"Alright, sounds good. I am going out to the ship for a bit, but I will come back and wait here after that."

Lin gives me a nod and leaves for the library while I get in one of the rowboats. The elven crewmembers from the ship quickly row the boat back to the ship. When I jump up onto the ship I find Athena waiting for me with a smile on her face.

Athena says "Welcome back, master."

"Hello, Athena. How are you doing?"

Athena says "I am doing well. The ship is in good shape and the elves' morale is fairly high."

"Good. Have there been any problems?"

Athena says "No, no problems. The crew reacted well to the attacks we suffered on the way here. The most we had were a few light injuries. The elven crafters are also making good progress in developing their skills. In general, the mental health of the elves has improved. There are still a number of elves with serious mental problems, but they are improving."

"That's all good news. I am glad that everything is going so well. You are doing a really good job."

Athena says "Most of it is the elves doing, I only concern myself with the ship and its course."

"That may be true, but you are still the one taking care of all of them. More importantly, how do you feel?"

Athena says "How do I feel? What do you mean?"

"I mean are you happy? Are you enjoying your life?"

Athena says "I am not sure what that means. I am glad you made me, does that answer your question?"

"It is good enough for now. If you think of anything that will make you happy, just tell me and I will do what I can."

Athena says "Thank you, master. Is there anything you need?"

"Actually, I am here to take a look at your core and see if I can figure out how you came to be."

Athena says "Are you looking to get rid of me, master?"

"No! Of course not! To be honest, I want to figure out how to make an artificial spirit. Not for the ship though, for the castle."

Athena says "Oh. As long as you don't plan to get rid of me or replace me, then that's fine."

"No way. That is never going to happen. The ship is you and I expect you to be around as long as the ship is. I still plan to upgrade it into a flying ship at some point. When that happens I will need your help more than ever."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Athena says "Alright. Since you asked about emotions, I will say that hearing I am needed feels, good?"

"That's a start. As far as spirits go, you are probably still really young. I would guess that you will start feeling more as you grow older. If that is the case, don't be scared to talk about those emotions."

Athena says "Understood, master."

With that out of the way, Athena accompanies me to take a look at her core. Considering I made the core, it is easy for me to see what is different. There is a strange energy that is moving around in the space between the enchantments.

The energy looks kind of like lifeforce to me, but it isn't exactly the same. The lifeforce of different types of beings can look different, so I am going to assume that is the reason. It also shares a few similarities with mana, which makes me think I can make mana act the same.

That should be the key to creating an artificial spirit, or at least that is my guess. If I can make mana move and act like this energy, then it would be the medium for the programming. As I am watching the energy and thinking about it, I notice Athena is looking worried.

"Relax, I am only looking. I am not going to make any changes or even touch the core."

Athena says "Thank you, master."

Once I see that she has calmed down, I go back to studying the energy. After spending a while watching it I am starting to think that I know enough about it. However, I don't remember seeing anything like it when I got a look at the tower's core.

Then again, the tower's core was so complicated that I can't be sure that I didn't just miss it. At the time I didn't really know what I was even looking at and I didn't study it for long. In fact, it was too overwhelming for me to look at for long, but I can't wait to see it again.

Knowing what I know now, I can't even imagine how much I will learn from it. At that point I will probably have to make some changes to the cores of the ship and the castle. Depending on what I learn I may even want to remake them from scratch.

However, that is certainly not something I need to worry about right now. I don't think that I can learn anything else from studying the core, so I say goodbye to Athena. Then I head back to the docks and keep an eye on the groups while I sit and wait.

I am also keeping an eye on the roads leading to the city looking for the caravan. However, around noon I notice a group of people sneaking out of the city. They are all armed and are avoiding the road, which is very suspicious.

Normally, I would ignore something like that, but since I am waiting for the caravan I can't. Considering the timing, chances are good that they are targeting the caravan. I am not going to take that chance, so I drop shapeshift and launch myself into the air.

Plenty of people see me take off and fly over the city, which makes me a little worried. What if they are attacking the caravan just to draw me out of the city so that they can attack someone else. They could attack the groups of elves, the ship, or they could even go after Lin.

Although, out of the options, attacking Lin would absolutely be the dumbest option. Unless they could bring an army of demons to attack her, anything less would be pointless. Even the army couldn't threaten her life, not unless they exhausted the choker's mana somehow.

Attacking the ship would be just as pointless, even if they had a fleet to attack with. It would take something along the lines of the swarm that attacked the city to threaten the ship. Even then, I am pretty sure that the ship could hold out until I could get back.

The only option that really worries me is them attacking the groups of elves. If I am outside of the city then I won't be able to return before the defenses of the rods wear off. On the other hand, I can't ignore the threat to the caravan just because I am a little worried.