Chapter 40: Lessons of Teamwork
The Heirs fell into a routine over the voyage, practicing separately and coming together for meals and occasional conversations. Eolinne proved to an adept cook with over a dozen different styles of food at her command. She accepted Aarl as her assistant and apprentice after he demonstrated basic competence, and he remarked that if he'd had cooking skills he would be getting Developments by the score.
Sarah and Stella delved into Eolinne’s library, both discovering the wonders of fiction and the joy of curling up with a book for hours on end. Nathan joined them, though he found the storytelling to be somewhat prosaic. It was almost more of an anthropological study for him, to learn about the different cultures of Davrar based on the books they wrote. He searched for histories or reference tomes but found the library to be fairly lacking in heavier reading.
I wonder if Eolinne prefers to keep only the lighter stuff, or if the nonfiction is hiding away in that dimensional pocket I can feel. I probably shouldn’t check, since I’m pretty sure any attempt will break it permanently.
Khachi spent long hours on the deck, clearly deep in thought while his eyes and armor glowed with subtle golden light. Nathan made himself available if the wolfman wanted to talk, but he always met Nathan’s eyes and gently shook his head.
The main thing Nathan was focused on was practicing with his new skills. He’d acquired and evolved nearly every one of his skills relatively recently, and under conditions that hadn’t let him thoroughly practice integrating them all together. Some of it was basic, like testing the range of [Magic Jammer] with Stella, while others were more complicated, like attempting to combine all of his movement and dodging skills together into a cohesive whole.
The problem was that while most of his skills worked on a mostly unconscious level, they were all high enough level that they also unlocked new possibilities he still needed to think about to take advantage of. [Effortless Dodge] allowed Nathan to move in ways that were impossible to replicate unless he was dodging an attack, but he couldn’t intentionally combine that with [Momentum Mastery] to pull off the truly ridiculous stunts he knew he was capable of. He could even use his aura to jerk himself around with [Impulse], but it took a lot of attention to weave it into the necessary shapes and he still didn’t have good control over the resulting motion.
[Airwalking] hasn’t advanced since the Ascendent Academy fell. I’ve been using it in almost every fight, but it’s stayed at rank 7 this entire time. Is it because I’m not using it to its full potential? Is it because only a few of those fights have really challenged me? Is it because the Insight for [Airwalking] isn’t really mine, and was given to me by Kia?
He didn’t know, but he resigned himself to practicing for hours each day with his skills, fueled by frequent lightning bolts from Stella when she took breaks from practicing with water mana. Eolinne had thought it was funny the first few times, but after the thirtieth air-shaking blast of electricity she’d gotten tired of the practice and asked Stella to switch to fireballs.
The ranks weren’t coming easily. Even [Impulse], which was only at rank 2, stubbornly refused to increase. Nathan was getting better at actually controlling his movement, at using his half-dozen abilities together to move easily across the sky. He was especially improving with [Galefoot], which allowed him to ride the wind when it was moving in the right direction. Unfortunately that one couldn’t rank up, as it was a class skill.