"Thanks." Cricket lit himself a cigarette and said as he smoked, "Who knows how many more tries it'll take to succeed? I'm counting on you for the ship and the navigator."
The ship had fallen apart after dropping from high in the sky.
By the time Cricket and the Saruyama Alliance finished refitting and rebuilding another ship, half a month had passed.
After confirming the time and location of the next Knock Up Stream, Lin Mo and the others boarded the new ship and rode the current toward the sky once again.
But even with a navigator helping them this time, they made it less than a thousand meters before the ship broke free of the Knock Up Stream and plunged straight down again.
This time, Lin Mo and Rayleigh were still largely unharmed, but Cricket was injured again. The navigator accompanying them was badly hurt and remained unconscious for several days.
With two failed attempts behind them, Cricket and Rayleigh began preparing and planning for a third.
Lin Mo had nothing to worry about. He only needed to go along.
Another half month or so passed like this. They rode the Knock Up Stream toward the sky again, only to fall from the air once more at an altitude of a thousand meters.
"Kid, this isn't working." Back on Jaya Island, after bandaging Cricket's wounds, Rayleigh sought Lin Mo out for a talk. "If we fail a few more times, Cricket's body won't be able to take it."
"Then just the two of us will go."
"We'll never reach Sky Island with just the two of us."
"Then what do we do?"
"We'll have to find another way." After thinking for a moment, Rayleigh continued, "There are three reasons we've failed so far. First, the ships aren't good enough.