The sky was long revered as domain of gods. It set the boundary between the mighty deities and the lesser mortals. With the invention of skywalker, people that ride on the wings of sky dwellers, mortals of the earth finally touched the heaven door. There are many kinds of sky beasts but in Teroku only 2 are used, the small but resilient skyhorn and the large swiftwing.

 

Swiftwing is a towering falcon with body length of 29 m. Its 80 m wingspan put it at one of the largest flying birds in the old world. In spite of its large status, swiftwing can fly at a speed of 700 km/h. However, its food cost and shelter take a big toll on the budget. Thus, smaller flying beasts like the skyhorn are more popular to militants.

 

Skyhorn is not a natural beast but selective breed of wildhorn. Wildhorns are winged horses with horn on their forehead. Despite their 20 m wingspan, wildhorn only weigh 5% heavier than horse of the same size. Unlike horse, which is built for land motility, wildhorn evolved to fly. Wildhorn’s leg muscles and bones are lighter and weak, they can’t stand very long on the ground nor do they run as fast as normal horse. Wildhorn is ill-suited as mounted animal due to their wings motion are too wide that it caused trouble to the rider and the rider’s combating ability. They are also not strong enough to carry the skywalker plus necessary equipment. The skyhorn was created to address these shortcomings.

 

Skyhorn overall is larger than wildhorn with shoulder’s height at 1.6 m versus 1.4 m and a weight of 440 kg instead of 280 kg. Skyhorn has at least 50% greater body-length-to-body-height ratio than wildhorn’s. This makes skyhorn looks like a long wildhorn. Another noticeable trait is the addition of another pair of forelegs. Despite the size difference between the two animals, the skyhorn's 4 forelegs are as slender as wildhorn’s. The most important aspect, the wingspan now reaches up to 35m with 4 much broader wings accommodating a load of 100kg not including rider’s weight. Skyhorn also doesn’t move its wings as high as wildhorn when it flaps. Rider can finally mount and use weapon without causing discomfort to the animal’s movement and vice versa. Their statistics were remarkably increased. A typical wildhorn achieves maximum speed of 200 km/h but skyhorn can push the limit to 280 km/h. Skyhorn’s endurance allows 20 hours flying nonstop while a wildhorn will have to rest after 5 hours.

 

However, both are magical beasts. Without magic, they can’t fly as they used to in the old world. The past two weeks, Yokka has ordered the skywalkers to carry out intensive experiments on the beast performance. The result is shockingly lower than Yokka imagined.

 

Maximum operating altitude took a nosedive from 8000 m and 3500 m to 1100 m and 900 m for swiftwing and skyhorn respectively. Top speed declined from 700 km/h and 280 km/h to 220 km/h and 110 km/h. Operating duration also fell from 7 hours to 6 hours for swiftwing and 20 hours to 12 hours for skyhorn. Experienced caretakers and breeders knew well that skyhorn and swiftwing use magic to aid respiration and flight but these numbers still made them sweated heavily.

Yokka glared at the nervous section chief.

“These top speeds. How did you measure?”

 

“Those are the speed when they stoop.” Yokka seemed to have stabbed the right place.

 

“What about when they actively fly forward?”

 

“77 km/h for swiftwing and… 38 km/h for skyhorn.”

 

There are many kinds of speed depending on how they were measured. In combat, one of the most crucial measurement is their gliding speed. At this pitiful level of speed, their air force can only be used for troop transporting, scouting and communicating at limited range though this didn’t change the fact that they have no weapon to use on the air. Yokka would bring this report to tomorrow conference expecting major outburst from her fellow colleagues.

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House of Overseer.

Erwin just recently returned from the trip to the Land of Harmony. Public opinion is calmed for now owning to Mufusa’s effort. Yokka had with her the latest news from the investigation on skywalkers’ capacity. Weslor’s veteran recruitment came back with a good record but he did have unfavorable news from the navy. Temona was charged with finding solution for the lack of magical equipment and she didn’t look bright. Meanwhile, Henson was trouble with how he should word the current internal affair to not make this atmosphere any worse. With each passing day, the direr the incoming reports. It has become quite the trend.

