First, I open a soulscape and invite all the kids, Lin, Brightfire, and Myria. Surprisingly, everyone gets along and plays with the kids almost like a big family. Once everyone has played for a good long while, one by one they get tired and leave until only Lin and I remain.

"Krenocia, Seronia, I invite you to the soulscape."

The two goddesses show up fairly quickly and then I introduce them to Lin. Immediately the three of them move off and create a building to chat in. This time I am not as nervous, because I understand the goddesses fairly well.

However, it still leaves me sitting around and waiting, which is boring for me. I already have phase one planned out, and phase two is as planned as it can be at this point. This means there is not really anything else I can do to ease the boredom.

Normally I would practice my control of the soulscape, but my skill is already maxed. There is not much else for me to do, so in the end I just watch some anime. Luckily, the conversation between the three of them finishes much faster than the last one.

Seronia says "Ash, you have made a good choice. I like her!"

Krenocia says "I do too. At first I thought you had been rash, but I was wrong. You have good taste in women."

"Thank you, I guess."

Lin doesn't say anything, but her face is bright red and she won't look at me. It makes me really wonder what they were talking about, but I am not going to ask. The goddesses might even tell me, which is scarier than not knowing.

Seeing Lin's face the goddesses giggle a bit before they disappear leaving just Lin and I. However, before I can say anything to her she leaves the soulscape as well. With her gone I go ahead and end the soulscape, but I remain in my meditative state.

Looking outside from my meditation room I can see that Lin has gotten up. However, her face is still bright red so I decide to give her some time to recover. Whatever is going on, the last thing I want to do is make it worse somehow.

Lin says "Ash?"

"Yes?"

Lin says "Aren't you going to ask me what was discussed?"

"No. From how red your face is I assumed it wasn't something you would want to talk about."

Lin says "Thank you. Let's just say the goddesses gave me some advice. I never expected them to be like that, they were quite blunt. They didn't act at all like I expected them to."

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"That's partly my fault. Their attitudes have changed since I first met them and started interacting with them. Not to mention that I exposed them to quite a bit of knowledge and ideas from my old world."

Lin says "So you corrupted them? Are you going to do the same thing to me?"

"Well, not intentionally, but it is possible."

Lin says "I am okay with being corrupted, but please don't let me become as gossipy as they are!"

"I don't think I have any control over that. My best suggestion would be to not hang out with the goddesses too often."

Lin says "That won't be a problem. They are still really intimidating."

"That will fade as you get to know them, but I won't force you."

Lin says "Anyway, thank you for letting me meet them. I know you still need to meditate and I also need to sleep. Will you be joining us for breakfast?"

"I will go back to work after meditating for a couple of hours, but I will try to remember to come back for breakfast."

Lin says "Alright. Then I will see you in the morning. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Again, Lin grabs my face and kisses me on the lips, but this time I kiss her back. The kiss lasts for a couple of minutes and makes me regret that I have so much work to do. When the kiss ends Lin's face is red again, but she smiles at me before going to bed.

I quickly suppress my emotions and clear my mind so that I can enter into meditation. Even once I am meditating, I don't think about anything and just focus on my mana. I put all of my focus on trying to recover my mana faster so I can get back to work.

*DING*

Congratulations! Skill Zen Meditation has progressed to level 7!

Zen Meditation

Level 7

Wis +140, Will Power +70

Recovery. HP 30/Minute MP 30/Minute

It has actually been so long that I had forgotten that my meditation was even a skill. However, I do appreciate the fact that it speeds up my mana recovery. Considering how much work I have to do it will save me quite a bit of time.

Now that my mana pool is refilled, I leave the tent, drop shapeshift, and fly back to the ship. With the enchantments out of the way I can now alter the structure of the ship. The first change is the biggest, adding the pontoons to the sides of the ship.

Because I left the extra mass in the ship I don't need to add any extra materials. However, since I picked up some interesting woods on my little adventure, I plan to use them. The new wood isn't necessarily better than the wood of the ship, but it has different properties.

My hope is that by fusing the new wood into the ship I can get the wood of the ship to absorb those properties. The first thing I do is go around the ship fusing pieces of the new wood into the ship. Once all the wood is fused in, I sit down and merge my mind with the ship.

Now comes the part I am not sure of, I try to let the ship use my power to absorb the new wood. It kind of works, at least it feels like the new wood has been absorbed by the ship. I can't be sure if the properties were absorbed, but the ship once again feels like one piece.

Once that is done, since I am already merged with the ship, I start making changes. The first change I make is also the biggest, adding the pontoons to the ship. I make them about one third of the ship's length and about a quarter of its width.

They are oriented towards the back of the ship, the back of the pontoons is even with the back of the ship. This way all the propellers will be even and can propel the ship evenly. Each pontoon is connected to the ship by three large supports, one to the first deck and two to the bottom deck.

These supports are hollow and are big enough to allow a person to walk through them. This way the insides of the pontoons can be used as extra storage space. At least for now, for phase two I am contemplating turning them into bombing chambers.