Tai was in an absolute state of concentration that even the twisting and tossing did not affect him.The eerie whispers and vague silhouettes were as if they had never ever existed, and even the deafening thunderclaps and the blinding flashes of lightning had all receeded to the background in the mind of the red haired teenager.
All that remained was Tai, the chair, his energy circulating through his body and into his fingertips, and the rune he was busy drawing.
As usual, the red haired teenager used the usual procedures of tracing his energy into lines and using the lines to make the shapes on the object.
In a minute or two, the chair crumbled into ethereal energy and dissolved into his soul.
The sweet words appeared in front of his eyes as he grinned widely.
[You have received a Summon, Exquisite Chair]
[Exquisite Chair]
[A stubborn sorcerer decided against all odds, for reasons unknown, and managed to draw the summoning rune on a beautiful chair in the midst of a maddening storm capable of bending reality itself.
This summon grants no boosts whatsoever and can serve as a place to sit and relax in any kind of situation.]
Smiling with a smug look on his face, Tai sighed.
"I friggin did it!"
And it had taken him only a minute or two despite the harrowing storm. He had finally mastered the basics of runic sorcery.
With the ability to summon things only by drawing a rune instead of shouting out it's true name like he was in an anime, he would always have the edge of unpredictability.
No one would know what he wanted to summon since the summoning runes for every object had the same drawing and no one but him could see the ethereal mana shapes he drew in the first place.
He was still gloating in his reverie, when Claire's voice resonated in the ship, making the red haired teenager tense up.
If the speech impaired girl was talking once again, this meant that she would make another prophecy. Tai had long since discovered that her prophecies would always come true no matter what.
But he had also discovered that it could be changed.
Taking a deep breath to calm down his rapidly beating heart, Tai strained his ears and tried to listen to the blond girl.
Through the deafening thunderclaps and violent howling if the sky tides, Tai could only pick up a few words.
"Fall."
Tai frowned. He would not dare to leave the steering and go over to her location as without anyone sailing the ship, it would instantly be consumed by some deadly gale, be hit by lightening, or be swept away by a strong sky tide.
He diverted the direction of the winds with the large oars by the side of the ship, he slowed down or increased the speed at which they sailed the skies by lowering or putting up the sails, and he controlled the direction at which they sailed at the steering.
Tai had read somewhere that the north direction was the direct opposite of the origin direction of a Time Storm.
Tai knew how find north, at least.
By extending the feel of his energy, he could feel the energy pull of the sun.
So, he sailed north.
However, he was now in an area where the storm clouds were so thick that he could no longer feel the sun anymore. To make things worse, Claire had made another prophecy.
It could be a prophecy like the one on Black Nest island, foretelling their deaths, or maybe it would be a good one, foretelling how they would survive.
Either way, the red haired teenager was consumed by curiosity.
He really, really wanted to know what the blonde girl had said, but was overwhelmed by the responsibility of controlling the ship.
If he left his position, they would all die, and if he didn't he would not know how they would die.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
However, the red haired teenager chose to remain at the steering. He had a better chance of survival by making sure that they survived the storm.
"And besides..." Tai frowned.
"It was because of the prophecy itself, that we got into the whole black dragon stuff in the first place."
Tai, Nikki, and Claire would have not had any thing to do with the obsidian scaled beast if Claire had not made her prophecy in the first place.
They would have probably finished the expedition.
But yet again, without the prophecy, Tai would not have known about the time loop. They would have spent an eternity on the island before any of them would have realized that they were reliving the same day over, over, and over again.
They would have just had a very strong feeling of dj vu at most.
So, in a weird, twisted way, the prophecy itself was one of the causes of it's manifestation.
This could mean that Tai leaving the steering to hear what Claire had said, would make the prophecy to come true, or maybe him not leaving the steering to hear the prophecy could make it come true instead?
It was all just so complicated.
"Fuck Claire and her damned prophecies!!"