 

“About this meeting, we should proceed with our state’s affair first. Erwin can recommend potential solution based on what he saw from his foreign trip later. To begin with, chancellor Yokka’s report is straightforward enough. I don’t think we need to go any deeper into it.” Henson stacked the documents neatly in order.

 

“Agree.” Mufusa put Yokka’s report aside.

 

“Then I will inform you about my task.”

In the last two weeks, Weslor has successfully enlisted several retired shipbuilders into the navy’s service. Their main job is to advice on the vessels’ seaworthiness. Obviously enough, none of the active vessels is capable of sea faring. Being an in-land nation, Teroku’s ship building has long specialized in making ships that are most suitable for traversing in freshwater environment.

 

The shipbuilders explained that the violent weather of the sea can easily topple a ship when the wind blows from side to side. Thus, the keel, the bottom-most structure of the ship, is much deeper. This keel which plows deep into the water body act as stabilizer to counterbalance the upper forces that waver the ship. It is crucial to ship that have tall structural elements such as the sail mast to have deep keel. Another way to further stabilize the ship is to have a deeper V-shape hull.

 

River ships either has very limited keel or completely flat bottom to avoid being stranded in shallow water because river and lake are usually not as the deep as the sea. Freshwater and saltwater also displayed a notorious difference that is relevant to shipbuilding. You float easier in saltwater when compare to freshwater. The cause of this phenomenon is due to the difference in density of saltwater and freshwater. As a result, in freshwater the ship draft is much deeper than in saltwater. Thus, dedicated river ship has even more reason to make the hull bottom flat to ensure the part that is underwater is short enough to not hit the sediment.

 

It was also commented that the freeboard of the ships is too shallow to combat high waves of the sea. River ships can easily take in too much water in high-wave sea despite the draft being shallower. Simply put, the ships evolved in the tranquility of river and lake system can’t survive the cruelty of the sea.

 

Designing a seaworthy ship should not be too much trouble but the veterans were concerned about a different issue. From improving material durability, to anti-fouling (fouling is the accumulation of unwanted material that causes detriment on function) effect, to speed boosting, and to impact resistance, enchanted plating plays critical role in many warships. With non-magic technology alone, they were not confident in designing a good warship. For example, attack that normally needs to hit critical structure 5 or 6 times to sink the ship can now does so in 1 or 2 hits. It is a rough estimation but considering landing at the same spots 5 or 6 times are much harder than doing it once or twice, the vulnerability of their ships just increases at least 10 times.

 

“If we still want to pursuit having a sea fleet with no enchantment, they recommended to build an entire new fleet rather than modifying the existing ones because of how specialized our ships are to in-land water environment. Moreover, the expensive enchanted plating that we painstakingly imported turned into deadweights and since we integrated them into components of the ship’s internal structure, taking those plating apart is just a waste of time. They also want us to tell them what kind of weapons we want to put into the ship so that they can build a ship that utilize such weapon.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“They explained that for arrow ship, they will make the upper deck for archers and the gun deck for ballistae. If we somehow want to put mangonels on the upper deck, the entire ship will have to be changed from sail ship to oar-powered ship to make room for the mangonel. While in case we want to attach ramming appendage to the ship, they will turn it into a ram ship. Though they advise not to equip mangonel and ram. The rocking motion of the craft makes mangonel even worse than ballista in term of accuracy while ram ship is not guaranteed to make it to the target without speed boost and impact resistance enchantments. And if we use boarding action as our mean of attack, harpoon and-”

 

“Thank you, chancellor Weslor. You can stop it there.” Henson interrupted. “Chancellor Temona. What do you think?”

 

“I know you all expected me to find a novel solution for our crisis but I am ashamed to say there is nothing else for us except going back to pre-magic-era weapons. Considering non-magic technology has been in stasis for centuries, we simply have no mean to come up with an alternative. Talk about new weapon has been initiated but we are still in the brainstorming phase and it is likely that we won’t have any good news anytime soon.”

 

“I was afraid you would say so. Apparently, we are not the only one who realized that.”

