"So you can summon and unsummon your weapon at will?" Dan asked George. Seeing the man nod, he continued, "Where does it even go though?"

  "In me?" George answered in mild confusion, "Somehow that seems to be the case."

  "How many skills have you chosen so far?" Dan was pretty interested in what George's Class had for him.

  "Only 2," George said without even thinking, "The first one I got at level 1; I didn't put much thought before I took it, not knowing about the limited skill slots and all, luckily it was a good one. After that, I had been pretty strict with my selections. Only Bind Weapon seemed interesting enough.

  "Xeno-Hunter," George answered before Dan even had the chance to ask, "That's the name of my first skill. It gives bonuses to my attacks against anything that's not from the same world as me."

  "That's basically everything in this world." Dan shook his head in amusement.

  "I was lucky to get it at the level 1 selection." George nodded.

  Dan talked some more with the soldier before continuing on his way to the bridge. He first greeted the people there before asking Keith,

  "How are things going? Is everything alright?"

  "Yes." She nodded. "No one got near us and we spotted nothing suspicious, we are good."

  "We are in position?" he asked after sighing in relief.

  "All is good," Freddie answered as he looked blankly into the air, "We can turn south anytime you want, Sticky Reefs is locked and loaded."

  "Let's wait for the night to fall before moving." Dan didn't want to push it. "Let's give people the chance to rest and relax a bit for now."

  Dan spent the rest of the morning on the bridge, taking it slow as he either talked with the people there or messed around with the Voyager from time to time.

  It was while he was having a light conversation with her, which was mainly her holding things up to him throughout the whole ship and him telling her what they were called, that it happened. She lifted something he had forgotten about for a while now, the glassy cube she took from the Dark Lady.

  "Sorry, big girl," he said as he scratched at his chin, "I don't think I know what that one is."

  He truly forgot about that thing the Voyager picked up in her curiosity. Well, to his defence, his mind was almost split open a few minutes later and the situation was quite messy.

  He wasn't surprised that no one found it either. The Voyager put it on one of the decks where people rarely went. Besides, with the Voyager's size and how few of them there were, it wasn't that hard to believe that there were places people rarely went to.

  Telling the guys on the bridge that he needed to go check on something, Dan walked to where the Voyager put the cube, finding it just sitting there.

  Standing right in front of it, he realised how jam-packed with inscriptions the thing was. There was barely any part of the cube's faces that wasn't covered by them, at least for the five that he could see. The cube itself had a glassy feel and look to it, its colour was between extreme dark blue and dark green. Dan wasn't able to decide which of those colours was the real one, it seemed to change depending on the lighting or the angle he looked at it from.

  After studying it for a long time without anything to show for it, he had expected that, he hesitantly extended his index finger towards the cube. Fortunately, nothing happened when he touched its surface.

  A bit braver, he put his palms on one side and tried to move the cube, it didn't even budge. As Dan backed down and breathed deeply, he realised just how heavy the thing was. No matter how he tried, he could barely move the thing a millimetre.

  Shaking his head, he decided to bring William, Francis, Rose and Jackie to take a look at it. Those people might be able to glimpse a thing or two from the weird cube. He did have a guess for what it might be, but it was just a guess, they didn't know a lot of things about their new world after all.

  Time passed till it was lunch time. Dan gathered the people he decided to take with him at the same table as they had lunch.

  "As you might have concluded by now," Dan said after they were all done with their food, "I gathered you all here to have you take a look at something that might be under your field."

  "I was wondering about that," Jackie said with a raised eyebrow, "What is it this time? What worldview-breaking revelation you're going to drop on us?"

  "It's nothing like that." Dan shook his head at his bosun's antics. "It's just something the Voyager picked up from the ship she destroyed, I took a look at it and I have no idea what it could be. Well, I have an idea, but it's just a guess."

  "Then let's go," William said as he stood up with his plates in hand, "No time to waste."

  After they cleaned their plates, and just as they were leaving, Dan noticed something from the corner of his eye. It was Nulara who was sitting with Mary, Mrs Raily and Ruby. The four women were having lunch together as they chatted.

  He was glad that Nulara had a group she could sit down and mingle with. As he was about to take his eyes off her and leave with the rest, he thought of something, why shouldn't they ask her and the young man for help? They knew best what might be normal and what might not be, the time they could be spending on guessing what the thing was could be used instead on other things if they managed to recognise it.

  Dan then glanced around as he tried to find the young man, he and Nulara used to eat together, he feared the guy was finding it hard now that she wasn't with him. Once he laid eyes on him, he realised that he needn't worry.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The young man was sitting with Luke in a secluded corner of the Skyline, the Metal Sorcerer levitating a spoon while the young man held a flame to it, melting it down excitedly. In the end, they were left with a floating blob of melted metal. Chuckling a bit, Dan went on with his idea.

  "Hello, ladies." Dan first had his group wait as he went to Nulara and the others. "If it's alright with you, and you're done with your lunch, can I borrow Nulara for a second?"

