Balthazar and his friends had been sailing along the coast on the Marquessian Dame for a couple of days now, slowly making their way to the cliffs that the crab’s map marked as his destination.

  Blue spent most of her time flying around in the sky over the ship, enjoying the breezy freedom of the open sea and hunting down pesky seagulls who came too close to their boat, much to Balthazar’s approval.

  Druma, oher hand, had experienced a much rougher time. The young goblin learned soon after their departure from the dock that he suffered from severe seasiess, which left him spending most of his time onboard retg and dry heaving over the side rail. Despite his misfortune and slightly paler shade of green, the loyal assistant still mao always give his boss a pained smile and reassure him that he was fine aed to soohe are wizard again.

  The Dame was a small but fine vessel, built by Captain Leander as his personal project after retiring. It was designed as a replica of his former and much rger ship back when he was still on active duty, but scaled down and built specifically to be manned by one person alone.

  Despite their destination being a retively short distance away from the Marquessian Bay, the old sailor expio the crab that they would have to proceed very cautiously and slowly, as that was the trick to reach the treacherous coast Balthazar wanted.

  Many a traveler had met their do to reach those cliffs, either by nd, getting lost in the dense and danger-filled forests surrounding them, or by water, finding themselves shipwrecked in the jagged rocks around that coast.

  Despite his eagero finally find Tweedus and hopefully a way to repair the golem core he had been carrying ever since he left his pond, Balthazar did not mind the wait. He had already spent so much time looking for mangoes just to get dires to where he was doing, a couple more days were not going to hurt.

  Perhaps traveling the ti was starting to teach the mert the virtue of patience.

  “Bah, I’ve been trying for two days, I’m never going to get it!” the frustrated crusta excimed.

  Or maybe not.

  Standio Captain Leander on the deck of the ship, Balthazar waved dismissively at the practice dummy in front of him after another unsuccessful attempt at exeg the skill the old tutor had been trying to teach him.

  “Patience, my friend,” the veteran said, arms crossed as he calmly the crab. “Not everyone learn new skills instantly, especially ones as powerful as this. It often takes a long time and a lot of effort.”

  I like it a lot more when I just look at a glowing scroll a right away. Balthazar thought, but still choosing to keep that faself as to avoid awkward questions about how a local crab was able to learn skills from scrolls only adventurers were known to be able to use.

  The secret skill Leander had agreed to teach him was called Mega Punch. Acc to the unarmed bat expert, the teique involved a punch so powerful that no defense or blog measure was able to break it onleashed.

  The captain demonstrated the move shortly after they set out to sea, using one of the wood and straw practice dummies he had brought on board for the trip.

  Balthazar’s eyestalks nearly popped off his shell wheched the seasoned veteran’s fist begin to glow white with power, followed by an unstoppable punch forward that brht through the target, sending wood chips and straw flying everywhere.

  To further show how unbreakable the skill was, Leander had brought an old steel shield from the training hall as well. After pg the shield in front of a barrel full of sand and aarget dummy behind that, he charged up one more Mega Punch.

  The already impressed crab was stunned whehe old man’s muscur arm punch forward with white-hot energy. It effortlessly shattered the shield, ripped right through the barrel, sending exploding sand everywhere, and once again pletely destroying the practice dummy behind it.

  As cimed, that skill was unstoppable oivated, and Balthazar was excited to finally have some way to tribute more in a fight beyond just running his mouth.

  Unfortunately, that excitement quickly withered away ohe crab realized his pincers weren’t quite patible with… pung.

  “Alright, the first step is to make a fist,” Captain Leander had told him on the first day when they began practig.

  “I… don’t have fists,” Balthazar replied with a cocked eyestalk.

  “Right. Fair point. Try maybe closing your… pincer?”

  And so began the crab’s efforts to perform the most basic forward movement of pung, but no matter how much he tried, his front limbs were just not built for jabs like a human’s.

  After much pincer spping, cw smag, and pincher swatting, the mert was about ready to give up.

  “There’s no use, captain. I’m never going to be a fighter. Pung just doesn’t work for me.”

  Leander sighed deeply as he crossed his leathery arms uhe high noon sun bathing the deck.

  “This doesn’t even sound like you, Balthazar,” he said. “Where is the self-fident crab that walked into our city, solved the mango crisis, a up against a dangerous witch? Or the prodigal mert that sold beach sandals to those mermaids we asked for dires when we were lost in the fog this m?”

  The crusta let out a sigh of his own. “All those things only required me to talk, not actually fight. Maybe I’m just not built fhting.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” the man said. “I was hopeful that a melee skill that did not require holding a on would work for you, but maybe hand-to-hand bat is just not possible for you either.”

  “Too bad there aren’t any pio-piutors,” the defted crab said. “Or even just pio-hand ohere’s a clear hole in that market.”

  “Or…” the captain started. “Maybe we’re just stubbornly going about it in the same way over and over instead of sidering differehods.”

