After recovering my mana I have breakfast with the kids and then return to working on the ship. The biggest sections of the ship are already complete, all that is left are some small things. Mainly the cabins inside the upper decks and things like the railings.
All the supports and frame work are complete, it should be fine to float the ship tomorrow. Assuming it doesn't sink I will spend the rest of the day testing everything out. I will have to wait and see what problems crop up and how long it will take to fix them.
It will also serve as a good way to give the sailors some experience with the ship. After all, this ship is almost five times the size of the human ship they have been training with. Meaning it will be slower to turn and harder to control, but I'm not sure if it will be slower or not.
As long as it doesn't sink I can work on solutions if it turns out to be too slow. Two of the things that I have left to do can't actually be done until the ship is in the water. Those are the rudder and the stability fins, they can't be done now because the cradle is too low.
I didn't plan things out well enough when I asked the elves to build the cradle. Thanks to me using mana for everything it hasn't been too much of a problem. I could actually put the ship in the water right now, but I'd rather wait until tomorrow.
The enchantments are also going to be done after I see if the ship will float. I could improve the chances with enchantments, but I would rather see if it will float on its own. If it will then I can use the mana for other enchantments, like boosting the ship's speed.
All of that will be decided tomorrow, for now I just complete everything that I can. When dinner time rolls around I return to camp, planning to eat with the kids. However, the smell of cooking meat from the elven camp hits me and for some reason I can't resist it.
Nala and Albion eat normally, but I find myself consuming a vast quantity of meat. In fact, I eat so much that I can't even return to camp and fall asleep right where I am. I pass out so quickly that I don't even get a chance to open a soulscape for the kids or go into the hall.
The sun is directly above me when I wake up the next day, meaning I have slept over twelve hours. When I open my eyes and look around I find Nala and Albion on either side of me. They have their backs to me, meaning they are guarding me, not that the elves would disturb me.
Still, it makes me feel rather proud of the two of them and it shows how much they care about me. Any thoughts I had of not keeping them are long gone by this point, they are my kids. They quickly realize that I have woken up and turn to rub against me.
As I am petting them I realize that there have been some changes to my body. For one, I have grown a bit more, for another I now have a mane around my neck. Luckily, it is only around the top of my neck behind my head, otherwise it would look really weird.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The biggest change is that my wings have grown to the point that I should be able to fly with them. All these changes should mean that my new body has reached maturity. If so, then it should be safe for me to start working on my core and find out more about what I am.
Of course, that will have to wait a bit, I was supposed to have the ship in the water by now. So, after a quick breakfast with Nala and Albion I head over to the construction site. First I cast a series of Transport Barge spells all along the hull of the ship.
Then I break down the cradle so that the ship drops onto the barges so I can move it. Once the cradle is out of the way I start pushing the ship until it is over the water. Finally, the moment of truth, I slowly dispel the barges so that the ship gently drops into the water.
It rocks side to side more than I thought it would, but it doesn't capsize or sink! Putting the stabilizer fins on the hull should hopefully reduce the rocking. As I watch the ship floating in the bay I realize something I forgot, the ship has no anchor.
That isn't a big problem, I can just steal the anchor from the human ship. Spreading my wings I give a few experimental flaps, then I leap into the air and easily fly over to the ship. It is just as easy as flying when I am in eagle form, way better than flying in my old body.
After landing on the ship I use my mana to alter the hull and create the stabilizer fins. As soon as I do the rocking decreases a lot and then I create the rudder. As I am working, the sailors come over by boat and start getting the rigging ready.
Once I am done we set the sails and take the ship out for its first test run. We of course discover all sorts of little problems, but none of them are too hard to resolve. Once we have the bugs worked out I leave the sailors to practice while I fly over to the human ship.
In the process of removing the anchor I do some damage to the human ship, but it doesn't really matter. In fact, now that we are done using it for training it is worthless and can be sunk. However, for now I just leave it alone, we can use it as a target for the weapons test.
Flying back to the ship carrying an anchor and chain is not easy, but once there installing them is. Then we take the ship out onto the open ocean and see how it handles. As I expected, it doesn't turn very well, but the speed isn't as bad as I expected.
That is probably due to the enchantments on the sails, even with a weak wind they work well. I think once I am done enchanting the ship it will handle almost as well as the human ship. Considering its size, that is much better than I was expecting and should mean I don't need to modify it much.
Seeing how it handles also gives me a good idea of what I need to focus on when I begin the enchantments. After sailing her around for a couple of hours we return to the bay and arm the weapons. Once the sailors are ready I order them to fire on the human ship.
The first round of shots miss completely, but I am not too surprised by that. After all, this is the first time that the sailors have had a chance to fire them. The reload time is also slow, but that will also improve with practice.
As the sailors continue reloading and firing the weapons, I notice a crowd of elves on the beach watching. Them being curious is completely understandable since we will all be leaving on this ship. Come to think of it, I can't just keep calling it 'this ship', I should really think of a name for her.
The human ship finally sinks after being hit by a couple of dozen ballista bolts. The catapults didn't manage to hit once, but they are much harder to aim. After anchoring the ship I let the sailors return to shore while I start planning the enchantments.