The next day I remember the ice potions. I want to learn that before they leave. He says.
“Oh that is just a vial with some crushed white leaf in it. It freezes water when it comes in contact. It is a naturally growing plant in the forgotten isles. Only works with water though, so we can't use it to strengthen our swords.”
I'll have to get some of that plant. The amount of vials they have is very limited. Using half attacking me and my men, they only have ten left… I'd rather not take what they have since it is a thing I can't replicate. It might help save their lives making it back home. I'll just have to remember those ice potions once we start trading. I give them a portal from one of our ships. It leads straight to our base but I'll have them take it to a different part of the fortress.
I cage off a section and put the portal into it so they can't sneak attack us. But they can still come through to ask for help if they need it. It will also add to another portal to a distant land later on. One of my end goals is to have portals connected to every continent. Then every major city.
I improve their ships. Attaching two man powered paddle wheels onto each side of each ship. They can be powered by their feet, so they can also continue rowing with their arms. The paddle wheels are smaller than normal. Even still it will increase the speed they can make it home by hopefully a few months. We send them on their way. One hundred people traveling back home…
Well… With that interruption out of the way… I now have a new sword. Having a weapon like this will only get in my way though. I've become more of a shape shifting fighter now. Fighting with a sword is far more fitting of single, one against one fights… I still don't trust my strength when compared to my other generals. At least fighting one against one… Who should I give this sword too?
The only one it makes sense… Is Fast… I give him this sword and another one of the black swords. Enchanted and infused anti magic runes of freeze. I test them both out… Striking the two swords together seems to ignite them both in freeze magic for a short period… This replaces his swords and the new swords are called flame and chill mk2... I'll just call them flame and chill still.
The rare sword steals the magic temporarily from the other sword. I cast fire breath on it. The sword ignites into flames as if it was enchanted with a powerful flame. The magic is too strong to even hold the sword correctly. I cast flare magic on it.the flames are less than when I used my breath and it could be usable as a weapon. I'll have to make a few flare and freeze scrolls for Fast to apply to the weapon.
We set sail again. It should only be a few more days to the ninja village. As long as we're not attacked again or don't notice another island. My map doesn't show any land masses between us and the village though. So most likely it will be an easy trip. I tend to stay on Leaf's ship but also visit and run messages between the other ships.
I'm sitting outside on the deck of one of the ships, making a big net for it. When we're attacked by fish. Jumping through the air with swords attached to their faces. A school of swordfish! Hundreds of fish are attacking us! I yell out.
“MAGES PROTECT THE BOATS! Burn them before they can kill anyone! Their swords become brittle when attacked with fire!”
I jump ships. The ship I was on was Leaf's, she can handle her own ship. Jumping to Strong's ship. He's the only one without a strong ranged person on the ships. His ship would be the most vulnerable.
Thankfully my pets are all spread out through the ships. Darkclaw has begun circling the ships, casting fire down on them with his dragons breath. He is still part dragon, even though he hasn't seen much combat yet. Purple and Morpheus are also helping. Morpheus taking the form of a rock shark, jumping into the water to stop them before they can even attack. Purple is spreading his poison right above the surface of the water. When they come out they'll be paralyzed and fall right onto the boat.
I'm standing right at the edge of the bowspirit of Strong's ship. Casting my breath attacks to weaken their swords. They travel in pacts of over five hundred fish! Strong's ship is near the back but we're still getting attacked. These fish are extremely weak by themselves. But clustered together like this and they're as deadly as a raid boss. We continue to lower their numbers. We kill over half of them before they retreat. Or so I thought they were retreating. People on one of my ships cry out.
“WE HAVE A HOLE! Something pierced our ship from under the water level!”
I call out to my men.
“Anyone with an air helmet jump into the water! We might have to fight a raid boss!”
I take my helmet out of my void satchel and put it on, jumping into the water at the same time as my generals. WHAT THE HELL!? A giant mind eel is the leader of these sword fish. The name eel is very misleading.
Only its body has a resemblance to that of an eel. It is a few thousand pounds in weight. It's face is completely featureless, besides the giant mouth that covers most of the front of the monster. With no features it finds its way around in the water by manipulating other monsters psychically and seeing through their eyes. For one to have control over a school of swordfish… It must be a few hundred years old to get this big and strong.
