Chapter 43 Driving a ship

It’s been three days since that incident. And in these three days, Len had completed his work. He had registered a Chamber of Commerce named Goldsun.

He had also purchased three small ships and gave an order to one of the ship building merchant to build four medium size ships with two masts. It will take at least half a month to build one ship.

This was a long term order and the ship building merchant was also happy since others had already paid half price for first ship in advance.

100 gold coins for each medium size ship and 30 gold coins for small sized ships or you can say boats.

Len had sold the goods which they had brought with them in 127 gold coins. With this money he purchased everything that the Raging Sun village was in need of. He had already stored them on the small ships which he had bought and was waiting for Alex to come so that they can set sail at sunset.

In these three days, Alex had already finished reading the two books which Master Clayton had given to him. He already remembers the name, features and the characteristics of every spirit herb and plants written in the book.

He knows about various Demon Beasts eating habits, which of them are precious, what use they have in alchemy and where to find them. Of course, this two books didn’t include every Demon Beast and Spirit herbs and plants, the amount was quite limited. But this much was enough for an apprentice alchemist to study and become a novice apprentice Alchemist.

There are three tiers before becoming a Master Alchemist that is Grade 1 alchemist like Master Clayton. They are Novice apprentice Alchemist, Intermediate apprentice Alchemist and Advance apprentice Alchemist.

To reach the 1st tier, the apprentice needs to remember names, feature, characteristics, habitats and the uses of at least 1000 spirit herbs and plants and the same is true with the Demon Beasts.

They also need to have practical experience in identifying and classify each spirit herbs for their use.

Another thing is that only a Grade 1 Alchemist Master and above can give someone the title of Novice, Intermediate or Advance apprentice Alchemist after taking a test. This same in every profession.

Master Clayton had given him two months because it really took that much time for a normal person to study the book. Even if the person was talented, he won’t be able finish the task in three days.

Hank and Tom continued with their training at the backyard which was transformed to their needs. Anna was also diligent in her training and also went with him to Master Clayton house regularly. There she would spend her time with Selena and study the books which she had collected together.

Alex also felt that he was soon going to break the barrier to the next grade.

Alex had already informed Anna and others that he would be come back tomorrow. So after packing up he quickly arrived at the port where the ship was stationed.

Len had recruited some men to take care of the two ships. These men would be managed by two members of their mercenary group for now.

Today they were just going take one ship with them as they didn’t have enough man to drive the ships. Only two other members would go with Len and Alex.

The remaining five would stay here to manage the house and the men taking care of the ships.

“Len, is everything ready” asked Alex as he gave scan to his surroundings.

Using his spiritual sense, Alex inspected everything. This have him lot of information about the ships docking here at this port.

The ships here had various different logos painted on their sales telling the identy of the group to which they belong.

Most of them are affiliated with different Chamber of commerce belonging to the Merchants and some also to the Noble Families.

Alex also found a lot of suppicious people roaming around the port. Most of them belonged to certain gangs in the city.

They were here mostly to take protection money from the weak Merchants and also to keep an eye for any information which there gangs might be interested in.

Some people were also eyeing their ship.

Alex left them alone, and asked Len to depart. They will reach their destination in 4 hours, this is only because the ship is too small and the sail which it uses is just a square rig. These are the primary and the only driving sails found here.

It is very efficient when the ship is going downwind. but the ship losses their speed quickly when they face the upwind, sometimes the ship can’t even move forward.

The fore-and-aft rigs have still not been invented yet, which would improve the upwind sailing ability. Alex knew the basic knowledge, so he thought about using it on their own ships after they had increased their influence in the city.

The small ship only had one small cabin that the captain could use and storage below where the goods are stored. Four people are enough to drive this ship.

So they departed at the time when sun would almost set.

“Len, be careful in the future. There are some people keeping their eye on this ship and you group. If something happens or some gang comes to extort money with excuse of protection then immediately send someone to inform me in the future” warned Alex while he kept using his spiritual sense to scan everything in the surrounding even below the water.

This ability makes its very easier for him to dodge some reefs which are hidden just below water surface. Alex easily passed those reefs without slowing down their speed. Even the night becomes like day when he uses spiritual sense to see.

“I will inform you but don’t do anything excessive. These gangs have powerful backing in the city. If the problem can be solved with little money than I advise you not fight with the local snakes”

“Don’t worry, fighting with the local snakes openly is the last thing I want to do. As long as they don’t do anything excessive, then we can coexist peacefully”

Two hours before midnight, the ship onboarding Alex and his group reached their destination. This place was just 50 meters distance from the shore at the turning point of the island.

In another hour, Alex saw a silhouette of a ship in dark coming towards them from the south east direction. Alex quickly stretched his spiritual sense in one direction to extend its reach.

When the unknown ship was at 700 hundred meters distance, it came in the range of his spiritual sense. Fortunately, this ship had familiar people onboard whom Alex recognized cleary.