While Emelia controlled the Golden Slug, Adam opened the Relic and Upgrade Chests. The upgrade was his, while the Relic was for Emelia. She was specifically looking for something called Drake's Wing.

The clouds were tinged blue from nightfall, and it gave their surroundings an eerie yet beautiful appearance as they flew with quite some speed towards the White Flags' main settlement. The Golden Slug was absurdly fast for its size, but they had to be vigilant of other ships, since they were a big target with none of its ballistae manned and ready. Emelia had loaded the six mounted on the deck, just in case, and though they had discussed arming the giant ballista at the bow, they'd decided against it, since it required at least four people to accurately control.

Adam pushed the lid back on the upgrade chest and four holograms appeared.

< < Upgrades Available > >

< Barrier Size (Epic) — Increases maximum barrier dimensions by 25% >

< Manipulation Range (Rare) — Increases manipulation range by 35% >

< Crush (Rare) — Increases the impact of attacks by 15% >

< Luck (Rare) — Increases luck by 3 >

More Luck is always nice, but I honestly think I should start increasing my range. Besides, I don't know when the next breakpoint is for Luck to go up another level of guaranteed rarity.

Adam had also thought that getting no Rare Relics to appear might be a disadvantage, seeing as the pool of Epic Relics was definitely smaller, considering how many times he'd seen the same Epics appear. And while Epic Relics were definitely stronger, their drawbacks were often proportionally bad.

Though if I can get guaranteed Legendaries, it might be really powerful.

If there are actually enough Relics that'd show up. It may be that the main benefit of Luck is for upgrades.

I've only ever seen Alepheria's Mandate and the unique Abyssal Tooth, but I wonder if there'd even be enough to show me four different Legendaries at this point.

It's possible that if there aren't enough, then I'll just get served Epic Relics anyway.

< < Upgrade Selected > >

< Manipulation Range (Rare) >

He went over to the Relic Chest and pushed it open. The four things that showed up were a crossbow on a bracer, a mask of gold, an arrowhead made of silver with a blue string, and the goggles he'd already seen once before.

< < Relics Available > >

< Golden Fortress Crossbow Bracer (Rare) — Launch a small crossbow projectile that explodes on impact. 2-minute cooldown >

< Golden Mask of the Fallen (Epic) — Gain 1% Attack Speed & Damage for every piece of currency in your possession | The potency of the Gold-cursed affliction is twice as potent and can be triggered by all currencies >

< Ranger's Lucky Charm (Rare) — Activate to cause your next fired projectile to always strike true. 2-minute cooldown >

< Portsmith's Goggles (Rare) — Identify weaknesses in armour after looking at it for 3 seconds | Lowers Player Relic cooldowns by 5% >

"Have a look," Adam told Emelia.

She let go of the wheel to check out the options. She didn't really need to steer the ship that much at the moment, since there were no islands in their path back to Windtop Cove for as far as the eye could see.

"The Lucky Charm is quite good," she said. "It can really bend the rules of physics if you use it well. It even works on the ballistae. But I don't need it. The goggles' passive effect is also nice. But…"

"Don't need it," Adam replied, finishing her sentence. "I can reroll and see if there's something better."

"Thank you," she said.

"Reroll the options," he told his cube.

[Understood.]

The four holograms were replaced and now two of them were Epic. He recognised the two Rares from before, since they were the jacket that he was already wearing and the surprise attack glove. The Epics were new however, and they were a small book with a purple leather-bound sleeve and black pages, and a wide crimson cape with an odd shape.

< < Relics Available > >

< Cloud Skimmer Jacket (Rare) — Increases Player Defence by 25% | Increases Movement Speed by 10% | Enables the wearer to rapidly dash forward while moving, consuming 20% Stamina >

< Tome of the Acolyte (Epic) — Activate to split a spell in two, halving all of its stats. 30 Mana cost | Enemies you kill have a 1% chance to reanimate as a Mana Fiend >

< Drake's Wing (Epic) — Deploy mid-air to gain the ability to control your flight | Take 25% less damage from Slug Dragons >

< Scoundrel's Glove (Rare) — Surprise attacks against humanoids made by a weapon wielded in this glove inflict Haemorrhage, dealing 2% Health in damage per second for 30 seconds >

I need that tome!

