(Snow View)

Snow leisurely stepped back, watching the whole event play out. She was glad that Angie and Dairen took over the ship’s helm, while Mike killed the captain of the pirate and demolished the goblin mages. She felt a bit better than those pirates were out of her hair, allowing her to manage the ship without it blowing up.

There were a few times Snow cursed at her own circumstances, unable to help as much but watch. As time went on, she really didn’t like being stuck in this ship as it meant more time being unable to help physically but through the ship itself.

If she could, she would have already burst out of the ship itself and never came back.

With a sigh, Snow checked through the ship, making sure that the others were doing alright. So far, the Phoenix guild was sweeping away the goblin pirates without too much trouble, where they were ambushed by the remaining monsters a few times, but after the storm was disabled, it became a smooth takeover.

Proud of her friends and the guild, she couldn’t help but feel comforted that she chose the right people to have her back.

Tired, Snow reeled back to her own body. She didn’t realize she used a tremendous amount of magical energy throughout the fight, but what taxed her the most was her mental fatigue. She didn’t have the aptitude to fully synch with the ship. Instead, she had to use everything solely on instinct and magic, which she was grateful for that it didn’t go bad.

Closing her heavy eyes, she slept.

It has been three days since the attacks from the pirates, leaving them sailing smoothly in the air. They had profited immensely with the raid that they had done.

Dairen and Mike had gotten special treasures from their treasure box, allowing them to upgrade their arsenals. Snow wasn’t able to check what they got as she only heard snippets of some kind of holy treasures.

Sometimes she wondered if all Players jobs were actually treasure hunters with the number of rare items that they have found. Usually, she would see a few handful of rare items found in the past, but these days since the appearance of Players and Dungeons, there has been a sudden boom of magical artifacts that she couldn’t explain where they even came from.

She, too, started to be swayed by the immense pressure of getting a special artifact and taking it for herself when handling the Players items, but she knew they weren’t hers. The blood, sweat, and tears to obtain even one rare item were considered miraculous, and she didn’t want to take away that feeling from another.

Either way, she worked on buying or even trading a few items that she could afford with the Players, allowing her to increase her own arsenal of items to boost her magical power.

Snow had noticed that Mike wouldn’t let go of the thunder orb to the point where he was sleeping with it every day in his bed. She frowned, noticing this odd behavior as she thought it wasn’t like him to get too caught up with any type of item. If she didn’t know any better, she felt like Mike would fall into a strange habit of getting excited over such an item that it worried her. Was there something that she could do to keep him from getting too attached? Possibly, she wanted to check the orb for any possible malicious effect.

Dairen, on the other hand, would patrol the airship interior and exterior with the other crew members to be ready for another possible attack.

While on the other hand, Angie had made her way to where she was. Keeping a diligent watch of her room, talking with Dairen and Mike over what was going on.

Snow wondered what they had cooked up for a plan. She was already thinking of a few ways to get out of this entrapment, fiddling with a few small things here and there.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get out now, but she knew she shouldn’t.

They stopped by the first small floating islands with numerous small villages that shared and sold goods that could not be found anywhere else but the dungeon itself.

Seeing a thriving society inside a dungeon was a rarity, but Snow didn’t stop. She didn’t feel like staying here for a long period was a good idea. Time was of an essence, and a quick resupply was all that everyone wanted.

Snow watched the crew members do their usual activities and even learned a few magical controls techniques through a few more random files of the ship’s database. But most of her leisure time, she took it upon herself to continually get better on her magical control. Every little step she took, she felt herself getting stronger. A welling pride of accomplishment swept through her mind.

There were times when she failed her concentration and control, but being in a magical energy pool allowed her to have endless magical energy, allowing her to play with magic as if it was nothing. She would miss this feeling when she had to finally get off to do her own thing, but at the same time, she didn’t miss it completely at the thought of being caged in this ship for an eternity.

Luckily for her, she was able to get in touch with Dairen and Mike a few times, when they were near a computer, but that wasn’t as often as she wanted. Mostly because the captain and Larsen kept a tight control on such things that it was almost close to impossible at times to tear him away.

