Chapter 39: Divine Tenets
The Grace of the Mist was a fast ship. Nathan had been aboard for several days, and he hadn’t really appreciated how fast they were moving. But now he was in the air and trying to keep up. It was not easy. He could match pace with the ship if he spent Stamina and sprinted, but he knew that he could do better. He’d gotten new movement skills from his recent class Development, and one of his core mobility skills had recently developed. But it was one thing to have new abilities, and another thing entirely to use them all effectively in concert as you ran across the sky at high speed. So Nathan was running across the sky at high speed, trying to get used to using all of his mobility skills together with [Airwalking] to keep up with the ship.
I thought I left running drills behind in high school.
The goal was to make it unconscious, so that he could move at top speed while dodging attacks, disabling magic and taking in the battlefield. If you needed to think about a movement skill then it wouldn’t be useful in battle. But the only way to make it unconscious was to practice, practice, practice.
Impulse 2 achieved!
I was hoping for [Airwalking 8], but I’ll take it.
After running all morning, Nathan returned to the deck and settled next to where Stella was practicing with her new mana type. They’d had a party after she developed the ability to cast water spells, but now she was buckling down to do the hard work of actually learning to cast those spells. Right now she was suspending a half-dozen car-sized orbs of water off the side of the ship and working on being able to move them around without hand gestures.
“Can I get some mana?” Nathan asked, wiping his brow and shivering a little bit in the ocean wind.
Stella grunted and held a hand out towards him, dark purple fire blooming in her palm. It was enough mana that without Nathan it would have consumed her and lit the Grace of the Mists aflame for a dozen feet in every direction.
Nathan blinked at the display, but his aura was in position and he drank greedily of her magic. “Thanks.”