The thing Emelia wanted is there too.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I've never seen the acolyte's tome before," Emelia said, surprised. "The other Epic is the thing I was telling you about."

"I want the tome," Adam said, raising his hand with the Choice Ring.

Emelia nodded. "It's worth trying out, but be careful. Mana Fiends are really dangerous."

"What do they do?"

"They're similar to many of the enemies from Stage Six in that they prioritise targeting magic-wielders. But they're also highly resistant to magical attacks."

"Even my barriers?" he asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, since they seem to mostly deal physical damage. However, if a Mana Fiend is able to consume enough Mana, like from a Player it kills, then it'll evolve and become something way worse called a Mana Tyrant. They're able to use spells similar to the Mana they consumed to evolve. It's actually possible to summon a Mana Fiend with the ritual in Alepheria's Tower, but otherwise they don't show up until after Stage Ten. They're basically a hard counter to magic-wielders."

"Given how devastating quadruple-fusing my barriers and then infusing them can be, I'm thinking that if I split a barrier and then fuse it back together, then I can get a quintuple-fusion, which might be insanely powerful. Actually, I could split all my barriers and get a septuple-fusion."

"It might not change anything," Emelia said. "It may be that the infusion's strange math isn't because of the number of fusions but some other type of element you're not considering. Have you tried using your hand on a barrier to understand it better?"

"Not yet," Adam admitted. "I haven't really been using it all that much, despite how useful it is."

"Speaking of useful," she said. "Grab the cape for me and I'll show you something."

Adam's Choice Ring glowed as he grabbed the cape and then the tome for himself.

< < Relics Selected > >

< Drake's Wing (Epic) >

< Tome of the Acolyte (Epic) >

Adam handed Emelia the cape and she put it on right away. Unlike the Captain's Cape that he wore, the Drake's Wing attached to the elbows of her arms, as well as the back of her calves.

"It's a wingsuit," he muttered.

"Check this out," she told him.

Her stilts clicked and she suddenly shot straight into the air, flying like a rocket for 20 or 30 metres before spinning around and spreading her arms and legs out. It was clear she'd used the Relic before, because she spun and flipped around above the airship's helm, dropping down only to swoop back up. She was somehow able to manoeuvre around through the air like a bird.

That looks like a lot of fun.

After a couple of minutes, she gracefully circled around and came in fast, sliding across the deck on her stilts.

"I've been waiting for this," she said with a grin on her face. "Now I can fly too."

"That was really impressive," he told her.

Emelia did a small bow. "I take my donations in the form of Doubloons, please."

"Guess it's my time to show off then," Adam said.

He equipped the new tome trinket to his belt and used its power to split his three barriers, creating six. Since he needed 100 Mana to use Mana Infusion, he just had enough for all of the steps. Then he summoned a seventh barrier using his wand and quickly fused one of the six others with it, since the wand barrier was static and would be quickly left behind by their fast airship. With that, he just had to chain-fuse the rest.

Emelia had returned to the helm and was steering them away from a small island coming up.

"You should try and hit that," she told him. "It's one of the islands inhabited by man-eaters according to Captain Drew's map."

Adam grinned and brought his septuple-fused barrier with him to the bow of the ship, stopping once he was next to the giant ballista.

Here we go.

He used Mana Infusion on the fused barrier, turning it black. Then he started spinning it up, though he felt rather woozy from dipping low in Mana.

[Warning! Mana below 15%.]

"I know, I know," he muttered to the cube, steadying himself against the ballista.

Like when he'd destroyed the golden boss that Leon had turned into, he couldn't hear any whine from the barrier, but he felt its power.

Once the island was clearly in his sights, he stepped forward and launched the barrier.

This time he made sure to prepare himself for the insane backlash, taking up a posture that'd hopefully prevent him from getting knocked back.

He couldn't do anything about the temporary flicker in his vision as he fired though.

A crack like thunder rolled across the Floating Sea as the projectile zipped through the air and struck the island. A plume of exploded earth, trees, and dust shot away from the impact site, and half the small island was completely destroyed. Just like that.

That didn't feel any stronger than the quadruple-fused barrier…

Adam frowned. There was still more to figure out.

