It took five days for Zaliah to finish the upgrades done to the ship, which now had a name.

Armageddon.

It represented the end, as it was the ship they believed would someday reach the end of the oceans.

Zaliah wasn’t too keen on the name, as the ship seemed far from capable of reaching the deepest parts of the ocean. Still, her changes had already improved it greatly.

First, she had created four makeshift cannons, two on either side of the hull. These cannons did not act normally, relying on gunpowder and cannonballs, but instead relied on a ceremony that would launch small boulders when a sufficient amount of weight was placed inside the ceremony circle, which was a symbol placed on a protruding platform that she had built with the help of Jackson.

She said that she would explain the exact way these ceremonies worked once they set sail.

Roseus suspected it was connected to her sea god, Yazu.

After this, she reinforced the areas that she said were weakest on the ship, even replacing the sail material at some point.

Purchasing the materials was expensive and used a lot of the Redflowers’ halo reserves. However, they eventually turned in their bounty from the pirate they had killed.

Usually, handing in the bounty directly to the navy was most efficient. However, pirates had to go through roundabout methods. This lowered the price of the bounty, as whoever delivered the head to the navy needed a cut for themselves too.

Once the ship upgrades were done, all Redflower pirates were present to witness the greatest change that happened to the ship.

After discarding both of their tier one mods, they filled the remaining five spots with five tier two modifications. They weren’t sure whether they would have access to five, but it seemed they had just about met the requirements.

[Applied Ship Modifications]

- Freedom Of Religion (Tier 2 Mod) → When a crew contains believers in three different gods, all divine strikes against the hull of the ship are moderately weakened.

- Treasure Hoarder (Tier 2 Mod) → When the number of treasures matches or exceeds the number of crew members, the ship takes moderately less flame damage caused by opposing treasures.

- Wanted (Tier 2 Mod) → When the overall bounty of the ship’s crew is over 100,000, ranged attacks coming from the ship have moderately increased power.

- Babysitter (Tier 2 Mod) → When three or more children are on board, the ship is naturally aided in navigating dangerous storms at a moderate level.

- Lucky Figurehead (Tier 2 Mod) → When the ship has survived three battles without repairs, hazards encountered at sea are moderately less likely to critically affect the vessel.

...

After all five of these modifications were selected onto the ship, alongside the physical upgrades, something that seemed to defy all logic transpired.

They guessed that it should have been expected. After all, the system and the seas already acted in mysterious ways.

Whilst still docked, they watched as the Armageddon shifted from a Tier I ship to a Tier II ship. They knew that such an advancement would happen after equipping five Tier II modifications; however, what they hadn’t expected was for the ship to change physically.

Zaliah never told them this.

Armageddon is growing!

It was as though invisible hands were pulling and stretching the vessel apart before rebuilding it piece by piece. New planks emerged from old ones, as the seams lengthened without breaking. The deck widened by several feet, alongside other small changes.

The Redflower pirates watched in awe as the changes took place.

The single mast that held the sails remained for a moment before a second began to grow behind it.

New timber pushed upward from the deck, forming a new mast complete with crossbeams and rigging that seemed to weave themselves into existence from out of nowhere.

The entire process lasted less than five minutes.

When it was over, silence spread throughout the crew.

The Armageddon no longer resembled the modest sloop they had purchased.

The vessel sat higher in the water. Its hull was broader and stronger, and the overall length of the ship had increased from roughly 12 meters to almost 20. Two full masts rose above the deck, and there was enough space for several real cannons should they ever acquire them.

This was a brigantine. A genuine Tier II ship.

Several nearby sailors stared with wide eyes.

Being standard merchants and travellers who did not sail with a crew, they could not fathom seeing the changes take place before them. They knew they would never have the chance to experience such a thing.

As for the Redflower pirates, they came to understand that these were the possibilities that lay at sea.

Seeing how everyone’s eyes were wide and jaws had dropped, Zaliah stepped forward and took the opportunity to explain a few things.

"Now that the ship has progressed to a brigantine, we will gradually be able to add new modifications. We are still limited to 5, but this will eventually increase the more that we sail and strengthen ourselves. Once we have 10 Tier III modifications filled in each slot, our ship will advance to the next tier again."

Still stunned silent, Roseus was just barely able to take in the information.

Blodwen, who was clearly somewhat familiar with what had happened, wasted no time climbing onto the ship and exploring its new exterior and interior. Shortly afterwards, everyone else joined her.

There was now more space everywhere. Not only did it look much better, but it could clearly hold a much larger crew.

"Forty of us could sail the seas on this ship," Captain Roseus said, rubbing his chin.

"Fifty, if you don’t mind sleeping together!" Kruger laughed and smiled, clearly enjoying the new vessel.

For the next thirty minutes, the Redflowers explored Armageddon, and in the meantime, Zaliah worked on the final piece that would finish off the design of the vessel.

She arrived back at the ship holding a flag, which she placed on the stern.

When everybody saw the flag blowing in the wind, they gawked at how beautiful it was. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The flag had a white background, with a symbol that depicted numerous hands reaching out to grab hold of a single red rose placed at the centre.

Roseus smiled.

He realised that this was the most he had felt like a pirate during their journey so far.