Wild Dragon of Rome 7 (Patreon)

My first week as a lowly sailor in a pirate ship was … surprisingly pleasant. Who would have expected? 

Admittedly, the other sailors didn’t share that opinion, acting like the world had ended just because they were forced to work all day. 

Weird, because living in the pirate ship was surprisingly comfortable. There were no late-night surprise attacks ‘to keep me sharp’, nor there were any servants that watched my every move like a hawk, trying to trip me up to gain my uncle’s favor. I wasn’t forced to train every day, wondering whether my body would give up first, or my elemental cores. 

My sleeping arrangements weren’t luxurious — a mere moldy hammock that I was only allowed to hang at a moldy part of the ship — but it was better than sleeping on bare ground, which I had done many times, starting from when I was nine years old, and my grandfather thought that throwing me in a wild forest, armed with only a knife, was good training. 

Alright, maybe the perspective of my fellow lowly sailor was more justified than I was happy to admit. 

Still, despite the advantages I enjoyed, there was an aspect that thoroughly annoyed me. The first was the food. The newly hired sailors weren’t allowed to eat anything but dried meat and moldy bread that was harder than actual rock. That frustrated me, because even at the worst point in my training, I always had access to good food. Not exactly the fancy fare — mostly boiled vegetables, decent bread, and lots of meat, none of the noble delicacies like Ostrich eggs — but still leagues better than the garbage we were fed. 

One had to take part in a raid and kill someone there to get better food. 

I understood the reason for the clear segregation, as while my training focused on strategy, there were still large portions. The old man always said he didn’t want to waste all that training just because I was a moron that could be manipulated into an ambush, and taught some basics. 

The first step for any military training was to isolate and oppress their forced hires while giving them clear targets, and slowly transforming their attitude. What pirates were doing was a simple version of it. I might have even respected them somewhat, if their rules of killing included combat. 

No. Apparently, executing an old woman or a child after a raid was enough to earn their respect. 

Knowing that, it was easy to ignore their constant disrespect. They insulted, mocked, ordered me around, and even threw occasional kicks my way. I took all with a pathetic whimper, using an act I had perfected for a long time. 

Was bowing my head down to a bunch of arrogant pirates, certainly, especially since I knew I could kill half a dozen at the same time in a fair fight, even more, if I treated it as a proper fight. The two mages that ruled the ship as the commanding officers during the mysterious absence of their captain would have been impossible to deal with in a fair fight since both of them were mages, but they would still die in an ambush. 

I didn’t do it, because I didn’t dare to cause a commotion, not when I was being searched by the full power of the provincial government and a mysterious sorcerer. The destruction of a known pirate ship was the exact opposite of subtle, particularly since they were officially privateers, which meant a link to the governor’s office, who had been looking for me. And, I would be stranded alone in the middle of the sea. 

Which teemed with even more monsters than the wilderness of Britannia. They avoided our ship, because the mages took turns to flare their magic, which intimidated the sea beasts and made them seek easier targets. Second-order beasts avoided mages unless the mage in question stumbled to their nest, or the beast was too hungry. 

Third-order beasts would have ignored that, but that was not a concern, not with the Republic Fleet and legions regularly hunting in the channel to keep the danger manageable. 

Still, altogether, it meant that a solo sea voyage was not for me. A little indignity was easier to deal with than a full cohort of legionaries hunting me down or desperately trying to swim away from a horde of sea beasts. I was good, but not that good.

I desired to keep a low profile, which was why I acted like I didn’t notice the approach of an older sailor. He kicked me, not noticing I threw myself forward just as he swung his foot, reducing the impact significantly. 

“It’s your turn to work the bilge pump again, rookie,” he ordered. 

I looked at him with fake reluctance. “I just did it yesterday,” I whined. 

“It’s the schedule. Why don’t you go and complain to the first mate if you have any problem,” he said with grim satisfaction of a successful bullying, and walked away. 

I managed to keep my smile until he left, then stood up and went to the lower deck. 

Admittedly, there was a reason for his cruel enjoyment. Working the bilge pump was the worst job on the ship. The function of the bilge pump was to throw away the seawater that had leaked into the ship. It was a difficult, exhausting job. 

The location of the task made it worse. It was at the lowest deck, which was never the greatest place to be even in carefully maintained ships, and ours was far from it. So, the lower deck was wet, moldy, and cramped. 

Constantly pushing and pulling a large lever in a cramped little hole was a horrible time, yet, I was happy for it. 

The reason lay in the nature of the ship. Horribly maintained it might be, but the pirate ship had been made of high-quality wood with a strong mana presence, which allowed it to resist enemy attacks. It also interfered with the senses of the mages. 

Meaning, I could use the dragon heart. 

I once again opened the box, revealing the small crystal that belied its incredible value, and let a drop of my blood fall on it before I squeezed it with one hand, devouring the mana it radiated. I even grabbed the lever with the other hand, pumping steadily. 

The bilge pump required a lot of strength to work, particularly since it was not maintained well. Yet, all I needed was to use Earth to empower my strength to do it with one hand while I focused on improving my four elemental cores. 

The improvement I had experienced during last week had been incredible. My elemental caress was both larger and purer, growing as I channeled the pure mana from dragon hearts to them, making them slightly stronger with each heartbeat. 

The day I would reach the rank of mage wasn’t too far away. 

Technically, I could attempt to break through immediately. My elemental cores had already been strengthened enough to safely handle the strain of connecting with the world. 

It was the difference between an apprentice mage of second order, and an actual mage of third order. An apprentice mage’s elemental cores were only connected to their body. That meant, an apprentice was limited to channeling the mana they gathered into their cores, and the elements would only be expressed indirectly, like my trick of using Earth to empower muscles. 

A mage’s core — or cores, in the case of people who chose the harder road and raised four elements at once — was not isolated, but had a connection with the world as well. A mage could use that connection to cast external expressions of elements as spells. 

The ability to enhance one’s strength was useful, but not as useful as throwing sharpened spikes of earth that could pierce through an armored man from a hundred feet. 

Suppressing my breakthrough to further strengthen my elemental cores was beneficial, but not nearly enough to sacrifice the benefits of being a mage while my life was in danger. 

I had a simpler reason for delaying it. A breakthrough was a long and delicate affair, taking days, sometimes even weeks as the apprentice slowly grew that ethereal connection with the world itself that gave a mage the command over the elements of the creation. And, since I had to establish connections for four elements at once, it would take even longer. 

The connection gave a minuscule command compared to the potential of the world, but ultimately, it was still overwhelmingly dangerous. 

One mistake, and it might ruin years of hard work, and that was assuming I survived in the first place. No, I just needed to wait until we stopped at a port in anywhere but Britannia … or failing that, drift close enough to a shore that I could swim to the land. 

“Patience…” I muttered. “Just a few more days, and I’ll be safe.” 

Fate must have taken that as a challenge, because the moment I uttered the last word, a bell started to ring furiously. A signal for every sailor to gather for orders. 

And, dragon heart was still radiating mana, with no way to stop it.