 

No magic weapon on the ground, air or warship. Soldiers and magical beasts that can’t use magic boost. Enchanted plating and magical equipment on ships now turned deadweight. While the detailed reports are kept only to the highest authorities, it was not long until people started gossiping about the military problems and realized the state of the army. Fearing their inability to resist future military threat, messages asking for directive flooded the lower government. Leaking information about the Land’s professional employees export spreads like wildfire. Petition to employ the Land’s experts to resolve the magic crisis exploded at many management levels. Some pessimistic officers even predicted the creation of a Revolution party in the near future if the situation is not handled carefully. The internal affair of Teroku was like a heated beehive waiting to erupt.

 

“Is it true, chancellor Henson?!” Temona jumped from her seat.

 

“It is. It has yet to extend to the mass but it won’t be much longer.”

 

“What are we supposed to do now?”

 

“Chancellor Erwin. I think you have something to say.” Ignoring Temona’s question, Henson forwarded Erwin into the spotlight.

 

“We need enchanted armor and magic weapons for soldiers, magic equipment for skywalkers, enchantments for warships and magic for our mages. Based on my observation and personal judgement, I think the Land of Harmony hold the solutions we are seeking. They have craftsmen and mages that have technological and magical understanding beyond our world. They also have no problem teaching us their knowledge. Given enough time, our mages and even our people can learn their magic. But it would be best if we invite their people to our nation instead.”

 

“Can you explain?”

 

“I will start with the background knowledge. There is only one town in the land, Dawn Beacon. The food that the representatives negotiated with us is for Dawn Beacon only, not for everyone there. The number of inhabitants is actually more than 800 and those are the one the hold the most influence in the Land. The town is just a gathering ground, not a center of authority as our capital. If we are to send our skywalkers and ships to the Land, we would, as they put, trespass their home. The magic beasts’ waste will defile their sacred ground. The ship plating, equipment and weapon modification will produce scraps that litter their land. Of the 800 people there, only 400 people in the town are truly permanent residents, the remaining 400 are trapped visitors. In short, they have reached the maximum amount of people the Land allows to have. Even in case we try to push thing, they lack the infrastructure to do the work. There is no shipyard and workshop. There is also not enough shelter to accommodate our staying if we do send them to the Land for a learning trip. I also believe they have absolutely no intention of expanding on those facilities.”

 

“But they want our food, are they not?” Henson raised an eyebrow.

 

“That is not going to work, chancellor Henson. They have fishing ships and certain area where wild fruit and vegetable can be foraged. They can supply the population with enough food to keep themselves from starving. When I checked the supply list they sent to us, it’s clear that they have only asked for food items they couldn’t find. It’s a matter of food variety, not food shortage. If we use food to make a hard bargain, I have no doubt they will cut off contact with us entirely. The land is as sacred to them as our memorials and graveyards. They will not comply with our demand. We will have to compromise.”

 

“Now that just doesn’t make sense. If they can have enough food to feed themselves, why did they say ‘it’s better that we reached agreement sooner’? Are they screwing with us?”

 

“I probed their reason. They said at that time their fishing ships haven’t finished yet and they just had help from the sea folks that lived near their shore to help them with fishing. Meanwhile the wild fruits and vegetables are shared by the forest’s inhabitants recently. However, those are very flimsy reasons that I can hardly believe they are true. I think they had us. That is probably their way to quicken our diplomatic process but for why I have no idea. The thing I do know is their opinions are very solid this time. Either we let them in to solve our problems or wait for the state to go down in flame.”

 

“Chancellor Henson, what is the possibility of the Land spreading the rumor about the state of our army to push us on the pot?” Mufusa positioned his kneaded hands directly in front of his face. Only his glaring eyes are visible to others.

 

“My agents have already investigated the matter but there is no ‘found’ solid evidence that it is related to the Land.”

 

Consider the act of the Land to be a treacherous one, the House begrudgingly agreed to import professional workers from the Land. On the surface, the key officers were instructed to carrying out affair indifferently. Deep down, the House passed their directive to be fully aware of the Land’s hidden nature. It was a severe blow to Teroku’s impression of their new diplomatic partner which later hampered the co-operation of the two lands.

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20 days later.

At an outpost near Teroku’s capital.

