The rest of the hunting trip was… well, kinda boring. They legit just spent a week hunting down a couple dozen manabeasts. Not that it was easy or that there weren't dangerous moments, but… well, it was all just kinda basic. Running away when they pissed off something too powerful to kill, getting ambushed by some creature hiding in a tree or a crevice, accidentally walking into the middle of a pack… close calls, one and all, and Carlos got a nasty scar from one particularly close ambush, but it was just… well, it's what you expected to have to deal with when you went hunting in a danger zone. It was like going to the Amazon and getting bit by some big ass bug. Yeah, it sucked, but it's the Amazon. What did you expect would happen? Thankfully, the yellow zone was still at a point where if things got particularly hairy, a blast or two from Greg would usually solve the problem.

"Alright, I think that should be enough food for a good month or two." Tessa announced as they finished packing away the last of the preserved meat in a storage freezer. "We also have plenty of mana-strengthened bones to trade once we hit a city, which will let us get whatever else we need resource wise. I think it's time we move on and focus on consolidating our gains. Agreed?"

"Sounds good to me." Carlos shrugged, rubbing the jagged line across his cheek. "I've been getting into a few too many close calls recently and I could use some time to work on my spells."

"Maybe if someone hadn't walked you through a nest of razor monkeys!" Rachel growled, shooting Victor a dirty look.

"Hey, the things had some sort of chameleon thing going on! And they were tiny! How was I supposed to find them?!?" Victor protested for the umpteenth time, the two of them having repeated this argument quite a few times since the incident happened.

"We are not blaming Victor for what happened!" Tessa yelled, shutting the argument down before it really got going again. "It would have been great if he'd caught sight of the creatures earlier, but it is a fact that these creatures have had years to adapt to hiding in this environment, with mana assisted adaptation. Some things will inevitably slip through our detection methods, which is why we have to remain vigilant no matter what! Understood?" They all nodded stiffly. "Good. Now, this brings us to the matter of our next destination. I believe we are all still agreed that we should make our way north?"

"More of a why not than a should, but yeah." Victor agreed.

"Then I propose our next destination should be here." She pointed to a nearby city to the north on the map. There was a convenient little projector you could download the map to, which wouldn't update automatically like the terminal, but since the map didn't exactly change all that quickly, it didn't matter.

"By the time we get around the forest, we're going to be closer to this city, aren't we?" Brittany pointed out. "Why not go here first, then down to here?"

"These cities need names." Jake grumbled.

"I'm sure they're working on it." Greg shrugged. "Just takes time."

"Nah, just call it New New York, and you're good." Victor chuckled.

"New Chicago." Carlos chimed in with a grin.

"New Paris." Casey added wistfully.

"New LA." Greg snickered, before pausing. "Actually, Newla doesn't sound half bad… besides being gibberish, I suppose, but the sound is nice."

"I'd visit Newla City." Victor shrugged.

Brittany sighed. "It's a good thing we aren't actually in a hurry or anything or the fact that half our meetings devolve into random bullshit would really start to bother me."

"Hey now, it's a process." Victor chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. "We get to the important points eventually."

"But you are right that we aren't in a hurry." Tessa commented, looking at the map. "If we can visit both cities, why not visit both? So yeah, let's hit this one first."

"My question is, what exactly are we going to do once we get there?" Meredith piped up, feeling a bit more comfortable after spending a week with everyone. Though Greg thought it had more to do with the fact she was a mom now. She hadn't let little baby Heidi out of her sight since she was born, and was more than a little protective of her.

"That's a good question…" Greg muttered.

"I can't imagine it's all that different from our city." Jake frowned. "So we aren't exactly going to be tourists."

"Of course not! We're pirates!" Debbie exclaimed with an added 'arrrgh' for emphasis.

"No, we aren't." Tessa rolled her eyes at her. "But we do need some sort of identity besides 'strange people in a floating pirate ship'."

The room fell silent for a moment as everyone thought about that. "The problem is that we haven't figured out what this world needs yet." Victor muttered. "It's all about supply and demand. Before we figure out what the demand is, how do we know what to supply?"

Greg blinked. "Wait… don't we know exactly what the demand is?" He asked, pointing his thumb at the freezer. "We literally just spent a week out here hunting for it! These cities nowhere near a danger zone… the demand for this shit is going to be sky high!" He grinned. "And do you know who's really going to want it? The people who need power… either because they already have it, and need to keep it, or because they don't have it and need to get out from under it. Either way, the exact people we need to be in contact with to figure out the situation in any city."

