She leaves as soon as she is finished speaking and I end the soulscape. Only a few seconds have passed in real time, so I join Stillwater in watching the deck. The last boat is approaching and I can see Brightfire, Nala, and Albion on it.

It only takes a few minutes for them to board the ship and for the boat to be stored away. Stillwater has a headcount taken to make sure no one is missing before ordering the anchor raised. Then the sails are raised and the ship slowly turns to make its way out of the bay.

Once we are clear of the bay, Stillwater orders for the propellers to be turned on. I close my eyes and use my mana sense to watch the propellers start spinning. Surprisingly, nothing goes wrong, they are all working the way they are supposed to.

I turn my head and give a nod to Stillwater who then orders an increase in speed. As soon as the propellers ramp up there is an obvious increase in the ship's speed. When everything continues to go smoothly, Stillwater has the sailor at the wheel increase to full speed.

I will admit, I am somewhat nervous as I watch the sailor push the lever all the way up. My main concern is that I don't know how much the rock I used as the engine can handle. I tested it at this level of output, but I didn't have time to test it long term.

However, for now it is working perfectly and the propellers are spinning at full speed. The speed of the ship is now just shy of triple what it was before the upgrades. This is actually a much better improvement than I was originally hoping for.

From the plans I had made, I was only expecting the ship's speed to double. I am not entirely sure why the speed is so much higher than I expected. When I check the engines and the enchantments on the propellers, everything is fine.

Finding no problems there, I scan the rest of the ship, but I don't find any problems. Surprisingly, everything is working the way I intended, I didn't make any mistakes. However, I still can't figure out why the ship is faster than I was expecting it to be.

In fact, I was expecting the speed to be lower than I was hoping due to the drag of the pontoons. Since I can't tell from inside I fly around the ship to take a look from the outside. Immediately, I notice that the ship isn't bobbing up and down with the waves.

It is most likely because of the extra weight of the metal I added to the bow. The bow is cutting straight through the waves like the blade of a sword. It makes me wonder if that is the reason that the ship is so much faster than I had planned.

With the ship being more stable and not bobbing around, the propellers have more effect. At least, that is the only thing I can think of that would account for the extra speed. Since I am not an engineer, that is the only guess I have that makes any sense.

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Now that the mystery is solved, kind of, I land and head back to the bridge. When I reconnect to the core, I find that the mana is flowing smoothly throughout the ship. However, there is a problem, we are using mana faster than we are gaining it.

It looks like I have set up too many enchantments, now I need to improve the mana gathering. The only way I have of doing that is by adding more gems and silver, since they naturally gather mana. However, I am sure there has to be a better way, so I head to the cabin to ask Lin.

Lin says "Ways to gather mana? Let me think."

"Or anything similar, I can always modify it."

Lin says "Well, I don't know of anything to gather just mana, but I know something similar. It is meant to enhance spells cast within it. It is a set of symbols that surround a circle."

"That sounds like a formation! Can you show me?"

Lin says "Of course I can, but what is a formation?"

"It is a type of ritual magic. Once it is finished it operates on its own."

Lin finds something to write with and then draws a circle on the floor and then surrounds it with symbols. I can instantly tell that it does gather mana to feed into any spells cast within it. All I need to do is figure out how to change the target of the formation for it to do what I want.

"These symbols, is this a language? Can you teach it to me?"

Lin says "It is and I can."

We move over to the table and Lin starts teaching me the language, but only the written version. When I ask she tells me that it is a dead language and no one uses it as a spoken language. We take a break to feed Mulan and Mushu their dinner and then the rest of us eat.

After dinner she goes back to teaching me the rune language and I can already think of tons of uses for it. The mana rich silver is going to come in real handy now that I am learning this. If I carve the formation into something and then fill it with silver it should be way more effective.

*DING*

Congratulations! Skill Linguistics has progressed to level 10 (MAX)!

Linguistics

Level 10 (MAX)

Int +20

You are a master of languages, both living and dead.

As soon as the skill levels up I gain a complete understanding of the rune language. I even learn where the human mages made mistakes in comprehending it. Mostly this is due to the fact that not all words have just a single meaning.

It immediately goes from Lin teaching me to me teaching her the finer points of the language. Under Lin's questioning I end up explaining to her my character screen and how my skills work. It turns out that she does have levels, but she doesn't have a system like mine.

When I am done teaching her, we put the kids to bed and then I open a soulscape. Lin, the kids, and Brightfire all show up immediately, but Myria doesn't at first. We have been playing with the kids for around an hour before Myria finally shows up.

Myria says "Ash, sorry I'm late, I was talking to Yui."

"It's fine. Did she have any advice for me?"

Myria says "She sure did, way too much actually. That's what took so long, she had to dumb it down a lot. She said it needs a constant source of mana and will slowly develop on its own. To speed up the growth the best thing to use is spiritual items or other items with spirits. Spirits have a different type of energy apparently and that is what it will need to grow faster."

"Alright, I understand. I don't have any spiritual items, but I know some spirits I can ask. Did she say anything else?"

Myria says "Only that as long as you are the one helping it grow, it will be loyal to you. If you want it to be loyal to others, then they need to help you feed it."

"Got it. Thanks for playing messenger!"