 

Around 20 to 30 young men in casual clothes stood in lines before an instruction.

“I am Turlock Hardshield, your new instructor from today. Boys. How many of you can use a bow?”

 

All of them raised their hand.

“Good. Stand in formation and shoot that target.”

 

They promptly followed their order. As they turned around, there is only a target 80 m away from them. The soldiers drew their bow and released. Most landed near the target while the rest flew somewhere else.

“Ok. I take it not many of you are good at sharpshooting. Well, rejoice! For today you will have these new weapons.”

 

The veteran walked up to a pile of wooden crates nearby. He told them to open up and have fun. There were fancy-looking longbows as tall as they are. The arc was bulky and curved like buffalo horns. The weirdest thing are carved symbols on the bow body. They spent their time inspect, some tried to draw the bowstring. Felt the heavy weight, it soon became a contest to see who can draw the bow to its max. Tried as they may, none was able to fully draw.

“Ok, boys. Try the target again. This time, imagine in your mind how the arrow will land on it. Take your time to aim and prepare your mind.”

 

Everyone did as told. The differences were astonishing. Almost every arrow landed on the target. Some observing soldiers even noticed the weird ballistic trajectory of the arrows.

“So. Any thought?”

 

“It was amazing, sir.”

 

He was expecting something else and by the look on other soldiers’ face, there are some who knew what was going on but didn’t dare to say.

“What’s your name, boy?”

 

“Baldwin, sir.”

 

He took a bow from the crate.

“These are the new enchanted bows. From today, they will be your standard equipment. Their number is limited so take good care of them. What you saw was the “homing” enchantment of the bow in effect. As long as your mind has a clear image of how the arrow will land on the target, the arrow will home into the target. So you tell me again, how do you feel about these, Baldwin?”

 

He was dumbstruck for a moment before uttering.

“Y-Yes, sir. It was incredible.”

“Why was it incredible?”

“… B-because it homes into the target?”

“Ok, it homes into the target but do you think you ever need to practice anymore if you have this bow?”

“I-I don’t know, sir.”

“Look behind you, son. See the targets and the arrows you shot? Tell me. Is there any one of them hit the center?”

“No, sir.”

“Listen up, all of you. The homing enchantment will fix the arrow’s trajectory toward the target at a certain degree. If you aim into the ground, the arrow ain’t flying up into the sky. It only turns slightly toward your target. It does not guarantee to hit your target 10 out of 10. You have to improve your archery just as you normally did. On top of that, you need to practice mind training because this magic requires your mental image to know what is its target. If the target is too far away, if you can’t even see the target, if you can’t shoot the arrow properly, if you can’t imagine the arrow will land on it, this enchanted bow is useless to you. And more, this enchantment doesn’t use mana like in our old world. It is a different magic altogether. It takes your stamina as the cost of activating the enchantment so if you have low stamina, you ain’t shooting many arrows. So practice, practice, practice. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Sir, I have a question.” A smart-looking boy raised his hand.

 

“Say it, boy.”

 

“In big combat we will be ordered to shoot at a lot of enemies and we don’t know who each of us aimed at so we will be just aiming at the place enemies will be moving toward. If that the case, wouldn’t using normal bow better in that situation? Because we don’t need to shoot at the exact target but at an area and normal bow doesn’t cost us extra stamina since it doesn’t have the enchantment.”

 

“Smart boy! What’s your name, son?”

 

“Eric, sir.”

 

“Ok, all of you stand on my left side and pay close attention.”

The old instructor has already passed 60 yet he is still in his prime. His body shape, his drawing form are pristine. He drew the bowstring which the trainees struggled effortlessly. He could have drawn the bow all the way but chose not to. Two arrows took turn land on the target 400 meter away. Then he told the trainees to follow and inspect the target.

“Eric, did you see my drawing hand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

“You drew the bowstring at the same length.”

“Good. The first arrow, I manually deactivated the enchantment. You guys wouldn’t be able to do that yet. The second arrow, the enchantment was in effect. I drew the bowstring at the same length, aimed at the same height. Now look at the arrows. The first arrow is on the left and the second arrow is on the right.”