  “Hmm, I have been known to do that,” Balthazar uated. “What do you have in mind?”

  The sailazed at the sea thoughtfully. “Perhaps you o focus on what you do, rather than what you’re seeing me do. I use my fist to deliver a punch. What would be the equivalent for a crab’s cw?”

  Staring off at the horizon too, Balthazar pohe old man’s wisdom.

  He was right. The crab had never beeo solve his problems through punches. Whether it was a slippery fish in his pond, an annoying twig on his path, or even a pestering adveepping on his shell, the crusta’s answer had always been a swift pinch with his pincer.

  “Hmm, what if…”

  The mert looked at the straced against the ship’s rail. Instead something he was no good at like silly human punches again, Balthazar decided to focus on something he knew much better.

  Flexing all of his eight legs and pulling his right arm back, the giant crab opened his rge pincer and held it back firmly.

  “That’s right, Balthazar,” Captain Leander said, pg his hand on the left side of the crab’s shell. “Focus ohing I’ve taught you the past few days, but use it in your own way. el it. Make it yours.”

  Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, the crab pictured his tutlowing fist again. Unbreakable, unyielding, unwavering. Thehought all the way back to the day he discovered that mysterious scroll, when that foolish adveepped on his shell aaliated by ping his ankle.

  And then he remembered the day Madeleine was taken by the dragon and he owerless to stop it.

  Snapping his eyes open, Balthazar pushed his cw forward as a faint white energy started glowing all around it.

  Surprised by his ow, the crab closed his pincer around the neck of the practice dummy, cutting its straw head off and sending it flying into the water below.

  [Revealing new skill…]

  [Mega Punch is inpatible with current anatomy]

  [Adapting skill…]

  [Mega Pinch]

  [Skill - A tier]

  [Requirements: 20 STR]

  [Cost: 30 mana]

  [For 60 seds, your pinch will carry unbreakable force, making it physically impossible to disrupt its grasp.]

  [Would you like to learn this skill?]

  [Yes] [No]

  “Woah…”

  “I think you did it, Balthazar,” the proud captain said. “You learned your own way of using my teique.”

  “I… I think I did,” the smiling crab said, looking down at his own pincer, which had returo normal.

  “Land ho!” Druma shouted from the front of the ship.

  “And not a moment too soon,” Leander said, peering through his spygss. “We’ve arrived at your destination!”

  The old sailor rushed to the wheel, leaving Balthazar to gaze upon the description of his newly learned skill.

  Damn, expensive one. 30 mana. I really wanna try it, but it would e all the mana I have, so I should save it for a moment of need. Who knows what we’re about to enter on that coast.

  Then his eyes went back to the requirements lines.

  Wait a minute… 2th?! Ah, crabapples! I don’t have anywhere near enough to use it!

  Suddenly feelied again, the mert did some quick calcutions in his head.

  I’d o i every attribute point I’d get for the five levels just to get enough Strength to use this thing. That’s way too much!

  He thought back to his enter with Velvet, and how his Gift of the Crab had been unsuccessful against her because his Charisma wasn’t high enough. His iion from then on was to put every new point he’d get into boosting his Charisma even more. But now that would mean all his efforts to learn a bat skill from Leander would have been for nothing if he didn’t get enough Strength to fully unlock it.

  For every new aplishment, a new setback.

  Choosing to leave his new drum for ter sihere was little he could do about it at that moment, Balthazar joihe captain as he brought the ship closer to shore.

  The crab looked at his map and at the spot Ruby had marked on it as the location of Tweedus’s hideout. They were close. Somewhere past that small beach, beyond the dense forest surrounding it, and on the rocky cliffs above.

  “Well, this is where we part ways, my friend,” Captain Leander said as Balthazar and his two panions desded from the Dame and onto the sand. “I must return to Marquessa as quickly as possible and mahe guardsman situation as promised, before Olivia starts giving her aunt too much trouble.”

  “I really wish we could get a guide through that forest too,” the mert said, gng back at the derees past the beach.

  “I wish I could help you, but the deal was only to show you how to reach this area. And to be ho, I’m probably doing you a favor by not ing along. The fairies said to dwell in these woods do not take kindly to the raen that dare eheir domain. Maybe they will be o a crab.”

  After saying farewell to the captain and watg him depart on his ship, the crab, goblin, and drake turo the forest.

  “Well, n baow,” Balthazar said with a deep breath. “Let’s find that wizard.”

  As the trio crossed past the treelihe small goblin started growing visibly worried.

  “What’s wrong, Druma?” the crab asked.

  “Druma is scared,” the assistant said, grasping the borders of his hat nervously. “Druma always hear that fairies are mean and hate goblins.”

  “Rex,” the goblin’s boss said. “I’m sure they ’t be that bad. They’re just little winged, sparkly creatures. That doesn’t souhreatening to me.”

  Druma kept on following the mert into the forest despite his clear wariness.

  “e on, I bet we won’t even find any fairies here,” Balthazar said as small glowing sprites began appeariweerees all around them.