Master Strovn

Strovn stared at the sea, wondering why it was so calm today. This far from the coast, the sea should have been roiling, ready to devour any ship that dared to sail in its waters. But it was calm. So calm that it made him feel upset. So calm that he was wondering if he should ask Elder Bel if they wanted to check what was wrong.

But tensions were already high in the crew. The way they did things and the way humans did was very different. For one, they insisted on sailing in formation, despite it increasing their travel time. And keeping at least half their weapons charged. Strovn felt like pulling his hair out. This was a merchant fleet! Not a military campaign! An armed fleet could easily be presumed hostile.

But for some reason, Elder Bel had agreed with them. Strovn wouldn't dare to question the Elder's wisdom publicly, but he had to say, he had his doubts. Did the Elder know something that he didn't?

Even his presence here was weird. The fleet was far too well protected for a simple journey like this. An Elven merchant fleet would only have one Master at most. And yet there were seventeen Master stage half-Elves and the Adept on it. Guarding each ship as if they were expecting an attack.

The ship shook as it jumped out of the water, springing into the air for a second. A flash of panic shook as he called on the water, ready to defend the ship against the attack. But he was stopped.

"Don’t!" a human sailor yelled. "Attacking will only provoke them."

"Why?" he demanded.

"Look down." the sailor gestured towards the sea. Strovn turned towards it, wondering what it was that made the soldier so wary. The ship had to have moved due to a beast, or a hostile force.

Strovn felt his mouth open and close as he looked at the huge beast jump out of the ocean. As large as this ship, glistening with mana that showed its cultivation, was a whale-dolphin. In other words, a dolphin so large, it could be a whale.

An Adept stage beast. And more than one of them. Strovn felt their presence, laid out under the ships as they jumped into the air and then back in. A whale dolphin pack.

An ocean of sweat wet his back as he remembered the action he had taken. Had he attacked them… the ship would have collapsed immediately. The entire fleet might have borne the consequences of his foolish actions.

Whale dolphins were a peaceful species as far as beasts went, but they were ruthless to anyone that dared harm one of their own.

"Thank you." he said, bowing to the sailor that had warned him earlier.

"Don’t worry." the sailor waved his hand, as if gesturing his worries away. “There are few things more disturbing than having your ship flung into the air. Just try not to attack any more whale dolphins, okay?"

"Do they often come?" he asked, looking at the beautiful creature. A larger, blacker version of it’s smaller cousin, the dolphin, the creature was a sight to look at.

"Yes, this pack has been here for centuries. That's why this part of the sea is so safe, the whale dolphins kill anything that gets in their way." the sailor exclaimed.

That in itself was strange. The whale dolphins in the Elven continent tended to prefer deeper seas. And they rarely hunted, certainly not enough to scare away other predators.

Was this perhaps a different breed? Strovn couldn't tell any difference between the two, but he didn't know whale dolphins too well.

"The real trouble will be coming soon." the sailor warned.

"Oh?" Strovn exclaimed. "Are we expecting any danger?" The Elder had not informed him of any.

"Not really, but it's always best to be alert with those bastards." the sailor said, grinding his teeth in anger.

"Do you see that line there?" the sailor said, pointing in the direction where an island was vaguely visible.

"Yes, I can see the island." Strovn said.

The sailor looked towards him in surprise. "Oh right, you’re half-elf."

"Elven sight is largely the same as a human's. This is due to my cultivation. As a Master, my eyesight is significantly stronger than yours. But please continue."

"Oh, um, you’re a Master." the sailor stuttered, gulping several times. Perhaps he had not realized who he was. Strovn hadn’t made his cultivation public, so that was to be expected. "The island is the starting point of the Mi archipelago."

"Is that a dangerous place?" Strovn asked.

"Not quite, it's the seat of the Zun Emperor." the sailor replied. "In a way it is the safest place in our journey, the Emperor makes sure not a single beast dares to wander within a kilometer of his precious farms."

"But we are in enemy territory." Strovn noted, catching up on the situation as he recalled what he heard of the Zun Empire. The relationship between the Zun Empire and the Diery county was hostile. There shouldn't be a problem for just a few ships to pass by, but there was no way to know for sure what the Emperor would do. That was what the sailor feared.

"Not just that, some of our people might attack them. The hate flows both ways. There have been incidents where someone attacked the Zun. This is the only place in the Zun Empire where food grows. The Emperor will be furious if anything goes wrong." the sailor added.

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Strovn immediately became alert, sensing the current of mana to make sure that no one was tying something. The mana current was roiling, responding to hundreds of commands as people across the fleet called on it.

At any given moment of time, there were dozens of people having mana do something for them. Moving cargo, tying ropes, many forms of manual labor were being done by magic across the fleet.

Strovn could see how someone could get away with attacking in a place like this. Even if he was observing like this, he couldn't be sure that he could stop an attack on one of the islands in time.

Mana answered his call as he sent it to the Elder. The pulses of mana would inform him of the situation. Thankfully, they had come up with codes to communicate long ago. Mana codes were quite useful in sending messages across the fleet.

A few seconds later, mana blossomed around the fleet, twisting around it as his surroundings grew hazy. The Elder was the last of an ancient bloodline. The last with the power of nature. The Mad King had forbidden him from having any descendants at all, to not allow the bloodline to continue.

