Sleepy looked at the book curiously. It was not that she did not trust things Laurence gave her, but this was something special. She could feel it from the aura that the book exuded. It expressed a power that was well beyond what she could really appreciate, but she understood that it had not only a strong aura but also some semblance of a personality. The book intrigued Sleepy, but it also scared her.

She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and took hold of the book, peeling open the first page to reveal a detailed map of the ship, and its surroundings. Each word was penned in with her own chicken-scratch handwriting. It was surreal to see something that she recognised as her own, but she had never seen before. She turned the page and was presented with the words The Book of Creation - Martial Manifestation of Immortal Cultivation Through Creativity and The Arts. It was an imposing title, but one that made Sleepy nothing less than completely stunned by it.

Her hands shook as she grasped the Book for dear life. It was without a doubt the most valuable item she had ever seen and she had just been gifted it by a child. She tore her eyes away from the book and stared at Laurence like a deer in headlights. She was not sure whether to cry and thank him or to run as far away as she could. It was not what she was expecting.

“Is... Is this why you're so strong?” She said, gripping the Book in fear that it might run away. Sleepy knew that in theory anyone could cultivate towards immortality, because there was no single true way to reach the ultimate. The reality was that cultivation was infinitely hard without some sort of guide, be it a cultivation manual like she had been given or a master like Yun with Louisa. Wars had been fought over the chance to read a single page of one of these books and families were torn apart by them. That was the simple allure of immortality.

“It’s why I know anything other than the basics of how to fight and medicine. Almost everything I know was picked up from this book. I guess that in a way, this book is me.” Laurence frowned. He could feel he was on the edge of something profound with his last statement, but he could not work out what. In the end he could only sigh as the sensation of epiphany left him. “Either way, this book wanted to be with you, so here you have it. With your talent in arrays you should become strong quickly.”

Sleepy clutched the book to her chest the moment that she heard it would help with arrays. She had two passions in life, and becoming a master of arrays was one of them. Unfortunately master arrayists would often misteach or misdirect students who were not the student who would gain their inheritance. Arrays were an incredibly cut throat region of employment, and they had only become more so since the loss of the Book of Creation from the tower. She simply could not imagine what else the book that she was holding contained.

“I can monitor the arrays while you read the book if you like.” Said Laurence. His female friends nodded mutely. Her eyes still the size of saucers. “Be warned, don't try and read the book all at once. You'll become a Saint when you finish your first reading, but you will starve to death long before that point if you don't stop.”

Sleepy nodded, her heart in her throat. It was one thing for Laurence to give her something to save his life as well as the lives of all others on the vessel, but giving Sleepy something so valuable seemed completely unprecedented to her. In the end Laurence took over with monitoring and the girl sank to the floor. She sat there reading the book for seventeen hours. Not once did she look up or break her concentration, just every so often Laurence would hear the sounds of a page turning amidst the pulsating bell-song of the arrays.

In the end it was Laurence who snapped her out of her reverie. The navigator made the hour call to land, and so Laurence’s time was coming to an end with the ship. Before he left he wanted to talk to her about what she had seen in the Book. It was always a joy for Laurence to discuss the forms of creativity that the book allowed one to use, but he had only actually had a chance to do this with Yun and Damascus. Sleepy was a new mind and a new take on the way of creation. Laurence smiled as he looked at the new initiate into the study of the Book.

“So, how was it?”

“It’s incredible!” Replied Sleepy, breathlessly. “I read about the basic forms of carving and array creation. Is it true that the act of creation is just hyper complicated array work?”

“Yeah. When you reach the later stages of the Book you will gain something called truesight. With truesight you can see infinitesimally small glyphs that make up the language of creation within any major artifact formed by us.”

“Wow. I can't thank you enough.” Sleepy paused, the cogs in her head whirring quickly. “I have to ask, why me?”

“I don't know. The Book itself chose you, so it must think you have potential to become an immortal. I think you do, so I will wait for you to catch up to me.” Laurence grinned and Sleepy smacked him ineffectually at the jibe. She knew that Laurence really was a lot stronger than her. He may not be as worldly, but his travels would soon make him more so.

They chatted about the way of Creation for the next hour, when the voice of a very worried navigator crackled into life on the intercom. “Guys we've just reached land, but there are two entities coming up on us at great speed. I think the snake might be back.”

The intercom cut out and Sleepy swore. She quickly ran over to the arrays and made sure that they were all in order before activating the speech array and talking over the intercom. “Jonas, the engine is in order, but we can't go any faster. It has been on max all day. We can't outrun the snake anymore.”

“What did that word mean?” Laurence interjected.

“What?”

Laurence swore. Sleepy could not help but look up at her young friend when he spoke. It was slightly awkward hearing swear words come out of the mouth of a child who; despite the fact that she knew he had both maimed and killed more people than she likely would in her entire life, she still considered an innocent.

She chuckled away at Laurence and then finally said, “It is a crude word for making a child.”

“I didn't know that there was a word for the process of making life.” Replied Laurence, “I haven’t come across that in the Book of Creation, at least as far as I know.”

She burst out laughing. The boy always managed to confuse her, sometimes coming across far beyond his age in the way he spoke and treated people, but sometimes lacking the most basic pieces of information that she knew at his age. He really was an innocent.

Before they could talk further the intercom crackled into life again. “Incoming!” The navigator yelled. “All hands brace for impact!” People all over the ship rushed to their nearest hand hold and tied themselves down in as many ways as possible. They had all seen the way the ship had rattled when the control of the ship was switched repeatedly and no one wanted to become a slab of meat filled with glass.

The crew collectively held their breath as they waited for the worst to happen, then finally they heard the telltale metallic screech that managed to set their bones on edge and minds spinning in fear. The maelstrom snake was back. They could feel the rumbling of thunder travel through their bodies, despite the powerful shields that Sleepy had put in between them and the world outside. Lightning flashed through the sky, blinding the crew who could see outside. Their hair stood on end at the fearsome power the creature displayed. It seemed far more angry now than it had been before.

After around thirty seconds of cacophonous noise all the sounds died down. It was quiet, even pleasant in comparison to what they dealt with before. The crew let out a collective sigh of relief. It was over.

Then something hit the ship. There was a cracking and a crashing sound as the snake’s fearsome body smashed into Rosie’s Demise and knocked it into the ground. The arrays in the engine flickered like mad as they tried to cope with the damage and sudden change in direction. The ship sped towards the ground, but the pilot managed to regain some semblance of control before they struck. The bottom of the vessel sheared off and began to immolate, leaving a massive trail of debris and charred earth in its wake. They hoped it was over, but the snake was just beginning.