The mages of the research institute had actually debated the warship's levitation-gliding function for quite some time.
Some mages believed that, compared to the deep-diving mechanism of Luskan's ghost pirate ships, this function was rather useless.
After all, stealth allowed pirate ships to gain a whole series of advantages—initiative, ambushes, strategic redeployment, and more. Letting a seagoing vessel take to the air, and only for temporary levitating glides at that—the difference between the two was obvious.
Of course, it could not be said that the function was utterly worthless. Once a ship broke free of the sea's resistance, whether fleeing from a disadvantageous position, evading concentrated bombardment, or pursuing in leaps and bounds, it could grant their side an enormous advantage.
The only question was: at what cost?
As Northlanders, especially after seeing the floating city Soft Wing of the Silvermoon Dragon Mother, Weila Malandaisi, who could help envying such permanent flight?
Li Wei's old friend Silver Wing had not concealed the principles behind its levitation.
The reason it could remain permanently airborne lay in the two permanently fixed Spell Abilities inherent to the artifact Crown of the High Mountain held by the Dragon Mother:
[Focus Stone] and [Greater Levitation].
The former used spells to alter a gemstone, allowing it to permanently store magic and become a magical gem for a certain form of spellcasting.
The latter's levitation effect was directly made permanent upon that Focus Stone.
Both were fifth-circle spells, but Focus Stone had been a foundational technology behind Netheril's tremendous advances in magic-guidance technology. Yet this spell seemed to have been lost along with Netheril's fall.
Without this technology, or a Focus Stone permanently imbued with Greater Levitation, they could only seek out the elemental cores of large elemental lifeforms as substitutes.
But when Igg produced a Connor