"That's not a bad idea, except for the fact that we need that meat." Carlos pointed out.

"Plus, what do we need from them that would be worth the trade?" Victor asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Money isn't exactly a thing anymore, at least not until someone gets enough power to back a currency. We need straight value, and the only thing that's worth the meat is… well, more meat."

"So, on the meat end, we can just sell a portion. Maybe a quarter, or even half? We can definitely make it to the next danger zone… here, before we run out and hunt some more. Plus, as we get stronger, we'll be able to bring in more and more, which means we'll have more and more to sell. As for what they can offer us… Well, that's up to them, isn't it?" Greg shrugged. "We just have to offer the meat. They have to find something to make it worth our while. It could even be part of the test! If they try to strong arm us, rob us, sell us people, or whatever else, it proves they're bad people and need to be dealt with."

Victor pursed his lips, considering Greg's argument for a moment. "You know what? That makes sense. I'm in."

"Hold on." Meredith interjected. "You're suggesting that part of our plan should be tempting people to rob us?!? What about the children!?! What if they get caught up in an attack or- or someone tries to kidnap them?!?"

Greg blinked at her. "We stop them?" He offered tentatively, wondering if this was some sort of trick question. "It isn't like we're going to let them rob us. We're just getting them to attempt to rob us."

"No, no, she has a point." Victor muttered. "It is unquestionably more difficult to defend against something than it is to attack, because every defense has flaws, the biggest flaw being that it needs to be constantly maintained, while an attack only needs to get through once. If we paint ourselves as a target, someone is going to succeed at hitting us. It's just a matter of when."

"So then we need to make sure the target isn't us." Jake commented. "Isn't that what we talked about before? Making sure our activities couldn't be traced back to our friends and family?"

"Yeah, but people are probably going to notice that the meat sellers always show up when the floating ship does." Victor pointed out. "Even if we just sent people to nearby cities, someone is going to notice that we're always nearby."

"So what if we don't hide it's us, we just… hide us?" Greg offered as an idea occurred to him.

Victor cocked his head at him. "I'm not following."

Greg stood to his feet and began pacing as his idea began to solidify. "Okay, so, we know there's no way, or at least no good way, to keep people from figuring out we're the ones selling the meat. However, what if the us selling the meat isn't us? Well, not you." Greg grinned as a cloud of smoke billowed out and turned into Victor. "See, the problem is that we need a target, but the target will obviously be associated with us, because we're the source of the target. There's no way to get around that. However, using my smoke, I can make a ridiculous amount of decoys! Decoys that we make such clear and evident targets that no one would even think to go after the real ones! Who would try to break into a ship when they see a perfectly good hostage walking around the city all on their own?"

Tessa nodded slowly. "You're talking about feints. Create an obvious weakness for people to focus on so they'll ignore any real weaknesses." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Which reminds me: we should restart your combat training. You still suck at fighting."

"At least skill wise. The 'fuck you, I'm immortal' combat method still has stellar results." Victor chuckled.

"Until you meet someone smart and strong enough to ignore you and go after us instead." Brittany added.

Greg remembered that mage wiping out the Technocracy soldiers. "Yeah… but back to the topic at hand, what do you guys think of my idea? Decoys for the win?"

"It's good, but I think we need some… principles to go with it." Jake replied. "For starters, it isn't like we're going to spend our whole lives hiding, right? Not even just for us, but the kids. It isn't good to isolate them like that. So we need a way for us to interact with the world too. I'm not sure how specifically that would work, but one thing I know is that we should always have a Greg around when we do. That way, even if something does happen, we'll know and be able to respond."

"You should at least make sure you have some of my smoke. Preferably something breakable, as a way to warn me." Greg agreed. "I used to give ferals a little piece of glass, but a little rubber band bracelet or something would probably work just as well."

"We can definitely figure something out." Tessa nodded. "The other piece of this is that if anyone realizes there are decoys, this plan falls apart, so if your decoys are out, you need to stay in."

"We'll need to boost the ship's defenses. Make sure detection spells can't see inside." Brittany muttered.

"And then stay somewhere completely different." Victor grinned.

Greg's eyebrows shot up. "That's a good idea. I can make a place for us to live like that." Greg snapped his fingers. "We could even put it underground or something."

"But that begs the question of how we're supposed to get in and out without people noticing." Jake retorted. "No, I think a secondary location creates more problems than it solves, unless we specifically resolve to stay in there the entire time."