  Nulara and the others first returned his greeting before Mary said as she glanced behind him at the group waiting for him,

  "Oh no! Run sweety, he will have you slaving on one of their weird projects!"

  "It's nothing like that." Dan chuckled at the granny. "I just need to see if she recognizes something we got, we won't be keeping her from you."

  "That's how they get you at first," Mary continued with her joke.

  "I'm done," Nulara said as she set her spoon down, "Let me just clean these first."

  "How is she doing?" he asked the group of women as he watched her leave.

  They had been trying to get people to be more accepting of their guests, and he was happy to see that it was working. To some extent, Dan added internally as he looked to the young man who was messing around with Luke. He was having Luke try to get the blob of melted metal into the shape of a spoon while he seemed to be looking blankly into the air, probably wanting to activate a skill.

  They seemed to be having fun, so he might be doing great too.

  "She's doing good," it was Mrs Raily who answered, "She has been a bit stressed at first, but she had been getting used to how things are here."

  Dan was relieved to hear that from her, she was the go-to authority regarding people's emotional states on the Voyager.

  "What about him?" He nodded towards the young man. "How is he doing?"

  "Oh, you don't need to worry about him," Mrs Raily said with a chuckle, "He has quite the fascinating outlook on life, he's pretty carefree."

  Dan looked once again just to see that the two men were looking excitedly at an already cooling spoon. He wondered just how they managed to do that so fast. He had to admit though, the young man seemed pretty carefree.

  Saying goodbye to the group of ladies, Dan approached Luke and the young man.

  "What were you doing," Dan asked after greeting them.

  "Nothing." Luke waved him off. "Just messing around."

  "Something might come of it though!" the young man said excitedly, "It's quite the Class that you have, I'm sure that we can work something out."

  "I don't doubt it." Luke nodded as he used another spoon to move the one they were messing around with.

  That close, Dan saw that it wasn't as perfect as it could be, with major inaccuracies here and there and the edges being quite messy.

  "I was wondering if you could help us with something." Throwing that aside for now, he focused on the young man again. "We got it from a ship last night. I was wondering if you could be of help with it."

  "Of course." The young man stood up straight away. "Let's go!"

  "Was going to ask you if you're done with your lunch," Dan said in amusement, "But I guess that question isn't needed."

  After a gentle reminder from Luke, the young man hurriedly took his plates and went to clean them.

  Dan said goodbye to Luke as he returned to William and the others. Nulara was already there waiting for him. The young man too joined them soon, so fast that Dan even wondered if he had cleaned his plates well.

  The group then walked to where the cube was put. The place was kinda far so it took them a bit to reach it, a small walk after lunch never hurt so it was alright. They also used the time to have some light conversations.

  "And this is it!" Dan said theatrically as they made the final turn.

  "A Cornerstone!" No one had the chance to say a thing, some of them hadn't even laid eyes on it yet, when the young man exclaimed.

  "So it was a Cornerstone." Dan nodded. "I considered it, but had no proof."

  At that time, almost everyone had an idea about what a Cornerstone was, either from reading about it or from discussions between them. So, the term wasn't that alien to the crew anymore.

  Dan noticed Nulara looking at them weirdly. He could guess what she thought, they were inside a ship after all, how could its crew not recognize a Cornerstone?

  "So this is a Cornerstone," William murmured as he closed in on the cube. He was about to reach out and touch it, but then brought his hand back as he turned to the young man and asked, "It's alright to touch? It's not dangerous or would make me explode or something, right"

  "As long as the protective shell is holding on, it should be alright," the young man said as he walked around the cube, studying it deeply, "Which I'm sure is the case here, I heard that if you're close to a cracked Cornerstone, you would turn mad."

  Dan felt cold sweat covering him when he heard that. He truly needed to be more careful with such things in the future.

  "Do you mean to say that what we are seeing is nothing more than a protective shell?" William asked in interest as he tapped the cube, "And that the true Cornerstone is inside?"

  "Well, I'm sure that it's part of the design too." The young man shrugged. "It most likely does more than just protect it."

  Dan then had everyone try their luck at the Cornerstone to see if they could get anything from it. Unfortunately, nothing really came from the first few attempts.

  "Can't understand a thing from those runes," Rose said.

  "Same," William added, "And my Branching Upgrades doesn't even react to it. It must be either way higher than what my skill can achieve or it's already as perfect as could be."

  "I might be able to build something with it as the core," Francis finally said after he studied it for a long time, "But I need to understand what effect it has, how it would react with the other parts of the design, and what the thing as a whole would even do, so it's nothing more than a hypothesis."

  Dan just shook his head when everyone was done, he kinda expected it. That version of Cornerstones could be seen as the combined effort of two of their new world's superpowers, it wouldn't be easy to realise its secrets.

  "Jackie, what's wrong?" He suddenly saw his bosun looking at the cube with a deep frown, tapping it constantly.

  "I feel something," Jackie finally said, "It's an instinctive sense from my Class, not a skill or anything."

  "What is it?" William beat Dan to the question.

  "There should be some soul remains inside."