Jake Rhaims had a great feeling. He polished his Cherished Armament, a cutlass, even though they don't get dull nor dirty. He received this six years ago after his pops had unfortunately died to the Winter Sickness (Jake heard the Laegar kingdom calling it 'Snowfell Plague' or something), the guy was too stubborn to accept any medical treatment from the Otherworldly Court. Even the previous king and his kids refused, saying it was too much for them after pops utterly destroyed the Laegar invaders twice.

Jake had seen the royal Celeste family, especially his close friend prince Orion, kick the bucket leaving poor Stella, Orion's daughter, alone and also as queen even though she was six back then! He'd seen his pops disappearing into blue dust and then the blue dust evaporate to nothingness. If only they weren't this hardheaded! Well, there is no use complaining it to their dead souls using some artifact, especially his pops' since there... isn't.

Despite that last stunt he made, Jake admired his pops. Jake was three at that time so he doesn't remember it. But he heard stories from his mum when she was still alive (she died from natural causes way before the Winter Sickness). He was enamored with the exploits of his pops, especially the 'pirate' part.

Although his pops was supposed to be a Sea Hunter, someone who hunts sea monsters for a living, he took the pirate moniker branded by Laegar by some underhanded plot quite seriously; at least during the second war with Laegar. He raided Laegar ships on a daily basis to strain their logistics, taking whatever supplies there is and always letting go of their crew to strain food supplies with more mouths to feed yet so little food. Oddly, Jake's friends at the Otherworldly Court kept telling him that he and Jake are called a 'privateer' since they worked for a ruler of a kingdom.

And that's the second part he should talk about, the Otherworldly Court. Pops brought him there when he was twelve. It was a special experience in his heart, meeting all sorts of people and meeting the fifth generation Guardians of the Mother Souls. One thing he liked was when watching a screen with moving pictures they called a 'cartoon' about pirates, he tried emulating the accent spoken by the characters there which he now uses like second nature.

He wanted to be a Court Wizard like his pops which he did at the age of eighteen. Back then, when he told his pops about it, he simply smiled wryly. He came to understand his pops' reaction after fifteen years of being a Water Court wizard, it ain't a pretty job. He wonders how those lasses will handle it. Ice Boy was way too focused on finding his pops and probably alongside Celery Boy, didn't give a sh*t about the job details of being a Court Wizard; the two recruits are a little too innocent for this kind of life.

He didn't need to reminisce about his missions, but now he remembers when his pops handed over the title of captain of The Kraken to him three years ago. While the Rhaims family were Sea Hunters, they are now pirates as well. Pirates loyal to a queen. Quite contradictory but it doesn't matter. Now that Jake thought about it, the Otherworldly Court was the epitome of 'contradiction'. After all, the current Fire Guardian was a water spirit.

When he received his pops' Cherished Armament, he renamed it [From a Sea Hunter to a Pirate Loyal to the Celestian Queen] as he has to change its name. A very long name for a weapon but Jake has heard of a Cherished Armament with a name one hundred words long! There was no word limit when it comes to naming these.

Done remembering the bittersweet memories, Jake checked his surroundings. The ship is in good condition, ready to kick some Laegar arse!

He and the crew were hunting Wet Wolves, a sea monster which was a wolf with blue fur that was always wet and could walk on water, when the lookout from the crow's nest had spotted a Laegar scouting ship that spotted them and attacked (the redheaded lass flinched when he explain it to the queen for some reason). They seemed to got cocky thinking they could take down The Kraken, though that ship was bigger and fancier than your usual reconnaissance ship. Sensing an invasion, Jake sent George carrying the Jug of Infinite Oil and told it to spread it across the ocean if there is an invasion which it did. Afterwards, Jake ordered his crew to fire a fire volley to set the oil on fire.

It was quite convenient that Owen Ruze and his two juniors were on Celeste, he didn't need to call the Transporter Room operator to call in a Court Wizard to witness the Contract being made.

With the previous Contract gone, the citizens were afraid of a possible attack; they understood that the Contract lets him and his pops to do all of those 'water sorcery' as Laegar calls it without repercussion with his other allegiance. Celeste knows not to rely on it, but it may have ironically made them too relaxed with their military development. That doesn't matter because right now they still need that protection; especially with the Winter Sickness cutting down the currently developing military mercilessly. And so, Jake challenged the Water Guardian, Miriel, to get the Duke title in which he did just yesterday, lucky.

Although Jake got distracted talking to Owen, he sent a [Telepathy] to Ice Boy only explaining his intentions to sign a Contract and how it would be very convenient to teach his juniors about it and he agreed. It was quite amusing seeing Owen cowering in front of his red-headed junior after she figured out the plan, it was like a mom scolding her child, after all, that Heroic Bastard's little sister got upset.

Well now, the crowd cheer and it was time to wash the Laegar invaders back to where they came from. By the way, Jake managed to get the Laegar spy sent to observe him to think he couldn't do those 'water sorcery' and reported it; though in a way, it was right.

Jake looks through his telescope and sees the Laegar fleet.

There were twenty-four Laegar ships left after the initial fiery surprise, they reformed a somewhat good formation; this will be convenient for the Water Court Wizard. Five kilometers of empty sea between the Laegar ships and the Kraken. The battle will start at one kilometer, Jake will diminish those numbers until then. The trait of all Court Wizards in battle kicks in. The jolly attitude of Jake Rhaims was replaced with nothing.

