With its new high-powered Wind-Type Magic Engine and the support of a large water magic array, the Wingspan could reach a top speed of over thirty kilometers per hour, roughly equivalent to more than fifteen knots.
Although that was still well behind the ocean-going ships on Earth, the Magic Research Institute and the Magic Machine Tool Research Center still had considerable room to improve the Wind-Type Magic Engine. Research into the Fire-Type Mana Engine had also progressed far enough that it might succeed before long, so the ship's power would increase further.
More importantly, the large water magic array attached to the bottom of the mana-powered ship, which used water currents for propulsion while reducing water resistance to increase its speed, was still only in the early stages of development. Further research into this magic array, or the development of a more effective supporting water magic array, would undoubtedly increase the ship's speed again.
Xu Yi was fully confident that mana-powered ships would eventually match the speed of Earth's seagoing vessels, and might even surpass them.
After all, the large supporting water magic arrays used by mana-powered ships were something Earth did not have.
With the help of this water magic array, mana-powered ships were also far less affected by currents. It minimized the effects of storms at sea, greatly improving safety, while making ordinary voyages so steady that they felt like traveling over land, with almost no jolting.
The Wingspan sailed so smoothly that even its captain, Nevall, found it rather boring.
He had been born by the sea and had gone out fishing aboard seagoing boats with his parents since childhood. He had spent almost his entire life at sea and had long grown accustomed to its rough, dangerous, and exciting life. Commanding the Wingspan was so uneventful