Traveling with Mike was a lot different than traveling with Darkwing, Khan Ni, and the Cheng Twins. They had been with Wu Hai for a third of his life and it was a bit difficult for him to leave them back with the Clan. What he needed to do was polish his own skills, the Clan had more of a fighting chance right now than it ever had before.
Wu Hai wouldn't have to worry about their safety.
"Mike, I want to go northeast. This world has more than one continent, lets go see another one." Wu Hai and Mike had a goal to find a school. Neither of them knew where one was, they had to go out and look for one. If they had to leave the continent, then that was how things had to be done.
"Sure, but lets keep looking for another major city and a port. I don't want to fly across an ocean, who knows how large this world is." Mike was a bit concerned over travel measures they would take.
"When we get to the ocean we can just transform into Vishnans, we'll swim faster than we can fly. As long as you don't remain a Vishnan permanently you'll be fine. Plus, I want to go underwater and see what we could find." The World didn't have treasure recovery from the ocean floor.
It was very likely that Wu Hai and Mike would be the first to have ever considered searching for wrecked ships.
"Plus, we have Qu. The Tower can be erected underwater as well, yeah?." Wu Hai gave Mike a piece of information he didn't have before.
"Ha ha.. Under the Sea then..." … Mike laughed at Wu Hai's horribly old joke with a french accent.
"Wu Hai, this world is so large. I'm sure we'll find what you're looking for. I honestly can't wait to learn new magics and fighting skills. I tried a few moves from video games like breath attacks, novas, frost bolts and freezing traps. My expectations are more than unmet.... What I really want to know is how to fight as a Dragon, we haven't seen any wild Dragons." Mike was scanning the skies while he spoke, a disappointed look on his face.
Two Dragon-kin flew through the skies, the auras they left in their wake kept small creatures away.
Mountains became rivers, became plains, and then a coastline. The Duo had been flying for almost 3 weeks with little rest.
"Wu Hai, when you said this world was huge you weren't lying. This is enormous, we must have flown for thousands of kilometers. its considerably larger, I doubt we could circumnavigate the planet... " Mike couldn't stop his amusements.
"Wu Hai!" Mike wanted to ask something and got his attention again as they were flying.
"What is the name of this planet? Its not something corny like Magic World or world of fighting right?" Mike posed the question.
Wu Hai had been asking that same question himself for a while, ever since he learned the word in his dreams.
'If the planet doesn't have a name, I should give it one.' Wu Hai wanted to give a response.. but he couldn't think of one.
"When I figure out what to call it, I'll let you know." Zao Wu Hai wouldn't let the matter rest, but he would have to make sure it was meaningful and not named after 'dirt.'
"Promise!" Mike sincerely wanted to know what his friend was thinking.. but the wind was sharp.
"Lets go down" Pointing in the distance, Mike ushered Wu Hai to follow.
"I don't know what to call it, or the other planets in the sky.. but it will be worth remembering." Wu Hai continued with his thinking.
Mike sounded like he had a lot on his mind.
He said, "Its not Earth, and that's just fine. That just means we don't have to worry so much about pollution and we can move around without being filmed or shot at. If this world ever becomes overpopulated, just look up. We can always go to those planets, and who knows how many others exist. I'm baffled at the complexity of this World, even if I spent my entire life searching it I could still miss something as profound as an entire Civilization. For this I'm truly happy. Just imagine what possibilities exist.. I can't wait... this adventure, its going to be interesting and that's more than I could have ever asked for in my old life."
Wu Hai saw the coastline and looked for a town, they needed a map. If they started indiscriminately crossing the ocean they would need a map and a direction of another continent. Wu Hai thought about the Compasses. He had brought them along.
Wu Hai passed one to Mike as they searched.
A small town with a lot of boats was finally in view after flying a few days longer. The North was cold, but it was not winter just yet. The people on the docks were annoyed and loud, rather than startle them with dragon-kin forms Mike and Wu Hai stopped to take a closer look.
"Are those Ogres?" Mike called it out first, they looked a lot like orcs, but they were much taller and fatter, their pearly pink skin made them look especially like pigs.
"Probably. I'm not sure what species they are, we should try out my new die." … "Echinemon can shape change" Before Wu Hai finished speaking he had already started to roll.
Thankfully he had the cup, otherwise he would have to roll all six dice, and his combinations would take forever. After the die stopped Wu Hai's body became illusory, his dragon form had undergone a qualitative change.
