The next day was rather uneventful. Khikall showed me where to purchase the materials I needed to ‘repair’ the ship. Really it was more of an upgrade because I had plenty of spare mana lasers and cannons to replace the damaged ones on the ship, but I saw no point with continuing to use subpar material.

Since I couldn’t afford to make the weapons from pure mithril, I grabbed a few different types of magical metals to test with. They would all work fine but I wanted to find the best possible option for cost versus longevity.

It was pricy to get the materials but nothing compared to what it might have cost if I had to repurchase the mithril. I simply stripped the mithril from the damaged turrets and most of the spares. Since we were docked, I couldn’t access the underside turrets to replace them at the moment. I would just create the replacements for now and have us set down on some out-of-the-way rock for an hour while I swapped them out, away from prying eyes.

The hardest part was figuring out how to work with each metal. Each metal had some unique quality that made molding it… difficult.

Volanite was an attuned metal and one I was eager to try out. I learned about attuned metals months ago but never really looked into using them as I had no real need to. What made Volanite unique was its attunement to electricity. The merchant said it was attuned to lightning but that was an oversimplification on his part.

It was a bit of an odd metal with a milky coloration. Fire did little to soften the metal for molding so I was forced to use a constant low voltage current while I worked with it. Ever try molding a live electrical wire? It wasn’t pleasant even if it didn’t cause me a whole lot of damage.

The next metal I worked with was called Chard. It was a bit like obsidian and had an almost glass-like consistency. But it was dark blue and radiated heat away as fast as you could apply it to the metal. Great for anti-fire enchantments, not so easy when you needed to heat it up.

I eventually figured out the trick to working with the metal. I built a small kiln and flooded it with lava. The Chard could radiate the heat away but if the surrounding area was already saturated with the heat, it had no place to go and would remain in the metal. Working quickly I was able to form it into the desired shapes and carve in the necessary runes. I really hoped this wasn’t the magical metal I would need because it was just a pain to work with.

The last material I purchased was a sort of ceramic powder made from the crushed bones of magical beasts. This was the most labor-intensive material to work with but was the easiest to manipulate in the end. It didn’t require anything fancy and was as easy to carve as soft clay in its unfired state. Since I already had a kiln, heat-treating the finished results was easy.

The reason I purchased this material was due to some magical trinkets in the shop where I purchased it. The items looked to be the same color and consistency as the mana cannons I had stolen from the dwarves. I asked the shop owner what they were made from and the man immediately tried to sell me on buying some of the powder, calling jewelry making a fine hobby. I didn’t need it as a hobby, but if it was what I thought it was, it would be worth purchasing. I purchased way more than I needed and probably made the merchant's year but I figured it was a wise investment even if it didn’t pan out for what I intended.

So now I had two of each weapon made from each new material. Since the mana lasers came in groups of four I simply swapped out the main cannon on the top deck with one each of the new materials and one of the old titanium replacements that were undamaged. I was going to do the same with one of the mana cannons on the underside, since those only held a cluster of three barrels I would have to compare the results with another turret.

The whole process of manufacturing took me three days. The others didn’t waste that time idling on the ship, well, Barcos did, but he was still sleeping off his hangover. Khikall and Em’ah had gone out and resupplied the ship. Now Khikall was below doing inventory and storing everything where it needed to go, while Em’ah was out in disguise trying to find out more about this pirate that put a bounty on us and lay the groundwork to bait him into a trap.

I was eating a ham sandwich in the galley when she returned.

“Welcome back,” I said with a mouthful of food.

That got a mild chuckle out of Barcos but Em’ah just glared at me. “Just because we’re hunting pirates, doesn’t mean we need to act like animals. Chew and swallow before speaking.”

I grinned, swallowing the food in my mouth and washing it down with some water. “Yes, mom. How did your mission go?”

She gave me one last dirty look before sighing. She probably figured that was the best she was gonna get out of me. “Some parts went well, others not so much. I was able to infiltrate a few pirate outfits within the town. Unfortunately, none of them worked for this Tu’Cath. And I don’t know how good my efforts will be since none of these local pirates even have a ship.”

I snorted, “hard to even call them pirates if they don’t have a ship. So, what do we do?”

She shrugged. “They know where we will be in two weeks. All we need to do is wait there and see who shows up to try and attack us. Even if this Tu’Cath doesn’t hear about this information, some other pirate will.”

“Alright. Well, Khikall should be in the command room. Work with him on the details. We have one stop to make for some minor repairs then we can head to this location. I would like to arrive with plenty of time to spare.”

She nodded and ducked down the hall to the command room.

“Could be more trouble than we can handle,” Barcos said.

I looked over at the man. He had finally come out of his bunk and was nursing a strong drink, something akin to coffee but dialed up to eleven.

“You think the pirates will work together to try and take us out?”

“It's possible. Although the pirates would have to trust each other enough to see it through. I doubt that will be the case. But that doesn’t mean a dozen pirates won't show up trying to collect our bounty.”

I smiled. “Well, I have a new toy to test out if they do.”

