The new day began without a moment's delay. Looking up at this rising colossus, I knew we wouldn't finish it anytime soon—the project was simply too massive. But no one intended to stand still.
Marek’s workers hauled another set of beams upward. I followed them with my eyes, my mind drifting back to the properties of the alloy.
Initially, I had viewed Ocean as nothing more than an incredibly durable structural material. But the tests had revealed an unexpected trait. Under the influence of powerful mechanical vibrations, its crystal lattice began to accumulate resonant energy. Granted, it didn't generate energy on its own like Chaos did, but it could store and release it with minimal loss.
A loud shout from above shattered my thoughts. Up on the scaffolding, Clara and Darwin were trading heated words, gesturing wildly. They were practically jabbing their fingers into each other's chests. Clara stubbornly argued that the gusset plates should be overlapped, while Darwin flatly refused, insisting on a slotted joint.
Before they could say something they'd regret, Noah dropped silently right between them, while Elyria hovered in front of their faces, waving her hands in annoyance. They literally dragged the arguers apart.
Darwin, breathing heavily, eyed the duo. "And you... you two are going to break us up?"
Noah replied grimly, "Who else is going to do it?"
Noah turned his head and shouted down to me, "Hey, Iron! Settle this, or this circus is going to drag on until nightfall."
I rolled my chair to the base, glanced at the joint that had triggered the dispute, and tiredly rubbed the bridge of my nose.
"You're both wrong," I said loudly. "Clara, if we overlap them, the upper tension line will snap at the first strong gust of wind. Darwin, your blind slot will completely block the resonant circuit, preventing Ocean from distributing the wave. We're going with the third option: a through-fixation with a two-degree offset to the left."
Chastened but calmed, they silently picked up their tools and went back to work.
After the clash, the work moved more smoothly, but continuous labor in the heat quickly took its toll. After four hours of heavy installation, I noticed Marek's men were flagging yet again. Their coordination slipped, the scaffolding timbers groaned under their heavy steps, and Darwin nearly dropped a massive clamp.
"Come down!" I commanded loudly, locking the wheels of my chair. "Lunch break. Thirty minutes to rest."
The builders let out a collective sigh of relief and practically poured down from the structure, tossing their tools aside. They gathered in a tight circle on the logs piled near the square.
By then, a few women had arrived just in time. They quickly handed out deep wooden bowls of hearty, hot stew and thick slices of fresh bread. The camp fell quiet for a brief moment, filled only with the dull clatter of spoons and the heavy breathing of exhausted people.
As soon as the food was gone, I drove everyone back to the site. We needed to secure the flights of the internal spiral staircase and align the tread joints. To break up the gray routine a bit...
Elyria suddenly surged upward, lifting two massive connecting brackets at once with a dense gust of wind. Flying past Noah, she let out a triumphant scoff and squeaked:
"Look, Noah! I’m out here working for two! Have you fallen asleep over there?"
Noah intercepted a heavy anchor bolt, drove it deep into its slot with one powerful, precise strike of his palm, and tightened the steel nut with his bare fingers. Glancing sideways at her, he said dryly:
"Watch it, shorty. I’m doing the work of five. And I don't complain."
I watched their rivalry from below, checking the alignment of the flights through Lumon. Their bickering noticeably spurred the rest of the workers, who began to move faster.
"Well, good luck to the winner," I murmured, shaking my head.
Then, I immediately turned my chair toward Marek, switching to coordinating the remaining team of carpenters.
When dense evening twilight draped over Dornheim, I dismissed the exhausted crew for the day. The site emptied instantly in the gathering darkness. I turned my chair and rolled back to my quarters.
In the workshop, I immediately lit the lamps, rolled my desk into the center of the room, and buried myself in the new blueprints. Time was running out, and the upper tiers demanded immense precision.
The higher we climbed, the harsher the conditions became. The slightest miscalculation in geometry, and this multi-ton structure would simply collapse inward on itself during the very first test run. For hours, I measured the joints, forcing Lumon to run stability simulations over and over again.
In the middle of this night silence, just as I was finishing the calculation of the stiffness angles for the final platform, the graphs before my eyes suddenly went dark.
[WARNING: BIO-REGENERATION PROCESS COMPLETE]
Hidden recovery processes: 100%
Muscle and nerve fibers: Stable
Current status: Lower limbs fully restored.
Lumon’s voice came unexpectedly.
I froze. The pencil slipped from my fingers, rolled across the desk, and fell somewhere on the floor. My hands, which had been gripping the armrests of the chair, instantly went numb, and my heart hammered wildly in my chest.
Slowly, not fully grasping what was happening, I lowered my eyes.
"Restored?.." I breathed, barely audible.
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