"At least seven days..." Rose thought to herself as she looked at the tender in front of her.

  With that amount of time, she knew that she could do a lot, maybe even get to turn one or two tenders into a marvel of rune-work. She was sure that it was a good idea, and a good use of her time, but she still felt a bit disappointed deep in her heart. Her disappointment didn't stem from a dislike or hate for her Class or skills, it was more towards how low-levelled she was.

  She knew what her Class could grow into at later levels, and she took it for that same reason, with one certain final goal in sight. That goal had always been the same and it never changed, it was always to work on the Voyager and augment her with enough runes that she would turn into a moving fortress in the ocean.

  Her vision was proving to be too ambitious though, the more time she had with her Class and skills, the more she knew that she would need to be in tier 4 or 5 at least to achieve her vision. The fact that the Voyager was now alive and growing, with skills of her own that were just as miraculous as some of the runes she had didn't help.

  Sighing, she could only shake her head as she accepted her reality and started considering some of the lower runes that might be of help to the Voyager. One of them, and the most useful really, was inscribed on the bow of ships to help them cut through the water more easily.

  Sighing again at how useless that felt, she started dreaming about the runes she could use on the Voyager later on; a barrier rune that would stop even an attack from the strongest of cannons, a stabilising rune to help the Voyager with stormy weather and strong waves, stealth runes, structure runes and even more. It all was in reach if only she had the tiers for it.

  "Welp," she murmured, "I'd better use these tenders to get some experience and level up, making them as strong as possible isn't bad either."

  ***

  Francis moved excitedly to Linda's alchemy room, or alchemy lab as she liked to call it. All his focus was on the future projects that he was going to start working on.

  Production and assembly lines were great, but they weren't the only thing he could do, he was a Mega-Constructor, and he was going to make one of those eventually.

  William's plans for Dex were a good thing to start with. He didn't know the feasibility of the project, but that was the fun in the matter! To try, try and try again till he got a result that he was satisfied with, something that would push him to the limits of his ability.

  William's idea also made Francis consider what he could do with the Current Savant too, maybe even use him as a power source for a project or two? The possibilities were endless really.

  With his mind still filled with those different ideas and possibilities, he finally reached the alchemy lab and pushed the door excitedly,

  "Linda!" he called as he entered.

  His eyes felt as if they had caught something misty in the room, but it then disappeared before he could process what he had seen.

  "Francis! God dammit!" His shout was met by another one, except that the one he had heard was full of anger.

  Francis didn't even know what was happening, except the fact that he must have fucked up somehow, as he saw his girlfriend storming towards him from inside the alchemy lab with a mad expression and wide eyes.

  "Wh-What happened?" he asked in confusion and worry.

  "What happened?" Linda repeated back to him, continuing to shout, "You still have the nerve to ask me that?"

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  "I don't know." Francis didn't know what was happening, but he knew that he had to calm her down. "Calm down first, take deep breaths and let's sit down, I'm sorry if I made a mistake but you need to tell me what it was."

  Francis would be lying to say that he understood what was happening, but he knew his girlfriend best, they had been together for years and she would never explode like that for no reason, he had to calm her down and find out what was happening. Plus, in her gaze, he didn't just see anger, those wide eyes seemed scared and frightened more than anything else.

  "I- Okay, Okay." She took deep breaths as she allowed him to drag her to one of the few chairs in the room.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked after he saw her breathing calm down and her hands stop trembling.

  "I'm fine," she said. Her voice was small and weak, all the emotions from before seemed to have disappeared, leaving her empty and spent, "I'm sorry for exploding like that on you, it's just..."

  "What was it?" he pushed once he saw that she didn't finish her words.

  "Francis." She looked him straight in the eye, her expression grave. "I'm an Alchemist, I'm working with some pretty dangerous and volatile materials here. You forcing your way in like that was dangerous, too dangerous. You could have been in danger, you could have even died if I had been working on something poisonous!"

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just calm down." He hurried to comfort her as he saw her turn agitated again, pulling her into a gentle embrace, "I won't do it again, I swear, don't worry."

  "I'm sorry too," she whispered from between his arms, "I should have been more careful, should have closed the door, but I'm still not used to what I can do with those skills and as you entered, the- the worse case scenario for what could have happened came to mind, I just couldn't think straight at all."

  After calming her down and deciding that it would be better to also add a sign about not entering the room willy-nilly, Francis finally turned to what he had come for.

  "You want me to work on a different kind of powder?" Linda asked, "One for the weapon that you're going to use for the Voyager?"

  "Yes." He nodded, happy to leave the previous conversation behind. "We still haven't decided exactly on what to do with that weapon, but working on the powder on your side before would be a smart thing anyway, so I came to ask you about it."

  "I will talk to Marcus and the other two later on," she said slowly, "I need to know what's expected from powder for an artillery shell and how it should be, I'm sure that they have a couple of ideas at least."

  "That's great," Francis said, "I will keep you updated on how things are going on our side, if anything concrete is decided on, I will tell you."

  Leaving his girlfriend after making sure that she was alright and that nothing was off, Francis walked down the corridor as he thought back to what had happened when he entered the alchemy lab.

  The frightened eyes and shaking hands showed just how scared Linda was, her anger was totally because of fear, but why she felt that way, he didn't know.

  One thing didn't leave his mind though, the faint hazy mist that seemed to have filled the room when he had entered. It was there then disappeared not even a blink later. In his memory of that moment, he felt that at the centre of it, he saw Linda.

  ***

  "A four to five day trip turned into eight." Dan sighed.

  It had to be done though, the route they were taking, honestly there was no route at all, needed them to move less than half their maximum speed. It was for no other reason than the fact that they had to be that careful.

  The Voyager was leading the trip, she had full control and the crew had no say in what she was doing. So, other than the slow speed she was moving at, she was also changing her course from time to time, taking huge detours for no apparent reason. Dan even used the auras to try and see what she had seen but in most cases, he saw nothing.

  They had only noticed something off about an area she had avoided two times. In one of them, Keith pointed out that the location they would have had to go through was full of green dots, it was so weird and intriguing as the open ocean barely had any of those. Also, many a time they noticed one of those disappearing, meaning that it had most likely been hunted by a predator. That area though, was so full of them and yet no other creature seemed to be interested in that free meal.

  The other area was one where the ocean seemed to be boiling, with it churning and agitated. There were also no creatures in that area, as if no living being could get close to it. They didn't even hesitate and let the Voyager change her course without any arguments.

  They had only managed to find something off about those two areas, none of the others the Voyager had avoided had anything that they could pinpoint as problematic. That didn't mean that nothing was though, just that they weren't strong enough to notice it.

  "Seven more days like this..." Dan murmured, "I just hope they pass peacefully."

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