"We could just use it for the people who are particularly vulnerable, like the kids." Brittany commented. "At least right now, there's no reason for them to be wandering around a city, so we hide them away while we're taking care of business, then pick them up again when we're done."

"And of course, anyone who doesn't want to visit a city can stay there with them." Tessa nodded.

"I'll at least keep my mage bodies there." Greg added. "They aren't powerful enough to make a difference at the moment and they need to spend time working on their spells anyway. If they're on the ship, they're just dead weight."

"I wouldn't mind staying with the kids." Sarah replied in a quiet voice.

Tessa shook her head. "This is going to be on a case by case basis. We aren't assigning teams or anything, so you can decide where you want to be when we actually get to the city in question." Sarah flushed slightly at the misunderstanding, nodding her head.

"So we hide the vulnerable people, make sure we always have a bit of Greg around, don't go out when our copies are out… anything else?" Victor asked, looking around.

"In the event that something does go wrong and you are captured, cooperate as much as possible." Tessa commented. "Even if we lose a bit of meat, we can salvage that. What we can't salvage is losing any of you. Safety first, heroics later."

"What do we do if someone attacks us while we're traveling?" Debbie suddenly asked. "Not everyone is going to be polite and hit us when we're ready for them. Someone is going to try and ambush us on the road, when we're all here."

"We should turn levels two and three into a fortress. One as well, if we can manage it, but definitely two and three. Make sure that if anyone wants to get in there, it's going to take time, so the vulnerable can retreat there while the rest of us focus on fighting off any attackers." Jake replied.

Greg nodded. "I may need to rearrange the rooms a bit so all of us can live down there, but I think that's a good idea. We'll turn the fifth floor into a meeting room where we can negotiate prices or something."

"Or just a utility room, since you can make whatever we need whenever we need it." Tessa added. "A pool hall, a bar, a mini-movie theater, whatever."

"I think we can figure out the rest as we go, but the real question is whether we want to go to the city now, or keep hunting?" Brittany asked. "We have enough meat for us at the moment, but if we're looking to sell, we're going to need a lot more. Maybe another couple weeks worth of hunting more."

"That would give us time to work on the defenses…" Jake muttered.

"But we need time to work on our spells." Carlos frowned. "Just increasing our mana pools will only take us so far."

"How about this: we keep hunting, but we switch on and off." Tessa suggested. "Team one hunts for a day, then team two hunts the next, and so on. That way we all have time to work on our spells and we're still bringing in meat. Sound good?" Everyone nodded.

"It's probably for the best. I don't think a week is enough time for things to devolve enough for the assholes to rise to power." Greg shrugged.

Casey snorted. "Nah, a week is plenty of time. Assholes are the epitome of opportunistic. The moment there's any sign of weakness, they're worming their way into whatever position they need to be in to get their way. The chaos after the aliens announcement is just the sort of opening they'd need."

"Of course, they may not be exercising that power yet. Assholes pretend to be amazing in order to lure people in, making them dependent on them before taking advantage. Isn't that right, Meredith?" Victor commented, grinning over his shoulder at her.

Meredith flushed. "How- how would I know?!?"

Brittany elbowed Victor in the side, giving him a look. "Don't cause problems." She scolded him.

Tessa rolled her eyes. "Alright, it's decided then. We'll stay here and keep hunting until our stores are full. Then… we'll return to civilization and see what we can find."

It took them another month to fill up all their storage space, which included the extra storage they now had after Greg added an extra room on levels two and three. Additionally, Rachel and Carlos had used a bunch of the bones they collected to make some basic barriers around the first three levels, which in addition to the shield generators Greg had cobbled together from the tech he'd scrounged up from the Technocracy, made for a rather impregnable defense. At least, it could withstand a healthy barrage from Greg, which was pretty impressive in his book. The barriers could definitely be improved, since Carlos and Rachel only had a basic understanding of artificing, more of a hobby than a craft for them, but that would have to wait until they hit a city, something they would definitely be willing to trade meat for.

"What we really need are anti-teleport barriers." Victor commented. "All these become pretty useless if someone can just pop through them."

"Sure, but how common actually is teleportation?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I mean, it's teleportation." Victor replied. "Anyone who has even the slightest affinity for it picks it up. That or flight. Or invisibility. Or time manipulation, but that's so rare it makes my condition look normal. Particularly since you need to be a reverse mage and have an affinity for time if you want to do any of the good stuff before hitting the archmage level. Spells to speed up time are easy, and for a reverse mage, they slow it down instead. Spells to slow time are hard."

