After William, who had too much to deal with, went away, Dan found himself looking over the first list of materials sent to him by Nik and Nancy. The list was for what they were going to try and get once they made it to Rosereef, it didn't have all that everyone needed, but just what was already written was making Dan realise how hard it was going to be.

  The list had some magical metals he was worried about the availability of, some sort of magical dyes and inks, different kinds of seeds, and some animal parts like furs and hides. And all of that was just the first part of the list, who knows how much more the final one would have?

  Just as he was looking over that and wondering how much gold and other materials they should take with them, he heard footsteps getting closer. Lifting his head, he was met by the sight of Arnold and Rose, the two who had been working on dissecting the corpses of the creatures they brought with them last night. He noticed as they stood in front of him how Arnold held a small bag in his hand.

  "So did you find anything?" he asked after greeting them. He didn't really know what the two wanted to get from their late-night dissecting, but he was interested in what came out of it.

  "We did," it was Arnold who answered, "It was quite an interesting experience."

  "You certainly can call it that." Rose chuckled helplessly. "I woke up with the smell still stuck to me, no matter how much I scrubbed last night."

  Dan joined Arnold with a light chuckle, he really didn't want to imagine the smell and was happy that he didn't have to do something like that.

  "Two of the creatures we worked on had this." Arnold passed him the bag he was holding. "It seems to be something called a mana core, some of the Classes we have can use it as a power source, not as effective as a mana crystal, but seems to do its job anyway."

  Dan pulled a blue perfectly round glass-like object from the bag, it had a bit of warmth to it, he felt a bit rejuvenated just by holding it, but that might have been just him leaning too much into his imagination. He looked into the bag just to see another almost identical one, if not a bit smaller.

  "So I take it they are useful and valuable?" he murmured, "It could be something we can look into as a long-term revenue source."

  "It should be done." Arnold nodded. "I'm sure that there's a chance to find one in each monster we take, so it shouldn't be too much to expect a portion of our targets to have them."

  They then talked a bit more before Rose, who seemed to have been gathering her courage, finally said,

  "Captain, I want to try a skill I have."

  "I don't see why you can't?" Dan said in confusion. He didn't even know why she was bringing that up with him.

  "I need a tender." Just as Dan was going through his memories, trying to remember the information about her Class, she brought it up herself. "My Class is Vessels' Runesmith, it's a Class that needs a Vessel to work. I can add runes and the like to modify them, I'm sure the tenders are also included in that."

  Dan remembered once she brought it up. From how she put it, her Class leaned towards both being a rune master for ships and some kind of smith. Though it was more of a rune master, the smith part of it seemed to be there for helping with the rune part, probably just leaning into preparing metals and the like for runes.

  "We have that tender that got attacked by those eldritch mermaids when we dropped the natives for the first time," she continued once she noticed how he seemed to be deep in thought, "I can try my runes on it first and see how it would turn out."

  "Okay." Dan lifted his hand, he didn't mean to make it seem as if he wasn't going to accept. "You can try your hand at it. See about having Luke help you with the damage it suffered too, I'm sure he would be able to fix it."

  "I was going to do that already," she said excitedly, "I need him for more than that. Also, can I have one of those? I might not need it, but if my own power isn't enough it might come in handy."

  Dan saw that she was pointing to the bag he had. He thought for a split second before he handed it to her with the smaller mana core inside it. He knew that William would probably need one of them, but seeing how she was the first to ask for the second, why not just give it to her?

  "Be careful though," he cautioned, "They are energy after all, and who knows if they could have a violent reaction or something."

  "Will do." She nodded.

  As he watched her and Arnold leave, he thought of what her class would bring them at later stages. He wondered when it would be ready for use by the Voyager, and what effect those runes would have.

  ***

  Rose first went to her room, getting the blood and parts she had harvested from the creatures the night before, then made her way to the workshop. She needed to get some of the measuring tools and some of the other things that might be useful, though having Luke there lowered the need for many of them.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Fortunately for her, Luke was already in the workshop, with William and Francis. She saw that the place was split into two working spaces. One that took the majority of the space there had what seemed to be a floating ghostly blueprint. The other though, only had one single bulky machine.