The only two places where a free digital screen was near the command room or close to her room, Larsen and the guards watched over twenty-four seven. While it was much easier to get a quick sneak peek at the digital display at the command center because there were plenty of monitors.

Just getting in was the only problem.

A few times throughout the day, Daire, Mike, and even Angie took turns to sneak in to contact her. Such interaction needed to be done quickly as they couldn’t linger on for too long without being caught.

In that short period, Snow was glad to have someone to talk with without going crazy. Being stuck to watch everyone else talking among themselves and not having her own interaction was depressing. Doing this for months or maybe years actually worried her, for she had to battle against her own dark thoughts that crept in her mind even more viciously than before.

Luckily, she was able to curtail such emotions without her getting too overwhelmed, but it was something that she definitely needed to watch out for.

The pitter-patter voices of Larsen and the scientist’s argument heated up amongst each, catching Snow’s attention. She was deeply engrossed in her training that she didn’t notice until now that Larsen was back.

Larsen threw a wrench at the two scientists in a fury. “I told you to drain her now!”

“We can’t, sir.” The first scientist took a stand, even though he was cowering. “Her evolution with the core is spectacular. At the rate she is going, she could power the airship by herself without the extra assistance, reinforce the magical barrier, and even fire off three powerful magical canons three times over in the next six months.”

“You think that is even a good idea?” Larsen growled. “Use your smart brain for once.” He came over, jabbing his fingers against their forehead. They bobbed back and forth, unable to stop from getting pushed around.

“We are, sir. This is a huge achievement.” The scientist said wildly in excitement. “The amount of magical power we can harvest is endless. Even the thought of upgrading our ship to the next class would be possible with her.”

“You have all lost your mind," said Larsen. “If she becomes stronger, she will have the full control of this ship. Do you think that such a powerful being would want to stay as a core indefinitely?”

Larsen’s words troubled the scientist, they glanced upon each other, hoping the other could answer to Larsen that this wasn’t going to be the case. But they couldn’t. Larsen’s words were like a sledgehammer of a wakeup call, telling them how dangerous it could be if their experiment continued to grow. They couldn’t control any further than what they could do now.

“If we get better equipment…” The scientist's voice trailed off.

“If it is not a good answer. I want her dead and converted in the next thirty minutes. We can find another core when we land.”

“But-”

“I said, dead and converted.” Larsen wasn’t going to have it with their excuses. “Now, start.” He waved at them to continue in front of him.

The two scientists stared at each other, hesitant to destroy their experiment.

“Now, or you both die,” Larsen said with a dark tone, hissing in anger with a deadly threat for their life.

In a hurried scramble, the two started to click and press a few buttons.

Snow knew this day was coming. She dove into the mainframe, trying her best to disrupt their plan. Even though she knew, she didn’t know it would be today that they would try to kill her, especially because they were even three days away from their destination.

And from her memory served her right, it was supposed to happen in the next two days. She didn’t have time. Her heart raced, skipping into a rhythmic pattern. Already, she could feel a strange swirl of dark energy wrapping around her leg.

Flying through the database, she spammed out multiple messages in the hopes of catching anyone’s attention.

Panic rose up in her mind, Snow pulled in all the magical power in the ship itself, quickly encasing it around her like a cocoon. She didn’t want to die.

The alarm bells burst through the ship, startling the scientist and Larsen. Even static fuzzed out the screen, making it difficult for the scientist to see what was going on. Panicking, they smashed a few more buttons to stop from what was going on.

“What’s going on?” Larsen asked he frowned at the scientist display.

“She’s resisting.” One of the scientists said in a hurry. He was too busy trying to get everything straight that he could feel the prickling murderous energy from Larsen himself.

“Kill her now.”

“We are trying!”

Larsen stormed over, he pushed the scientist aside. “Get out of my way.”

With an evil grin, he slammed his fist onto the red button, initiating Snow’s demise.