On a certain island, within the endless skies of Island Ascension Online...

Residing on the island were a myriad of ports and airships, with an abundance of figures moving about on the platform like worker ants. They were currently transferring supplies, weaponry, and other goods en masse.

On a certain dock of this island, a group of warriors were busy preparing a fifty meter airship for launch.

“Lieutenant, it seems we caught a big fish this time! Who are we targeting that even requires an esteemed basic mage to intervene?” A rather muscular brute was conversing with a shady looking middle aged man.

The Lieutenant glanced at a wizened old man with a powerful aura standing not far away, before responding to the muscular brute grimly. “A team of our spies have sent back the rough strength of a newly made island. What the group found is that the island is actually founded by an extremely skilled mage. In fact, he may even be close to the basic mage rank!”

“What? That strong? No wonder!” the brute exclaimed with a laugh. “Then what are you planning to do with him?”

The edges of the lieutenant's mouth curled up into a malicious grin. “Naturally I plan to take him and his island and hand them to headquarters. With the help of the esteemed basic mage, it should be no problem to capture him. Perhaps when I complete this task, I shall finally be able to get the promotion that I’ve been working at for five years!”

Hearing this, the brute laughed loudly. “Lieutenant is the smartest! With this, you will definitely climb the ranks of the organization quickly!”

-----

When Simon appeared on the island once again, the sun had just risen in the clear skies of Island Ascension Online, enveloping his island with a curtain of light.

He quickly made his way through the town from where he had logged out - the manor, and greeted residents on the way to Jack’s makeshift shipyard.

When he last logged out, the airship was basically complete. Naturally, now that he was back in, he wanted to be there as soon as possible to witness it being finished.

And so, he quickly made his way into the shipyard.

The shipyard was a stretch of cleared land that had an area of roughly 30x30 meters. On this plot of land there resided piles of materials, supplies, and most importantly, a few airships in varying sizes.

There were four 15 meter long airships, and one that was an entire 30 meters long. The smaller airships were hardly worth mentioning, but the 30 meter long airship was something else altogether!

With a majestic and pristine appearance and visible fluctuations of energy gathering around it, it was brilliantly made with a mix of both engineering and magic incorporated in its design. This energy surrounding it was, of course, mana.

Most airships operated by using mana to power various arrays, such as gravity arrays, wind arrays, etc, to move. It was also possible to run an airship using mechanical energy as well, but doing so was only something that technologically advanced islands would do.

Thankfully, Simon had access to a wide variety of arrays from his old world, and combined with Jack’s expertise and the help of other skilled residents, the airship quickly came together.

Jack was currently making some finishing touches on the airship, adding some measure of visual flare. Meanwhile, a few workers also moved supplies onto the airship.

He suddenly looked up and upon seeing Simon, he waved cheerfully.

“Yo Mayor, this baby is basically done! It should be ready to set off in a couple of minutes.” He patted the hull of the ship proudly. “I’ve tested this out and it works like a charm. It should definitely be enough for the journey.”

“Well done! I anticipate taking it for a ride, then.” Simon nodded with a grin and took out a map from one of his pockets.

By now, the island had collectively managed to grow cotton, among many other plant species. As a result, he had actual clothes now which were generously made by a tailor in the town.

This map only contained two things. A set of coordinates, and a large letter F, representing the tier of the ruin.

This was the map which he had previously gotten upon using a few golden tickets, which also served as a key to entering said ruin.

From what Simon could see on his map, he had calculated that the ruin was approximately 500 kilometers away. Such a distance was neither extremely close, nor was it considered far. However, the journey would most likely take a day or two on his airship.

Still, he wanted to carry it out as soon as possible, so as to not delay his island’s progress. And so, when the preparations were finally complete, he set off!

-----

“I’ll be back soon!” Simon merrily waved atop of the airship, gazing at the dozens of people on the island that were slowly shrinking in size.

Soon enough, the island became one of many specks in the sky, and he was on his way to the ruins, with nothing in sight but the occasional speck representing an island and the clouds.

‘Ah…’

He relished the gentle breeze as he soared through the clear skies.

It would normally be frightening to be flying above such a large void, but he was not fazed in the slightest.

Back in the day, he had witnessed plenty of airships being built and even flew in many himself. He had also overseen Jack’s progress, and could tell that he was doing nothing wrong. Combined with the fact that he personally made the arrays that powered the airship, he was confident in its ability to stay afloat.

For this journey, he decided to go by himself to allow operations on the island to progress normally. After all, it was not convenient to bring other people into a ruin, and he did not fear for his personal safety. As a result, there was no need to bring anyone else along.

As for the main reason for this expedition, it was that the island was stuck at a bottleneck and required resources that could only be acquired from trading and looting ruins.

In particular, to upgrade the island core to level 4, he not only needed 100 gold of resources but also a monster core and 100 ancient shards, which were both resources that could only be found in ruins!

Monster cores were rather self explanatory: Upon dying, powerful monsters with magical abilities had a chance to retain a mana core that was still operational in their corpses, which were called monster cores. However, it does have to be known that some magicless monsters had weaker mana cores that could drop as well. Though, they were considerably rarer.

Ancient shards, however, were considerably less straightforward. They were actually a resource given by the system, based on the historic value of artifacts found on ruins.

For instance, if one found a random spoon in a ruin, it might not result in acquiring any ancient shards at all. But if one found the sword of a legendary warrior, one would definitely be rewarded with plenty of ancient shards.

With nothing else to do, Simon simply sat down on the airship and rested, as he soared through the skies.