"What is that?" the sailor said as he pointed to the hazy fog surrounding the ships.

"Elder Bell's [Shield of Nature]. There won't be anyone attacking from our side now. The Elder will neutralize it." Strovn answered.

"Oh." the Sailor said. "I didn't even sense any mana from it."

Strovn nodded, noting the wonder in the sailor's voice. This was so similar to how he had first reacted when he had found out about the Elder's prowess.

"The Elder is not the most powerful of my kind, but he is certainly the most experienced." Strovn said. The Golden Sword had gotten stronger than the Elder long ago, his swift and powerful attacks too much for the Elder to deal with, but that was all he was. There was a limit to how far speed would go.

In comparison, the Elder walked a much harder path. A path that both followed and broke the laws of nature at the same time. Strovn admired him for that.

"I see." the sailor said. "Can you do something like this?"

"Not even close." Strovn said. "The closest I can come to it is doing this."

Strovn conjured a ball of gas, careful to not let the feel of mana set in.

"The larger the spell, the more likely that you will be able to sense the mana from it." Strovn said. "The fog will look natural to the Emperor. Even the Mad King is not able to sense through the Elder's fog."

"The Mad King?" the sailor asked.

"Yes." Strovn said. Of course, a human did not know about the Mad King. The King may consider humans his enemy, but they clearly didn't.

"The Mad King is the youngest Grandmaster in Elven history. And the ruler of the three continents." Strovn said.

"Oh." the sailor replied. "I knew that you had only one Empire, but for one person to rule three continents… That’s a lot of power"

Strovn sighed. "There have been concerns. The people voicing the concerns just seem to end up dead.

Strovn shivered despite himself. The Mad King's power made him tremble in fear. There was only one time he had met him. The time when the Elder destroyed Revlon, the largest slave market in the three Elven continents. The market sold no Elves, but half-Elves were fair game. With the Mad King’s support, the market had flourished.

The Elder's fog had covered the market, making it impossible for even the Mad King to sense them as the slaves were evacuated. Strovn had barely been an Apprentice then, a mere slave among the tens of thousands sold in the marketplace. But he had seen the Mad King lash out in range, uncaring of who he killed as he tried to kill as many slaves as he could.

Scathing, twisting beams of light that twisted one’s body from within. Killing one as surely as fire, but far more painfully.

"I can think of a few nobles like him here." the sailor said. Strovn doubted there. The human lords were greedy, the Mad King was…mad. A bumbling collection of insanity and power that made him tremble in fear.

"Duke Zerolian is now blocking the Countess from even sending free food into the Zerolian duchy. Not that she’s offering." the sailor said. "I have family there. I asked them to move out, but they don't want to. The duchy is safe, you know. The Zerolian family destroyed most of the forests. I don't know what we will do if the Duke and the Countess really come to blows. There aren’t a lot of places they can go."

Strovn was shocked by the sudden confession, but thought it would be rude to interrupt him. Why was he speaking of this to him? The average human, or half-elf, avoided those more powerful than them. Not start talking to them. But he did not have anything better to do.

"Can't they move to another to Diery? Diery is safe, yes?" Strovn said.

The sailor shook his head. "Moving to Diery is too hard. The roads aren't safe to travel through. The petty range lies in between the royal lands and the dukedom. Passing the range without at least a Journeyman leading you is asking to be killed. If the beasts don't kill you, the lords will."

The sailor leaned against the ship's railing, staring through the fog.

"The petty range." Strovn mused on that word, wondering where he had heard it.

"That's the part of the Empire ruled by petty lords that consider themselves the 'neutrals'." the sailor said, gnashing their teeth.

"The lands are an important trade route, so they keep switching sides whenever they dislike some order their liege gives. Then they give the bare minimum support to their lands. The roads aren't maintained, and the forests are overrun. A village disappears from there every other month. There are rumors that some lands are even empty of inhabitants now. The lords just don't care, they're too busy vacationing in the capital throughout the year."

Vacationing throughout the year. Strovn scoffed, he could name a few similar nobles on the Elven continent. There was simply too much trash in the aristocracy.

"Doesn't the Emperor do something?" he asked. The Solerian family was the family of Law, he'd heard of how they-

The sailor spit into the sea. “The Emperor is a puppet of the nobility. The bastard lives in that golden castle and doesn't care for us."

Oh my, that was a lot of hate.

"The Duke at least protects us, the Emperor is too busy keeping his family's power to care for us." the sailor said. "If the Empress wasn't around, we would all be dying left and right. At least he had the good sense to marry someone good."

"What has he done to make you hate him so much?" Strovn asked, worried. Now his people were under this Emperor. Even the Countess would have to listen to him if he ordered something.

"Oh, where do I start-"

The sailor began, but then stopped. Strovn knew exactly why. A strange magic was piercing the fog. Strovn called on the mana to block the attack, failing as the ship shook back. Blue lights pierced through the fog, ignoring the lack of visibility, to strike across the entire area. Just like the Mad King had.

And not just any attacks.

"Ring the alarm!" he shouted, calling on mana to ring the bells.

The fog began to clear around them as mana gathered on their flagship. As visibility grew, he vaguely saw a row of ships in front of them. Black and yellow flags flying on them. The Fringe. A pirate group headed by an Adept.

The danger had apparently found them.