"So the dent is truly healing?" Dan asked his old friend in amazement. He had expected it, but hearing it confirmed was something else entirely.

  "Yes, the area I marked using the pencil got smaller," William said as he looked around.

  "The ship is healing..." Old Raily said, shaking his head in mild disbelief.

  "That's only good news for us." Dan laughed at their reactions.

  "Well that's the truth." William nodded. "This helps with a lot of things too. I don't know to what extent the strengthening includes her body though."

  "What do you mean?" Old Raily asked. The few days they had without anything happening and without being in full high alert seemed to be doing wonders for him, he wasn't as grumpy as he was when they found themselves in this new world, he was returning to how Dan knew him, slowly, very slowly, but surely.

  "Does it include everything inside her?" William questioned as he looked all over again, "The windows, the furniture, the lighting, the washing machines! All her electronics too, from readers, sonar, cameras and all that? If that is all included, seeing how she's going to be at level 100 would be something to look forward to."

  Dan smiled, once Rose brought up the matter of the possibility that the Voyager might be growing stronger, he couldn't stop himself from imagining all the things that could happen! The possibilities were endless. Just as William said, if what grew stronger included everything that was part of her, that would be a wide range. All her sensors and readers getting upgrades that might even border on being magical later on might not be too much of a stretch.

  At that moment, the group of old men, Dan considered himself young at heart, were sitting in one of the bigger gardens on the Voyager, The Corner Garden, after having their breakfast. They were having a lazy morning while enjoying the warm sun and refreshing morning breeze.

  Even though it was the biggest garden on the Voyager, the Corner Garden was quite small, it was the biggest because the others were nothing more than some decorative areas with some plants here and there. The Corner Garden had an area of around 75 square meters and existed mostly as a place for the passengers to relax and maybe enjoy breakfast in some of the cafes around the area.

  It had a few benches for people to sit and relax as they strolled. Dan loved to come to it when their journeys got long, enjoying the feel of the small garden.

  "Speaking of growing," Dan brought up something that had been on his mind ever since they got there, "Do you think that the garden is doing better than before? The trees and grass seem greener and healthier, especially considering how none of the deckhands had the time to take care of them these days."

  "Now that you mention it, they do look a bit different," Old Raily said as he squinted a bit, "Haven't come around here for a while though, so might be just my eyes playing tricks on me."

  The conversations then went around as they took their lazy morning, knowing that quite the day was ahead of them. The night before, Dan, Marcus, Old Raily and Jackie met together and went through how they should go about asking the people about their Classes, in the end they decided on a survey.

  Each person on the Voyager got a paper that they had to fill out. It included their names, Classes and skills and Class descriptions too, if they wanted to add those. If they didn't feel like mentioning their Classes for some reason, they had an area at the bottom where they could categorise it, the options given were, offence, defence, support, production, and if they felt that none of those were accurate enough, they could put a small explanation for it.

  This way of doing things saved them time and also didn't have them confront those who didn't want to share their Classes for some reason, while at the same time, getting an idea about how to categorise them.

  The papers had to be filled in English, of course. They didn't want their whole information falling into the hands of someone else. To lower the chance of something like that happening, the papers were to be burned after being copied into a secure computer.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The group split up soon after, Old Raily said he was going to spend a bit of time with his wife. William mentioned something about meeting Francis and discussing the Bullet Reloading Line and maybe even looking into some other projects. While Dan decided to stay for a bit more in the Corner Garden, he was going to talk with the Voyager for a bit.

  "Hi big girl," he spoke in a casual tone, "You there?"

  The gentle, warm aura that seemed to be everywhere in the ship pulsed for a second before beginning to roll lightly, cocooning him in a smaller shell than the ones he had been put inside before. For once, the dark oppressive aura wasn't there, the Voyager seemed to have kept it from him on purpose.

  Dan felt some confusion about that at first, but that soon changed once the connection between them was established. Even though he almost never felt pain from their casual connections, there was still a heaviness to it, this time it was different.

  "Morning girl," Dan sent back after the Voyager sent him what felt like a bubbly greeting. "This is much easier on me, did you realise this yourself?"

  Dan felt stupid as soon as he said that, of course, she did, who else could she be talking to? Fortunately, the Voyager didn't focus on that and instead focused on the praise she seemed to be getting, sending him more happiness and hints of pride.

  "You did great." He patted the bench he was sitting on as he spoke. "It's much easier to talk to you and your thoughts are so much clearer, you're getting smarter day after day~"

  He mainly said that because she deserved to hear such a thing, and also because he truly meant it. It must have been as he had concluded a while back, the more levels he got, the stronger her consciousness grew and clearer her thoughts were. He wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future, she would be able to speak.

  "Do you have anything else you want to show me?" he asked after praising her and having some fun with her for a few moments, "Anything else new you can do?"

  Dan waited as the Voyager sent back some confusion before the connection went silent for a bit. Dan looked around, he didn't know if he was only imagining it, but he could almost swear that something was changing, it felt almost tangible but he couldn't put a finger on it.

  "Captain!" Just as he was about to call the Voyager for an explanation, Freddie's voice came from the walkie-talkie, a seriousness to it. "The protective circle around the Voyager moved!"

  "What?" Dan asked in shock as he stood up, everything else thrown aside as he started fast walking to the bridge, almost running. As he moved, he didn't forget to ask the most important question, "Did it grow, or shrink? Over."

  "It grew for a bit," the second mate said as he tried to bring his voice under control, "I happened to catch a glimpse of that and I focused on it, I even thought I was seeing things, but that wasn't the case. A few seconds later it moved again, except that this time it shrank a bit, dropping to even lower than it was at first. Over."

  "I'm on my way," Dan's heart skipped a beat once he heard that it shrank, but then he found his feet slowing down as something passed through his mind, "Don't do anything, wait for me. Over."

  He first reassured his second mate before focusing on his connection as he called,

  "Voyager, was that you? Did you shrink your protective area?"

  It took a while for him to get an answer, again sensing that something was happening that he couldn't really see, but after that calmed down, the juvenile consciousness made itself known again, a pride and happiness to it.

  "It was you..." Dan didn't know whether to laugh or cry, he was the one who asked her if she could do anything else new, and he should have made the connection between the area shrinking and what he had asked of her sooner, but what Freddie said was so shocking that his mind froze for a few seconds.

  "You did great," he eventually said while shaking his head helplessly, "Just remember to never do that if I don't ask it of you, alright? It can be pretty dangerous."

  Getting a confused acceptance alongside a hidden undercurrent of guilt, it seems that she was still able to sense some of his panic and fear even though he tried to hide it. Dan hurried to calm her down,

  "No, no. You did really well, it just might be a bit dangerous if you do it without telling anyone, you know? Actually, knowing that we know you can do such a thing, it's even better!"

  Getting a hesitant question, as if a little kid asking really? Dan couldn't help but show a weary smile, he managed to become a middle-aged man without having any kids, just to get one this way.

  After calming her down, Dan contacted Freddie again and told him that it was a false alarm, and that it was just the Voyager getting to know her powers better.

  That done, Dan considered how this new power the Voyager had over her protective area could be of help to them. He wasn't just lying to her after all, it was pretty interesting and possibly useful that she could do this.