***

Khikall set the Retribution down on some small island, devoid of people or towns. There was very little vegetation and no natural water source making it uninhabitable for long-term use. There were far more islands like this one than there were habitable islands within the Isles. It was one of the reasons it was hard to even find some of the pirate hideaways. Smart merchants stayed within normal shipping lanes. Detouring was not a wise idea unless you had the firepower to back it up. We did.

I quickly got to work swapping out the rest of the worn-out weapons. We would be hanging out here for a few days. I wanted more hands-on training with Barcos and wanted to see what Em’ah brought to the table.

“That’s the last one,” I said, wiping the sweat from my face as I slid the last replacement into place.

“I don’t understand why you are replacing them all so soon,” Barcos said as he watched me, but didn’t offer to help. Not that I wanted him mucking about with the weapons.

“These are mostly untested weapons. Better to replace them now instead of finding out mid-fight that half of them failed.”

“I understand that,” he rolled his eyes, “what I mean is why are they so chintzy that they are failing this quickly.”

“They aren’t low quality,” I argued, “besides, how many people do you know that we're able to reverse-engineer a Guild mana cannon, hmm?”

“One,” he replied without missing a beat.

I just shook my head. “Whatever. I was in a bit of a rush when I was making them so I used whatever material I had in abundance. I never had any issue with my other enchanted items failing so didn’t even realize it was a possibility.”

“Good, now that you can admit that you made a mistake, you can improve. It's much the same with fighting, only if you make a mistake while fighting, you are probably going to die.”

I turned to the man, “…wait, did you just insult my crafting to use as a teaching opportunity?”

He simply smiled and walked away. That prick.

***

I didn’t have any skills to set up a three-way duel but apparently, Barcos did. We were standing on a rocky stretch of ground a few hundred feet from the ship. Just Barcos, Em’ah, and me. Khikall said he was too old to learn something new and bowed out from further training. I figured he didn’t want to get his ass handed to him by Barcos. I kinda wished I had that luxury.

The three of us faced off without weapons or armor. This was a test of our ability to adapt to an ambush situation. I already knew I was the lone man out for dealing with this sort of thing.

Barcos gave the signal to start and the two of them rushed me, some unspoken agreement between them.

Jokes on them though, I had ground under my feet so had full access to my skills. I combined Seismic Strike with Earth Fist by casting Time Shutter to activate them at the same time.

I knew one wasn’t enough to catch either of the two off guard but was hoping both at the same time would trip one of them up.

Of course, the smart play would be to take Barcos out first but I knew that wasn’t going to happen as I still hadn’t managed to hit him in any bout. So I went after Em’ah.

The rippling rock slowed her only slightly as she morphed her lower body to that of some quadruped. Too bad she wasn’t expecting the pillar of rock to shoot up at her torso.

She was quick to react though, only taking a glancing blow from my attack. I wasn’t done though as I threw Clinging Spray her way and danced back to avoid a quick jab from a bored-looking Barcos.

I saw the man snap a kick at my leg to knock me to the ground and I cast Unstoppable Force. I felt the blow land but my spell absorbed the impact allowing me to snap out a kick of my own toward the man’s head. If he was surprised by my ability to absorb his attack, he didn’t show it, easily avoiding my return kick.

I was forced once more on the defensive as Em’ah joined the fight.

Her attacks were fast and brutal but rather straightforward. She would morph her arms into spears of bone while staying far enough away that I couldn’t counter without a weapon.

Her attacks were about as subtle as a charging rhinoceros, which was weird considering her profession. I used that fact to my advantage when she used her other trick, switching her bone spear into a flexible tentacle to try and wrap my arm and pull me off balance. I Imbued my body with electricity, catching her completely off guard. Even Barcos jumped back to avoid a swing I sent his way instead of trying to slap it aside contemptuously like he had so many others.

I did see him smile slightly before I reeled Em’ah in, concentrating the Imbued element into my elbow and smashed it into the stunned woman’s face before she could respond.

There was a crack as the lightning discharged into her body and flung her limp form across the rocky terrain.

I turned my attention to Barcos as he slowly walked outside of my easy reach.

“Well, that’s a nifty trick. But how long can you keep it up?”

If this had been my body from only six months ago, probably not long. But with my improved physique from the enchantment in my armor, I could probably keep it going for ten or so minutes. Maybe that was enough time to finally get a hit in and nock the smirk off Barcos’s cocky face.

It was not. I lay on the ground groaning as I stared up at the sky. In the background, I could hear Barcos chuckling to himself as he walked away. He had used some ability to block the energy from entering his body as he kicked my feet out from under me, elbowed me in the neck, and tossed me over his shoulder like I weighed no more than a few pounds in a rapid series of moves that I had no time to counter. Then he simply ended the Duel.

It was probably for the best, Em’ah was still out cold from my attack and hadn’t rejoined the fight. Turns out Ilixians were highly sensitive to electrical attacks. Who knew? While the damage was healed as soon as the fight ended, she would take time to come around. I hadn’t known that at the time, I only used what I knew about normal human anatomy and how it responded to a jolt of electricity.

Even though I failed to defeat Barcos, I declared it a partial victory, I had effectively fought off two attackers, disabled one, and forced Barcos to use a skill. I gave a tired smile at that. Slowly but surely I was getting better.