Back in the game again after attending classes and doing a bit of shopping, RIck had met up with his crew of female sailors and once again set out on a southern route along the western coastline. The weather remained calm and the voyage was enjoyable. Before logging into the game earlier Rick had done a little research online to try and possibly come up with a way that he could help increase the speed of his ship so that they could cover more distance. It wasn't that his ship was slow by any means and it was more than likely the fastest ship in the game at the present time, but unless he wanted to spend a few weeks on circling the main continent while picking up his friends he needed to come up with some ideas to improve his small ship.

His original idea before making the ship was to add wind runes to the mast to help propel the ship. He had found out that this idea more than likely would not work out if the game were to work with true world physics having the runes blow air would fill the sails put also apply backward force on the ship. So by using wind runes, they would basically cancel out any forward gained speed or possibly even force the ship to just spin in slow circles and not make any forward progress.

He had then started researching all the different types of modern marine engines and found one that caught his eye. Since he had no way of making gasoline all of the normal petrol engines were not even worth exploring and even though he could modify a steam engine to his ship it would not help him make the ship any faster.

This is when he began looking into jet skis. Even though they used a petrol engine he thought that the water jet propulsion system could be created with his runes. Just like he had once made his flame canons he could use the same concept with water runes.

Rick was currently sitting at the table in the cabin of the ship making a water rune from the titanium metal that he had mined, but never found a use for. Titanium is a brittle metal so he never tried to make weapons or armor from it. Rick figured a sword made of Titanium would simply shatter and the same would apply to armor so he left it in his inventory gathering virtual so-called dust.

Even if it was brittle one thing that Titanium had going for it is that it was salt corrosion resistant. Since the water rune, he was making would not move or bang against anything it would make a perfect material to be used in his makeshift water propulsion jets.

Starting off small rick used one of the wooden tubs that he had crafted for the apartments filled with water to make a few scaled down models of a runic water jet. His first test with a straight tube filled with vented water runes seemed to work decently. The runes produced water that was forced down the tube and shot out the end to create a forward thrust.

Then he sat back and began thinking of how it would be possible to create more thrust and thought of his recent designs the runic air cartridge that uses a neck on the metal cartridge to force the air into a narrow channel to create a stronger burst of air.

Rick set out to then basically make an open-ended air cartridge that instead of having only air runes had air and water runes staggered along the interior length. When the water jet was activated the air runes would work in tandem with the water runes to send a burst of high-pressure water out of the narrow back neck and create a strong forward acceleration.

Spoiler: Runic Water Jet.

Now that he had a working design he was happy with, Rick used the portal to travel to the castle workshop and create a large scale version of his test model. Using all Titanium metal he made the bottlenecked tubes with water and wind runes welded inside. Next was creating a long Titanium plate and brackets that could be fastened to the bottom of his ship to support the water jets.

When he had received recipes for the Runic Water Jet and the hardware to mount it he went back to the ship and closed the Portal. Rick had the captain steer the ship into a bay along the coat and he jumped overboard and used his Hold Breath Skill to attach the hardware and brackets to the bottom of the ships hull.

Rick installed four of the large Runic Water Jets on each side of the ship's keel and connected them into three separate circuits. These three circuits ran to a wooden console next to the ship's wheel that had three switch runes. He decided to connect two water jets to each switch rune so that the ship would be able to have three speeds. Under the wooden console, he socketed a row of twenty large storage crystals that should be able to hold enough mana for a few days without needing to be recharged.

Rick double checked all of his connections and then maneuvered the ship back out into open water. When they were clear of land the Riggers lowered the sails and he touched the first switch rune. With two water jets running the boat remained stationary for a moment and then gradually began to pick up more speed.

Watching the shoreline pass by he judged his speed and clicked the second switch rune when it looked like the ship had reached its top speed. Now that four Jets were now active the ship produced a small jolt from the sudden extra power and they were soon traveling quicker than a decent wind would be able to propel the ship.

Lastly, he touched the third switch rune and was pleasantly surprised at the speed the ship could travel. Looking back at the wake the ship was making and how fast the shoreline began to zip by he wouldn't be surprised if someone would actually be able to ski off the back of the ship.