The closest boat to the mind eel has a giant portion missing from it. The eel must have used it's teeth pointed outwards to cut straight into the boat. Spinning to make a somewhat cylindrical hole. I need to patch that before we it sinks. The eel still has control over a hundred swordfish.
I'll leave my generals to fight the-. WHAT THE HELL IS LEAF DOING DOWN HERE!? She isn't going to be helpful at all with her magic being restricted by the water. Fireball would be useless, shock would hurt herself, ice bolt wouldn't travel very far. WHAT THE HELL!? I start to rush over to her. The swordfish all began to focus her as well… WHY DID SHE JUMP IN! She's so out of place here that she is being targeted.
She begins to conjure something. With her high level time magic, she can cast without chanting. She doesn't even have an air helmet, I didn't think she would be so… She summons eight sharks to guard her. The few swordfish close to her were destroyed instantly… Maybe I didn't give her enough credit. She can defend herself. She still should have around half of her mana for casting as well. One of the summoner skills halves the amount of mana reserved by familiars.
One of her sharks rushes towards the mind eel. Some of the other generals are also heading towards it. Lance, powered by his drillance and Zergnar riding on Sharkdar. Strong jumped in the water as well… He doesn't have a helmet and unlike Leaf, he is actually useless in the water. Morpheus is defending him against the few straggler swordfish still around.
Trice jumped in without a helmet. She is holding her own, she's become accustomed to using scrolls in her fighting style. Her Gear mk2 is guarding her almost too well in the water. An almost 100% coverage from every side of her. The Gear mk2's head spinning around unnaturally fast to soak in all the information of underwater fighting.
I've been making my way to the ship with the hole the entire time. Only getting in damage dealt to the mind eel to boost the experience I'll get from it dying. I use control nature to lengthen the boards somewhat blocking the hole. Spitting spider silk to clog the hole up completely. This will only be a temporary solution… This attack would have sunk a dozen pirate ships without them being able to retaliate… I wish I could control these giant raid bosses. Having a giant ally would be helpful but I haven't found a solution to it yet.
I turn around right as Lance pierces into it. His drillance spinning the insides of the mind eel. The eel is too big to die from a single attack. Zergnar next, continually slashing the almost defenseless eel now that we've defeated his defenses (the swordfish). The few swordfish still around have become far less coordinated.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Leaf's shark reaches it next. She casts a spell and the shark expands to three times the size it was. It starts ripping into the eel. It shouldn't be much-. The insides of the eel start spilling out, The ooze it makes is what it uses to breath and also to control whatever comes in contact with it.
Lance, Zergnar and the shark familiar are now under the control of the mind eel. Shit! This became another race against time before our allies can accidentally kill one of us… Lance doesn't seem to be effected by the ooze though. Continuing his attack on it, Zergnar starts moving towards Lance but Lance has already drilled completely through the eel. It will die soon. It's control over Zergnar is far weaker because of this, Zergnar was at full strength when he was controlled by that siren. With Zergnar barely moving Lance easily avoids him.
The shark hasn't moved at all since being mind controlled. Only let go of its attack, some of the sharks teeth have fallen out and are still embedded in the mind eel. It finally dies from Lance's continuous attacks… If he couldn't resist it might have ended worse… How was Lance able to resist though?
Purple “poison dartwing” evolved into unique variant Mind meld bulletwing
Morpheus “changling” evolved into unique variant Transformling
Darkclaw “young griffling” is evolving, because you are the owner please choose evolution
Gem variant | Metallic variant | Bloodfusion variant
Level increased to 39
Level increased to 40
With Master of Learning reaching forty your other classes and jobs level faster
...I've heard of gem and metallic dragons… I've never heard of a bloodfusion dragon… What is that… It must be rarer than the other two because I've never heard of it… Should I pick it… It could potentially be better… At the same time though, I might have never heard it for a reason… It sounds like it might be because it is half dragon. I pick Bloodfusion.
While I was deciding I was also connecting the mind eel to a few ropes and taking them to the closest ship that doesn't have a hole in it. They'll hold onto the ropes while I go to run more… Darkclaw fell out of the sky! I swim over too him. He's begun his transformation, this should take longer than the normal transformation. I get him onto a ship so he doesn't drown.
