“Catch!” Lastaf yelled as he tossed me a towel. “Make sure you always travel with a towel, among other things. You won’t always have access to a nice shower or hot bath.

We had been sparing for the better part of the morning with wooden swords. Like the towel, the swords came out of the never-ending supply of Lastaf’s magic bag. I was curious how big the inside was and how much it had cost the Axoli.

We had gone over the same forms Kizso had shown me once, before he told me to defend myself. After being battered for an hour, Lastaf shook his head and told me I had much work to do. Then we switched to him defending, and over the next few hours, try as I might, I couldn’t touch the man.

I went to the back mast and scooped up some water from the barrel. Pouring some of it over my head felt divine. Drinking the rest, I began to towel myself down. Luin came over and seemed to want some water as well. I scooped her some and allowed her to lap it up.

Commotion from the ship's port side drew my attention where a few sailors were shouting and pointing to something far over the horizon. I made my way over to them and tried to figure out what it was.

It looked like another sailboat but was floating over and past the horizon. That piqued my interest, and I wanted a better look at it. I thought about how I could make a telescope. Would I use Light or Air magic? Let’s try Air.

I remembered back to the academy on how lenses were used to create long-ranged optical telescopes. I pictured the three lenses in my mind and began to create compact and motionless air nodes, then began to fill the lens with them. It clicked after I bit, and I willed it to fill the space between me and the far away vessel.

The first attempt was a failure. It was far too small and far, far away from us. I could see the air bout twenty meters off the boat glint as it remained in place as we sailed away from it.

Ok, attempt two. This time I forced my intent to make it much larger. Then I willed it to materialize two meters in front of me and remain in front of me at all times.

That seemed to work as the air ripped, causing a few sailors to curse and jump backward. I willed the lens to move slightly to line up the object in the distance and got a blurry image on the front lens. I willed the middle lens to move forward a bit, and the picture became crystal clear of what I would only describe as an airship.

One of the sailors looked at the image hanging in the air and began to yell for their captain.

“You amaze me once again, Zeal. You used compressed air to create lenses, yes?”

“I did. Is that an airship in the distance? How does it stay afloat?”

One of the sailors answered for Lastaf, “That’s an Akhusite Airship. Air and Weight mages work together to make the ship lighter than air. See those massive white orbs at the front and back? Air mages change the air inside of them to something called Hydrogen. Then a Weight mage makes the entire boat lighters, and they begin to float. These metallic fans here and here propel the ship forward and allow it to turn.”

The captain came over to stare at the floating image, then at me and back at the airship. “Slavers. We don’t need to worry. It looks like they are heading back to their kingdom.”

“Slavers?!” I yelled in surprise.

“Yes, mage. Many territories on the mainland allow slavery to exist. It’s mostly the human-controlled kingdoms in the empire. Being a smooth skin, you don’t have to worry. It’s the furred races they capture and enslave like us; the Beastkin, the Kobolds, and what they deem lesser races like Goblins, Halflings, Gnomes and such.”

Lastaf placed a hand on my shoulder as my rage began to boil. The act calmed me down. “How can anyone allow slavery?”

The captain chuckled. “No one allows slavery to happen. The rich get their way, and the Immortals don’t stop it. As long as those who are stronger do what they want, slavers will keep going out and capturing those weaker.”

I wanted to tell Lastaf to fly us after that ship, but when I looked him in the eyes, he shook his head. Well damnit. I needed to get stronger, so I could stop bullshit like that, but I knew I had far too long to go before then.

“How did you create this floating image? Could you teach some of my mages? That spell could save our men's lives. I’ll pay you, of course. I know how you mages like to guard your spells. How’s fifteen gold sound?”

“Sure he will. You have anyone who’s a decent Air mage?” asked Lastaf for me.

The captain selected two of what he called his forward team. A group of men sat at the back of the boat, casting air spells into the sails to keep the ship going at a steady clip. Using my notebook and pen, I sat with them and drew out the shape of the lens, and explained what each one did and how to adjust the middle to focus the image. When the first one could recreate it, I asked him how they did their air spells to keep air flowing into the sails.

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The spell was pretty ingenious. They would work together and create a massive funnel of solid air to force the wind currents to compress and funnel towards the sails. They weren’t creating air. They were harvesting it and redirecting it.

After the second mage had learned to create the spell, the captain gave me a cord with the fifteen coins attached. He thanked me for not refusing to teach his men. The spell was far more helpful than the simple single lens telescope he had at his hip.

The two mages practiced on the ship's port side, keeping the airship in the distance at their focus when they both began to yell in unison. The airship had turned and was now heading our way. The crew erupted in chaos. Lastaf and I stood silently, looking at the image of the front of the airship. I wasn’t going to lie to myself. I was very much hoping they would come to us.

“Lastaf, the airship can still float on the water without the balloons?”

“Correct. They have to go to sea before they can dock at any ports. Almost every kingdom forbids airships from traveling over their cities.”

“Very good,” I said as I began diving into my mind.

“I’ll back you up, Zeal. Show me something interesting.”