"I think I have to return the other die to human, or I'll be both Dragon and Dragon Eater." Wu Hai laughed out loud and quickly covered his mouth. "whoops, lets hurry up" Wu Hai rolled a few more times, going from the original beast die to the new illusory die, he went through the entire set of transformations before he finally got to the Echinemon form.
"Your turn." Wu Hai waited, they couldn't be orcs with wings, and shapeshifting wings wasn't something they had time to figure out.
Mike rolled in a frenzied motion, he got to his rolls faster than Wu Hai and smiled. His competitiveness had come through again. "1st."
"Okay, okay.. Focus your mind and imagine what you feel you'd look like if you were an ogre. I don't have any experience either, so this is just an assumption." Wu Hai closed his eyes and slowly his mongoose-like face and ears turned to a pig nose, the fur on his body changed colors and textures to resemble the pink hues given off by the Ogres and Wu Hai grew three foot taller. His gut was pretty big, but Wu Hai was lucky that he had plenty of clothing this time.
The last time he experimented with shape changes, he had not considered his clothing and it had cost him the outfit his mother had made for him.
"This is so strange." Mike struggled to get the power under control. It was a racial ability, much like Khan Ni's ability to control plants.
Wu Hai saw him struggling and almost had him reconfigure his powers to make it work, but before he suggested it mike had gotten his power under control. "We should go look for goods, information or a map. A Map is more important, split up and if shit hits the fan come find me."
Wu Hai went one direction and Mike went another.
The port town was fairly spread out and all the roads were heavily trafficked. After asking a few ogres and getting disgusting looks both of them found out the name of the City that all ogres knew. Innestrad was well known for its brothels and trade among all ogre cities. If you wanted something, this was where it came from.
Noticing a bar, Mike went in to look for information and to buy alcohol. It was always a good idea to grow your selection, you never know when you'll have another chance or a strange guest. "What do you have here?"
"Dragon Blood Wine, Human Wine, Avarie, Juintaro, and Goblin Ale." The bartender was nice enough, he didn't spit when Mike asked what they had.
"I'll try the Avarie. What sort of drink is it." Mike felt awkward but wanted a drink.
"To drink something before you even know what it is... dangerous. If you want to drink it, its 3 copper each." Listening to the bartender tell Mike the price, Mike stopped caring.
Mike put a gold coin on the counter. "How much will this buy." Mike wasn't sure what the bartender had, much less how much booze he had.
"You can take all of it. You can also have the Juitaro. I have six barrels that I paid 50 silver pieces for six months ago, No one wants them and everyone hates that stuff here." The Bartender wanted to make his money back and did.
The price of the Avarie was less than 3 silver, Mike had bought 15 barrels of swill.
"How much is the Dragon blood Wine and the Goblin Ale.. Actually, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be in town.. how much for the rest of your stock." Mike cut to the chase.
"The rest of my stock?! Are you joking?" the Bartender looked back at mike coldly, "Four. Four Gold Coins and you can take what I have."
Mike placed 5 more gold coins on the bar and started waving his hand around storing all the bottles on shelves into his ring.
"Show me to your warehouse" The bartender was baffled, but led the way.
Normal people didn't have storage rings.
'who the fuck is this guy?' a singular confusing thought ran across the bartenders mind.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
Wu Hai was rummaging through a shop looking for good things to buy, If he just cleared out every store he ever saw people would definitely notice and follow them maliciously.
"Got any maps? Or books?" Wu Hai showed no disrespect, but no respect either.
"2nd floor, 3rd shelf, far right. 50 gold coins each, no negotiating." The Clerk responded quickly.
'geez, 50g each is ridiculous. The jokes on him' Wu Hai pulled out a small sack and started to fill it with some of the cut gold discs he had piled in his inventory.
He would pay, but empty his sack. Going up the stairs he saw many books, it was pretty refreshing to find other cultures writing.
When he started picking up books, he noticed they were not written by ogres. 'these bastards sell anything they steal off corpses, no wonder this place wreaks of blood'.
Wu Hai had a pile of books he couldn't let go before he had even made it to the map shelf. There were 18 maps on the shelf, all of them different. Some looked much older than others, most were drawn meticulously.
'18, give me a break, why couldn't they draw one map with everything on it.' Wu Hai would be grateful when he could have Qu consolidate the information and help him determine how big this world is.
