“That was crazy,” Anish reiterated to the two women next to him. “It was like fighting a mountain but… wetter.” He grimaced. That wasn’t very eloquent, but it was the only word he could think of. “Not something easy to burn up. What a pain to fight, huh Alva?”

“You think it was bad for you?” Alva shook her head. “Try fighting it with a bow. How am I supposed to damage something like that? Even Grand Elder Kseniya had trouble. I basically just filled it with a bunch of holes and then watched someone lop off the entire tentacle I was working on.”

“It was quite… difficult… to use our abilities with it underwater,” Annelie commented. With neither Marsen nor Diana along, she had a lot of time with Alva. But just two people got boring, so it was nice to have someone else to talk to. Anish was somewhat older and higher in cultivation, but it wasn’t as if the two of them would precisely match anyone. Through differing methods she and Alva had both gotten extremely early starts on cultivation and didn’t match with most of their peers. It wasn’t as if they knew that many other people on the trip, either.

“At least ice abilities don’t fizzle out underwater,” Anish pointed out.

“That’s true, but water carries a lot of heat and transfers it quickly,” Annelie explained, “So most freezing wears off more quickly in water, or it requires a significant expenditure of energy.”

Unlike the Life Transformation elders Sarka and Adelina, these particular two members of the Glorious Flame Palace and Frostmirror Sect got along just fine. After all, if a wildly different fighting style was enough to preclude friendship, the pair of cousins wouldn’t be on good terms either.

Perhaps it was a boon that Annelie didn’t fully practice the emotionless nature of the Frostmirror Sect, instead picking and choosing when it was appropriate to feel strong emotion. Alva was still more open than her, and of course the fiery man was extremely straightforward with most of his thoughts.

“Maybe next time I can work with you to burn it inside out,” Anish said. “I mean, if there’s a next time. But the others are all strategizing just in case it happens.”

“How would we burn it from the inside? I don’t practice fire techniques, though I might at some point.” Her grandfather certainly did, but she’d eventually realized that copying everything he trained wasn’t going to be the best for her. Her fighting style was so different, even though both were archers. She focused on mobility where he focused on his attacks- and sometimes many of them at once. She found that technique very difficult to properly utilize, even though her cultivation was sufficient to maintain multiple bows made out of energy.

“Well, you were saying you only poke holes in it, right? If you pierce deep enough I could dig in behind your shots, which would end up a lot better than crispy skin, which is all I really managed this time.”

“How could I contribute to this?” Annelie asked, “Obviously it would be counterproductive for us to attempt to burn and freeze the same areas. At least, most of the time. If I freeze something first, rapid heating could cause severe damage to an area.”

“I like how you think,” Anish nodded. “We’ll have to work on something like that.”

-----

In addition to strategizing about how to fight future krakens, or the same one should it be encountered once more, there were informal ceremonies for those who had died. That was all that could be done, with no bodies left behind- nor anything else to do with them. It was unknown when they would find land, though that was one of their next goals.

There was only a finite amount that they could store on the ships to repair them, and only so much work that could be done while in transit. Cultivators were capable of doing more while out at sea, but they simply didn’t have anything suited to replace the masts. They needed single logs of great size, or something equivalent. They were able to get along without every mast on the capital ships, but it was preferable to at least have the repairs done.

Food and water, at least, were not issues. It was simple for the cultivators to fish for food through various methods, and purifying the water of salt was also easily possible through either boiling it or other methods.

Even with the aftereffects of the kraken attack the expedition was not in dire straits- but it was best if they have some success soon. It was likely too soon to run into another continent, or they would not have lost contact for very long, but intermediate islands were bound to exist. Their best lookouts were constantly scanning the horizon for signs of land, but there were other signs they could look for.

Commodore Visser explained. “Though the sea is harsh and mysterious, it follows rules just like everything else. Currents on the surface and beneath all form for reasons, and they’re affected by landmasses. Same with the weather, with rain falling on the windward side of a mountain. Clouds form and disappear, so we can watch the skies for signs.”

With little else to do, the various cultivators learned quite a bit about living on a ship from the professional sailors. They certainly wouldn’t be able to do without them any time soon, but they were beginning to gain some efficiency as an overall group instead of individual sects of cultivators banded together.

-----

A few days without running into anything willing to attack the fleet was a nice relief, even if a bit odd. It was without anything so esoteric as reading wind or wave patterns that the island was spotted- Kseniya simply sense it beyond the horizon.

In fact the island had a much bigger impact on something else, the abundance of natural energy it gave off being easily felt. From ten or more kilometers away most cultivators still wouldn’t immediately sense it, but it was clear how the energy ramped up the closer they got to the island. It was a welcome sign, even if it indicated possible danger.

As they approached, however, all they saw was an extremely sizable and lush island full of trees and plants. They knew better than to assume nothing dangerous was lurking in the woods, but they were able to lay anchor and land ashore without trouble.

