New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 961: Malfunction?



From her perspective, Kary could feel the mana around the airplane shifting through the air like a bubble getting carried through the wind.

But, with the trail tailing behind the airplane, she could tell Jonathan was weaving his mana into the air itself, as if trying to coerce it, instead of ordering it around.

To her senses, right now, the plane looked like the nucleus of a comet, with the wind shifting around it, only grazing the plane gently, instead of pushing it to the side, and leaving a tail of mana particles behind, that got swept back up by the passing wind.

Jonathan's actions were a delicate balance, a high-wire act of precision. His control was such that the airplane was enveloped in a pocket of calm air, defying the turbulence that should have been its natural state.

Kary could only imagine how much of a toll this had on his limited amount of mana. Even if Jonathan was the most developed in mana quantities alone, without having a mana lobe, there was a finite amount of it he could produce.

It was a good thing they were already on the final approach.

In the cockpit, Major Shrute looked at her instruments with a dumbfounded expression. Her wind-speed indicator had suddenly shifted, and she could tell the plane had suddenly stabilized. But it was what came before that astounded her.

The kid called Jonathan had come running into the cockpit, his face covered in a joy-filled grin, before he sat right next to her and strapped in.

With a quick glance at the instruments, Jonathan understood he couldn't just push the air away from the airplane without affecting their descent. So, he had gone for a more subtle but large-scale approach.

Carol looked at him as he closed his eyes and extended his hand forward. And with a perceptible pulse that made the hair on her arms and neck stand on end, she watched as the instruments kept telling her about the turbulent winds to absolute calm.

She could see the landing strip ahead, with its windsock straight as an arrow on a lateral path to her aircraft. Yet, she barely had any adjustment to do with her rudder pedals anymore.

On a parallel landing strip to hers, far in the distance, she could see another plane landing in the opposite direction, with its tail at a forty-five-degree angle from the strip. She knew she should have been in the same situation.

Her mind was telling her this was all but a normal situation.

As she touched the plane down, in the gentlest landing she had done in her career, she looked at the kid, who was sweating bullets, as he opened his eyes and his smile went even wider.

"Yes!" he whisper-shouted, pumping his little fist in the air.

"Did... Did you do this?" Major Schrute asked, barely turning her head toward him.

Jonathan looked at her with a tired grin, tilting his head.

"Did what?" he asked, with the most apparent, high-pitched, lying voice she had ever heard.

Jonathan didn't give her enough time to re-iterate her question, as he bolted out of the cockpit and back into the passenger area, only to find himself in the most strange-looking situation.

When he saw the spiral in the middle of the passenger cabin, with a miniature wind funnel under it, and the powerful air current permeating the cabin, he stopped in his tracks, whispering under his breath, "Woah..."

In the cockpit, Major Schrute was receiving messages from the control tower, where the tower man was genuinely astonished by how straight she landed her aircraft, given the strong winds.

She could hardly explain it herself, so she absent-mindedly accepted the compliments, unsure what else to do. She was directed to a private hangar section, where she was to refuel and wait for her subsequent departure clearance, and she taxied her way there, her mind still floating with uncertainty.

Once she had finally reached her assigned hangar, and stopped her engines, she stared at the instruments for a moment, wondering if they had maybe malfunctioned. But everything seemed fine now.

She sat there, dazed momentarily, recalling how the winds had suddenly mellowed out gently, before becoming almost ideal for landing. It was nothing short of a miracle.

"I knew from what I had been told that I would be hauling around special kids. But I thought the man meant I was lugging some rich douchebags around. Not fucking wizards..." she mumbled.

She had to take a moment to internalize what she could only imagine was her mind playing tricks on her. There was no way that magic was real, and that a six-year-old kid had just moved the fucking sky to his discretion...

"No. I must have been imagining things. It was probably just a pocket of calmer air."

In the meantime, in the passenger area, Jonathan watched as Alex forced the now clear three orbs of water floating above the ground with his overbearing mana, before grinning to everyone onboard.

"Good! Great, even!" Alex exclaimed.

Aapo, Winston and Violette were all in sweat, smiling to themselves. Glad they had managed to keep up with the mounting pressure.

They had succeeded in the test Alex had given them, and even learned from it.

But amongst them, the one that displayed the most emotion, was Aapo. He had gone into this trip thinking they were hunting monsters, and that it would be straightforward, only to be confused the instant they lifted off.

And now, with Alex's forceful guidance, he had discovered a new way to empower himself. He had never thought he would become powerful like in New Eden.

But if he believed the guild leader's words, he could reach a new height, both in and out of the game, at least when it came back online.

Kary looked at everyone and smiled warmly.

'Even if he thinks he is good only at fighting, he has so much more to give,' she mused.

But they had someone to greet here, too. So she rose from her seat, brushing past Alex with a loving smile.

"I'll go get Ri-Chu. Take a second to rest. You look tired, too," she whispered as she brushed

past.

Alex nodded slowly at her, feeling the slight fatigue building up. But he intended to rest until they reached Korea, anyway.

"Can you also check for the blood transport?" he asked her.

She nodded before disappearing into the cargo hold, where the ramp to the outside was.

Still so many things to do, and think about. But getting Killian on his feet was the priority.

'Let's hope that's enough to get him up and running before we have to fight the harpies. Every set of hands counts...'