Ship or Airship?

Ardor thought for a moment and understood what Lance meant.

<Yes, go ahead. Extract as much as you can from her.>

Despite being mildly terrified at facing the unknown, Lance responded with vigor and left for Lemari's quarters after asking a slave.

"Where is he going?" Bella asked, despite having an idea as she had noticed Lemari's actions. Even Alse and Isabella seemed eager as they came closer.

Ardor had a profound look on his face.

"He has gone to fulfill his purpose!"

In the afternoon, everyone except Lance came up on the deck, looking at the cryptic lines and patterns on the ship's exterior glow. Colorful light traveled across the patterns for a few minutes before dimming.

"Ah!"

A few teens screamed after falling because of instability as the ship raised above the water. The ocean rushed in to cover the gap left by the ship as it finally became airborne and soon elevated above the clouds before beginning its journey towards its destination.

"We're flying!" Jeanne exclaimed in delight while others nodded in smiles.

She hugged Ardor and as he felt her excitement, he ran his hand across her luscious hair, "Yes, we're flying!"

…

"It's already night. When is he coming?" asked Bella with some worry. After getting used to the sight outside the ship, the others had returned and went to sleep or train, while Bella and Ardor remained sitting in the drawing room, waiting for Lance.

Ardor noticed how Alse and Isabella were eager to train, and felt his earlier actions were correct.

*Creak*

Both of them looked at Lance, who entered with wobbly steps. His face looked blissful, but his body was unsteady.

"Are you alright?" Bella asked while stepping up to support him.

Lance felt grateful. "I'll live."

*Cough*

Ardor let his presence be known, and asked his first clone, "How did it go? Did you extract everything from her?"

Lance's face held mild horror as he remembered what he just went through.

"I tried," he weakly said while sitting down as Bella let the room to order some food from the slaves. "But she extracted everything in me too quickly."

Ardor looked at his balance LPs and the Logs.

[Lust Points: 747

Logs:

Base LPs: 645

Purchased Skill (Lust Vision): -99

Purchased Item (Lust Potion): -99

50% from Lance (4x bonus): +200

Daily Missions with Jeanne: +100]

He nodded slightly.

"I can see that. It seems she's equal to a Warrior in rank. So tell me what you've learned."

After Lance shared his entire experience, amidst the gasps of Bella who soon returned with food and fed Lance, midnight approached and Lance retired with Bella to his bed. Ardor remained on the sofa, deep in thought.

He summarized what he had just heard.

"So I thought too simply of mages. They're actually Black Mages specialized in offensive magic, Gray Mages who are a jack of all trades but masters of none, White Mages who specialize in healing and Red Mages who are like Warriors, but much stronger since they fuse with the bloodlines of magical beasts.

"Then is Mage Lemari a Black Mage, or a Gray Mage?" he wondered.

He took out a piece of paper and drew three things.

"Where do we go?"

He circled a school.

"The Academy of Nutmeth with all types of mages."

Then circled a tall tower.

"Or The Elementary Tower with the most Black Mages."

Another small tower was also circled.

"Or the Tower Of Vuzax with Red Mages."

After deciding, he went to sleep.

…

Ten days later, the ship heavily shook late at night and everyone came out on the deck to see the cause of the disturbance. They saw Lemari standing near the helm of the ship.

"What are you? How dare you disturb us?" she shouted in the air.

Everyone heard a hissing sound, but it was simply too loud. Apart from being loud, there was also something else mixed within. It instantly knocked most teens out cold with blood, leaving their ears while a few fell in pain.

"Stop it!" Lemari bellowed as she sent her magical energy, controlling a formation engraved on the airship and a transparent shield erected around them, covering the airship in its entirety.

Lemari looked around, but couldn't see anything in the darkness. Even her spiritual sense was blocked inside the spherical cover which shielded them. Suddenly, the space in front of them shook, and as she stopped the airship, a gigantic eye opened.

The yellow eye with a vertical slit reminded Ardor of a snake's eye, but it was bigger than the ship. He looked to the side and saw the shadow of a gigantic head.

His heart constricted, his head hurt, seeing the monstrosity in front of him. How he wished to have fainted just like the others.

'My damn Spirit!' he inwardly shouted.

He looked at Lemari's back, and didn't see her shocked look, which was soon replaced by puzzlement. As the gigantic snake kept hissing and kept consuming the energy powering the airship's shield, Lemari took out an orb with some heartache.

"But still, I must know the truth!" She convinced herself.

She brought it to her forehead and crushed it. The gas inside the orb entered her eyes, and soon, she could see clearly, as if the night had turned into day.

Immediately, she breathed a sigh of relief, then sent her magical energy towards another formation, turning the ship invisible, but the hiss didn't stop.

Lemari approached the edge of the ship while taking out her wand and starting a long chant.

Ardor saw her stand still, and a small fireball formed above her head. As the seconds went by, it grew in size, and reached a massive height of 10 meters. With a pale face, Lemari controlled it and suddenly waved her wand down.

As if it was being launched by a catapult, the massive fireball arched across the sky and left the shield. The venomous hissing stopped for a bit, then became louder. Ardor could swear he felt pain in that voice.

The fireball collided with a 20 meter long snake that was frantically flying away from the ship, to no avail. Its body soon burst into fragments as its metallic scales did nothing but delay the fireball for a few seconds.

Those seconds instead made the fireball cook it from the inside and when its scales reached their limit, and its body finally exploded, remains of cooked snake meat fell into the stormy clouds below, and eventually into the ocean.

Lemari immediately sent the last bits of her magical energy into the ship's control center while throwing many glowing stones outside her ring on the airship. Ardor noticed the stones getting dim by the second.

She made it fly at full speed. "Please don't come. Please don't come. Please don't come!" she kept murmuring anxiously.

A few minutes later, seeing that nothing had happened, she felt relief. "Looks like those monsters were not disturbed."

While turning back to see the state of the teens, she added, "Damn that wild snake for almost making a fool out of me! Acting like a Snake Emperor with its illusions? As if that'd work on me!"

She saw five people still awake. "That princess is not bad. That failure of a man is strong as well. And what was her name? Jeanne? As expected of her!" Lemari looked at the teen she didn't expect to see. "Ardor?" She tried hard to remember.

"Yes, that's my name." he tried to smile at her arrival, but she saw his faintly bleeding ears and knew it was difficult for him to stay awake.

What she didn't know was that the spiritual attack upon reaching him was soon miraculously sent somewhere else.

Ardor looked at Lance, who fell near him and noticed how severe his bleeding was compared to others and winced at what he might have gone through.

"Simply too weak," Lemari muttered, seeing the fainted people slowly recover.

In all her years bringing talents to Shawbrook, she had never encountered an enemy since the route she traveled on was considered safe. For the first time, she understood the weakness of her passengers.

"But I don't have the authority to share any meditation techniques!" She felt frustrated. "I don't want them dying before reaching Shawbrook."

Ardor heard it and didn't miss this chance.

"Lord Mage, can you please sell us something useful to protect ourselves? I don't think any of us want to experience that terrible pain again." He acted as if he knew how the pain felt.

But the others who woke up didn't know that and felt grateful to him for bringing this up.

'Its true. They're mostly nobles, so they might be able to afford something useful.' Lemari thought. 'Let's not cheat them this time, as they'll know the real prices soon enough in Shawbrook.'

"Very well," she nodded. "I have a small collection here. I'll hand them over to the slaves tomorrow at breakfast and you can buy it then."

The crowd gratefully nodded and went back to their rooms to clean the blood out of their years and take a well-needed rest. The night had been heavy on their fragile minds, after all!