He spotted two ships sailing beside each other near the biggest ship there, so he will order [Push], a derivation of [Wall], to crash the former ship to the other, scaring whoever's in charge of the fleet in the latter ship. His pops used [Geyser], a derivation of [Pillar], to destroy the ship by using maneg to bring seawater underneath upwards which saves maneg, but that Order was too hard to aim correctly over large distances.

Preset: meters; I order you, form rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick 5100 in front 200 to right 25 downward face sideways, travel left, thus is my Order, [Push].

A large rectangle of water maneg formed parallel to the adjacent Laegar ship. The rectangle then moved towards the ship pushing seawater creating a huge wave. The wave crash upon the ship just barely missed it and washed it away towards the other ship dozens of meters beside it. If the wave didn't push the ship, then the maneg formation will.

Preset: meters; I order you, form rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick 5120 in front 150 to right 5 downward face sideways, lock, thus is my Order, [Wall].

Jake was not done, he ordered a wall of water maneg a few meters off beside the other ship. When both Laegar ships collided, it was like pressing two berries against a wall; one berry sitting in front of the wall and another pushed by a hand to the former. It ended with both ships severely damaged that both sunk.

22 Laegar ships remaining.

That was quite the Order even if it did take him a second to weave the Order in his mind. He remembered the time where he used to just give Orders with their given name and parameters. However, as he becomes a 'veteran' Court Wizards, he often modified Orders to suit the situation, so he can't just say its name only. A 'Memorized Order' has a fixed set of steps, parameter scaling, and directional method, so it is inflexible; only the first step's parameters can be altered with these Orders.

This is true for most 'high-level' Court Wizards, with the exception of creation Orders, they would often switch parameters and directional methods or adding new steps into it. The latter could go so far as to record a new Order entirely into the database.

Eventually, those two lasses recruited this year will have to make Orders traditionally in a matter of seconds - Court Wizards tend to have a fast thought process; probably not the Bell heiress though. Although that meant giving names to Orders was meaningless, it's not - the Otherworldly Court needs it to record Orders to its database. Bestowing names at the end of an Order was a habit.

4 kilometers to Laegar fleet, 3 kilometers left to engage battle.

Those Orders was just the opening act. After resting for a while to gather stray water maneg which was in abundance in the middle of an ocean, Jake will give out more Orders in a gradual increase of power to try scaring them off to a retreat. As the second Rule of Engagement has said, he has to be efficient with his maneg usage, he is literally breaking a piece of his soul and use it as ammunition after all (fortunately, Orders take the bare minimum amount needed unless he told otherwise). And the best way to limit the use of maneg is to not need to use it at all.

Some ways to do it is to solely use Personal Skill or Cherished Armament, but neither options are available at the moment. So the other way is something called... 'Fear Tactics', to utterly mutilate one enemy in front of others to frighten them (Court Wizards get very creative with that). Or make a very flashy, but low-costing Orders. Edward Rhaims did those [Geyser]s ship by ship in hopes of scaring them to a retreat, which that Laegar king stubbornly refused to do so.

For now, Jake will use [Push] and [Wall] on a few more Laegar ships, and then proceed to use [Geyser] once they got closer as it will be easier to aim afterwards.

Preset: meters; I order you, form rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick 4050 in front 250 to left 25 downward face sideways, travel right, thus is my Order, [Push].

Preset: meters; I order you, form rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick 4050 in front 190 to left 5 downward face sideways, lock, thus is my Order, [Wall].

This time, three Laegar ships are sailing almost horizontally align with each other. A wall of water maneg was formed to the right of the rightmost Laegar ship. A huge wave coming from the left pushed the leftmost ship, then collided with the middle ship and swept away too, and then came crashing down into the third.

19 Laegar ships remain.

3 kilometers to Laegar fleet, 2 kilometers left to engage battle.

The Laegar fleet had begun to disperse, looks like the commander of the fleet had figured out Jake's attack strategy and ordered his fleet to spread out and not be horizontally nor vertically aligned. Not matter.

Preset: meters, rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick ; I order you, form rectangle 3050 in front 50 to left 25 downward rotated 45 degrees angle horizontally anticlockwise, travel northwest, Order break, form rectangle 3025 in front 75 to right 25 downward rotated 45 degrees angle horizontally clockwise, travel northeast, thus is my Order, [Push].

Preset: meters, rectangle 60 in length 40 wide 1 thick; I order you, form rectangle 3100 in front 100 to left 5 downward rotated 45 degrees angle horizontally anticlockwise, form rectangle 3075 in front 100 to right 5 downward rotated 45 degrees angle horizontally clockwise, lock, thus is my Order, [Wall].

This time, two waves were formed. Both travelled in separate ways diagonally. The first managed to sweep away three Laegar ships just missing one more sailing a few more meters to the left. The second wave got two Laegar ships; a total of five Laegar ships were caught in Jake's Orders. All five Laegar ships were met with a wall of water maneg and were crushed between the wall and the wave.

14 Laegar ships remain.

2 kilometers to Laegar fleet, 1 kilometer left to engage battle.