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After separating from Leanne and Sçæaisøh, Ada found herself outside standing on the middle of her floating palace. She would have loved the ability to fly so she could survey the exact shape of the Cloud. She figured out a simple solution -- create a tower in the middle of her Cloud which she could ascend and then look around. With an effortless leap, she landed atop the 30-meter platform and stared out at the amorphous cloud gliding through the wide expanse of sky. Aside from her floating Cloud, there was nary a cloud in the sky. She could see the lofty snow-capped mountains far below her. With the train of events that has ensued since the start of the day, Ada was surprised to note that it was still not yet night. The evening sunlight was growing dim but still shone brightly, illuminating part of the cloud into faint rainbow colors, a possible indication of the phenomenon of cloud iridescence. Nightfall was around the corner but for now with the sunlight behind her, the view was spectacular.

Having others around was good but Ada always felt that she needed some time alone to fully recharge. As a goddess, she knew she would never feel physically tired but she still liked to have moments of solitude for the sake of her mental sanity. She cleared her thoughts and spread out her arms to feel the cool air passing by. At this altitude, a mortal wearing only a light tunic would be undergoing suffering tantamount to that of being assaulted by a blizzard but Ada felt it as quite refreshing. She took a deep breath and spent some time to simply do nothing. In her mind sprouted a vague sensation that perhaps everything was all an absurdly strange dream. She shook her head and that sensation vanished as fast as it has appeared. The world beyond was no dream; it was as solid as her body, as real as it was blindly optimistic. There were so many more choices yet to be made and the future was yet to be written.

After the Cloud fly over three more mountain ranges, it would be above a valley. There, the Academy should be the only obvious settlement in sight. Ruciella might have exaggerated on the height of the central tower as taller than anything else on this continent but the map had elevation data which clearly indicated that the valley was nearly as flat as a pancake. Anything moderately large taller than a few stories would stand out, literally and metaphorically. What would happen once they reach there was not within her control. She felt slight apprehension. Ideally, with Ruciella and possibly her master's help as well, she would be able to convince the Academy to help them. Even if the Academy does not directly to provide aid, simply having access to the vast library there would be invaluable. She hoped that the mages there would be wise enough to realize that it was in their best interest to help.

"Ruciella might feel that the elders were all knuckleheads stuck in their ways who dismissed her ideas but to them she's just a moody teenager. I have hope that they won't dismiss me as easily. Hopefully, they'll open their ears as well," Ada thought aloud.

For now, she needed to get to work. Ensuring they actually reached their destination in a reasonable time was something clearly within her control. She must fulfill the complicated task to turn an amorphous cloud into the semblance of a glider. She refocused her view from the distant mountains to her cloud. This height wasn't tall enough for her to peer across the walls of the palace structure but that was alright. She was going to shift everything around the palace to ensure that it was at the front center of the entire Cloud. From her vantage point, she mentally noted which regions of her floating palace need to be shifted to form a symmetrical glider.

Ada has always preferred the comfort of the glow of a monitor to that the glow of a sun; she never relished helping with her mom's favorite hobby of gardening. This task was akin to that except instead of throwing the extra branches and leaves into the trash, she transformed the extra Cloud objects into other useful materials which she could use later. There was a sweet spot in the range of weight to area ratio of the Cloud where the lift was slightly greater than the weight in the vertical axis. Since the lift force was dependent on the total area exposed, Ada took some time to play around with the mass of Clouds needed for transformation. She settled on transforming the Cloud into gold pavement. Osmium was slightly denser but gold at 19.3 g/cc was dense enough and it looked much more impressive. If she was to acquire more followers, being impressive would likely help and this was another step in that direction. Besides, she did like pretty things. From a practical perspective, she ensured that the gold was distributed uniformly across the top of the floating Cloud.

After numerous experimentation, ultimately she found a shape and size combination which presented a 30% speed increase with no instability. A typical glider would always descend since its weight was greater than its lift. The material composing the Divine Cloud was both marvelously strong and light which was the only reason such a large vessel was able to have a performance comparable to that of a small carbon fiber sailplane. She estimated the glide ratio to be about 30. This could definitely be improved in the future just like any engineering construction but she was satisfied with it for now.

Calling up systemhelper, she quickly created a small compass to check that the direction the vessel was headed. From what Ruciella pointed earlier in her Compass, Ada did some mental math which would have given herself a serious headache in the past. After a few more minutes of experimentation, she adjusted the mass distribution to tilt the floating palace towards the direction of the Academy before resettling it back to a uniform mass distribution.

