It occurred to me that the cliffs would not, in fact, become red with Sahevin blood.

None of them actually bled red, from what I’d seen. It was mostly a bluish black.

Still, if I wanted to implement things as efficiently as possible, then I’d need to use an unfortunate amount of my time within Conflict’s trial analyzing their movements and considering the best places to set up killing fields.

According to what we’d been told, the Sahevin had enough intelligence that any successful trap wasn’t likely to work too often. Then again… that intelligence hadn’t been on display yet, so…

Killing fields.

I asked Bevel to spend some time thinking about them too, if she ended up spending much time inside her trial.

With Calbern gone, Xelinda offered to drive Fang. Only for Inertia to let out a surprisingly accurate sounding snort with a blast of steam that flooded the work area we were standing next to. “No.”

A simple refusal. Besides which, we didn’t actually need to take Fang. Instead we flew. I let Xelinda borrow my glider, while I would be flying au natural. Well, not totally, since I’d still have my robes.

Bevel’d decided to bring her glider too, despite the fact she could fly without it.

“More fun,” Bevel had answered simply when Xelinda asked.

Yet I’d seen the way Bevel had leaned her head against the glider. Pressed her hand against the wing. Calbern had helped design it. Helped us build it too. Had even gone flying with her more than once.

Most wouldn’t have guessed she’d had such conflicted feelings, what with the way she was weaving over and around us on our way.

With Bevel still circling, we landed at the exit. It had been improved again, with a large collection of spikes stretching into the distance on three sides. Many of those spikes held rotting Sahevin bodies.

Turning away, my gaze shifted westward. I’d been hoping to see Nexxa before descending into the next trial, but she’d been off dealing with some sort of issue in her new city.

We descended on foot, passing a large number of rollerbugs hauling Sahevin corpses into the depths. Wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Soon as we entered the chamber, Conflict put Xelinda through the same trial the rest of us had gone through.

It was the first time I’d really seen her in action.

A lot of her motions were similar to Calbern’s, yet they were rougher. While she was far beyond my skill level, I’d seen Calbern fight often enough to be certain that her movements didn’t have the same unnatural precision.

She was merely at the pinnacle of human perfection. She didn’t even have a tier-two enhanced body. Hell, she wasn’t even ensouled yet. And yet, it was enough for her to wreck the rollerbugs with ease.

I’d offered to help her become ensouled, but her scan had revealed that she’d develop naturally in a couple months. That had been soon enough for her.

Watching her systematically dismantle the last of the rollerbugs, I couldn’t help but think that she didn’t need the extra power to be deadly.

“The furnace has lain cold too long,” Conflict said once it was done with its introduction to Xelinda, its gaze locked on me. “Your next working lies before you. Once you have been reforged within, you will be ready for your final test, Magus Protectus.”

“Wait, final test? I thought this was a path of Ascension?”

“My final test before I grant you my half of the key to the Golden Halls, where our brother Depths waits,” Conflict clarified, its chains reaching out to its side, buzzing and rattling. “Forging your mind is an Eternal journey.”

“Right. Guess we should get to it then,” I said, glancing over at Bevel.

Her frown was quickly hidden, but I still ruffled her hair.

After, we made our way down the stairs.

My door showed a new scene. Instead of peaks or a junkyard, an airship hung in the air. One I hadn’t seen since just before passing through the Gate that brought us to the Frigid Peaks.

The elven juggernaut, Dauntless.

Honestly, seeing it filled me with a giddy sense of excitement. I knew, at least intellectually, that this trial would be harder than those that’d come before.

Yet it was an entirely different setup. And if it took place on an accurate representation of the Dauntless, with the unlimited time I’d had in the previous trials…

Well, I might just dedicate less time to coming up with Sahevin kill zones. The amount I stood to learn…

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I didn’t remember taking the steps forward, or pressing my hand against the door.

One second, I’d been thinking about everything about to come, the next, I found myself standing inside.

Directly in front of me was one of the Dauntless’ smaller support fliers. It didn’t resemble any aircraft I was familiar with, having a set of scoops to either side of its central cabin. A bit like having two bowls slapped to the sides of a pop bottle.

There were a dozen elves running back and forth unloading crates, hooking up heavy duty hoses and even one elf doing an inspection of what looked like a heavy duty petal wand. If a petal wand had over a thousand petals running in three strips along the underside of a ten foot long staff that was then mounted in a swivel for aiming.

The scene was chaos. Organized chaos, but still chaos.

“Hey, enchantineer! What do you think you’re doing, just standing there? Move!” A voice called. A second later, a hand landed on my shoulder, pushing me forward. Which was when I figured out they were talking to me.

I fell into step beside the elf who’d pushed me forward. He was older, with a face that was heavily weathered on one side. Like only half of him had aged. One of his eyes was milky white, and he had a gap in his teeth as he sucked on what looked like a cigar.

“Why does old Kezil always get the slow ones,” he muttered, the cigar bouncing. It was quiet enough I wasn’t sure if he meant for me to hear it. Then, in a louder tone, he asked, “You got a name recruit?”

“Perry,” I said, unable to keep my gaze from roaming. We seemed to be on one of the massive support structures that ran between the wings, having just left behind one of the sections roped off for the smaller airships to land.