  Rose knew what they were working on, but not wanting to be pulled into it, she decided to be fast about her purpose there.

  "I need Luke for a bit," she said straight away after greeting them. "It's for an experiment I have with my Class."

  "Okay," William said, "We won't start working on the line any time soon, and the station is almost done, you can have him."

  The old man seemed to be mostly focused on the blueprint, it seemed as if he spoke to them as an afterthought really. Rose smiled as she saw Luke just shake his head at being thrown aside like that.

  "So what do you have for me?" he asked after they left the workshop.

  "I need your help with trying to fix the tender that got attacked a few days ago," she said as she took him where the tender was, "And after that, help me look into a bit of experimenting with a skill I have."

  "What is it?" Luke asked, "Your skill I mean?"

  "It's called Maritime Runes." Rose didn't see a reason to keep it a secret. "It was the first skill I got. It tells me a bunch of rune combinations that would work on ships and how to use them."

  As they walked and talked, they made it to where the damaged tender was. She first controlled the levers to lower it before she watched as Luke did his thing.

  At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but she soon noticed the damaged part starting to twist and turn, once those parts were in their correct space, she watched their edges wiggle slowly as they mended together again, as if new.

  "That's so magical," she murmured.

  "I know right? I'm still not used to it myself." He smiled, then turned to her, "Now it's your turn, let's see what your skill does."

  "Not going to be anything flashy." She chuckled.

  She first brought the tender down even more, then took a walk around it, her notebook and pencil in her hands as she noted things about the tender here and there.

  Ships and boats were different, and Maritime Runes was quite the precise skill, it needed the measurements to be perfect, and that meant that the different rune combinations she had had to be adapted to each different ship or boat. Fortunately, her Class helped with that, she had an instinctive understanding of such adaptations and changes, how to change this to that and all.

  That didn't mean that she just needed to think of it and it would happen, she needed to do her own calculations. That wasn't something she was unfamiliar with though, fortunately.

  One disadvantage of using blood and materials from different ocean creatures was that she was locked into what she could do. Unlike with neutral dyes that she could use to inscribe whatever she wanted, the blood and materials she had, limited what she could use them for.

  For example, the things she was working with were the blood and the plate of that big armoured fish they cut up the night before. From what her skill and Class were telling her, those things could be mainly used for adding protective runes or runes that dealt with raising the defences of a vessel.

  After she drew a blueprint she thought would work for the tender, she got her pencil and measuring tools, before starting to work on copying it to the tender itself.

  She found it weird how well the blueprint she made seemed to be sticking in her mind, and how steady her hand was as she drew.

  The rune combination she made wasn't that big, it looked like a few weird symbols and lines that turned and twisted on each other. It was around 2 meters long and around 20 to 30 cm wide. Rose decided to draw two of them, one on the bow and one on the stern of the tender, the materials she had would only be enough for that.

  After she was done drawing the lines with a pencil, she chose to go with the stern first, she turned to Luke and said,

  "You see the small circles with tiny Xs in them?" Seeing him nod, she continued, "Make a small indentation, just enough to put this inside it, then cover it with the metal again."

  As she spoke, she showed him a tiny piece of one of the hard plates that had been covering the armoured fish. She was holding that piece with small tweezers that she brought specifically for that exact reason.

  The night before, she had already treated the plate and blood from the armoured fish, which only required her to inject her mana into the two, it was a bit tiring, but it wasn't anything weird.

  Luke just nodded and they started. She would hold the tiny piece of the plate to the specified location on the tender's body, and Luke would start controlling the metal around it to consume it.

  All the preparations done, Rose took the bucket and brush she had brought with her as she started the main part of the operation.

  She started to draw using the blood that had already been treated. The part of her mind that wasn't already totally focused on the current task, noticed how her hands were even more stable while she drew.

  After who knows how long, she couldn't really say as she was lost in her work, she finally brought the brush down.

  "Is it done?" Luke asked from next to her.

  Rose didn't answer, she first put her hand on one corner of the drawing, hoping that the bit of mana she had would be enough to kick start the rune combination, then injected it with mana.

  Seeing the whole design glow for a few seconds before appearing as if it seeped deeper into the boat, she smiled, turned to him and said,

  "Now it's done."