The next morning Lyla found Chronos collapsed on the floor in the testing room they had borrowed the previous night. After training for most of the night he had finally managed to fall asleep but from the way he was tossing and turning it didn't look like a peaceful sleep.
Sighing she walked over and dropped her mace on his head.
"Ow, what was that for?"
"It's time for breakfast. You still aren't having a peaceful sleep?"
He shook his head.
"I only finished the dream gate yesterday. It stopped the random dreams I was having but it seems that my dreams of the strange layer with gray balls aren't related to the dream layer. I was chasing the red and black mist again last night and had almost caught up to it when you woke me up."
That didn't sound good. They had assumed that his dreams were being caused by his mind connecting to the dream layer when he was asleep and discovering the connection to the dream layer in his mental space had made Chronos believe that they were right.
But with the dream gate in place, it shouldn't be possible for him to have these strange dreams as long as the gate remained closed.
"Then these dreams must be coming from something other than the dream layer." Lyla mused, "Maybe they come directly from your bloodline instead."
"That means I can't ever stop the dreams." Chronos sighed as he realized that he would have to get used to this new part of his life.
Not wanting to see him depressed, Lyla grabbed his arm and pulled him up.
"Come on, when you're feeling down you should eat."
Pushing him out of the testing room she took him back to his room where she had already set out a breakfast of omelets and bacon.
"This is a rather simple breakfast for you."
"I wanted something fast to cook and eat so we can get back to practicing as soon as possible. By the way, how far did you make it with your new skill?"
Chronos held his fork in one hand while raising his other hand and casting [Void Ice]. A perfectly round sphere appeared above his hand with several thin lines so that it would easily break open when it struck a target.
"I can use it as an attack now, but I still need to practice more so I can form it into an arrow or javelin shape."
Lyla held out her cup catching some ice that Chronos broke off for her.
"Siiip, cold juice in the morning really is the best!" she cheered.
Chuckling Chronos finished his breakfast then went to the deck to practice in a more troublesome environment.
The wind and people present on deck would force him to master the skill faster or injure himself if he failed. And despite how much Chronos enjoyed a good fight he didn't like being in pain for no reason.
Over the next four days Chronos's schedule wouldn't change much. He trained in the mornings then hunted in the afternoon and studied in the evenings.
There really wasn't much to do when you were flying, this ship didn't even have many recreation rooms or rather it didn't have any. The researchers had removed anything they thought was unnecessary in order to bring more research equipment with them.
As a result, it was a very boring trip for someone as excitable as Chronos.
When he made his own flying ship, he would have to include plenty of space for recreational activities, preferably using spatial magic to do so.
He was practicing [Void Ice] in his room and had managed to give it the form of a spear when someone started shouting on deck.
Heading to the deck he smiled as he heard them clearer.
"... I see the city! We've arrived at Malark!"
"Prepare to land! Search for an open garden or park we can land in!" Came the captain's voice.
Stepping out onto the deck Chronos was able to see the city for the first time.
It took up 6 square kilometers and was surrounded by walls nearly 20 meters tall with farmland spreading out into the plains around it. It looked like 30,000 people were comfortably living inside the walls with even more people living in a slums area outside the walls. Taking up any space that wasn't a farm.
Unfortunately, that left very little space inside the walls to land a flying ship like theirs, but they didn't want to land outside the walls and have slum residents swarm them looking for work.
What really surprised Chronos though was how sprawling the city was, with gardens and small parks dotting its landscape.
In a world as dangerous as this one, most cities tended to be cramped with large military facilities or if they were small towns, they were small enough to hide from the beasts or monsters that prowled the wilds.
Malark, however, was spread out over several kilometers with medium sized mansions in the noble quarters that Chronos could see flags flying from for high-ranking nobility.
They were summer homes kept for those nobles by Earl Malric or houses used by the eastern plains nobility when they met for a council meeting.
In the center of the city was the Eastern Assembly Hall where a council of eastern nobles met to discuss the laws and problems of the eastern plains. A messenger or representative from the Royal Court would be present at every meeting to take notes and send messages back to the court.
On the western side of the assembly hall was a tower that Chronos didn't recognize, it was made of marble and crowned in gold with the symbol of the royal family.
Turning to Micheal he asked, "What is that tower for? I don't recall it being here the last time I visited, and I didn't think anybody was allowed to build anything on the assembly hall."
"Hm, That's the royal relay tower. It was developed three years ago and is used to send messages to the royal capital. It can only send a few paragraphs but it's useful for emergency messages, if you don't mind sitting at the receiver for a few hours you could send a full letter."
"Oh, the royal capital is developing a lot faster than I thought it would." Chronos commented with raised eyebrows.
Circling above the city Chronos saw a large marketplace on the northern side of the city where the locals traded for everything they could find or grow in the plains. It looked large enough for them to land in, but it was currently filled with a bustling crowd thanks to the army camped just outside of the northern wall resting before they continued their journey towards Dracon Fen.
In the end the captain decided to land in the cavalry commons, a large yard just inside the outer walls where the cavalry normally practiced their formations. Right now, most of the cavalrymen were helping the army outside the northern gate settle in for the night.