Chapter 302: The Greatest Crisis

Since the Dark Knights were all cavalry, Donald arranged for them to camp next to the other side of the original group, so that in case of emergencies, they wouldn’t have difficulty moving about and could immediately mount their horses.

After making a preliminary impression on these members of the Dark Knights, Donald didn’t do much else. Instead, he returned to the camp to continue working with his teachers on modifying the spaceship.

Donald knew he couldn’t win over these knights’ hearts all at once. He had only managed to win over Black Knight Jack, and these young knights were loyal only to Jack. These things couldn’t be rushed, so he would need to guide them gradually through future interactions.

The redesign of the magic ship progressed smoothly. Donald obtained magical beast skins and bones, which the elder mage Messehl refined using alchemy—turning the skins into more flexible and durable materials, and processing the bones into a latex-like adhesive after adding other substances. Soon, strong yet relatively lightweight ship airbags were created.

Thanks to Messehl’s skilled work, these airbags appeared to be a natural whole. The olive-shaped airbags were almost as long as the ship itself, only about three to five feet shorter. At the bottom were three ventilation ports, each equipped with safety valves designed by Donald. These ports were connected to the ship by six chains that appeared thin but were actually made from iron infused with a small amount of silver and refined gold. It was estimated that even a Silver Swordmaster’s full-powered sword strike wouldn’t be able to break them in one hit.

Still unsatisfied, Donald collaborated with several mages to cast spells on these chains to enhance their defense and self-repair capabilities. These spells could resist, ignore, or weaken most attacks. If damaged, as long as the chains weren’t completely severed, they would instantly activate repair spells. Moreover, they could defend against not only physical attacks but also energy damage.

As a result, the safety factor of these six chains far exceeded that of the ship itself. Although the ship was made of high-quality magical wood, it couldn’t compare in hardness to metal chains infused with refined gold, one of the strongest materials in the main world. However, the ship had arcane arrays and small elemental pools providing high-level protection, giving it a formidable defense that the chains couldn’t match.

As for the upper floating airbags, Donald’s space was abundant in materials such as the skins and bones of magical beasts of various levels. Even the skins and bones of high-level beasts above level five were enough to knock out any mage below the Gold rank.

There was no other way; during his round trips to the Totem Continent, he encountered too many sea beasts along the way. Those highly advanced sea beasts, though not very intelligent, all had strengths around level seven or eight, and they all became trophies in his space. The pelts of such high-level magical beasts inherently possessed magical properties, making them excellent materials for crafting spell scrolls. Even a single piece of such pelt, when used to make enchanted leather armor, would be highly sought after by many adventurers!

Using such precious pelts to sew airbags was considered extremely luxurious by outsiders, but Donald didn’t mind and made extra backups for the mages. The magic ship already had floating arrays installed to maintain the Falling Feather spell, so even if the airbags were damaged, the ship wouldn’t crash immediately, giving them enough time to replace them.

After the airbags and connection devices were prepared, it was time to assemble everything.

However, the mages had been working all night and were quite tired. The main work was done by Donald and Maelthor, the two alchemy masters. Kelsas, who specialized in combat spells, could only assist, while Chris and Malf the siblings helped with the alchemical processes. The most time-consuming part wasn’t the seemingly complicated production of the airbags but rather adding arrays and stabilizing spells to the magic ship. This was because the ship was enormous, with many areas that needed modification.

As dawn approached, most of the campers—powerful warriors and soldiers—had already gotten up. So Donald simply asked the strong warriors, including the swordsmen and knights under Durian, to help assemble the floating airbags with the magic ship.

In airships from his past life, the airbags were filled with lifting gases that were less dense than air—hydrogen or helium. It was quite easy to create such light gases through alchemy, and Donald quickly found, along with his teacher, a relatively inert and non-flammable gas to fill the airbags.

During the first test flight of the magic ship, everyone gathered outside to watch.

Donald used a crystal alchemy container filled with a solvent for producing the lifting gas. After connecting the interface to the valve on the airbag’s ventilation port, he released a small flame from his palm to heat the container.

Soon, the light blue solution inside the crystal container began to ripple, rapidly producing bubbles as a large amount of gas filled the airbag. On the other side, Kelsas was also using a crystal container to inflate the airbag.