 

The two arrows were half a hand (5.08 cm) apart with the second arrow sank deeper into the target by an inch.

“Tell me why the second arrow pierced deeper into the target?”

“The arrow on the right was stronger?” Baldwin guessed.

“And what does that mean?”

“The arrow moved faster, sir.” Eric replied.

“Not wrong. The further the arrow move, the less speed it has. The secondary effect of the homing enchantment preserves the speed. It allows your arrow to move in an unnatural trajectory while making your arrow to have the penetration power as if you are shooting close-range target. So to answer your question earlier, in case you does not need accuracy the enchanted bow still has its use because it maintains the penetration power.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are smart, Eric, but you need to be more confident,” Turlock pointed at the Baldwin, “like this guy,” he turned to Baldwin “but you, Baldwin, you need to use your head a little more.”

 

Baldwin smiled embarrassedly. Some smirks can be seen on the back line.

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Ok. Now start training. Try to shoot as many arrows as possible while practicing your image training. I will take a look around.”

================================================

Finally done with the training section, Turlock headed toward the commander office as informed two days ago. Turlock was not sure what they wanted to talk with him but order is order. Inside the office, 5 other instructors, the 2 commanders and a chancellor have already been there. He noticed everyone curious eyes at a rectangular crate in front of the office desk.

“There is a new batch of weapons arrived today. I want to introduce them to you.”

 

A large crossbow lied within the opened crate. While the prod is not much larger than standard crossbow’s, the stock is thick and long. There are also some kind of legs on the bottom of the stock that soldier can use to put the crossbow against a rock, a tree or the ground at whatever angle they like to mitigate the enormous recoil. This is unmistakably Teroku’s standard weapon for crossbowmen. Unlike great powers of the old world, Teroku’s air force is not strong and abundant enough to compete with other nations’. These crossbows are one of the counter measures. They can be carried and used by one soldier. The bolt packs enough force to penetrate shield and skin of skywalker’s beast in 70m.

 

Their primary weakness lies in their difficulty to produce. The prod is made from wood of a tree species that is only abundant in Teroku. The string themselves is processed product from a dangerous sea fish. Only this prod and string can make a crossbow this size without too many complicated enchantments to maintain the weapon’s durability. The crossbow, however, still requires a novel enchantment to boost its firepower and that enchantment, that magic, can’t be used in this world. Thus, these crossbows were sent to the Land of Harmony for modification.

 

“I recognize these symbols. It is the force boost enchantment. The same kind on the arrows we received yesterday.” An instructor said.

 

Force boost is an enchantment that multiply the force impact. The force boost on the arrows sent to Teroku is only able to multiply the force by 80% because of default setting. However, advanced magic users can manipulate this setting. Turlock as a beginner user of this new magic system demonstrated his ability to manipulate the homing enchantment by turning them on and off. Advanced user can tweak more thing including the enchantment duration, the sharpness of the homing effect and even the homing path but at a higher cost of stamina.

 

Returning to force boost, the greater the force boost effect the greater the stamina cost. A 2.6 force multiplier will cost not twice but close to triple the stamina cost of a 1.8 multiplier and a 3.4 multiplier cost almost 8 times the stamina of a 1.8 multiplier. Unbeknown to Teroku, there are many types of force boost. The force boost use on sword is a little different due to how the force is applied when striking the sword but overall, they are of the same species of spell. Considering how these enchantments eat stamina to activate, force boost arrow was not given to the trainees yet since they will not have the stamina to use both the force boost and the homing on the bow and arrow.

 

“These revised crossbows now have 2 enchantments. The force boost as you said. The other is a speed sustaining enchantment.”

 

“By the name I know what it does but did they explain why they didn’t use the homing enchantment? I believe speed preserving is also a property of the homing enchantment.”

 

“When received the first batch, I asked the same thing. They said homing enchantment costs 6 times as much stamina as speed sustaining per use although they did say the formula for homing is shorter and easier to enchant.”

 

“Hmm. If this region is the formula for force boost, then the rest must be for speed sustaining. It sure takes a lot of space. So that’s why they couldn’t apply this on the longbow.” Another instructor gestured at a group of symbols on the bottom side of the stock which invited curiosity from his peers.

