With Nexxa tagging along, our exploration of the catacombs beneath Mount Aeternia was considerably livelier than usual.

That it felt like half a week since I'd last seen everyone after my time inside the Memory Palace with Arizar meant I was barely paying attention to the search itself. Instead, I found myself pestering Bevel and Tamrie more than usual, wanting to hear about their days.

Only for them to have almost nothing new to tell me.

Sure, Bevel had spent the day with the Tethered flight wing, scouting out the approaching clans and smacking giant eagles around, but she didn't have much to say about it, no matter how interesting that must've been.

"I'm not using Memory Palace unless I absolutely need to," I told Tamrie that night as we lay in bed together.

"If'n you think that's best," Tamrie said through a big yawn. "Liking the extra passion you bring after, truth be told."

"Sorry that's what it takes," I said. There was no response, her soft snores filling the room. "Right. Sleep. That's a thing I still need."

I drifted off with far more nightmares than I was used to, dreaming of living entire lives inside compressed time, only to come out and find the world hadn't moved at all.

The reverse happened too, nightmares of going inside for a few hours, only to come out and find everyone and everything I'd ever known had faded to dust while I'd been inside.

Not my most restful night. Thankfully, Restore Form wiped away the worst traces of exhaustion. Didn't do much for my actual mood though.

But I knew what would.

With a couple leading questions at breakfast, I'd convinced Bevel to join me for the day, more 'cause I missed her than for any practical reason. After leaving the mountain, we made our way to the hanging dock in Verdant Point, though neither of us chose to wait on the dock.

Bevel was hanging upside down from a nearby net, reading a book Arizar had given her about basic physical interactions air had with various mana types. Something she thought might help Bevel with her magic.

I was perched beside her with my feet up, toying with one of the phase ant glands Nexxa had brought.

She hadn't been kidding about the number of Worlds materials she'd found. More than I'd traded for by at least an order of magnitude.

And we basically didn't need them.

Sure, there were tons of rare items that we could, in theory, craft with them. But there wasn't anything immediate. At least I didn't have to worry about figuring out my spatial vault. I'd be able to build a hundred failed prototypes and barely dent her stash of materials.

First I had to figure out how to use the gland though. It was trickier than materials such as bones. Those were mostly plug and play. They were also, pound for pound, significantly weaker than specialized organs.

The gland was from a tier-1 ant yet could probably power a sophisticated tier-3 storage vault, long as I figured it out. Using it to make anything less would be a total waste.

I was planning to do so anyway. Waste it, that was.

Not on my own though. My entire crew of experienced enchanters would be taking part.

Well, pseudo experienced. Neither Bevel or Banya had anywhere near the amount of experience Xoth, Vetrov and Arizar did.

All that would come later though. I shifted as I spotted a ship approaching in the distance. It had four giant paddle wheels which looked rather inefficient. Still, it had made the voyage intact and didn't have a problem navigating through the forest beneath the hanging dock, so it wasn't a useless design. Just a very awkward one.

It took more vines than usual to hook around the bottom and even still they struggled to lift the ship into the air.

"That looks stupid," Bevel said, peering over her book at the ship with its oversized paddle wheels, where it swayed back and forth.

"I'm sure they have a reason for them. Not necessarily a good reason, but… something," I said as the vines started contracting then expanding, as if to shake something loose.

That lasted until a pair of elves on the deck started arguing with each other. After one seemed to win the argument, the other turned away, moving over to a small box in the middle of the deck. After a minute or so the paddle wheels all fell away, splashing into the water.

The ship only made it halfway into the trees before the Sahevin started climbing onto one of the wheels. I chuckled as the whole thing flipped over, sending the dog-like Seekers flying into a nearby tree.

The Shaper who'd done the fiddling with the box was now gripping the rail, staring down at the wheels.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Were those important, do you think?" I asked Bevel.

"To him, probably," Bevel said, not looking up from her book again. "No one else seems to care."

"Can be like that sometimes," I said, shaking my head. "Anyway, you want to join me for this or you gonna stay here."

"I'll listen in, but this is… I think I might need to get Inertia to show me a few spots. She's mentioned some of this before, but neither of us knew what they were," Bevel said, tilting her head to the side.

"Don't take off without me. Shouldn't take me long to get them started," I said, hopping the twenty or so feet from where I'd been nestled to land at the head of the dock, pushing my robes smooth.

Despite Calbern's absence, I hadn't allowed my appearance to slip. Mostly. Still needed Tamrie to help sometimes. Especially if the robe had one of those damn flaps.

Turned out Calbern had commissioned several more of those when we'd been in Spellford, and I'd had the joy of discovering them once we'd returned. Could've fit in at least one more of Ari's enchanted stools instead. Even if, for the life of me, I couldn't get the flap right, I found myself wearing them.

I played with that flap as I waited for the vines to pull the ship into position. The elves on board carried themselves differently than most I'd seen.