He begins to change. The feathers on his body are being forced out and replaced. The new feathers are far more scale like than the previous ones. Like hybrid dragon scales and griffin feathers. His wings begin to stretch and grow to accommodate his new feathers. His face begins to elongate, the bottom portion of his beak falls off. It was replaced with a giant jaw. His top portion is still a beak. The bird like talons he had as hands start to bulk outwards and change to paw like appendages with claws on them. The feather line is no longer there, his entire body is covered in his scale feathers, including his head. His eye starts to become more reptilian, finally finishing with diamond like pupils. The entire time he was changing, he was also getting bigger. He is twice the size he was before. Able to easily hold three or four people.
Darkclaw “young griffinling” evolves into one of a kind variant Dragriff
Darkclaw begins to speak in common. “Heh, master always puts me through so much pain… It is totally worth it though! LOOK HOW COOL I AM!”
Darkclaw kicks off the ship. Jumping higher than even I could with my boosts. HE'S FAST! He darts around, making impossibly sharp turns with his new body. His wings seem to be both flexible and sturdier than the feathers they replaced… Maybe I should take a few feathers off him for testing purposes.
He fires his breath attack, it is different than it was before. It shoots out like a fireball, except it is purplish in color. A purple fireball is fired from him at the ground. Faster than even he was traveling at. It hits the surface of the water and instead of evaporating like I expected it. It sinks to the bottom of the ocean. The flames aren't extinguished by water… He takes in a deep breath and fires again. This time it is normal flame breath but the color is blue. His breath is far more narrow, extending farther than my breath has. Mine is like an explosion, his is like a beam of fire!
After watching Darkclaw evolve I go to help lift the mind eel out of the water. I look over and see a strange man on the deck helping pull the eel aboard. He is wearing a set of armor one of my generals would wear. DID HE KILL A GENERAL!?
“Who are you!?”
“Master, don't you recognize me? I'm Morpheus, you're old changling.”
“You're a person though... Did you evolve into a person?”
“No I can change into other things besides animals now. It seems like I can also choose the size as long as it is under one thousand pounds, I can transform into it.”
He shape shifts into a few more things. A dog, another person, mimicking my facial features, a mouse, finally mimicking Darkclaw's new evolution. I don't think he can do the same attacks as Darkclaw in his form. He's also far slower. Just because you can mimic a dragon doesn't mean you can use flame breath attacks. It appears he can't change into non living things though. I hear an unfamiliar voice inside my head.
“Hello master, it's nice to finally talk to you.”
“Who is this now?”
“I'm purple, I can connect with people telepathically with my new evolution. I seem to have developed some mind control type powers.”
“What else can you do with your new powers?”
“I can link you telepathically with other people. I think I can handle five as long as you're a league close to each other.”
I hear a few voices inside my head. Leaf, Lance, Trice, Swift and Shikki are all connected. Purple talks up.
“I think the smarter the person, the easier it is to connect them telepathically.”
Lance screams inside my head. “WHAT THE DEATH GOD! WHO IS IN MY HEAD!?”
Trice begins to talk. “I think we've been linked telepathically to a few people, sound off if you're in the group.”
Leaf squeaks out. “...Leaf here.”
“Swift can hear you all.”
“I-I can hear you all as well… This is Shikki.”
I go to speak up but Aegis cuts me off. “Can you all hear me?”
Lance answers him. “Yea, but who is this?”
“I'm Aegis, the gauntlet Kite uses. He's also in the call.”
Leaf speaks again. “C-can you see my memories or thoughts… I feel… Like I don't want to be connected anymore.”
Purple talks again. “No, only what you are thinking when we are connected. Even I can't go through your memories… While you are awake anyways. If you go to sleep I can eat your memories though. I won't unless master tells me to, so you're safe.”
I talk up now. “That is enough for now Purple. Thank you for showing me your new abilities.”
He breaks the connection. I wonder if I'm going to get more memories when I go to sleep… Well, I'll find out later. We spend the rest of the day making it to the ninja village. We dock a few hundred feet off shore, most likely out of sight of them if they look. It is too late to do anything today. I'll meet them tomorrow.