The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) by Aleron Kong Read Free Book Online Page B

several weeks’ time. The cost of arranging that had been several gold coins paid upfront. That amounted to several hundred US dollars that were eating into his potential profits!
    “How long until the ship will be ready,” Richter asked.
    “She should be river ready in three months,” Shivona said with certainty.
    Richter widened his eyes, “That soon? I was expecting it to take the better part of a year!”
    “Ha,” she scoffed. “Maybe it would take that long for ham-fisted humans…,” she looked up with a stricken look when she remembered the lord of her new village was human. Richter just gestured for her to keep going with an amused expression on his face. She nodded gratefully and continued, “As I was saying, high elves are the finest ship builders in The Land. Each of us are proficient with a certain type of magic as well. I have affinity for Water and Earth magic, both at apprentice skill level. My aides have affinities to Water and Air magic respectively.”
    “So you cast spells to make the work go faster,” Richter asked.
    “That is part of it, but also, we just maintain a low level of ambient mana when we are working.” Seeing that Richter wasn’t following, she explained further, “You can cast different types of spells, correct? I am sure you have noticed that right before casting spells of different types of magic, there is a recognizable feeling. For myself, casting Water spells feels different than casting Earth spells.”
    Richter nodded, his Earth magic spells made him feel ‘solid’ for lack of a better description. Water magic gave him a cool “fluid” feeling, and his Ice Dagger spell made his hands feel cold right before casting, though that may have been specific to that spell.
    “Well my Lord, we focus on that feeling while we work, not actually using mana, just accessing it. We have found that the ships will ultimately be stronger and faster by infusing mana while we work. That’s one of the reasons high elves are such excellent craftsmen. In addition to having a high shipbuilding skill, we increase our skill level in magic as well. Of course, this ship won’t be as strong as enchanted ships and won’t have anywhere near the power of kytachi vessels.”
    “Just call me Richter,” he said absently. It wasn’t often his Gift of Tongues ability didn’t automatically translate every word. It seemed only to happen when the word expressed a concept he wasn’t fully familiar with. Kytachi seemed to translate as ‘caught souls.’
    “I don’t understand,” Richter said. “Are you saying you can make the ship stronger? Why don’t you?”
    Seeing his confusion, Shivona explained further, “A jewel can be infused with a spell and attached to the ship. An example would be the Earth spell Durability. The spell could be infused into a jewel and then attached to the ship. The ship’s structure would be stronger. The size of the ship usually means that several jewels need to be strategically placed in key positions, though. Otherwise, you have one part of the ship much stronger than the others. It might not seem important, but the boards of a ship need to swell and shrink together. If one area is much stronger than the others, it creates a stress point that might snap the ship in two. I’m sure you can see that using several jewels for one effect, while beneficial to the ship, would be very costly.”
    Richter nodded his understanding. He wasn’t completely disregarding the possibility, though. He still had many jewels in his inventory, and it might be worth using a few to enchant the ship. “What about a kytachi?”
    “A kytachi vessel is something else entirely, my L-, Richter. It requires that a soul stone that has been invested with a spirit to be irreversibly bonded to a ship. The stronger the spirit, the stronger the vessel. It is not an exact process, though,” she cautioned. “Over time, the vessel takes on the characteristics of the spirit. I’ll give you an