Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

dive deeper into it, and the gnomes repair a mana collector for us, connecting it to the stones that are almost dead. Some will shatter, I have no doubt, but some may survive and accept the high-density mana concentration found in the storm’s outer ring, but we cannot go deeper, not if we want to survive,” she warned soberly.

“That’s not sounding like a very safe solution…” I said carefully, frowning slightly at Tenandra.

“There are no safe options,” the wisp sighed, shaking her head. “This will gain us the power needed, but it is far from safe, and if the mana floods the crystals too quickly, many will shatter. We can only hope that it is not essential crystals that are lost. This, I estimate at a thirty-two percent chance of success, while the next most promising, at eleven percent, is boarding one of the enemy ships in the storm and looting their mana crystals, then swapping them out while we fly and hoping the ship survives…”

“Oh, well, that’s a joyful thought.” I grimaced. “That’s a pretty shitty percentage of success, either way. Are there other options?” I asked, and she shook her head regretfully.

“None above a six percent chance of success,” she sighed, watching me closely to gauge my response.

“What about this?” I asked her, hefting her Core.

“What about it?” she repeated with clear hesitation, eyeing me distrustfully.

“The Cores are designed to be charged and recharged, right? Could we charge the Core and connect it to the ship? Like a battery?” I suggested, surprised at the look of horror on her face.

“No, please…” she begged, shaking her head desperately. “I understand I have not endeared myself to you… but… you would kill me like this…?”

“I’m not trying to kill you,” I protested, holding my hands up quickly. “Oracle, whose form you took when you first showed yourself to me, she’d bound herself to me directly, rather than the Tower, as she was trying to save me when we first met. Could you not transfer yourself to something? Like the ship?”

Silence filled the wheelhouse for several seconds, before she moved, blurring with inhuman speed. As she shot forward to hover before me, her eyes searched mine for a sign, a twitch, anything to suggest I was hiding something…

“You would permit this?” she asked me eventually, her voice filled with wonder as she continued to search my face. “You would permit a wisp to become this ship? To be able to bond to something so… so free?”

“Yes,” I said truthfully. “You’ve already accepted me as your master, and as a Scion of the Empire. You’re compelled to be loyal to me and my aims, even though I’d rather you offered such loyalty willingly. I understand that trust has to be earned, on both sides.” I held her gaze, wondering if I was making a huge mistake. “If you bond with the ship, is it permanent?” I asked her, and she nodded quickly.

“If I bonded to the ship, I would be required to spread out my essence‒my soul, if you prefer‒to permeate the ship. Removing myself after that would be very… painful, not to mention resulting in a permanent lowering of my capabilities.”

“How did you manage with the Prax, then?” I asked, and she gestured to the Core.

“I was bonded to the Core. When things became grave, I was removed from the Prax’s control Citadel and interred in the Vault instead. My main control facilities were cut and only a local variant was permitted. It was to ensure that the Prax could be repaired once it was retaken, in the event of an attack being successful.”

“So, look… I might be misunderstanding this, but let’s get this very clear: if I allow you to bond to the ship, you will remain bonded to this ship, and only this ship, for life?” I asked, wanting to be absolutely certain that I understood, and she nodded in affirmation. “Dammit,” I grumbled.

“This is a problem?” she asked, an edge of coldness and sorrow leaking into her voice.

“Yeah. Well… no, not really,” I corrected myself. “I was thinking that we’d be better off bonding you with the Battleship. It’s still being built, and it won’t be ready for a while. That was it, in the middle of the fleet, before we lost sight of them, but we truly need you in here, I guess.” I rubbed my chin, considering immediate versus long-term needs.

“The Battleship?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah; I bet if you can gain control of her the way that Seneschal has the Great Tower, it’d make an amazing weapon…” I muttered.

“What about my Prax?” she interrupted quickly. “What if I could be removed from this ship, and instead inserted into the Prax later; would you permit that?”

“You just said you couldn’t…” I fixed her with my best glare. “Okay, you’re hiding something. Gimme.”

“‘Gimme’? Oh. Well… I’m capable of spreading myself out; my essence, as I said…” she explained haltingly. “But once I spread my essence out, I can never get that back. If the ship were to be integrated into another, though, such as your battleship, or better yet, my Prax, I could possibly spread out further? It would take time, and I would no longer be what I am, but I could… evolve…?”

“You could become a city?” I asked with surprise, wanting further clarification. “If I allow you to join with the ship now, as long as the ship itself was integrated into the Prax later, you could spread yourself out and claim it? Resurrect the sleeping Golems, repair the city, get it back into the air?”

“I… I think so?” she responded uncertainly. “It has never been done…”

“Why not? Hell, why bond wisps with the Great Towers, centers that were meant to be the greatest citadels in times of war, but refuse to allow you the same in the Prax?” I asked her.

“Because we were captured slaves, with our natural affinities suppressed. Our ability to draw in ambient mana was burned from us, and we were forced