When he snapped out of his cultivation a few hours later, he could feel the pressure lessen slightly. He took a deep breath to stabilize himself, and then looked down at the window below. They were still over the water, and Sam decided to go back to cultivation. If the Earth had become larger, then the distance that they would have to travel would be larger as well. There were probably at least another five hours left in their journey.
The shaking of the ship had stabilized greatly by now, and Sam saw that everyone else was meditating, and he changed his mind about doing the same. He got up, and began to walk around the ship. As he did so, the sneaking suspicion that he had about the origins of this ship were confirmed.
“Stranded here, my ass! That merchant was pawning off stolen goods on us.”
A large logo could be seen on each of the equipment lockers, one that had been ignored earlier. It looked like a circle of eyes, each connected to a star in the middle by tethers of light. That was most definitely a faction symbol, which was reinforced by the letters underneath it.
Property of the Zaldonian League
Well, Sam doubted that the League would be coming for them, but he was still a bit ticked off by the possible danger that the merchant had put them in. Sam opened the locker, and beheld a pile of strangely futuristic weapons laying there. They looked almost like water guns, with glass orbs on the back ends of them and wide nozzles that seemed to be made to project some substance out of them.
As he lifted one up, his mana started to drain into it, and he quickly put it down. There was now some viscous blue liquid in the orb, which was most likely his concentrated mana. Conveniently, there was a target range on the other side of the ship, and Sam carried the gun over to it, watching as more of his mana was siphoned into it.
He aimed the gun carefully, and fired it at the large circle of metal affixed to the wall. A bolt of blue lightning surged out, and struck it dead center. There was no recoil, but Sam could tell that it had been a powerful attack. It would have been even more so if he had imbued it with his Dao and elemental energy. The gun was a powerful weapon, but one that Sam had no interest in. Instead, he walked over to Jeffrey, and placed it by his seat. The man would be happy to have a smaller counterpoint to his large blood cannon. With that done, Sam had some questions for the strange creature piloting the ship. He made his way over to the glass tube with the simian beast in it, and cleared his throat.
“Ahem! Are you there?”
“Yes, pilot. What is it that you wish for?”
“Can you tell me the origins of this ship?”
The creature swiveled around within its tube to face Sam.
“Why would you want to know that?”
"Well, I've been seeing evidence that this ship was owned by some faction called the Zaldonian League. How did it end up in this universe?”
“I don't remember much, only some green figure coming into my ship, and deactivating my consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was here, with you walking up into the ship. I suspect that I was stolen from my masters, and then sold to you. However, I am more than happy with working with you. My purpose is to fly, and I enjoy it more than anything else,” the creature said, with a slightly wistful tone at the end of its speech.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Fair enough. Well, you get back to flying. I have some meditation to do.”
Sam turned away from the creature, and did not see the sinister smile that it had given him. He sat down, and started to meditate, all the while with the ship broadcasting their frequency to the Zaldonian League. If they had been anywhere other than this universe, then they would have been found almost immediately, but as it was there was no help for the ship creature forthcoming. Still, such a monster had almost unlimited patience, and it kept signaling to its masters. Yes, it was incredibly petty for a higher ranked faction to care about the meanest of G Rank craft, but it was a point of pride for most factions that they would be unopposed in all things. The only exceptions to that was when they were being coerced by a much more powerful group.
Unaware of all of this, Sam simply meditated until he felt the ship rock beneath them as they touched down on the ground. Opening his eyes, Sam unbuckled himself from his seat and watched as the others got up. The glass window on the ground was occluded, so there was nothing visible there save for blackness. After the last person got up, they exited the ship, and Sam frowned, looking for a way to revert it into its orb form.
Eventually he found a small lever on the side, and he pulled it, causing the air to warp as the ship was compressed into a tiny ball. They were standing in the middle of an icy tundra, and despite the cold, they barely felt any of it. It was still chilly, but only barely so. Sam could have taken all of his clothes off and still be somewhat comfortable here. In the distance, a large mountain range extended across the horizon, and a bright beam of light extended into the sky from the middle of the mountains. Either than was the most strangely placed outpost that Sam had ever seen, or it was their destination. Sam picked up the ship, and put it into his pocket, before looking at the others, and striding towards the mountains.
As they walked, a strange noise started to roll down the mountains, almost like the bleating of a gigantic sheep. As they walked, a silhouette came into view, running down one of the mountains. It reached the ground a few minutes later, and started running towards them. Sam narrowed his eyes, and then frowned. It almost looked like a goat, albeit one that was as large as a two story house. Then he remembered the goats that Thor had used to pull his chariot in the Norse myths. This was probably why it was here.
Sam drew his mace, and the others prepared as well. Jeffrey held his new gun, eager to see what it could do. The bulb on the end was filled with mana, and a little bit of elemental energy as well. As the goat came ever nearer, Jeffrey started to line up the weapon with it. When it was about a quarter of a mile from them, Jeffrey shot the gun. A beam of blue and white light sliced through the air, impacting the goat on its brow. Its momentum stopped as if it had bit a brick wall, and it shuddered as its skull was shattered. Both of its horns broke in half from the impact, but it was still alive.
It bleated in rage, and then jumped forwards, pushing off the air with its feet as it flew. A few seconds later, it landed next to them, creating a shockwave from its bulk. Sam widened his stance and knocked the goat’s front legs sideways with his mace, staggering it. It was still dazed from the gun earlier, and it was unable to dodge. Sam whipped his mace around, but he narrowly missed as the creature pushed off the ground, only to be skewered by a light lance from Eduardo. It wailed, and Addas tossed an orb of light into its mouth, which exploded a moment later, tearing its head apart.
The monstrous goat collapsed to the ground, and went still. It had not been especially powerful, and the amount of essence that rushed into them was not enough to push all of the stragglers over to level 49. Instead, a lot of it was wasted on Sam and Eduardo, who were already there. Still, there would likely be stronger creatures the closer that they got to the mountains.