The simple three-stage water jet system was easy enough to understand for the captain and commander to learn so he left the controls to them. With the boat going roughly twice as fast as the sailing speed they made decent time and were soon skimming along the waves parallel to the Elven Forest. As usual, they anchored in a bay along the coast and went back to the city.

Rick told the crew that they would meet at the restaurant at breakfast serving time since he did not have classes the following day. Making his way around the city, he stopped at the temple to check in on Faith and the temple priestess. He also went over to the Amphitheater to see how Handil and Jerem were doing and transferred some needed supplies to them with his inventory.

When he left the construction site, Rick went to the crafting district to collect any completed products and carriages. When he was finished in the crafting district he thought of the female dwarfs in the northern mine and used his portal to travel into the mineshaft.

The Dwarven Miners had already cut out a few branch tunnels from the main mineshaft and were lucky enough to already have found iron ore deposits along with a vein of gold. Rick left the iron ore behind to be collected by the Wagoners, but he took the gold that had been mined so that he could restock his jewelry at the store. It had been a couple weeks since he had a good amount of gold and his jewelry stock had suffered because of it.

He praised the miners for their hard work and used the Portal to step over to his store office where he collected the store profits and even more books. This time his merchant had found someone with a good supply of books because the corner of his office had large stacks of them. Rick left a few gold coins and a note for the merchant to use the gold coins to continue purchasing any books he could come across.

Out on the display floor, he used his recipes to make more jewelry and then enchanted them with different attributes and spells. He was also sure to go through the store and restock any missing items and also restock the warehouse supplies. He found a few more items that came back that needed recharging and then left the store to make a couple carriage deliveries.

By the time he had delivered and assembled the sold carriages it was beginning to get late. Rick opened the Portal so that he could go to the castle library and drop off the books then he went to his bedroom and disconnected for the night.

Disconnect!

Once he had used the bathroom he gave Lily a call while making dinner and told her of how he had made it to the Elven Lands. She told him that she would wake up early and begin traveling through the forest to look for his ship. Rick told her to just wait at the elven village for him to come to her. He wanted to see the village and be able to Portal there in the future so it would be fine to just meet at the inn she had been using at lunchtime.

He decided to also text Ryan and Luke just to give them an update even though it would still be another day or two before he found Ryan and picked him up. Once he had finished eating and texting everyone he went for a jog and came home to shower. Rick went right to bed afterward and woke up early enough to get a morning workout in and eat breakfast before logging back into the game.

At the restaurant, he sat down with the crew of his ship and ate breakfast then he opened a Portal to send everyone back to the ship. Rick asked the Captain to just relax aboard the ship while he flew inland to find his friend.

The trees toward the interior of the forest in some areas reminded him of the gigantic Redwood trees that grew in California. Since he was still early and did not have to find Lily until noon he decided to land and use his Astrallium axe to chop down of few of these monster trees. With the sheer size of these trees, he thought that they would be perfect for building ships. He would be able to make full-length thick planks that could reach from the bow to the stern of the ship in one length as well as make large one-piece keels.

He was unsure if the elves had any kind of customs or rules protecting these large trees, but since he was so far from any inhabited areas he assumed no one would ever mind. With fifty giant trees cut down and stripped he stored them into his inventory and continued his flight toward the forest interior.

Rick soon spotted the village in the distance and landed outside of it and walked in on foot. He was no longer in human lands so he thought just seeing a human would be strange enough let alone one that flew into their village out of nowhere.

Inside the village, he walked up the elevated ramps to the buildings built in the tree canopies and drew a lot of looks while he did. He did happen to spot a couple of humans while exploring the city but there were probably only about five humans in the entire village making his large build and human feature stand out enough that he felt curious eyes on him at all times.

The elves did not look down on him and the ones that he spoke with in elven were friendly and helpful for the most part. Rick explored the different shops and bought a few things that caught his eye. He had found that the bows and arrows were excellent quality and since he already had his Mythril Compound bows he only bought a large stock of incredible looking wooden arrows.