“Well, Perry, I’m old man Kezil. You’re here to get as much sense knocked into your head as I can manage. Don’t matter how much of a prodigy you were, back home. You’re gonna learn every bolt and etched line. The Council’s gearing up for something big, no doubt about it,” Kezil said, his pace brisk. “And I mean to make sure we’re not running into it with a senior enchantineer what don’t know his pipelets from his mana cappies.”

Despite not knowing what those last two were, and the way his tone made it sound like a threat, I couldn’t stop the excitement from making its way into my voice as I asked, “Everything? From prow to aft?”

“Those’re nautical terms,” Kezil replied, shaking his head, flicking his cigar at me. “What’re they even teaching you enchantineers these days? Nose to tail, boy.”

“Nose to tail,” I repeated, my enthusiasm undampened.

“Least you’ve got the right attitude,” Kezil grumbled. Then he took me through an arch that led past a hidden threshold. Which was when I got a chance to see the hidden interior.

“I…”

He snorted, chuckling soft amusement. “Always gets ‘em.”

The inside was a mess of organized chaos, much like the scene I’d arrived in, though more sedate. There were ziplines and lifts everywhere. Most of them supported the fliers that I’d seen outside, though some held other designs. The ziplines seemed to be used to get up and down throughout the interior, as many carrying people as cargo.

The central valley stretched at least half a mile. It was a protected space, lit by vines I hadn’t seen since I’d left the Aranor family estate. The simple illumination reminded me that there’d been at least one plant I’d neglected to grab seeds for.

After giving me a solid five minutes to take in the sights, Kezil pushed my shoulder again. “Save that gawking for your own time.”

Not pointing out the fact he’d given me plenty of time to gawk already, I followed along. Didn’t stop gawking as we walked though.

There was just… so much to see.

Eventually, we reached our destination for the day. A simple room with a single table, two chairs, and a stack of paperwork.

At first, I thought the trial might skip this part. But it dragged the whole thing out.

Probably could’ve just snubbed the paperwork and gone off to investigate the Dauntless on my own. It was supposed to be a trial. Yet everything felt so dynamic I was worried I’d end up developing my path in a direction I didn’t like.

Much as it might not be heroic, paperwork was very much a big part of ruling effectively. It only took an hour to get through everything.

Then we got to the fun part. Handing me a notebook, Kezil gave me a tour of the ship, from nose to tail.

At the very nose were the sensor enchantments. A complex array that I could barely understand the barest concepts of. It seemed to use air enchantments for detecting pressure and wind direction, water enchantments for humidity and earth enchantments for air quality.

And those were just the few I was able to decipher. There were a lot more I couldn’t recognize.

Kezil’s reassurance that I’d know every bolt and engraved line suddenly had even greater meaning. I was taking notes non-stop, glad I’d be able to retrieve them through Memory Palace after the trial.

After the nose, we moved to the most visible part of the ship. The massive ‘Leaves’, the fan-like blades that ran along the outside of the ship. Each of the Leaves was a massive thing, and they were all individually crafted, getting bigger the further back along the ship we moved.

“So, even if we disabled it, the ship’d be fine?” I asked, running my hand through the green mist that billowed out from the slow downward motion of the Leaf. A special material that clung to the Leaf, increasing its buoyancy.

“Yep, the Dauntless can lose a third of her Leaves and only suffer a ten percent loss to her top speed,” Kezil said as we inspected the housing for one of the massive flat surfaces that slowly oscillated up and down. It only moved a total of two degrees, but when the Leaf was over two-hundred feet from stem to tip, that was a massive amount of movement. “Theory says she can stay aloft with as little as one third, though it’s never been tested.”

“And there’s barely any enchantment in the Leaves themselves?”

“Yep. Makes it easier to swap em when they get damaged,” Kezil confirmed. “Come on.”

The tour continued as Kezil showed me to hidden hanger bays where the smaller vessels, the Runners, were worked on. And a bigger bay where a team of elves was using some low level enchanted items to repair a Leaf that had several jagged rips in it. And to remove the remains of some creature’s arm from where its claws were still embedded in the Leaf.

After that, he took me through one of the living quarters. They were all different, but also all cramped. Even the largest only had twelve square feet of space per person. Considering the crew compliment of the ship was in the thousands, I was impressed they got that much. Considering they just shoved the living quarters in wherever they could fit them, I supposed it helped.

“Just don’t leave anything too important inside,” Kezil said as he closed up the ladder that led down to my new quarters.

“Is theft bad here?”

“What? No, ain’t no one stealing your precious pocketful of Waves,” Kezil said, shaking his head. “Living quarters are used as backup heat dumps during combat. If things are stressed too much, anything left inside’ll melt like ice under dragonfire.”

“Noted,” I said, glancing back at the literal deathtrap we’d just climbed out of.

“Knowing imminent death might just be coming serves for awful honest motivation not to stay in your bunk once the klaxon sounds,” Kezil said with a grin, clapping me on the shoulder. “That’s what makes it fun!”

This… this was the ship that inspired me to take my people to the skies.

And it had been designed to be a flying deathtrap.