Guan Zhenyan had to reluctantly stand upon the back of the giant man as it laid horizontal in the air and flew around in a superman style pose. He threw a cloak over his head and hid his identity, not wanting anyone to see him piloting the behemoth through the air. Palace in the Sky had its own dedicated air lane that led from their shop directly to an exit on the side of the Tianxia Capital. It was high enough to be free of incoming traffic to the capital, but not too high that the lower quality Flying Tools would malfunction. They’d purposely chosen to base their headquarters on a level that was inefficient for Flying Tools to reach, but still within the range where they could slowly descend until they reached their optimal altitude.

All eyes were drawn to the sight of an immense person flying through the air, and were then immediately turned away after they got a better look at the immense and barely clothed state of the man. Guan Zhenyan grumbled the whole time as they flew away from the capital. It was only after they’d gone a few hundred miles that they were finally alone in the wilderness. The ‘ship’ flew down to the ground and started to roll back into a vertical position again before suddenly disappearing into thin air. Zhenyan smashed it with his Spirit Power to batter its resistance down and then Sage sent it to the Inner World.

Guan Zhenyan blew out a massive cloud of aggrieved smoke, tearing off his cloak and bringing out a pile of cushions and furniture. He laid himself down in front of a large hookah and lounged on the pillows, gazing up at the sky as he tried to wipe the last few hours out of his memory. He was in no hurry to do that again and so he gave Sage all the time he wanted to make changes.

For Sage’s part, the reason he was so confident was that the huge fat man Flying Ship was an Artifact, just like that fairy tale swan boat. The main difference was that instead of having strict requirements of its owner, this Flying Tool had strict requirements on its own identity. The reason Sage wanted to buy it was that the main material the Flying Tool was made of was a high tier material called Evershifting Stone. It could change not only its shape, but its weight and density as well making it an extraordinary building material. From the way the giant statue had been peeking at them while they walked around, it would look like it was alive, but in fact it was just the shapeshifting properties of its materials. The Flying Tool was the Artifact Spirit’s body and so it wasn’t shy about reshaping everything to look exactly how it wanted to look. Somehow the Artifact Spirit had decided it was an extremely chubby man and so that’s the shape its body, the Flying Tool, took.

In order to make this Artifact Flying Ship not look as it did, all they had to do was convince the Artifact Spirit to change. They had to either see the Flying Ship as a vehicle and not a body, or they had to make the Spirit see itself as something other than a round man.

There were already a few people on the Inner World that had some experience taming an Artifact as they’d helped Sage to gain control over the Tigerbriar. In fact, they even had Tigerbriar to use as an example to help them coerce the new Artifact Spirit. The Spirit called itself ‘The Glutton’ which was already not a very flattering name and showed how ingrained this identity was. They first brought over the Tigerbriar, having its spirit converse with The Glutton and let the obedient Artifact Spirit try to convince this new and stubborn one. If it was that simple, then they would have sold this Flying Ship far before now. They had to move on to the next tactic which started by constantly repeating to the Glutton that the Flying Ship was not its body. He was the captain of the ship, or heart and soul of it.

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After repeating this over and over again, with little result, they gave it the alternative. If the Flying Ship was its body, then that meant it was severely out of shape. Sage spent a few weeks, on the Inner World, carefully deciphering its crux and then sealing the Glutton into a human body. Then they started it onto a brutal regime of diet and exercise, one way or another the Glutton would be forced to change. After being forced to work off a few dozen pounds, the Glutton couldn’t take it anymore. He finally caved in and agreed to a little psychological conditioning, separating the idea of itself from the physical form of the Artifact. The Glutton was forced to stick to a strict diet and exercise constantly. Every day they would undo the Seal to see its form. Only when the Glutton finally succeeded at making the mental break did they finally let him rest. Once the Artifact Spirit truly considered itself as the pilot of the Flying Ship, it no longer had to be thin. The pilot could be as Gluttonous as he pleased, it wouldn’t make the Flying Ship any slower.

This was the result Sage was pushing towards, using the torture of rapid weight loss as an incentive to make the Glutton change his mind and break long standing mental associations. If they were only able to make the Glutton lose weight, the end result would still be a Flying Ship that looked like a man. Even if it wasn’t as disturbing, it would still be awkward. Thankfully, the Glutton couldn’t last that long and chose to work hard mentally rather than physically. The Artifact Spirit could stay as fat as he liked while doing some simple mental training to learn how to better control the shape of the Flying Ship. The ideal would be to run comprehensive tests to find the most optimal shape for every situation. A shape for cruising, changing direction, diving, inclement weather, camouflage, and anything else they can think of. Since it could take any shape, then it would be wasteful not to take advantage of it.

The only problem was that The Glutton was not very disciplined. It was difficult to get him to do the very fine alterations to the Flying Ship body shape. He could alter its overall shape into different styles of ships, buildings, or other decorative shapes, but trying to get him to change the slope of the ship’s bow, or the angle of a fin was much more difficult. They tried to use more ‘coaxing’ to get him to follow through with the tests, but the results were unreliable. Even if they got him to alter the individual parts to match the specifications they were looking for, as soon as they had him switch the Flying Ship to another form and back again, the specifications were off once more.

That meant they could either set up the ship for a single optimized form, or just stick to the rough shapes that The Glutton could take easily. In the end, they went for a combination of the two. They had the Artifact Spirit try out a few hundred basic shapes, running them through tests till they found those that fit their needs the best. Then they took the one that was best at long distance travel and went through the careful process of doing slight alterations followed by more tests. The changes wouldn’t stick, but since this was likely to be the shape used for the majority of the trip, they likely wouldn’t need it to change much. Also, they could use the Inner World’s time difference to make sure the shape was perfect if they had to change the Flying Ship into another shape.

Now for the real problem. The Ship and its ‘pilot’ need a new name. I am not going to keep calling our Flying Tool ‘The Glutton’.