Even the novelty of being in an aircraft for the first time didn't change the fact that riding in one, just like all means of travel that just have you sit there, was boring.
Rachel could and did crack open a book and start reading. Kara and I took twenty minute shifts of flying and taking breaks and reading books. Volex leaned her seat back and took a nap, because she did not enjoy reading.
Thankfully, our flight wasn't a terribly long one. The pendant Volex had was apparently capable of waking her up, and after about an hour and a half of flight time, I brought this bird down for a landing on a little island in the middle of a small lake, surrounded on all sides by forest.
We shut down the Sea Hawk, unbuckled ourselves, and climbed out, before I stowed the whole thing in my void space.
"Alright," I said, once everyone had gotten a chance to stretch their legs, and rub some of the soreness out of their asses. "Volex, you've got the pendant. Lead the way."
"Got it," Volex said, nodding as she strode towards the forest, confidently forming a bridge of solid water without breaking her stride, reminding us that, for all that she was kind of an idiot who had stumbled into the gift of her mastery, she very much had ample outdoors navigation skills that she'd earned the hard way. "C'mon!"
We followed after her, a bit slower across the water, but fortunately, I hadn't parked us too far from our quarry, and it was only about ten minutes of walking until we found a small clearing in the forest, with a crackling fire, a bubbling cauldron, and an absolute shortstack of an elf.
"Teacher!" Volex exclaimed.
"Hm? Oh, it's you," the elf said. "Ah, you've made friends. Listen, ordinarily I'd be happy to sit and chat, but I need some more herbs for my potion, and I can't very well leave my cauldron unattended to go find them."
Ah, joy, a fucking fetch quest.
"What kinds of herbs?" I asked. "And where would we find them."
"Herbs. Around."
Those two words somehow packed enough meaning to implant in my head a detailed guide on what the elf needed, and precisely how to find, identify, and harvest them.
"...Freaky," I muttered, as Rachel and Kara rubbed at their heads.
"C'mon, guys, I know just where to find them!" Volex said, heading off into the forest.
"You don't have those herbs in your void space?" I asked once we caught up with her. I doubted we were out of the elf's earshot; wind magic did odd things to the concept of earshot, and that was before we introduced elves to the equation. Well. Okay, I didn't know if elves had superior hearing too, or if they just lived really long.
"Nope," Volex said cheerfully. "She's wasting our time on purpose! These are cooking herbs, for flavoring soup. They have zero alchemical value whatsoever."
"That fucking-" Kara began.
"Easy, girl," I said. "Yeah, she's..."
"Jerking us around," Rachel said dryly.
"Yes. But, that's just how lost old masters do things, when they get found by people instead of the other way around. It's normal, and it's really not that big of an imposition, considering Volex is an experienced herb-forager."
---
It took a half hour for us to find everything and bring them back to the elf in the quantities supplied, although Volex used it as an opportunity to teach us some herbalism so that, one day, we might be able to repeat this feat. Personally, I didn't overmuch care for having my hands reek of lemongrass all day, but it wasn't like I was about to say no to her.
The elf shredded the herbs in her hands in seconds, tossing them all into the cauldron and stirring it with a long-handled wooden spoon.
"So, what's in that stew of yours?" I asked.
"This isn't a stew," the elf said, shaking her head. "It's a potion."
"No it's not," Volex said. "I have [Alchemy, Level 100], and I know everything there is to know about the alchemical uses of those herbs. They're useless, except for cooking."
"There's higher levels than 100," the elf said with a shrug. "They just haven't been reached in a long time."
I blinked a few times.
"...So what does the potion do?" I asked, instead of "what do you mean this litRPG system I barely know anything about has a higher skill cap than I thought it did based on loose, specious evidence?"
"When I boil it down real thick, it'll make a magical ink for writing more skill-scrolls," the elf said. "I'm fresh out, and I take it that's why you children came looking for me?"
"Well, we definitely won't turn down the prospect of learning from one as knowledgeable, generous, and attractive as yourself," I said. "But, in point of fact... we're looking for the Teapot of Eternity. And thanks to a prophecy given to me by Lucifer herself, asking you about it seemed like my best option."
The elf hummed quietly, turning up the heat and boiling off more and more water.
"...I might be able to help you find the Teapot," the elf said. "What exactly do you want it for?"
"I was banished from my home, along with the woman with the big hat, the bigger mouth, and the biggest tits," Rachel said.
"I don't like that you described me that way," I protested.
"Officially, I have been sent on an indefinite quest for the Teapot of Eternity, and may only return with the Teapot on my hands," Rachel continued, ignoring me. "I'm sure we'd like to have the Teapot for other reasons, and have plenty of uses to put it to, but the most pressing use would only require having it temporarily, and perhaps not even using it."
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"Well," the elf said, nodding. "That'll be a lot easier to swing. As it so happens, kiddos, I already know where the Teapot of Eternity is. I spent the last two years helping the current owners take it from the previous owners, in point of fact. And now that I know you just wanna borrow the Teapot, and will return it once you're done with it... well, you'll still have to work out a deal with Elendar yourselves, but now I know a deal can be made."
"Okay, the mystery is getting very annoying," Kara said. "Who are you, and who are you talking about?"
"Who the hell are you?" the elf countered.
"Kara Nukem, bastard daughter of Ariel Nukem, and the rightful Duke of Nukem," Kara said. "We want the Teapot so that we can confront the current Duke and dethrone her, installing me as a figurehead instead. And... from there, I'll be swapping out some of my annoying chores for even worse annoying chores."
"Huh," the elf said. "I wasn't expecting you to answer like that. Well, little miss Nukem, I am Carbon, one of the oldest elves alive, and one of the very few without a nature affinity. I'm a Black Water, and if I know my livery right, I would make the final piece in your party's collection of primary affinities with a secondary for void."