"What about reversing time?" Greg asked.

"Impossible." Narita interjected. "There are tricks to make it seem like that's what you're doing, but either you end up destroying everything and remaking it from an earlier copy, or it was never real to begin with. Or you end up in a different, but similar world. Either way, it's just not worth it."

Victor blinked at her. "Huh. How much research has the Technocracy done on time travel?" He paused. "I guess it makes sense though. The best way to stop mana would be to prevent it from entering our universe in the first place."

Narita paused, considering how to play this for a moment, before smiling slightly. "Indeed. But again, it's impossible."

"Even with magic?" Victor asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

Narita shook her head. "It isn't a matter of power, it's a matter of reality. Time is immutable on the most fundamental level, because time is an illusion. The past and the future don't exist, at least, not in any substantial way. There is only the current, ever shifting and progressing. There is no 'past' to return to, because it doesn't exist. The only way to 'go back in time' would be to take the current and regress it back to an earlier state, which would result in the destruction of everything that has occurred since that point, essentially destroying one and making a copy of the other, which isn't actually time travel."

Victor blinked. "I guess, but at that point it's good enough, yeah? Time travel isn't about going back, it's about changing the present because you can't stand the results of whatever happened up to that point. If destroying that terrible option and creating a new one is the way to go, I don't give a shit about the specifics."

Narita paused. "I suppose I misspoke. My point is that no amount of time manipulation will ever result in someone traveling to the past. Instead, you need the power to destroy the universe and recreate it in its previous form. Which again, is technically not time travel."

"Couldn't I just destroy and recreate the area I care about?" Victor replied. "Like, not the whole universe, but maybe just Earth? Or the solar system? People might notice the stars getting a little fucky if I do it too much, but what do I care?"

Narita scowled, crossing her arms. "That is a… reasonable alternative, yes. As long as you understand it isn't actually time travel."

"Similar results, so the fuck do I care?" Victor grinned.

"This conversation got weird." Greg muttered, shaking his head.

The point was, they needed to get an anti-teleportation barrier for the ship, and with their stores full of valuable, mana-rich meat and bones, it was time to head for a city. The ship slowly drifted up to the walls of the city, curving slightly before coming to a stop right next to the top. "Well, this is convenient." Victor commented, stepping off the ship and onto the wall, looking around.

"Isn't it? I didn't even think of it before, but there's a reason boats use docks." Greg agreed.

"Heads up, we have a welcoming committee on their way!" Deddie shouted down from the crows nest as everyone gathered on the deck. Well, 'everyone'. The only real ones were Greg, Tessa, Victor, Debbie, and Rachel. The rest were safely holed up in a lavish underground complex a few miles away. Greg was actually surprised when Casey decided to stay behind and even more surprised when Rachel wanted to come. Apparently Casey was on the cusp of reaching tier three and wanted to focus on making the push, while Rachel was looking to get some info about artificing, hoping to help fill that niche in the future so they didn't need to rely on outside help. Brittany would have probably come as well, but with little Marvin finally being born two weeks ago, she was just a bit too attached at the moment.

"Is that a flying ship?!?" An excited voice exclaimed as a group of people carefully approached, a young man suddenly rushing ahead to get a better look.

"Adrian, compose yourself!" An older man snapped at him, before focusing on Greg and the rest. "Ahem, welcome to New Haven. My name is Paul, the current governor of this city. To what do we owe this unexpected visit?"

"Governor, eh?" Victor asked. "What happened to your generals?"

Paul's expression twisted slightly. "After the war was over and the aliens left, it was clear that the military structure was no longer sufficient for our needs. We came together, formed a council, had an election… suffice to say, I am a democratically elected official, as it should be. Did your city not do the same?"

"No idea. We left as soon as the aliens did." Victor shrugged.

Paul blinked at that. "I- see. Did it have something to do with acquiring this strange… ship?"

"Nah, Greg made the ship." Victor shrugged, pointing his thumb at Greg. "We left because if we didn't, we'd have gotten sucked into politics. You have to be an idiot or a sociopath to get involved in that shit… which are you?"

Greg leaned closer to Tessa as Paul's face started to get red. "I think it may have been a bad idea to let Victor talk."

"I am a good man who stepped up when no one else would!" Paul growled through gritted teeth.

"Ah, idiot then. Gotcha." Victor nodded.