I should've touched it with Alepheria's Mandate to figure out more.

He returned to Emelia's side to report his conclusion.

"It's like I figured," she replied. "The way that your fusions work is that you just add the strengths of your barriers together, right? So, if you turn one whole into two halves and fused them back together, you still only get one whole. Basically, splitting them achieves nothing, other than spending your Mana. You're better off splitting your barriers to use them to target more enemies simultaneously."

Adam nodded. "A shame, really. I was hoping to have easily achieved a mini nuke with this…"

Emelia laughed. "Seriously, you're calling me scary?"

"Now that you can fly? Absolutely."

"It's technically just controlled falling," she clarified.

"You were in the air for two full minutes," he argued. "Definitely didn't look like falling to me."

"I just had a thought," Emelia said. "What if the strength of your barriers' impacts are tied to their Durability? Perhaps it makes your spells tougher, which in turn means they hit harder?"

"Wouldn't that be what Crush and Damage are for?" he asked.

"Sure, but we can't rule out something like that. Have you tested if upgrading the durability of your barriers made them hit harder?"

"I haven't, but I guess it would explain why fusing the spell-tome barriers with a static one from my wand made the projectile stronger. I honestly just thought it was because the wand barrier technically still had a damage potential, even if it's impossible to move."

"That could also explain it," Emelia conceded. "But can't you just make more of the barriers with your wand and then fuse those?" she asked.

"It doesn't work like that," he replied. "Only the barriers from my spell-tome can be fused with spells, so I wouldn't be able to fuse them all together if I used more than one wand barrier."

"I guess you've gotta stay on the lookout for things that increases your number of barriers then. Without splitting them, anyway. From here on, I unfortunately don't know all the potential Relics that can appear."

"I would be impressed if you knew all the Relics," he replied. "I mean, this Stage alone must have over two dozen new ones, especially if we consider the unique ones from killing the captains. If the rest of the Stages coming up also have that many, it'd be easy to lose track. Even more so when you count the general ones that are tied to specific weapon types."

"Stage Eight actually doesn't have that many Stage-specific ones," she said. "But yes, it's quite a lot. I am making an effort to memorise all of them though. The more I know and the broader my knowledge, the better I can help out other Players."

She frowned. "Although I say that, and then manage to scare off our teammates to the point that they literally ditched us and got themselves killed…"

Adam put his hand on her shoulder. "I think we both need to get some rest after we reach Windtop."

"We do have a large bed here," she replied. "Oh, but first I need to find that damn egg."

Adam laughed. "I forgot about that already."

"Let's look for it once we reach the settlement."

They continued swimming through the air aboard the Golden Slug for two hours more until finally the White Flags' safe haven came into view. Before they had even parked their enormous ship outside of Windtop Cove, six small and two medium airships lined up in front of the settlement like a defensive wall. Surprisingly, it seemed the White Flags favoured small vessels, perhaps because they were nimbler. Given that their cities were like aircraft carriers, it made some manner of sense though.

Before the pirates could get it in their heads to take on the super-large airship, Emelia and Adam went down to the main deck and waved their arms in the air until one of the small ships came up to the side of theirs, carrying Captain Drew and eight guards aboard it.

"Well, I'll be damned," Drew muttered.

Emelia handed him the map. "I think this belongs to you."

Drew let out a belly laugh. "Just the two of you did all this!? I can't say I'm impressed, because that would be an understatement of epic proportions."

< < Quest Complete > >

< Stolen Map >

< Brought Captain Drew's map back to Windtop Cove >

Since it was our teammates who stole it, I doubt we actually get a reward for returning the map.

But at least we get to stay in the good graces of the White Flags.

"We have an awful lot of treasure we'd like your help distributing," Emelia told the captain.

"You got an idea in mind for what you'd like in return?" he asked.

"Ten of your crew to aid us with our ballistae and a couple of your portsmiths," she said.

Drew grinned, revealing his teeth. "Show me the treasure first."

Emelia matched his energy and gestured widely. "Come on board then. And bring your men. It's a lot to carry and we're not risking the gold curse by keeping it all to ourselves."

"I would be more than delighted to aid in your charitable work," he replied sarcastically.

Adam shook his head with a smile.

I think I understand why Emelia loves this world so much.

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