-----

In a section of the boundless sky, not far from Simon’s island…

A proud and vicious looking figure stood at the helm of a 50 meter long airship, holding a multicolored stone.

This airship was equipped with cannons, boarding gear, and crossbows aplenty. Moreover, it was lined with sturdy metal supports and had a very militaristic style.

Without a doubt, this airship was a vehicle of war!

Suddenly, the stone in the man’s hand began emitting a faint glow.

Seeing this, the man grinned as he turned to his crew, gesturing grandly to the island far in the distance.

“The time has finally come!”

His crew grew excited upon hearing these words, and the airship suddenly burst into life, as the crew readied the crossbows, armor, and other weapons of war.

“Hahaha! Boys, let's do this!”

“I’ve waited long enough for this!”

Soon, they began making their way to a certain island, with their blood pumping and weapons ready.

…

Meanwhile, on Simon’s island, a short while later...

Joshua, a worker who had entered the island a day earlier, was busy feeding chickens.

Cluck! Cluck!

Whenever he threw the seeds out, the chickens would race towards him and begin pecking at the seeds laying on the ground. It was quite a carefree activity, and as he worked, he couldn’t help but to sigh in satisfaction.

“It truly was lucky of me to find such a lenient and powerful island owner. Hopefully he comes back soon...” he muttered with a carefree smile on his face.

Then, he suddenly saw something in the corner of his eyes.

“Eh?”

He casually turned to the peripheral of his vision. But what he saw made his heart go cold.

“T-Thats a…”

He felt his knees go weak, and was momentarily overcome by a wave of painful memories.

When the man finally regained lucidity he immediately dropped his bag of seeds in a panic and ran towards the center of the island, hollering with all of his might, “Raiders are coming from the north! Spread the word!”

Immediately, a dozen residents within the vicinity hurriedly turned to the north, and what they saw made them despair...

Indeed, a raider’s ship was coming!

Very soon, the residents of the island began panicking as word spread. This was their worst nightmare: A raid! Pandemonium quickly broke out on the island.

“No, not again please! Only after so many troubles have I managed to find my family a good island to settle down on!”

“It’s over! It’s over! Our mayor is away!”

“F*ck, what unfortunate timing! This must have been because of espionage!”

“How could our island owner have made such an elementary mistake?! What the f*ck man, I thought he was capable!”

“We’re doomed!”

...

Meanwhile, in a certain room in the manor...

Three men who had hurriedly met up, conversed with extremely solemn expressions, occasionally glancing out of the windows nervously.

“F*ck, I warned him about this but he refused to implement countermeasures!” Jack cursed with a dark expression.

“Have trust in the Mayor! He must have kept a countermeasure somewhere, he’s not a fool.” Jake rebutted heatedly.

“Somewhere? Somewhere my *ss! Where is this “trump card” when we need it then? We have to quickly prepare!”

“Don’t be rash! I also believe that the mayor had something up his sleeve, but we can’t ignore the raid either.” Joe butted in, trying to mediate the situation.

“Well, what do you suggest we do?”

“We have to run of course! What else can we do?”

“The airships that we still have are all still unstable and can fail at any time. We didn’t prepare them for flight!”

The three crew members were split between two decisions regarding what had to be done.

Jake wanted to fight to the last breath, as he believed that Simon would absolutely not abandon them with nothing to help! As his most loyal follower, Jake naturally had the most trust in Simon.

Joe wanted to believe in Simon and fight as well, but he felt like they couldn’t rely on such a feeling. After all, he was both rational and ‘experienced’.

Jack, on the other hand, was a firm believer in running away. To be fair, however, he had already gone through losing everything before as a refugee, and therefore had a deep set pessimistic mind.

They hadn’t prepared for such a situation, in part because of Simon’s strength, but also because Simon mysteriously ignored their pushings for preparation!

…

Eventually, the three of them managed to calm down and came to a consensus. After all, they were not fools as long term residents of this world.

If Simon had laid down some protection for the island then most likely, they did not need to be on the island for it to be effective. In other words, they could temporarily get on the airships without mishaps.

If the island fell, then they would be forced to leave. If it remained standing, then they would just return!

Technically, none of them were going to be participating in the fight, and so they all would be considered to be civilians by the system.

Anyhow, even if they did participate, Joe was the only one that was of use in a fight. And though the attacking airship could not send out all of their forces due to the system set limitations, what they could send was likely enough to overwhelm Joe, as he was but one swordsman.

Therefore, they instructed everyone onto the civilian’s ship, and watched with bated breaths as the airship got continuously closer.

-----

On the approaching airship.

The lieutenant and his forces readily stood at the bow of the ship, which was almost in range of the island.

“Eh? They gave up? Hahaha! This foolish mage really accepted some unloyal followers. To think that they immediately ditch the island since he isn’t here… Truly unfortunate!” the lieutenant said in a mocking tone while watching the evacuating residents.

His crew laughed with him, as they stared at the unfortunate island residents who were boarding the airships with pity, but also greed.

Soon enough…

“Haha, it’s time, I’m initiating the raid!” The Lieutenant pulled out a few golden tickets, and they promptly disappeared in thin air.

But just as he did so...

Swish!

Boom!

The lieutenant’s head was blown straight off by a flash of light!

“Huh?”

As the crewmates looked around in shock and confusion, the wizened old man who was sitting casually on the deck suddenly stood up in vigilance.

“Take cover! It’s a formidable enemy mage, we’ve been fooled!” he roared with an incomparably grim expression. As a mage himself, he could naturally make out the distinct results of magic.

Suddenly, a solitary figure could be seen casually walking out of the manor as if he were taking a stroll in the park.