Tessa let out a sigh. "Victor, would you please stop antagonizing the man? We're here to do business, not cause problems."

"Fine." Victor sighed back in a tone of abject exasperation, before shooting Paul a wink and stepping back.

Tessa shook her head stepping forward. "My apologies for my associate. He does good work, despite his personality. I hope you can forgive this minor slight in the face of mutual benefit."

Paul humphed. "I am not so petty as to take the words of every overly critical pissant to heart." He replied, shooting Victor a dirty look that suggested he very much had taken the words to heart. Ah, hypocrites. He looked over the rest of their 'group', noting the babies in particular. "You have an… interesting group here." He frowned. "I was under the impression the aliens didn't allow procreation during training… or was that just our city?"

"A product of… unique circumstances that I hope you will forgive me for not getting into." Tessa answered, giving him a tight smile.

Paul hesitated, before bowing slightly. "My apologies. You are the first visitors we've received from another city, and my curiosity got the best of me. You spoke of business?"

Tessa shrugged. "It's no problem. We've spent the last month or so hunting in a nearby danger zone, which has allowed us to build up a rather large supply of high mana-density meat and bones and we're looking to trade. We're in need of an artificer to bolster our defenses in particular, but if you have other offers we're open to negotiate."

Paul blinked, his eyes widening slightly, but before he could speak a serious looking woman stepped forward. "May we see a sample to verify the quality?" She asked.

Tessa nodded. "Of course." She gestured towards the Carlos decoy, who disappeared down below for a few minutes, before returning with some meat and a bone. Greg waved his hand and a table appeared in front of them, which the Carlos decoy placed the meat and bone on. "Please, test them as much as you like."

The woman stepped forward, pulling out a rune covered device and holding it over the meat. It slowly began to glow, starting at blue, then quickly reaching green, before slowly creeping into yellow, stopping when it began to take on hints of orange. A man behind her let out a low whistle of appreciation, which earned him a hard look from the woman, before she moved on to the bone, which gave the same result. She then took a step back, putting away the device and refocusing on Tessa. "If the meat is all this well preserved, and everything is of similar quality… We can provide the services of our artificers for a hundred kilograms of meat and fifty kilograms of bone."

"Seventy-five kilograms of meat and twenty-five of bone." Tessa countered.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Ninety and forty."

"Eighty and thirty." Tessa smiled back.

The woman huffed. "Eighty-five and thirty-five."

"Deal." Tessa agreed, and the two shook on it. "We'll deliver half now, half on completion."

"Agreed. We'll send the artificers over to start working tomorrow morning." The woman nodded.

"Sounds good. A pleasure doing business with you." Tessa smirked, gesturing for the decoys to start transferring the meat and bones.

"Do you want to bring your own scale or do you trust mine?" Greg asked, smoke billowing as a scale formed next to the table.

The woman frowned at the scale. "How are you doing that?"

Greg shrugged. "It's just my innate mana." He was about ninety-nine percent sure that wasn't actually the case, but it was the simplest explanation. "I control a smoke that dissolves objects, and I can then reform those objects using the smoke. Doesn't work on objects with too much mana, but otherwise it's very convenient."

She nodded. "I can imagine. I suppose that's how you built this ship?" Greg nodded and a strange look appeared in her eye. "Could you make another?"

Greg paused, considering the question. It wouldn't be that hard… the only problem would be properly shielding everything so the mana wouldn't degrade it. But that shouldn't be that hard… but practicality aside, was it a good idea to give anyone else a floating ship? "I could, sure. However, what would you be able to offer that would make it worth my while?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Until enough people got powerful enough to use the portal network, the ship was the best way to travel between cities. Even after, for reaching distant danger zones and storing meat, the ship would be a huge advantage. And with their current lack of needs… Why spread that around?

The woman's eyes flicked towards Tessa, before leaning closer. "What- what would you be interested in?"

Greg frowned, seriously considering what he might want. "I mean, I got food, obviously. That's why we're here. Don't need a place to live… I could use a few more ways to entertain myself? Maybe? But I'm not sure if that'd be worth a ship… plus, once I get my network connection to a high enough level, I'll have more than enough ways to entertain myself."

"You- you don't want anything else?" She asked, sounding a little incredulous.

Greg shrugged. "All I need is to live and eat, and try not to get too bored along the way."

The woman gave him a skeptical look, before shaking her head. "If you find anything you do need, please come to us first. And your scale will be fine."

Greg gave her a thumbs up. "Sounds good."