Wu Hai grabbed all the maps and went to the counter. The pile of crap he had was sure to attract a lot of attention.
In his head Wu Hai was doing the math, 900g in maps and at least 100 books.. he was probably going to give the wrong impression, but they could always take another form and vanish. "How much." Wu Hai felt like it was going to be a nightmare dealing with the clerk.
"So much. You really need ALL of the maps? Well, 900 for the Maps, 10g per book. 2000 gold coins, the extra 100g is to keep my mouth shut till you leave." The shopkeeper wasn't stupid, by agreeing to a bribe he could ensure his own safety.
Anyone willing to spend that much gold would attract attention.
"Bribe... okay. I'll bribe you, but if you betray me before I leave.. I'll take everything from this store including your life." Wu Hai plopped 3 gold bars on the counter.
"This should more than cover it, remember to keep your mouth shut." Wu Hai grabbed another book and threw it into his storage ring before collecting what he bought.
"Hey.." The shopkeeper looked at Wu Hai and then quickly shut up.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
Mike had packed away most of the alcohol in the storeroom when he noticed a few bottles of high grade stuff in the back.
"What about this stuff?" Mike was not going to miss a great item when he had the chance.
'Cough Cough...' "Those were liberated from a royal family we chanced upon. They cost my group 3 lives." The ogre was clearly annoyed at the fact.
"2 bars, no more" Mike was smart, he knew they were good stuff but even the bartender had not tasted them.
"Deal. Take them and go" taking the bars of gold from mike, the ogre returned upstairs.
Mike waved his hand and placed the case into his storage. When he came back upstairs he saw a group of angry ogres standing at the stairwells entrance.
"You should get out of my way" Mike had been itching to fight for the past week during their flight over.
One of the Ogres stood directly in his path, causing Mike to smirk. "Okay, well.. don't say I didn't give you a chance to keep your lives." Mike let the frost aura he had been holding in for almost a month out.
Mike hadn't been able to let loose since the fight against vs the horde that attacked the city, and even then he had just been keeping the skies clear.
When the Aura leaked out, the stairwell turned to a crystalline ice palace in an instant. The Ogre in the middle was frozen solid and the others were frozen in place at their feet. Mike took step after step up the stairs. With each step the ogres moved less and less until eventually they stopped moving all together. Rather than explaining corpses to anyone Mike simply stored the frozen bodies, armor and all into his rings.
Walking out of the bar, Wu Hai saw Mike.
"You were in the bar this whole time?" Wu Hai had been waiting for about 10 minutes, he wasn't upset but giving Mike shit for being at a bar by himself.
"Its a long story, what did you find?" Mike asked Wu Hai.
"I've got a map, its not a complete loss. There isn't a magical shop in this place, but I think we can get out of here." Wu Hai finished talking and led the way out of town.
They made the way out of town and switched to Vishnan bodies. After they entered the river and went to the sea. The next continent was 3 months in the east-southeast by boat, if they swam they could stop whenever they wanted and it would only take about two weeks.
Wu Hai had never spent so much time being a Vishnan, he had always casually flipped through it like a bad deal. Now that he was swimming for such a long period of time, he was very happy with the form itself. The desire to enslave and conquer wasn't present in his mind, but Wu Hai really wanted to search the ocean floor for wrecks on the way. Wu Hai expanded the tower when they got far enough off the coast to pull the tower out entirely underwater, Qu was waiting for them to get maps.
"Master, with the map and the math I can make calculations of distance. I will help create a better topographical representation. For now I can quickly make a compilation and graft it to a sphere." Waving his hand notably, Qu read the maps and started pushing energy into the 3-d projected sphere.
"Holograms?" Wu Hai was blown away.
"No, Master. Just illusion magic cast over the maps. The Holograms take math." Qu smiled a bit.
"Based on our current position, I think that we're about 11 days from the other side. Erinle has scouted ahead. I had him search for wrecks on the way, his speed underwater is nearly unmatched. Its too bad he can't carry the Pagoda and do the crossing, we'd be done crossing in less than 3 days." Qu was handed the storage rings like usual and Wu Hai went to the library directly to deposit the books himself.
It was going to be a long journey even if it was only 11 more days to cross the Ocean. Wu Hai and Mike did their best to coordinate rest periods and trade off the search for wrecks.
Qu took the time to catch some fist, Many schools and shoals were collected as they were crossing.