They were more hunched, for one thing. Also, most of them seemed to have some sort of device or another in their hands. A group of excited elves near the front were pointing at the tree where Bevel was hanging, talking about wind anomalies and standard deviations of mana pressure.

These were the sort of person I'd wanted to be, back on Earth, I realized. Sure, we had a few people who did spells and enchanting. Most of my senior crew, in fact.

None of us had the nerd vibe these Shapers were throwing off. Thozgar had sent me a boatload of nerds. It was strange to think of, now, that I'd wanted to be one, back on Earth.

There'd been this one kid who walked past the shop the year after I'd been pulled out of school. Every day, he'd hike by, bag full of books.

One day there'd been some shouting. Seeing as my old man tended to get worse than usual if he was bothered, I'd gone to check it out. The kid'd been getting harassed by some trumped up kids who thought they knew something about fighting. They'd shoved him in the dirt and were making fun of, best I could tell, the fact he was better at math than them.

I hadn't even thought about it when I'd gone out and chased them off. Barely had to throw three punches before they were all moaning on the ground in front of me.

Only after they'd picked themselves up and run off did I turn back to the kid. Technically, he was older than me. Taller too.

Just hadn't had the childhood beat out of him as hard.

Peter, as he introduced him as, had appreciated the help, and I'd just waved him off.

Once a month, he'd stop by, lending me a new novel that he just happened to not need anymore. Was where I learned about isekai in the first place. He'd told me, on occasion, about what he was learning in school. He was already in his last year. He'd been super worried about his grades. Then one day he'd come by with a sack full of books, handed them over and told me he was going away to a big fancy school.

A full scholarship.

All I'd really understood was that he'd found a way to escape.

He'd said it was all because of me. Because I'd been willing to stand up for him. None of it had really landed. Not at the time. All I'd done was punch some kids who'd never had to fight in the pit. I'd been his hero.

And he'd been mine. A kid who could escape.

So yeah, I'd wanted to become a nerd. To become like my hero. To win some magical prize that would carry me away.

Watching these elves move, I felt a warmth inside. I'd never be like them. Not really. But I could still appreciate a good nerd when I saw them.

And even if I'd once wanted to be one, I also recognized that nerds generally needed proper handling to be productive. There was only so far enthusiasm could carry you without the discipline to match.

The elf who'd won the yelling argument from earlier started getting them into some semblance of order, though the chattering and excitement never stopped.

They gathered into groups of several sizes, making it impossible to determine who was with who as they made their way off the ship.

None of them stopped to speak to me, at least at first.

Almost half of them had disembarked, all chatting excitedly, when the elf from earlier approached, looking even more frazzled.

"Are you the Magus's representative?" he asked, running a hand through his coiffed hair.

"I do represent his interests," I said, a faint smile tugging at my lips, remembering how Arizar had introduced me to the smuggler the day before. "Seems you've got your hands full."

"Like herding Dragons, but with twice the ego," the elf said, looking at the passing Shapers with a complicated expression. Then he let out a long breath. "Might be best if they're given a few hours to settle in before you let the Magus know we're here. I know he wanted to greet us personally, but as you can see…"

"They're excited to be here. Thought they'd be more reluctant," I said, watching a group of Shapers who'd grabbed one of the overhanging branches that grew close to the docks. They already had devices out and were performing some sort of tests on it.

"Word is that the Magus is rather generous with his materials, especially if being used for experiments," the elf said, a faint smile making its way onto his face. "Looking forward to that myself. Honestly, we've all been feeling a bit cooped up."

"With over a hundred and twenty mages… that's a lot of materials," I said, eyes passing over the nearby mages. Some of them seemed to have noticed me, stopping to look over. The group that seemed to have detected Bevel earlier were gathered near the edge of the dock and were waving at her excitedly.

It was a good thing I hadn't been expecting combat mages because these guys… I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason they had offensive spells was because it was fun to blow things up. Which, valid, but wasn't enough to make one a combat mage.

"Well, the apprentices know better than to expect their own materials. Still, with how rare spare materials have been since the start of the unrest out west, even taking part in new experiments is going to be refreshing. Just hope the Magus understands that we're not going to be able to do miracles. This place is like a mana-desert. Wonder if the storm sucks in most of the ambient mana?"

"There's a fair amount of water mana in the ocean, though as you might've noticed, the Sahevin make it a bit tricky to get to," I offered.

"Once they settle a bit, that might be the best thing to address then. If we can set up a mana tap, that'll let us get a lot more done," he said. Further conversation was temporarily disrupted as he broke off to yell at a group of Shapers who'd started poking at the enchanted vines holding their ship up. When he came back, he gave me a weak smile. "Sorry about that. Now, I just realized I forgot to introduce myself. Master Shaper Stand, Pegasus, Triple slot."

"No problem," I replied, a smirk sneaking onto my face. "Percival of Cape Aeternia. Magus Protectus."

Might've taken a bit too much pleasure in the sudden quiet that slowly spread out from around us.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.