"Grr, why now?! Stay here, I will deal with whatever it is and be right back!"

Lin says "Alright, I will be waiting."

After giving her another kiss I turn and run out of the cabin to see what is going on. When I rush into the bridge I find that Silverleaf is currently in charge. The problem is that she is standing there looking completely confused.

"What's going on?!"

Silverleaf says "I don't know! We didn't activate the alarm, it just went off by itself!"

Once she says that, I turn and walk over to the core before putting my hand on it. The spirit still can't speak, but it can now convey some emotions and feelings. From it, I learn that it has detected danger approaching and that it set off the alarm.

The spirit can't tell me where the danger is coming from, but I can use the ship's senses. When I do I see what the spirit saw, there are six wakes coming at us from the front. The problem is that the wakes are all that is visible, the ships making them are invisible.

"Are the gunners manning the weapons?"

Silverleaf says "Yes, but there is nothing out there."

"There are six ships, but they are invisible. Give me a minute to figure out how to disrupt the invisibility. Tell the gunners to fire as soon as the ships are revealed."

Silverleaf says "Understood!"

Taking my hand off of the core, I close my eyes, and send my mana sense out. Luckily, I know about where the ships are already, otherwise searching for them would take a while. Each of the six ships has a mage on board that is maintaining the invisibility.

Once I Locate the ships, locking onto the mages who are constantly using mana is easy. However, they aren't dressed like mages, they are just as disreputable looking as the rest of the crew. If they weren't currently casting a spell, it would be nearly impossible to tell them apart from the rest of the crew.

Although, from how weak their mana is they can barely even be called mages. Disrupting their spells will be easy, the only challenge is disrupting all six at once. In the end, I find that I can't split my concentration six ways, so I give up.

Instead, I simply blanket the entire area that the six ships are in with a large scale dispel. It uses up the majority of my mana, but the invisibility is destroyed and the ships are revealed. The gunners lock on and fire as soon as they see the ships and most of them hit.

Each of the ships is hit by at least two or three ballista bolts and are ripped apart by the explosions. The ships of the pirates are not armored, they depend entirely on being able to sneak up to their target. The gunners don't even need to fire a second volley, the fight is already over.

With the battle over I quickly head back to my cabin, I am excited to continue where we left off. Unfortunately, when I get to the bed I find that Lin is already sound asleep. The only thing that I can think of is that she was emotionally exhausted.

So, I simply climb onto the bed, take her in my arms, and cuddle her until I fall asleep. In the morning, we are both woken up at the same time when the babies climb up and beg for food. As I start cuddling and petting the two of them, Lin wakes up enough to realize what happened.

Lin says "I'm sorry that I fell asleep. I don't know what happened, I was all excited one second and the next it was morning."

"It's alright. We have plenty of time."

Lin says "So, what was the alarm about?"

"There were some pirates that wanted to attack us. The six ships each had a mage that was keeping the ship invisible."

Lin says "Invisible? That is a very complicated spell, especially to cover an entire ship. I am surprised that pirates would be able to have such capable mages. That would explain why the pirates have been able to cause so much chaos."

"Actually, the mages on the ships were extremely weak. Based on their mana levels I would call them apprentices."

Lin says "If that is true, then there would have to be a stronger mage behind them."

"Meaning the mage is the one behind the pirates and is probably using them for some purpose."

Lin says "Yeah. That would be my guess. It also means they are not likely to take losing six ships lightly."

"Our journey west could get interesting."

Lin says "Especially since the pirate's base is still ahead of us. We are probably going to be attacked repeatedly."

"I could always fly ahead and burn their base to the ground."

Lin says "That could work. Right now they probably haven't realized that they lost the six ships."

"Yeah, but it would be better to attack them at night. That way more of their ships should be there for me to burn."

Lin says "The only problem is the mage behind them. If he is there it could be dangerous for you."

"Not really. I have gotten pretty good at countering magic. If it is just one mage, I shouldn't have any problems."

Lin says "I know that you are strong, but please don't get overconfident."

"I'm not, using pure mana gives me an unfair advantage against mages. You should be getting close to that point as well."

Lin says "Well, I think my control of my pure mana is pretty good and I have figured out how to use most of my spells. The problem is that I don't know how to counter spells using pure mana."

"Alright, let's get some breakfast and then I will spend the day teaching you."

As promised, after breakfast I start teaching Lin how to counter magic. Other than a break for lunch, I spend the entire day teaching her everything I have figured out. Thanks to Lin's high intelligence she learns everything easily while only asking a few questions.

By the time it is time for dinner I have run out of things to teach to her. I even teach her everything I have learned about enchanting using pure mana. Now Lin is my equal in using pure mana and before long I expect her to surpass me.

Lin says "You really are amazing! I can't even imagine how you managed to think up all of this by yourself. Without your help, it would probably take me at least a decade of experimenting to get this far."

"I doubt that. You are at least as intelligent as I am, if not more so. The only reason for you to be slower than me is that you are unlearning your old way of using magic. Probably my only real advantage over you is that I am fearless when it comes to experimenting."

Lin says "Now that I am your equal in using magic, will you stop trying to keep me safe all the time?"