He Also purchased a few bags of any type of exotic seeds for trees, fruit, or vegetables to allow Daisia to examine and experiment with. He was even lucky enough to find a tiny bookstore that sold various types of books of eleven history, music, arts, and lore. Even though they were all written in elven Rick could read them with his Elven Language skill. He purchased a lot of books with the thought of spawning an Elf that could translate them to human language later on and them to his library.

He had kept himself busy up to around noon then made his way toward the Inn that Lily would to meet him with the directions of the locals he stopped to ask. Maneuvering his way across the many suspended wooden bridges he was able to find the Inn and Lily who was sitting at a table drinking a cup of tea that was a specialty of the Inn made from leaves of a plant that could only be found in the forest around the village.

The two of them had lunch together in the cozy inn and were excited to finally join up together inside the game after being separated by such a long distance. They had a delicious vegetarian lunch that Rick paid for and then they left to head out of the village.

Lily pointed out the different shops and entertainment that she had discovered during the time she had stayed in the elven village as they made there way toward the closest spiral ramps that would allow them to descend to the forest floor.

When they were out of sight from all of the curious eyes following Rick's every movement he opened the Portal that he had told Lily about before. The two of them stepped through and were then instantly inside the cabin of the ship.

Lily was surprised at the size of the cabin and had pictured his ship being a smaller sailboat and not a sloop sized ship. He took her out on the main deck and received a "really?" look when she found an entire crew of beautiful women stationed all around the ship.

He threw his hands up with an innocent look while she laughed at his reaction. Rick introduced Lily to the Captain and commander and then they hauled up the anchored and began activating to water jets much to Lily's surprise.

He explained how the ship basically had eight huge jetski engines underneath it that propelled it along at about thirty-five to forty miles per hour. The two of them walked to the bow and rode the waves that lifted them up and down while cutting through the water.

The two friends spent some time exploring and enjoying the boat and then Rick went over and told the captain to keep an eye out for the Enclave Isles once they had begun traveling to the east along the southern part of the continent.

Inside the cabin, Rick and Lily sat down at the table. Rick brought out a sheet of parchment and a charcoal pencil and started to draw up a map of where he thought the vampire and Darfellan would be located from what his friends told him and other players had posted online.

Lily curiously watched him draw the map and followed him up to the captain when it was completed. He passed it over to captain so that she would have an idea of where the islands they wanted to find where and what they looked like.

Spoiler: The Currently Known World.

It was not long after he had given the map to the captain that the crew spotted a land mass south of the main continent they had been sailing near. Rick directed the captain to change course and the ship quickly raced toward the island that was a few miles from their current location.

When the ship traveled along the island coastline Rick was able to tell that it was, in fact, the Enclave Isles. The unique shape of the two island that was connected by a land bridge made it easy to discern. With the engines shut off, the anchor was dropped to hold the ship in place once they had come to a complete stop.

Rick then told Lily about the flight skill that he had and told her he was going to go ashore and find a place to open a portal in the future so that they could bring Luke and his girlfriend to his island city in the future.

Lily and the crew of women only had to wait about fifteen minutes for Rick to come streaking back to the ship. He let them know he had found a protected area on the land bridge that he could use to open a Portal later and let the captain commence their journey.

Rick let Lily know that if she got bored hanging out on the ship he could take her to the city and hang out with Angelica and Nezera or even take a horse from the stables and explore the area. She chose to stay on the ship though and seemed to be enjoying the trip and was excited to have met up with Rick and looked forward to soon seeing Ryan.

The two friends walked the decks talking and soon went back into the cabin and sat down to talk about their different skills they had picked up along the way and the adventures they had. Lily was shocked at how many different far-ranging skills Rick had learned.

While she questioned him about his skill he also began to show her the different items he had crafted. This made him pause to examine Lily's character and the gear she had was just a step above beginner gear.

Rick decided to bring out his tailoring resources and began to make a multi-layered spider silk outfit exactly like the one she liked and was now wearing. At first, Lily had no idea why e would suddenly stop in mid-sentence and start sewing cloth together and figured that he must have forgotten to finish something and needed to get it done by a certain deadline.

