The next one is the one on the back of the ship since it is the closest to me. Even though the one on the bottom of the ship is the next closest, I am going to leave it for last. Now that I am working outside I drop shapeshift, my normal form is better for clinging to the ship.

The ones on the sides I put on the outside of the pontoons so they pull mana to the ship. The only drawback to all of this is it will make the ship easier to detect for mages. In fact, they may even feel it without trying because it will cause a disturbance in the mana around it.

However, I am not too worried about that since the ship is much stronger now. If another human fleet came after us we would be able to turn and fight. Not that any human ships would be able to catch up to the ship with its new speed.

The only things that might be able to catch us would be any really fast sea beasts. Even in meg form I would have trouble catching up to the ship at its full speed. So, unless they are in front of us, we shouldn't have to worry about other ships at all.

The only ones that are ahead of us that should be hostile are the pirates. I am actually looking forward to running into them, it should be a good combat test. Besides, the elves could use some more experience and pirates normally have a lot of loot.

They may even have slaves that we can free, although I doubt they have any elves. The elven slave trade has been going on for a while, but I doubt any elves made it this far north. Then again, you never know, the pirates are active in a large area from what Lin said.

By this point I have finished the fifth formation, only the one on the bottom of the ship is left. When I climb down the side of the ship and enter the water I almost get washed away. With the speed the ship is going, the water pressure trying to rip me off is intense.

When I find the thread of mana the first thing I do is use my mana to push the water away. The large bubble may slow the ship a little, but I can't exactly do precise work without it. With Lin's help I find the correct position and start carving the circle and runes.

I can't draw it first because the hull of the ship is too wet, but I don't make any mistakes. When I carve the last line of the last rune there is a flash of light that blinds me. However, when I check with Lin, she tells me the formation is working properly.

Since I also don't see anything wrong on my side, I go ahead and fill in the silver. Once it is finished I dismiss the bubble and carefully climb back up the side of the ship. I tell Lin she can close up the room and go back to the cabin while I head to the bridge.

Once there I immediately check on the core which is giving off a slight hum. The mana is flowing into the core constantly and from there is fueling all of the enchantments. More mana than needed is flowing into the core, the extra is feeding the spirit.

"Lin, are Nala and Albion still watching Mulan and Mushu?"

Lin says "Yes, why?"

"Good. come up to the bridge so you can meet the spirits."

Lin says "Alright, on my way."

At the same time I have Stillwater summon Brightfire, Silverstream, and Silverleaf. Once they have all gathered on the bridge I summon Lynara, Ekertan, Fereesh, and Slispera. Then I make the introductions all around, which takes a couple of minutes.

Slispera says "Ash, we don't have much time. What can we do for you?"

"The core I made for this ship is developing a spirit. It should be the spirit from the tree I used to make the ship. I want you to help it grow and also feed the spirit energy of the six of us to it."

Lynara says "We can do that, but it will drain all of you."

Stillwater says "That's fine. We all agree."

The spirits have the six of us surround the core and put a hand on it, I shapeshift to fit. Then the four of them circle around us and I can feel a strange but warm energy flowing around me. It only lasts for about a minute, but I can feel the energy pulling something similar out of me.

Then all of that energy flows into the core and I suddenly feel extremely tired. As soon as the last of the energy enters the core the four spirits disappear. Then the six of us all collapse on the floor, feeling completely drained.

However, I feel that it is worth it, I can feel a new energy growing inside the core. There is not much there yet, but given time it should grow into a full fledged spirit. Now when it grows up, it should be tied to the elves and will see them as friends.

I wonder what is going to happen to the ship once the spirit is fully formed. Will the ship start growing again? It is possible, I can still sense some life in the wood the ship is made of. If it does start growing again, it will be interesting to see what happens.

With the formations, there is currently plenty of extra mana to feed the ship once the spirit stops absorbing it. I guess I will just have to wait and ask the spirit once it is capable of communicating. For now, I put one of the senior sailors in charge and order him to have people help the others back to their cabins.

Then I pick Lin up in my arms and carefully make my way back to the cabin. Lin can barely keep her eyes open, but apparently I am recovering much faster. Already I only feel a little tired, with a few more minutes I should be back to normal.

Lin on the other hand has fallen asleep in my arms by the time I enter the cabin. So, I carry her over and lay her down gently on the bed, then I check on the kids. They have all returned to the cabin, Mulan and Mushu look worn out but happy.

Picking up Mulan and Mushu, I scan them with my mana and check how their bodies are doing. They are both growing normally as far as I can tell and there is no residue of the fire gem energy. From the looks of it, the energy helped them grow a little faster, but that is all.

Since there are no side effects that I can see, I take out the god gem and start removing energy. It is still difficult to remove it, but it just takes some extra effort on my part. This time I don't split the energy, I let Mulan and Mushu each eat a full one.

As I am feeding them, Nala comes over and I can tell that she also wants to eat one. She has fire abilities, it shouldn't hurt her, so I also feed an energy to her. All three of them immediately go to sleep after eating the energy, which just leaves Albion.