Chapter 130: Balor’s Guided Tour
Balor’s guided tour was briefly derailed as Jones and Marcus, both consummate professionals in their respective fields, found themselves organizing plans for the immediate future. It was impossible for the pair to avoid, drawn as they were to keeping things orderly. The distraction began as the topic of Marcus and Kayla’s shard-side meeting was brought up for Coop’s final decision.
“Kayla and I both agree that adjusting our plans to spend mana as it becomes available would be the wisest choice.” Marcus concluded, letting Coop be the one to give permission after fully explaining the issue to Jones.
With the additional boat slips contributed by the newly constructed Basic Port, the rest of the missing corvettes from the Tempest Fleet were available for recruitment, but the advisors had been holding off, worried about consuming the settlement’s limited mana supply and delaying other urgent purchases. The priority had been given to the army of phantoms that had been lost during the siege, so the navy was concentrating on new construction with the Shipwright instead. Unfortunately, there came a stage in the construction of new boats that would require a significant injection of spectral mana in order to ensure the freshly built ships inherited the ghostly properties unique to Ghost Reef, so that too would have to be put on hold if they were avoiding the consumption of settlement mana.
When the so-called Avatar of the System arrived for her brief visit in the medical center’s ritual chamber, she had drained the resources of the settlement once again, and given that the same could potentially happen in the future, the two advisors of Ghost Reef were promoting a shift in their priorities in order to recruit the Tempest Fleet first, piece by piece, as soon as the mana was available, to prevent it from being wasted. The navy was, afterall, their primary force of security until the army was made whole.
In this case, Coop was happy to be the bearer of good news, sharing with his advisors the easy dismissal Lyriel had given when he complained that she kept draining their mana reserves. “The Avatar said that the settlement’s resources will be refreshed when the upgrade goes through, so recruit the fleet, and continue with the ship building. We’ll bring the phantoms back right after we upgrade when we receive the influx of resources.”
Kayla beamed at the idea of completely returning the Tempest Fleet. She had been patient while the settlement grew, but to her, the pirates were family and they were on the verge of finally reuniting. She couldn’t wait to have them all back under her command.
Marcus pinched his chin as he considered the Avatar’s apparent cavalier attitude toward consumption of settlement mana, a resource that, to them, seemed critical for their development. “If we’re to assume that she isn’t actively trying to sabotage us, I would venture a guess that the settlement will become more efficient in its mana accumulation as the assimilation continues. She didn’t expect to arrive so early after all; maybe it’s normally not an issue if the timeline isn’t pushed forward by whatever Earth has going on.”
Coop couldn’t find any reason to disagree with his assessment. “It seems like she has her own clear motivation to oppose mana. I think that as long as her interests happen to align with ours, we can trust that she actually means to help.”
Jones interjected, before they could move on to other topics. “If it’s alright, could I be brought up to speed with regard to this Avatar? It seemed like you were being roped into something quite grand at the end of her visit.”
Coop nodded in the affirmative, not worried about letting all of his companions in on the details, and agreeing that her final message was leading, to say the least. Most of the details would impact them all equally.
Marcus glanced at Coop, always eager for more information. “What else did she say?”
Coop took his time and shared every detail that he could remember from his conversation with Lyriel. Jones helpfully inserted some particulars as he saw them. It worked out nicely as the senior caretaker was more unbiased than any of the residents of Ghost Reef when it came to the alien visitor. He hadn’t experienced her haughty attitude directly, and only observed when she finally revealed some of her true colors.