I sat in my chair munching on some milfoil while the ground flew past me.
'This was my dream, wasn't it?' I thought as a feeling of nostalgia rose in my chest. 'This feels like that memory I had of falling. Whoever I was in my last life had it rough near the end.'
I silently paid respect to him before I was snapped back into my responsibilities.
"Ingen, the left propeller is sticking, it needs repairs," Teo said.
The ship kept a forward course only because he slowed the right propeller to match the left.
"Alright Teo, stop us." I jumped off the side of the ship and deployed my Wyvern Wings.
Another wave of nostalgia 'Now, this one isn't my old life's dream, this one's mine.'
I banked and turned around, gliding to the propeller that was sticking. I peeled back the metal to see that there was a dead bird stuck in the main drive.
"Poor thing, I've stolen your flight for my own." I pulled the bird out. "Well, the strongest survive I guess."
I tossed the bird off to the side and let go of the propeller. I easily flew back up to the deck and sat back down.
'It's going so smoothly, but that won't last once we get to the arrays, we will have to spin the propellers manually and most of us are naturals. The arrays are probably miles long.'
"So, Captain Meiung? Where are we going?" One of the freed prisoners asked me.
[Kera]
"Well Kera, we're going to the only safe place for both humans and naturals: Eiovi"
The woman blushed. "Thanks. Uh- How did you know my name?"
"My Spectacles told me, and they read your core." Any lie I tell would be exposed quickly.
The blush drained from her face when she heard how impersonal of a reason I had for knowing her name. She went back below deck to tell her friends about our destination.
'I'm bored of this chair. I have to repair my spear, and it's not living wood anymore so I can't use intuitive manipulation to put it back to how it was.'
I started to walk down the stairs to my workshop.
On my way, I shook many people's hands as I passed.
'You know the freed prisoners have come to call the Dragon 'Ingen's Ark'?' Spirit said to me via our mind link.
'You're going to bring that stupid stuff up now and not help me in combat? Get your priorities straight.' I quipped
'You think I do nothing in a fight? Who do you think summons the Eneru you use? It requires delicate focus and it's hard to speak and handle the overflow of energy so you don't die! Get going!' Spirit scolded me.
'Perhaps I was a bit entitled, sorry friend.' I was sincere.
'Door.' Spirit said
'Door?'
THUD!
I got up from the floor. "Ow! Why is there a door here?!"
'Because you put it there?' Spirit was confused.
'Oh yeah.' My brain caught up and I opened the door.
Inside I saw one of the prisoners messing with my stuff. She put the thing she was working on behind her back. She was a young girl with short black hair and two straight horns pointing down from the back of her head.
I cocked my head a bit. "Are you trying to hide something behind your back?" I suppressed a laugh.
"What?" She looked away, only for some of her short, black hair to get stuck to her face.
I suppressed another laugh "Alright, let me see what you made."
"No! It's not done yet!" She said vehemently
"Alright then, let's finish it together. Wouldn't it help to have another engineer?"
"Nope." She shook her head, causing her hair to go wild. "It's a secret."
"Alright then, the workshop's yours, I'll just be here." I paused. "What's your name?"
[Laveki Jensu]
"My name is Laveki, what's yours?"
"Name's Ingen Meiung."
I set down my deformed spear as Laveki stared in disbelief. She very quickly got over it and went back to work.
Chucka Chucka.
Laveki made a noise of anticipation as her creation worked.
Clank!
"Fuck!" Laveki shouted.
'I didn't peg her as a potty mouth.' I thought as I threw out the spear Fabiru made me and started drawing up plans for a new one.
'The new spear will integrate his idea for a folding design, but with heftier joints, it will be made of metal so I can use it until I infuse it, and It will have to lock into place when I flip it open.'
The design had two joints, meaning it was folded into three parts. The joints no longer presented a weak point, and it was made mostly of the leftover steel with selnatite laced into the head.
I turned my attention away from my spear for a second and looked behind me.
Snap!
I caught the shrapnel of whatever Laveki was working with flow manipulation.
"Woah, careful!" The adrenaline started making me shake.
"Sorry! I found the problem." She went back to her table and got back to her work.
I facepalmed and walked over, according to her blueprint she was making a strange craft that used a propeller to go up.
"So what's the problem girlie?"
She quickly grabbed her blueprint and hid it.
"The yuet is out of the bag, just let me see it and help."
"Fine." She looked away and gave me the print.
"Have you noticed that the propellers on the back of the Dragon spin in opposite directions?" I said.
"No."
"Well the reason that they do is that they create two forces, one is 'linear' and is what pushes the ship. The other is your problem, it's called 'torque' and tries to spin the craft, also called 'rotational force.' You have to counter your torque to make it go up."
She looked at me with a sparkle in her eyes and started drawing.
'She smells kinda greasy.' I thought.
'Eyes on the blueprint Casanova.' Spirit scolded me.
I looked at the blueprint.
"My god that's genius!" She put two propellers on top of each other and made them rotate in opposite directions. "You stacked them on top of each other without making them run on the same axis!"
I made the parts of the prototype and assembled it quickly based on her blueprint.
"Try it out!" I said.
She wound up the small-scale prototype and let it go. The little machine took off for a few seconds and fell back down.
"WOOOO!" She celebrated and some grease flew off her hair.
'Oh, that was obvious, her hair has grease in it.'
I used a bit of intuitive manipulation to pull the grease out of her hair, it was an oil derivative so it was conductive. I dropped the grease into a bowl and we took the new prototype to the deck to test it more, well more like play with it.