Brightfire says "Don't sell yourself short, you are a good father. You have a lot of responsibilities, but still spend time with them."

"That hasn't always been the case."

Brightfire says "Other than Albion, all your kids are from races that are powerful and ferocious beasts. Yet all of them are good natured, that absolutely has to have come from you. Just don't ask me how!"

"Haha. Maybe."

Brightfire says "Anyway, if you go explore that jungle I want to go with you."

"Alright."

It looks like if I want to know what is in the jungle I will have to find out for myself. Taking Brightfire along will mean I have to take Lin as well, it is a good thing Myria isn't here. I should also probably take Nala and Albion, but then I need to find someone to look after Mulan and Mushu.

I can probably get Silverstream and Silverleaf to take care of them while we are gone. Or, better yet, I can get Brightfire to convince them since she wants to come with me. I'm sure that by now Silverleaf isn't mad at me anymore, but I don't want to find out.

Especially if Brightfire has told her about the whole thing with Lin and her. The last thing I want right now is Silverleaf trying to add herself to the list. I already feel confused enough as it is considering I have to try and keep three women happy.

I don't even know if I can keep a single woman happy, let alone three of them. Adding any more women would absolutely make things impossible for me. Not that there's anything wrong with Silverleaf, she is a capable warrior and a good person.

Later, once this mess is sorted out, I wouldn't mind if the others wanted to add her. That is not something I need to think about right now, I have enough problems. Wiping the thought out of my mind, I turn my attention to giving my kids some affection.

After they have played for a few hours the kids and the girls leave, so I end the soulscape. Then I spend some time with Lin before she goes to bed and I return to meditating. It is the middle of the night when my mana is full and I end my meditation.

Then I fly back to the ship and go back to working on the ship's enchantments. This time I remember to take a break and fly back to have breakfast with everyone. After that I return to the ship and take all the floating metal and put it in my ring.

This way the elves can start moving everything back while I finish the enchantments. We should be able to get underway either tonight or tomorrow morning. Which means that I have beaten my five day deadline that I gave myself by about a day.

As I move around the ship, finishing my work, I start seeing the elves bringing things back to the ship. Luckily, they don't get in my way and even go out of their way to avoid me. Some do it out of fear, since I am in my normal form, while others do it out of respect.

Honestly, there isn't much left for me to do, I am just smoothing things out. During the process of enchanting the ship I have learned a few new tricks. Most of them help me improve the performance of the enchantments without increasing the mana cost.

The core now has a lot of enchantments tied to it, and it is supplying the mana to them. The core has gone through some changes as more enchantments were tied to it. It is growing on its own, which I didn't expect at all and I am not sure what is going on.

However, so far there doesn't seem to be any problems or negative side effects. So I will wait and see what happens, it may end up being a good thing. The only thing that worries me is that the core is tied directly to the ship now.

Meaning if things go wrong, it could endanger the entire ship and everyone on it. Although that isn't too likely, it still worries me, but there isn't much I can do about it. I am fairly sure that the odds of it turning out good are in my favor, but I can't be sure.

The problem is that the only thing I could do would be to tear out the core and start over. That would take days and I can't be sure that the same thing wouldn't happen again. So, I don't have much choice except to take the gamble and hope everything works out.

I push my worries to the back of my mind and focus on completing my work. In the end, I finish everything I can think of doing before the elves are done moving. Since I am done, I fly back to the beach and help Lin pack up and move everything back to the ship.

Lin says "All finished?"

"Yep, all done. We can set sail once the elves are done. Then we will see if my ideas worked."

Lin says "What do you mean?! You aren't sure?!"

"I am sure of most of it. There are only two things I am unsure of. The propellers and the core."

Lin says "The propellers I get, but what's wrong with the core?"

"Ever since I added the new enchantments it has started changing. Almost like it was growing on its own."

Lin says "The only type of magical item that I have heard of that can grow on its own is an artifact. Just how many enchantments have you connected to the core?"

"Um, around thirty or so."

Lin yells "What?! I thought you only had ten at most on the ship??!"

"Well, things were going so well that I thought up some more useful things to add. Since I had the core I went ahead and tied them all to it."

Lin says "Well, no wonder it is acting strange! You added way too much magic to a single item. It is probably on its way to becoming an artifact.

"That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, right?"

Lin says "It depends. As long as the enchantments aren't evil or good, then the artifact should be neutral."

"Um, it might not just be the enchantments."

Lin says "What do you mean?"

"Well, the core is also directly connected to the ship."

Lin says "That shouldn't matter."

"Normally I would agree with you, but before I turned it into a ship the tree was very special."

Lin says "Special how?"

In answer I begin telling Lin about how I found the tree and all the things I fed to it to help it grow. While we are talking we finish moving everything back into the cabin. Then we feed Mulan and Mushu their lunch before we sit down to eat our own.

Lin says "You really are crazy aren't you? How could you feed so many different types of magic to a tree?"

"How else was I supposed to grow a sapling into a tree big enough to build a ship out of? Keep in mind that I was on a time limit."