that had sunk on its maiden voyage despite being one of the biggest ships ever made at the time. And that was all without accounting for Mana or the monsters that could be hiding in the depths. A way to seal a whole in the ship was essential, but a method was useless without people trained in using it, once too much water got in the ship would slowly start to sink regardless so speed was of the essence.

The ship finally starting moving and that caused a bigger sway in the ship tripping up one of the retainers. “Watch yourself.” The leader called out, all the while grabbing a beam to steady himself as he had also been caught by surprise with the sudden movement. “These ships will be carrying fragile merchandise, or worse alchemical explosives for combat. Tripping and landing on such things could cost a lot or kill you outright.” 

“Adjust the sail.” Lexi called out to the crew. “I’ll keep the wind consistent, we should be able to increase or decrease the speed by adjusting the angle of the sail.” 

The crew was in motion once more eager to learn, all of them knew the idea for all of this had to have come from the duke and the chance of following in his footsteps even a little appealed to all of them. 

“Quick reactions are going to be a problem.” Theron said as he could feel how slow the increase and decrease the speed of the ship was. As a physical fighter, especially one of his size with a strength stat to match, knew all about proper form and balance to allow for quick reactive movements. The problem was that boats had no way to exert enough force to force a quick change in movement. “A good strategist will prove more valuable for a naval battle than one on land.” 

“Start turning.” Lexi said while she agreed with the bull beastkin’s opinion. “We don’t want to get too far from the shore.” 

“We’re turning!” Theron called out, noticeably however he didn’t call out which direction they were turning and just pulled the levers for a right turn. 

Lexi maintained the wind constant that meant that as the ship started to turn the wind wasn’t coming from behind anymore and adjustments to the sail needed to be made. The crew however was obviously new and this was where the first big mistake happened. One of the retainers hadn’t been paying attention and one of the log coming up behind him until it knocked him overboard and into the water.

With a man in the water the chaos started and the youth of the crew finally started to really show. These were promising retainers for House Hearthbound and their talent and effort in training meant that even when tackling something as new as sailing they were disciplined. Their lack of experience started to show once something went wrong. 

“I’ve got the rope.”

“Should we lower the small boat?” 

“Trim the sail so we don’t go past him.” 

Everything fell apart until Lexi’s voice cut straight through. “Keep to your jobs.” The wind spell she had been maintaining was released and a large hand of water formed in the sea raising the fallen crew member and placing him on the deck soaked all the way through and forming a puddle. “Maintain speed and adjust to the change in wind.” 

With the orders given she finally left Theron’s side and approached the man still dripping water on the deck. “I’m sorry my lady.” The man was more embarrassed than anything else though a small headache was coming on as a small bump grew a little larger on the back of his head where he was hit. With his physical stats the cold water and the hit weren’t dangerous so the experience was more embarrassing than anything else.

“It’s fine.” Lexi reassured him. “This is our first time doing this mistakes are bound to happen, all I ask is that we learn from them. Now I do believe that you have a danger Skill, did that trigger?” 

The Skill in question didn’t work on traps but it did work on people, what she wanted to know was if it would be triggered by a mistake. It was hard to manufacture such a situation organically so now that it had happened since another crew member’s actions had sent the beam moving towards him she wanted to know if his Skill alerted him or not.

“It didn’t, my lady.” He shook his head.

“Alright.” While that made the Skill less powerful in terms of defence it did mean the Skill was intent based so a mistake wouldn’t trigger it but it would make betrayal easier to sense. “Go get yourself healed, dry yourself off and change your clothes then get back to it.” 

With that Lexi returned to her spot next to Theron excited about sailing some more. The teamwork required, the long term thinking as well as the influence of spells. While on a ship the dynamics between mages and physical combatants were flipped, mages were the flexible ones while physical builds took more time to make changes to speed or direction. This would be an exciting and hopefully rewarding way to train for her. 

With a silent apology to the rest of the family Lexi knew she would be spending the next month and a half out here sailing in preparation for the mock battle. She hoped that Ajax was having just as much success with his own training as well. 

While Lexi was sailing Ajax and Duke Manashaper were both pushing their [Sense Mana] Skill as Ajax swung Aurexion’s latest trophy in an effort to get a feel for the Space Mana. Both of them had felt Space Mana before when used by Anna’s bond but the little furball didn’t have the pool for more than a flash of Space Mana at a time. They now had access to large displays of Space Mana, something Ajax hoped could help him unlock his third Legendary Mana type.