"We're not an adventuring party," I said. "We're a polycule."
"Hell, even better," Carbon said. "Whatcha say?"
Carbon was, unless elves were significantly shorter than humans, clearly an Omega, to judge by the fact she barely cleared 4'10 and had big ol' honkers, plus the wide hips and thick thighs showcased by her very high black leather boots and her short, swishy, pleated blue fabric skirt. Unlike many of the showy, 'ideal' omegas, with more hourglass-like figures, she had a fat, rounded belly that, if anything, made her look even more appealing to cuddle with.
Her ears were long and sharp, her skin somewhere between myself and Kara in fairness, and the rest of her features were as soft as the rest of her, with long, straight black hair tied back and out of her face by a folded blue bandanna.
"On the one hand, Volex is the only one here who's talked with you for more than a few minutes," I said. "On the other hand, you're clearly very powerful, knowledgeable, and generous, and keeping you happy is an obvious way to make sure we can become powerful and knowledgeable as well. And... well, you're also hot and I desire your body carnally."
"So..." Carbon said.
"So, no, not right now," I said, shaking my head. "We'd be happy to have you along on our quest, but you would be fifth-wheeling us, so... I really hope you're tolerant of that?"
"Eh, wouldn't be the worst way I've spent time with hot chicks," Carbon said, shrugging, before extinguishing her fire and disappearing her cauldron into her void space. "Alright, ink's done. What skills do you kids want a hundred levels in?"
"I have a book here, actually," Rachel said, conjuring the swordsage manual and handing it over to . "If you could condense this into a scroll to make me a real swordsage..."
"Hrm..." Carbon examined it carefully. "...Looks doable. Yeah, I can make you a swordsage. You won't be a legendary swordsage, not with what I can do right now, but you'll be about as good as your teacher probably is. Who's next?"
"Oh!" Volex said. "I want to be good at selling things to people, because I was a terrible potion vendor for the two years I did it!"
"Yeah, but you stopped being a potion vendor," I said. "You never have to sell potions to pay rent again, Volex. That's why you joined the Grand Temple."
"Oh yeah..." Volex said. "Uh... hrm. Do I want to be an even better alchemist... Oh! I know! I want to be a better alchemist so I can make skill scrolls myself!"
"If you're sure," Carbon said. "How 'bout you, Blondie? What's your poison?"
"I think..." Kara began, clearly struggling with what must be a powerful impulse to say [Mechanics, Level 100]. "...that, for the good of the realm... it is important that I swiftly become as good as I possibly can be at statecraft, administration, and generally... being a sovereign Duke."
"Nice, nice, very sensible," Carbon said, nodding. "Alright, you with the knockers."
"Everyone here's got 'em, 'cept maybe Rachel," I said.
"Calling her Flatty would've been rude, and you clearly still knew you were being addressed," Carbon said.
"My name is Lucy."
"Alright, Lucy, what skill do you want out of my little bag of gifts?"
I thought about this carefully. Teleportation would be very useful, even though it would invalidate all the work Kara and I had put into the Sea Hawk. A generally much-improved foundation with void spellcasting would let me unlock teleportation myself and practice it the hard way...
...but then, if I was going to prioritize building the strongest foundation, knowing that everything else could be practiced later, then I should start with the real foundation that everything was built on.
"I want you to give me as big of a bonus to my Learning skill as you can," I said.
"Clever girl," Carbon said, grinning. "You want it all, don't you?"
"The tallest towers are built on the strongest foundations," I said.
"Alright, gimme a minute," Carbon said, closing her eyes. "These are four scrolls, here, and none of them are the standard mono-skill-up."
We waited patiently for a few more heartbeats, but really, Carbon's warning about it taking a while seemed to mostly be theater, as she then held in her hands four scrolls, which then levitated over to us.
"Whoa, now I have the Teaching skill!" Volex said, after she read hers and it dissolved into ashes. "...Now the nuns are gonna expect me to teach..."
"I see... it's all so simple, now..." Rachel murmured, absorbing her own skill.
"Kingship in a vassalage-based government is about maintaining personal relationships and performing the role of a king," Kara rattled off. "The performance is almost always sincere, but it remains a performance due to the vitality of being seen performing."
I was the last to pop open the scroll. And when I did, it...
...did not actually blow my mind with grand new insights. It was just a scroll with three words written on it in big, bold text.
OBSERVE.
STUDY.
LEARN.
A quick check of my system status told me that I still had the [Learning, Level 16] I'd managed to ding out while reading in the Sea Hawk on one of my breaks, but now, the comparatively-wimpy plus 20 bonus was supplanted with a big, thick, meaty plus one hundred bonus.
Learning was an XP multiplier. Learning 1 was what all intelligent beings started with, and originally, they gained XP in it from simply learning other skills. These days, most Learning XP came from someone with the Teaching skill- itself an XP multiplier, but somewhat weaker- specifically imparting the Learning skill upon the student. Someone with Learning 2 gained twice as much XP as someone with Learning 1 from the same activities, whereas someone with Learning 10 gained ten times as much. Generally, anyone who seriously pursued high-skill occupations spent their adolescence reaching a Learning of at least 5, with 10 being a sign of unusual talent and diligence, and 20 being a sign of growing up in a Grand Temple with very good teachers and also your nose to the grindstone, aiming for the heights of knowledge in a particular field.
I currently had an XP multiplier of x116, and I couldn't stop the smug grin from spreading across my face as I thought about how big my numerical cock- that's Numberwang, for my British friends- was.
Oh yeah.
I was gonna be juuuuuust fine.