Anton could just imagine Fuzz running around sniffing everything new, but he was not with them on this journey. A giant wolf took up quite a bit of space on a ship, and even if cultivators could afford some extravagances his presence wasn’t necessary. Beyond that, Catarina was working with him to stabilize his development. Spontaneous appearance of formation runes wasn’t exactly something common, and it was interesting to study- and of course, she wanted to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. While Alva monopolized most of the wolf’s time, Catarina had been the one to initially save him after the incident with the parasitic moss.

A few small groups were sent out to scout the island, looking for dangers. Kseniya was with one, but she likely could have made up a whole group alone. She had the strength and ability. If nothing else, she could run away from anything that it was possible for most groups to defeat.

Anton’s group was with Elder Servaos of the Wandering Bush Sect and a few others. Both of them understood nature, though Anton was more familiar with the sort of woods they were heading into. Servaos was more familiar with desert terrain, or at least less heavily wooded terrain.

Though Anton saw quite a variety of plants he might have considered dangerous before he was a cultivator, there wasn’t really much of note to anyone on the island. They climbed over great hills that were large enough they briefly wondered if they’d stumbled into a peninsula of a larger landmass. However, as Anton and the others circled one way around the layout of hills they kept the ocean in sight, and before the day was over they met up with the other groups that had gone down the middle and around the other side.

“There was always a hill on either side,” commented Commodore Visser who had scouted the middle path. “Seems like the hills are arranged in offset rows, no more than three widthwise. Five down the middle. I counted… thirteen in all.”

“That’s consistent with what we saw,” Kseniya noted. “I was able to keep an eye on your group in the middle.”

“Same here,” Anton nodded. “It’s strangely symmetric. I would expect this island to have one large mountain in the middle instead of this arrangement of hills.”

“Doesn’t seem to be volcanic,” Visser agreed. “But the important thing is it seemed safe, unless any of you noticed anything. I didn’t see much larger than a pig, and a small one at that. I’d recommend people stay in groups regardless, in case something was hiding. We weren’t entirely thorough.” He looked around them, “Some nice trees here, though. Should be able to replace the mast on the Azalea, though it won’t be quite as sturdy I imagine. It’ll take a bit to treat it though.”

“How long?” Kseniya asked.

“Maybe a month, possibly less if it goes well. It’s not a process that can be rushed all that much, even with the use of natural energy.” He grinned, “Should be fine though. Plenty of food here, and it’s not fish. I like fish, but not every day. And the fruit’s fresh, instead of dried and basically tasteless.”

Anton could have pointed out that the dried fruit was better than most common folk had to eat on a regular basis, but the diet of a cultivator was as elevated as everything else. There were all sorts of foods that could aid cultivation, and Anton thought he’d seen some on the island. He hadn’t stopped to gather much of anything since they were scouting, though.

-----

The break from the monotony of traveling over the sea was a welcome change. The island had food in the form of fruits and other plants, as well as small game including birds and the aforementioned small pigs. It was sizable enough that the company of cultivators could subsist for the whole month without destroying the ecosystem, which was important to Anton for a number of reasons. If nothing else, they would likely be coming back this way and would want to make another stop.

The abundant natural energy in the area was also greater than most of the area around the Order, except perhaps the highest peaks where most of the grand elders dwelled. Even then, it was a close match. The cultivators who had been cooped up and only able to grow with the aid of whatever they’d brought in them could now spread out and have their own spaces where they could draw in as much natural energy as they pleased.

It was a good island. Anton liked it quite a bit, and happily spent most of his time just studying how it was arranged. Was it artificial in some way? The overall symmetry of the island shouldn’t be an accident, though stranger things had happened in the world. He didn’t feel it was a formation, though perhaps he simply wasn’t attuned enough to such things.

It simply sustained life in a relatively peaceful manner. Obviously animals ate the plants and some ate each other, and a few plants ate insects, but compared to most places he had been it was practically free of violence. Except for what the cultivators enacted upon each other.

In officially approved spars, of course. The beaches were a good place to make use of some energy in a way that didn’t involve awkwardly attacking something in the water beneath a ship. Fighting more as they were used to was good for people, and the various dangers in the journey- mostly the kraken- had allowed people to gain some insights.

Even the weather was good. If one simply wanted to survive, the island was a paradise. Paradise was one of the names proposed for it, and it ultimately transformed into the Paradise of the Thirteen Hills. An odd name for an island, but it had to be chosen with some haste to stop Elder Sarka from proposing more names like Thirteen Volcano Island. The fact that the hills weren’t volcanoes didn’t deter her, and Anton had the feeling that if they pushed too far she would try to make them be volcanoes.

It was interesting to see the way cultivators matured with their extended lifespans. Or perhaps it was simply the way people worked. They matured exactly as much as they wanted to, and seldom more than that.