A couple of hours before their arrival to port, Henry and Maurice were putting the last touches to their human disguise. They had real clothes from the crew—which didn’t fit that great but they’d do until they found a clothing store. Henry was wearing brown shorts that absolutely needed a belt along with a floral shirt that was significantly larger than him, which had been once Savros’s, while Maurice had a pair of dark shorts and a white shirt.

  Having spent the last couple of days working on his recovery, Henry felt great as he watched the land slowly approach in the distance. There was still a little soreness within his soul, especially when he condensed more than a couple of spells but by now, he could apply some pretty heavy strain into Telekinesis or Control Water before he started feeling discomfort. He still wasn’t at the point where he wanted to risk the potency he’d reached in the fight, but every day that went by, he was taking a step closer. In fact, right this moment, he had two instances of Telekinesis pressurized which he was manipulating like one would a stress ball.

  The last couple of days had been pretty productive, and Henry was pretty happy with his own progress. Plus, considering he had been feeling much better, yesterday night he had finally consumed his fragment of the seahorse, though after that he had to go and join the celebration for Ash and Fabian.

  Henry stole a glance to the side and saw a subdued Ash watching the approaching coast in the distance. Ever since she’d heard that they were making no stops and that they were heading straight to the Emerald Isles—an archipelago of large island connected by bridges and ferries—the elation from her evolution seemed to have evaporated like morning dew in the afternoon sun.

  He wondered if she had history with this particular island. Clearly, something must have happened, considering the nervousness and anticipation he was feeling off of her. And it seemed that both Maurice and Fabian knew something as they kept stealing glances toward her.

  I’ll have to warn Maurice to not get into too much trouble, Henry mused as he eyed the land in the distance. While he knew that this was supposed to be an archipelago, he had a little trouble picturing it. Especially considering the mountainous range he could pick up in the distance, as well as the fact that he could nearly see the island stretch from one end of the horizon to the other. Henry tended to picture islands as small stretches of land but this one was anything but. And there were more of them beyond, apparently. Five islands in total.

  Henry was looking forward to seeing how the humans of this part of the world lived. They managed to prosper, it seemed, despite the ocean’s dangers. Already, Ray had pointed out some of the patrols navigating around, watching for approaching threats. As a known ship, they hadn’t been given trouble, but anything else was fair game.

  Taking another look at the recap from consuming the Stinglance’s core, Henry looked away from the approaching land and eyed his notifications.

  Wyrdkelp Stinglance Tyrant core fragment (A) contained significant Spirit and Dexterity stats. 3x Spirit and 2x Dexterity Stat points awarded.

  Veilwatch Kraken (B+) - Level 47

  ...

  Veilwatch Kraken (B+) - Level 59

  2x Stat points awarded.

  1x Strength Stat points awarded.

  1x Spirit Stat points awarded.

  1x Constitution Stat points awarded.

  A-rank was getting closer by the day, but the road will not be without risk and if what Velistraine had said about The Reach was true, then there were good odds Henry would hit A-rank there.

  By then, he would be ready.

  Water sprayed as they went over a particularly high wave and Velistraine’s grousing voice reach his ears from above.

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  “Hey, you two,” she called out, and Henry looked up. She was hunched over from the crow’s nest, a half-eaten sandwich in hand. “Got any way of hiding from identification? I’d rather not cause a panic as soon as we dock.”

  Henry and Maurice shared a look, then the kraken shrugged, shouting back over the wind. “Not completely. But I can mimic signatures.”

  “Me too!” shouted Maurice. The crab didn’t need to use illusory sound anymore, having gotten his voice box to work like it should.

  Velistraine’s lips were pressed as she considered them for a moment, then she mumbled something they couldn’t hear before she shoved what remained of her meal down the hatch and jumped down. “Not good enough,” she said after swallowing, waving toward her first mate to approach. Ray came toward them, a notebook in hand and after him followed Axel, the quartermaster. They’d been chatting about what they needed to stock up on on their stop.

  “Guys. I need two anti-appraisal rings.”