 

“Chancellor. Do we know anything about this crossbow stats?”

 

“Not fully.” Temona replied. “But their best range is calculated to be 1820m with force rival that of the crossbow with our old magic.”

 

“You mean effective range?”

 

“No. Our old crossbow launched projectile at roughly 650km/h. The speed sustaining and the homing enchantment both have the same duration of 10s. Thus, explaining the best range. Of course, the bolt will still fly after 10s. We can’t be sure but if we intend to bring down hostile similar to our world’s skywalkers, effective range will lie at 1890m.”

 

“So in theory, if we manipulate the enchantment duration, the range will increase or decrease. Having something that can shoot at skywalkers at the range of 3 or 4 km is nice.”

 

“I wouldn’t recommend that. Remember the force boost? For every 80% more power, you have to pay 1.8 times more stamina. I don’t know the ratio for this speed sustaining but it wouldn’t be far from that.”

 

“He is right. Furthermore, skywalkers ain’t standing there for you to shoot like some stationary dummy. Beside how many soldiers can aim at target 3 km away? That’s insane. We did it in the old world thank to a heap of enchantments that boost projectile speed, homing effect and even future location prediction.”

 

“Sorry. I have a question since I just got back here this afternoon and haven’t got my hand on one of those force boost arrows yet. Does force boost not increase the projectile speed?”

 

“No.”

 

“No, it doesn’t.”

 

“Nah. It just increases the power upon impact. Your arrows still move at the same speed.”

 

Having done her job, Temona made an excuse for her exit.

“Well, if nothing else, I will leave this matter to you, gentlemen, to get our crossbowmen acquainted with the new weapon.”

 

Temona reached her carriage in time before thunder heralds the rain. Today seems to be her lucky day. She chuckled at the joyful thought. After telling the coachman her destination, Temona opened the a folded paper. There was a message the coachman received from a messenger bird earlier. Its content is related to the weapon training in the Navy Headquarter. The navy was the first to receive all these new weapons. It was just 13 days ago but they have already gotten a good group. These crossbowmen and archers are currently the cream top and their instructors agreed that they are qualified for Teroku’s upcoming mission. It’s the first day that Temona heard only good news ever since Teroku was transported to the new world. She decided to snooze for the time being while dreaming of what kind of surprise her chefs made for tonight’s dinner.

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Deep within the heart of the ocean, a group of 50 sail ships was rushing through the darken sky. The signs tell the violence that will soon be manifested upon any unfortunate one dangling recklessly on the sea. The purple ogre commanding this fleet was skillful enough to realize the stormy transformation long before any cloud can be seen. As the ships’ Tear of Wind God operated at max capacity, the ships narrowly reached their destination just as the ocean unleashes its full might.

 

The orcs and goblins under the ogre command laid waste to many villages in the nearby archipelago. Only 50 goblins were killed while over 300 people were captured. A successful hunt as the ogre mumbled. Rows of captives from many races were led to the volcano at the middle of the small island. Before the villagers’ fearful eyes, a large group of orcs stood guarding the cave entrance. The guards stepped aside, kneeled before their superior. The ogre paid them no heed as it entered the dark cave.

 

After much walking, they finally arrived at the monster lair deep inside the earth. The captives have already been led into their cage on the floors above. Only the ogre, 4 orcs and 20 most beautiful elves were heading down to the throne chamber beneath. Three other ogres each in different color were standing around the throne where a demonic being sat leisurely. The ogre put its knees on the ground bowing before the imposing figure.

 

“Lord Lyonos. I have returned. With me. The offerings.” The ogre gestured at the kneeling women who are too scared to look up.

 

“Good work. Only green ogre manages to bring back as many as you.” The lording creature peered its fearsome eyes at the shaking women. “Black ogre, Brown ogre, you two should follow his example.” The two ogres lower their head acknowledging their order.

 

“Your lordship. Honored me.”

 

“But these number is nowhere near enough. Capture more in the name of my brother, Nosgorath. Once his transformation is complete, your reward shall be fitting.”

 

“As you commanded, Lord Lyonos.” The ogres answered in unison.