Chapter 167: Mount Hullbeck

Chapter 167: Mount Hullbeck

“Astrid–” Rachelle said in shock. “What the hell happened to you?”

“What?” Astrid looked at herself, then her eyes rose in realisation. She pinched her grinning mask. “Cool right?”

“I’m talking about the damned floating eyeballs!”

“Oh that!” Astrid coughed. Then excitedly pointed to the big eye that had lava tendrils coursing within. “It’s evidence of my great battle. It was a huge lava moth–” Astrid’s words trailed off, only for her to shake her head, and smile.

At her command, a perfect image of Avemoth appeared within the world. Astrid replicated the attacks and accurately displayed the grandeur of the majestic primal beast. Of course, it didn’t have the same aura it had in person, but just the image was enough to get her point across.

The others watched in awe as Astrid battled Avemoth. Each move from the primal beast would rip them apart in the time it took them to blink, yet the small golden haired girl had defeated it.

“What are they feeding you?” Daniel coughed as he watched the illusionary cinema.

“Are you calling me fat?” Astrid squinted her eyes.

“I’m calling you a freak,” Daniel said, only to receive an elbow jab to the side from Lisa. “I mean, How are you becoming so strong, so quick?”

Astrid opened her mouth to talk, but she hesitated. She didn’t know what it meant to hold a Transcendent Class. She had never even heard about it before, and she had read a lot about a myriad of different Classes. Much to her boredom.

“Uh–by eating three meals a day.” Astrid nodded repeatedly.

Daniel shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t mean to pry into your secrets lass. But don’t bottle up everything to yourself either. We are a family, right everyone?”

Everyone nodded.

Astrid replied with a smiling nod. She knew her team was a family and that they would do anything to protect her, but she was hesitant on saying something out in the open. If her time in the dungeons meant anything, it was that anyone could be listening.

Who knows what kind of equipment allowed them to hear, or maybe Jonathan’s team had a heightened hearing user. She didn’t know. It was better to remain cautious.

Thinking about Jonathon, a sudden sloshing, followed by shouts allerted Astrid and the others a few dozen metres out into the ocean. Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

Jonathan and his team’s ship was at the last of its floating capabilities. They were standing on the edge of the ship that had dipped into the ocean. They looked over at Astrid, helpless as they descended further.

However, Astrid’s new ship wasn’t much better. She could feel it sinking by the second as more and more water seeped into the hull. Unlike regular Wayfarers or Seafarers, they didn’t have an engineering Class with them to fix up the broken vessel. The same went for the Seafarers. Or if they did, they had died during the dungeon expedition.

It was time to test her repairing skills. She had no knowledge on how a ship worked, or what needed to be repaired. But it couldn’t be that difficult, right?

With the plan in her mind, she dove straight into action. She lifted the entire Seafarers vessel. Astrid decided to focus on their ship as it was almost completely submerged. Lifting it, it was clear it was far beyond repair for a regular Engineer Class. Thankfully, she was far from being a normal engineer.

The entire front half of the ship was gone and trying to create her own would only cause more problems. So, Astrid leapt into the water, and retrieved the other parts of the ship. Returning back to the surface, all that remained was to glue the other parts together, and mend the holes.

Astrid levitated over and lay down in mid-air. Her legs dangled as she peeked at the map scrawlings.

“We’re here.” Daniel pointed to a small bubble in the middle of the ocean. Almost the entirety of the map was nothing but blue. Or it would have been if it wasn’t for the hundreds of dotted bubbles all over the place, and a lone island with an enormous broken ship on top of it.

“Mount Hulbeck,” Astrid mumbled.

“Right, or Pleasure Island.” Daniel said. “Now we can either head over there, or wait for another group of Wayfarers, or Seafarers head in this direction.”

“That’s unlikely right?” Calum added. Everyone looked at him. “I mean, the further HMS Rebirth travels forward, the less likely they are to adventure in this direction. The risk isn’t worth it.”

“The greenhorn is right.” Brett ruffled up Calum’s hair. “Especially so since we’re fast approaching the end of the year. No one is going to risk injury when they can earn more in a few days than an entire lifetime adventuring around random towns.”

“The City expedition.” Astrid grinned.

Astrid couldn’t wait for it. All her life she had always dreamt of going on a city expedition. She had first thought she would be going in her mid twenties. Never did she expect to be going so soon. Her heart thumped against her chest as the date approached.

“That’s right,” Daniel said. “Well, no-one can say I don’t give you all options.”

Rachelle scoffed. “It wasn’t much of an option.”

Astrid slammed her fist into her palm. “Alright, just tell me which direction I need to fly in and away we go.”

Daniel pointed and so Astrid hoisted the ship into the air. At first she thought about pushing it in the water, but the density of the ocean and its waves proved to require far more effort. Instead, the air was a lot easier for her.

As they travelled through the air, she noticed that it was a lot more difficult than she had anticipated. Astrid hoped that the added mana from her Transcendent Class would allow her to carry everyone, plus the ship. But it was a lot more difficult than she thought. Especially carrying Rob who had a very high Constitution.

Her higher estimate of six hours shot down to five, but it was still a staggering amount of time to lift them all.

Although it required a lot of concentration to control so many heavy things all at once, she still listened in on the conversation.

They were talking about Mount Hullbeck. It was a place where adventurers, or more accurately–pirates, gathered from all around the ocean swallowed world.

Trade was the main business on the island. From illegal, ill gotten gains such as plundered equipment, or relics from the big bubbled towns.

It was also the biggest survivor colony Ruitera had. Tens of thousands permanently resided on the island, and despite the place having no leader, it thrived from the power of democracy. Twelve representatives of the Pirate Kings were placed on the island to overlook things, and were in charge of collectively making decisions to better the trade on the island.

Of course, things didn’t always go well. Astrid had heard many times where the island would undergo a ‘restructuring’ process. And that meant assassination.

Pirates always had their own best interest at heart after all.

After a couple gruelling days of hauling the others, an enormous flat mountain with a gigantic ship on top arrived in her vision.

They had arrived.