  The first mate gave her an even stare. “Do you think we just have everything sitting around on the off chance you need it?”

  Velistraine grinned. “Yes?”

  Ray sighed, and Axel gave him a comforting shoulder squeeze as he shook his head at Velistraine. “Sorry cap’n. We’re out. Fabian and Ash had gotten the spares we had. Though I guess we could give them some of ours?”

  Velistraine’s features twisted in distaste. “Don’t want to risk the crew’s details from leaking,” she grumbled. The three continued to weigh the pros and cons, and while the back and forth was funny to watch, Henry had thought of something else.

  “Can I see one of the rings?” he asked, waving toward Maurice to approach. The three shared a look, then Velistraine shrugged, taking a silver ring off of her thumb. “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “We can usually copy living signatures, but maybe there’s a way to reproduce this thing’s effect? What do you think, Maurice?”

  “We probably can!”

  Henry took the ring from her, examining it between his thumb and index. He hadn’t really examined enchanted items that much, but already, he could pick up some of the details. It worked similarly to a channeled Skill nexus, where the ring wasn’t casting the Skill from scratch and instead, the instance of the magic was already there, just waiting for mana. It wasn’t collapsing from the lack of mana. Somehow, the “enchanting” seemed to prevent the magical construct from deteriorating. He could sense the protective shell surrounding the whole thing, preventing external damage and ‘noise’ from interfering with the instance.

  Channeling a bit of mana into it, he sensed the ring trying to find a target, but with him only holding the ring and not wearing it, the cloaking effect ended venting in thin air, instead of covering him.

  “You need a minute, I’m assuming?”

  Henry looked up and found all three humans still in front of him. Axel and Ray were back to their notes, arguing and pointing at the scribbled pages, while Velistraine had been peering over Maurice’s shoulder, who also had been staring into the ring. When she realized she interrupted him, she grimaced. “Sorry. I’ll leave you to it. Don’t break it though!”

  Velistraine swaggered away, making Ash jump as the latter hadn’t noticed her coming, and Henry focused back on the ring and slipped it on his finger.

  Immediately, the enchantment found its target, and a thin, barely noticeable veil deployed around Henry’s spirit.

  Maurice’s eyes widened as he let out an oh-sound, and both began trying to imitate the signal with their skill. Usually, their own obfuscation technique was to let out the aura of a particular fish or monster they’d encountered, but the ring just cut that off completely.

  For a second, Henry wondered if he could somehow use Magic Mimic to copy the enchantment directly, but even though he felt he’d be able to trigger the ability without eating the Skill, it still felt like he might damage or break the ring in the attempt, so he refrained.

  “I think we got enough to make an attempt,” Henry said as his Octominds got to work. Maurice was already working on it, and around five minute later, both Henry and Maurice had managed to copy the ring’s effect. It wasn’t perfect—and frankly, he didn’t know if the ring was that resilient either—but it took Henry an empowered Identify to pierce through Maurice’s fake signature, and Velistraine ended up grumbling that it was good enough. She said if an A-rank wanted to really look into them they’d still be able to but for anyone of a lower rank, it would be good enough.

  “Just say you’re with me. As for A-ranks, you shouldn’t encounter any. Only Attal’s supposed to be around here, but you never know who’s passing by. Everyone, stay in the ship if you want, or get out there and have fun. And don’t pick up fights you can’t finish,” she shouted to the rest of the crew, eyes lingering on Ash who paled before she turned back to Henry. “I’ll be setting up a meeting with the bastard and we’re gonna have to negotiate because knowing him, he isn’t just about to hand us the orb. But we’ll figure that out. Otherwise, everyone, y’all go have fun!” she shouted, and the crew—especially those on the younger side—cheered back as Ray and Brumo threw the mooring lines down to the piers.

  Henry was looking forward to exploring the massive city though he resolved to assign one of his Octominds to Maurice as the crab was preparing to to jump down to the pier, drawing the concerned gaze of some docklands with his cackling.

  Should be fun, he grinned before hopping down himself.

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