Maybe he has a Tailoring quest that he forgot about since he had to come and pick me up? I hope I didn't mess it up for him. I know he has been on the ship now for over a day sailing just to come and pick up Ryan and me. Lily thought as she quietly watched Rick skillfully stitch those various shapes of cloth he cut off a roll of material.

Once the outfit was roughly 75% finished Lily began to think that it looked like the outfit she had first fallen in love with and purchased with the money she earned from selling the animals and creature parts she had hunted in the elven forest.

When she asked Rick what he was making he only looked up with a smile and winked at her without saying a word. A few minutes later the outfit was finished and he even dyed it to the exact same colors that the cute elven outfit Lily wore. Once he set the ownership of the outfit to Lily he told her how he had found large quantities of spider silk on his quest in the Lorebark forest and that he had his weavers and spinsters transform it into rolls of Spider Silk cloth.

Rick passed it over to her and when she looked at the description she was shocked to find out how durable the cloth was. Rick explained that the outfit he gave her had six layers of spider silk cloth and if someone tried to stab her with a dagger or shot her with an arrow they would just bounce off and leave her with a small amount of blunt force damage.

Rick showed Lily the small bathroom and she excitedly went in to quickly unequip her old outfit so that she could wear the new one Rick had made for her. While she was inside the bathroom Rick used his recipes to make a Mythril Compound bow, a matching leather quiver, and a runic fire sword.

He had thought about making her armor, but since she had still not chosen her first class he thought it would be better to wait. Once she figured out which class she would enjoy playing he would then make her a set of runic armor that was best suited for it.

Lily came back out wearing her new outfit and a big smile to see Rick arranging different weapons straps and belts across the table. Rick called Lily over and he began strapping on the quiver full of the high-quality elven arrows from the elven forest city. Then he strapped a belt around her waist with the runic sword in a leather scabbard that matched her quiver and outfit.

Rick showed her how to use the runic sword and when he touched the switch rune on the handle the blade was engulfed with nasty looking flames. Then he showed her the compound bow that she had seen him and his military units used in the video he had posted. She was quite surprised at how light the bow was since it was made from metal she worried that it would be awkward to wield until she picked it up and found it to be not much heavier than her simple wooden bow.

Lily was a little embarrassed by having her friend suddenly start strapping all of these gifts onto her, but she didn't mind. Rick had always been great to her and would shield her whenever she seemed to be uncomfortable with certain people or situations. Lily even had begun to think over time that when she had graduated from college and did not have to worry about her studies as much she wouldn't mind having Rick as a boyfriend.

When Rick had finished handing her the bow and placing the new equipment on her character she bashfully thanked him with flushed cheeks. Rick chuckled at how cute she was acting and thought about teasing her, but he knew how shy Lily could be and he didn't want to embarrass her anymore.

Once she had calmed back down they continued their talk and after near three hours had passed since leaving Enclave Isles the commander came into the cabin to inform Rick that they had found the next island. Rick and Lily stood up and walked out of the cabin toward the bow of the boat and waited until the boat was a few hundred yards from the island to tell the captain sail around to the north end of the island.

Rick knew that Ryan was staying on a tiny island on off the northern coast that was just big enough to fit his small hut. With this in mind, the ship glided along the north coast examing all the small islands that were within swimming distance of the shore.

It helped that there were not that many small islands and before long they actually found the island they were looking for and on the island stood a gray-skinned muscular guy with Ryan's exact face waving with both arms and calling out to them.

When the ship got closer Ryan jumped into the ocean and swam at an incredible speed to meet them. Rick threw over a rope ladder and he climbed up to the deck to be greeted by Rick and Lily. Ryan was wearing a very thin armor that looked like fish scales made from small pieces of titanium metal that looked like a few had been shattered from receiving damage.

Rick asked Ryan if he had everything from his hut packed away in his inventory before leaving. Ryan confirmed he had everything and was more than ready to leave the starting island to head out for new lands and adventures.

The ship soon set off toward the main continent again and they all kept an eye out for a nice bay to hide the boat away for the night. Once they had found a nice protected bay they shut down the water jets and dropped the anchor so that Rick could open a Portal and bring everyone over to his city.