“Can you cast two different schools of magic into the same spell?”

“You can, but it is a magnitude harder to achieve as each additional school of magic will double the overall cost of Mana. What are you thinking?”

I didn’t answer him, wanting it to be a surprise. I created a solid tube of air in the shape of a canon in my mind. Then around the air canon, I used ice to reinforce the outside and gave it a tripod to sit on. Then Inside the cannon, I created a cylinder of hardened air, filled with compressed air. Last I made a shell of ice that sat on the cycler. When the system was satisfied, I materialized it on the ship's deck. It promptly exploded, showering the entire ship with ice.

“It looked like a cannon for a momment there, Zeal. Did it work as attended?’

“No, I glared at the black-eyed pinkish man. The air charge was wrong, If I had to guess.”

I looked over at the mage’s air lens and could see I had plenty of time before the airship arrived. I dove back in my head and worked on the air cannon part by part. This time I created the cannon with the tank a part of the structure. I reinforced the tank’s sides and created a thinner part at the center of the Tank facing towards the cannon’s opening.

Satisfied, I filled the tank with compressed air then materialized the cannon floating in front of me. Nothing happened. I pointed it out to sea and willed the small circle on the tank to vanish. There was a vast ‘whoosh,’ and the cannon didn’t explode.

I created the same cannon and placed the ice shell inside once more before willing it in front of me. I willed the thin air hole to vanish, and the previous ‘woosh’ became a ‘throommp,’ as the shell of ice was rocketed out about a hundred meters into the ocean.

“Interesting way to make a cannon, but why not just use your blue Fireball to propel the chunk of ice?”

“If there are enslaved people on that ship, I don’t want to kill them with an explosion or set the ship on fire. Hydrogen is very flammable and could ignite.”

“Valid points. What is your plan, then? Destroying those balloons forcing them down to the water? These sailors are not fighters, Zeal. Slavers are going to be higher level and have weapons. Don’t forget about their mages.”

“I have an idea to solve that issue from my fellow casters.”

During this time, the captain was barking orders. He had the casters pushing the ship to its limits in terms of speed, hoping the airship was slower and couldn’t catch up. It seemed to work for a bit, but the airship seemed to pick up speed a few hours later. Lastaf guessed they would catch up within another couple of hours.

The sailors on the ship began to look glum. Most figured they were probably taken by the slavers or, worse, killed. I spent the time reinforcing and making the Air Cannon spell better. I could now launch a bigger shell of ice almost three hundred meters away, far enough for my needs. Even using two different nodes of magic, the spell didn’t seem to cost me much in the way of Mana.

As the time slowly passed and the airship grew closer, I worked on my new air spell as well. I would take what they taught me about the funnel of air, and I would make it larger and force the nozzle of the funnel smaller, compressing the air even more. My first attempt shot a jet of air into the ocean, creating a massive void within the water. The next attempt wasn’t as wide, but the depth was almost twice that of the first. The spell would be good enough to knock anyone back and hopefully off the airship.

I created another Air Lense spell and set it to track the airship. I had to manually move the middle lens to clear the picture every fifteen minutes. I would have to work on making that automated later. We could see what Lastaf said were Humans and Orcs with weapons ready and cheering as they drew closer. My rage began to burn this time, and Lastaf did not attempt to calm me down.

I dismissed the spell and willed my first cannon onto the ship's deck. When the airship was close enough, I shot the cannon aimed at the front middle balloon. The chunk of ice shot into the air and over the airship’s balloons. Well shit.

I dropped the cannon’s spell and created another. I lowered my aim and let it launch. The shell hit the middle balloon and tore a large hole into the whitish material and out its top. The airship’s front began to tilt forward immediately. We could hear the cries and screams coming from the airship. The airship began turning to the side and away from us a moment later.

I yelled for the captain to follow and watched as the side of the airship began to glint in the sunlight.

“Air Shield, and other defensive spells. They thought us easy prey and didn’t expect the Beastkin to have a high-level caster aboard.”

“Why wouldn’t they have a high-level caster?

“Beastkin don’t have many casters, to begin with. They have lower intelligence points and, with that, lower Mana reserves. Then you have almost all of the free Beastkin living on the nameless lands where monster levels are typically low. You’ll seldom find a Beastkin over Level 20 outside The Guild’s ranks. It’s why Beastkin are easy pickings for slavers.”

“Well, fuck them.”

I created another cannon and shot towards the back of the boat. The shell shattering across a flicker of light. Damnit. The airship was beginning to grow further away, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of people chained below deck. I pulled out a blue Fireball and launched it at the back of the ship, startling Lastaf and the sailors around me.

My spell exploded on the shield spell at the back, shattering the shield. I summoned another cannon without thinking about the nodes and lunched the shell at the balloons. Because the ship was losing height and their side was to us, the shell tore through all three balloons. The vessel began tipping backward and losing altitude fast. I could see a few sailors falling over the railings as the ship tipped to the backside.

Someone on the falling ship cast or did something, forcing the ship to balance out and slowly sink into the ocean’s waves. I guess they had something for an emergency if something like this happened.