With the two air vents filled, the air sac quickly began to expand. In less than ten minutes, it was completely filled with gas and turned into a large olive-shaped balloon that floated above the magic ship. Seeing that the sac was nearly full, Donald and the others stopped inflating it and closed the valves tightly. Although the quality of the air sac was comparable to that of high-grade magical defense equipment and could withstand greater gas pressure, excessive pressure might cause changes in this low-density gas, resulting in a loss of its floating ability. Just as a small ball of cotton can float lightly in the air, a ton of cotton piled together would likely crush someone.

The six chains fixed to the ship’s hull had been stretched straight by the upward force. However, Donald and the others hadn’t activated the floating magic array on the ship yet, so the air sac couldn’t lift the heavy hull into the air for now.

Typical airships produced on Earth are over 300 meters long and can carry about 250 tons. In comparison, the magic ship was less than half that length, but the weight of its gondola was much lighter than that of the ship itself.

Nevertheless, the gas created by Donald and the others had a better lifting effect than hydrogen or helium. As soon as the old mage activated the magic array on the ship, the magic ship gently swayed and was slowly lifted into the air by the air sac above.

The people watching below immediately cheered. This large alchemical flying device was a miraculous creation they had never seen before.

By adjusting the amount of gas in the sacs and the weight of objects in the cabin, the flying magic ship could be raised or lowered to various heights. After testing the various capabilities of the new flying magic ship, Donald retracted the airship without releasing the gas, storing it all in the storage space. Since the space was vast, they didn’t mind the extra space required. At most, storing it would consume a bit more mental energy due to its larger volume. With Donald’s current level of mental strength, even a small mountain could be stored, and such mental energy consumption would be recovered in less than ten minutes.

It passed the inspection. Donald and the others also discovered some minor flaws in the design of the magic airship, mostly discrepancies in the data that could be adjusted. The airship’s original propulsion system was sufficient for flight, but since it had been hastily designed and crafted by Donald alone on the Totem Continent, there was room for improvement. Now, working together with his teachers, they redesigned it. The element pool was expanded, allowing it to contain more energy, with faster energy circulation, thus significantly enhancing the ship’s performance.

By the time Donald retrieved the airship to make further adjustments, daylight had fully broken. Amid the dissipating morning mist, a figure suddenly appeared in the distance.

It was an ordinary-looking human youth with tanned skin, dressed as if he were a sailor who spent most of his time at sea.

But how could an ordinary sailor come alone to this desolate area with no villages or settlements in sight? Moreover, he seemed calm, showing no signs of panic or loneliness, as if he were on a peaceful outing in a safe suburban area.

This situation made everyone wary. Duray ordered his guards to call out to the youth.

The youth stopped about a hundred paces from the camp. He didn’t answer the guards’ questions. Instead, he raised his head and fixed his bright eyes on Donald at the center of the group.

“Are you the genius mage, the master of the legendary dragon, Donald?”

“No good!”

The moment Donald felt the gaze on him, he was struck by panic. Intuitively, he sensed extreme fear. To others, this young man might not seem unusual, but through Donald’s divine vision, he saw a dazzling glow—gold and blue light intertwining, so intense it was like the sun, making it impossible to look directly at.

In an instant, Donald weighed the pros and cons and used teleportation the moment the youth spoke, disappearing from sight.

“He’s quick-witted, but do you really think you can escape like that?” the youth said, then vanished with a flash of light.

He had fled alone because he believed the others wouldn’t dare harm Duray, the heir to the Celt Kingdom. It was safer for his subordinates to stay with Duray; following him would be dangerous. Here, with his teachers and friends, he couldn’t bear the loss of even one of them.

And if his estimate was correct, this person was likely after him, and considering what had happened before, he could roughly guess the other party’s identity. This person was simply an existence they couldn’t match—even the legendary powerhouse Carlisle probably wouldn’t be able to defeat them in one move. So, even if they all worked together, it would be no more than delivering themselves as prey; any resistance would be pointless. That’s why Donald chose to take advantage of the moment when the other party couldn’t act to teleport and escape. However, he knew that teleportation could only buy a brief delay, but that brief moment was enough for him. When his figure reappeared, Donald was already back in the inner city of Peace Harbor, with the temple of the Goddess of Agriculture standing behind him as the regional main shrine there. He didn’t want to reveal the Book of Truth yet—at the very least, he needed to reach a level where ordinary gods could be ignored to prevent this high-tier artifact from being taken away. Otherwise, any hint of it would mean either complete destruction or endless imprisonment by a powerful being. Thus, relying on the power of the Goddess of Agriculture was the best choice.