Ada mused aloud. "If only I can create a method of propulsion. I should have forced Yuano to give me one of his artifacts and figure out how it works. It's a bit weird that a mortal like Ruciella can sense the ether whereas I can't. If I'm a goddess, shouldn't I automatically be able to sense it?"

She half-expected a reply from the mage but the only reply was the howling of the wind. She wondered if Ruciella might have another bright idea for propulsion. The others might have ideas as well. Divine goddess or not, she wasn't going to ever discount the ideas of mortals on this world. Just like on Earth, many people were stupid but there were also many who were not and she would like her followers and allies to be part of the latter. At this rate, she should be the patron goddess of the Galacia Club. Ada chuckled.

"Let's see. 44 minutes have passed so far. With a performance increase of 30%, that's not bad for a hack job. Also, I managed to correct our direction of flight to be less than 1% off," Ada said proudly. "Once I figure out how to add propulsion to this vessel and knowing that I can create the Divine Cloud object, maybe eventually I can create a fleet of aerial vessels for either trade or war. That would be an interesting addition to this world. I wonder what the other gods would think of that?"

Silence once again. Ada felt a little surprised that no one has come out to check on her. She thought that at least Ruciella, who seemed to have very little patience, would have checked up on her progress. As if on cue, the palace door opened and the girl walked out. Ruciella glanced up at Ada standing on the tower and shouted. "Hey! Can you hear me? I'm checking to see if you're done. Wow, what a change you've done with this Cloud!"

Ada shouted back, "Ah, yes, I hear you just fine! Good that you're here. Can you check whether we're moving in the right direction? I know these are the Mystic Mountains below."

"What?! I can't hear you."

Clearly, a mortal's hearing isn't nearly as good as mine, Ada thought. Ada gestured that she was about to come down and Ruciella backed up to give her space to land. With one leap, Ada landed at the bottom of the rectangular tower. There was hardly a thud on the Cloud when she landed. "Now, can you hear me?"

"You're two feet away so that would be an yes."

"I was kidding. More seriously though, can you confirm that we're headed in the right direction?"

Ruciella took out her Compass and pointed at the arrow which was pointing directly northeast. "Yeah, I was going to tell you that. I noticed we're moving right towards it now so I guessed that you had finished making the changes."

"It's good to double check. I checked with my compass too."

"You have a Compass?"

"No, just an ordinary compass. It's not nearly as accurate as yours and I did a quick calculation on what azimuth we should be heading towards based on our displacement since last I saw yours so I'm glad that we confirmed it with your Compass."

"Every time you tell me something like this I'm always surprised and impressed."

"Well, I think I'm done here. That is unless you want to take a look up on top of the tower?"

Ruciella gulped and arched her neck to get a better look. "Uh, how high is it?"

"About 100 feet. It's not too bad. There's enough room for two people to stand and I can make you a coat."

"Um, that platform looks extremely narrow to me and unlike you, if I fall off I'll probably die. So, short answer is no."

Ada was a little disappointed that no one has yet to fully appreciate her work and that not even the instigator of the idea was willing to see it. She would build a proper safer tower later with stairs. Ada started walking towards the door and Ruciella joined her. They entered through the large golden door and it closed behind them. As they started navigating the corridors to the conference room, Ada said, "You're right. We need to finish our discussion from earlier. The Gunders are back as well?"

Ruciella answered. "Yeah, everyone is back in the conference room. I think the kids are getting impatient though. They got bored of the blocks. I tried to entertain them with some magic but there was only so much I can create without getting some rest."

"Well, after we finish the talk, I think we can all take a nap. Are the kids still in the room?"

"The youngest is asleep but the older ones are getting to be out of hand. I don't think they want to be stuck in the room any longer. I think it'll be good if you figure out a way to keep them entertained."

"I'll figure it out. There's lots of things from the Divine World that they may like. If they're tired of sitting around, maybe some sports would be good."

"Sorry but I wouldn't know anything about that. I was never very good at kicking a ball around."

Ada chuckled. "There's a lot more than just kicking a ball around. Maybe smashing a ball with a racquet would work better."

"Well, I don't know what that is but I'm sure it's something that I would like to see even if I don't want to play it."

"Oh yeah, you know observing other people playing sports is a favorite pastime for many people in the Divine World."

"We have stadiums as well for these kinds of competitions. Maybe we can even go to one of them eventually."

"Yeah, for now, let's stay focused. Ah, we're here. That didn't take too long."

Ada pushed open the door and saw a surprising scene.