Shrug. "I'm pretty sure you can't do it if you're metaphorically a rock."

"If I could I would definitely want to learn how."

"Maybe it will turn out you can use the ambient chi after hanging around us long enough, or something." Pause. "We do not know much about the origin of various creatures, so – if you get a desire to turn dark and shadowy and terrorize people in some forests, please let me know."

"Forests around here aren't big enough for proper terrorizing, I suspect. But I will keep an eye out for sucpicious things as I already said."

"Would be convenient to check that you're not, like, a one-off. … Not that you probably are, just, you know, you're so far a one-off."

"I could stop somewhere inhabited on the way, sooner than the full trip, if you really insist. It's a bit of a delay and uses some consumables though."

"Is there anything en route? Could check if there's chi surrounding a town, low-fidelity."

"Everything moves around. Maybe we come across a small town on the way to the edge of the stormwinds, maybe we don't. Looking for one and catching it and lining up to dock and refilling all the gas and water I use to get neutrally buoyant would be the delay and expense."

"It's not really important enough to check early, I don't think?"

"Nah," agrees Akien. "– Do you mind if I have a look 'round again?"

He angles to get something out of his bag.

"Go ahead and do passive scanning whenever you like, it's fairly demonstrated-safe now."

Nod.

Blue-glowing eyes! Scanning around!

"Welp, seems like we're definitely leaking it," he says.

"I thought we already knew that?"

"Well, yes, but – it's sticking around a little, in this place, instead of just evaporating or whatever."

"...Even more on the lookout for nasty creatures, then."

"I've never heard of them just mysteriously appearing in towns, and towns usually have quite a lot of ambient chi, but – yes."

He looks over at Nick and tilts his head.

"Have I got something on my face?"

"Not that I'm looking at, at least," he responds. "You might be – a bit blue, though."

"So you might be contagious? Or you might be leaky? Hm... Anyway, I'll go string up a couple of hammocks in the cargo bay for you two and then make the glow-implements and then sleep. We're going to head out in the morning and hopefully fly all day."

Nod. "Sounds good."

So he does that. The end result is one flashlight-sized thing with a big glass tube at the top and a rock inside that, with a rolling wheel built into the handle to control it, and a similar large lantern with a dial on its top.

"Plan is for me to enchant the rock, I guess?"

"Yes, if you can get them to react to the dials."

"… It might be a bit of an experiment."

"...A smallish chunk of gold instead of useful magic things would be an acceptable substitute for the fare. If you feel it's a bit dangerous."