Chapter XLVIII: Warship IV

Shizukana Gake, Heian Kingdom

Month of the Tortoise 4, 172 ,328 DE

With the sun just over the eastern horizon, I enter the kitchen and find Vorn already her and eating. I started my workout long before dawn. It was a good choice. The smug cat showed up as early as I suspected he might.

"Making yourself at home. Mika-chan, why are you feeding this fat, smug cat?"

"Look at the boar-dog stumbling in late. Mika-chan has been waiting for you lazy ass to show so she can get on with the rest of her day." After insulting me, Vorn flashes Mika-chan a smile.

I release a single bark of laughter. "Don't waste your time, fat cat. The shitty old man has had his hooks into Mika-chan for years now. You're just wasting your time."

Putting her hands on her hips, Mika-chan glares at me. "Raymon-san! You should show more respect for Jones-san! Jones-san is the finest man in the world!"

After a moment, Vorn looks back toward me. His eyes are open wide enough to see the whites around the entire iris. His scent carries a mix of confusion and chagrin. At least, I assume it is chagrin. Chagrin is one of the emotions that is not easily identified from a human's scent. Animals and Ferocious Beasts do not seem to experience the emotion, and when humans do, it creates and odd mix of scent, which correspond to multiple emotions.

Being a prince from the Jewel Kingdoms, the smug cat must be used to females always fawning over him. He probably never encountered someone like Old Man Jones. While I do not know exactly how powerful the old man is, he should be well beyond the Ninth Circle of Coalescence. His simple presence seems to exude a charisma and magnetism that draws human females to him. I have even seen wild female animals and few Ferocious Beasts drawn to him in the same manner as human females. Vorn is out of his league if he expects to hook one of the shitty old man's conquests.

I give the wide-eyed cat a mocking smirk. "For a sniper, you're bad at picking your targets."

"I'm not a sniper. I'm a melee fighter. I was just sniping to keep your ugly, dog ass alive."

"I didn't need the help. That pack of trash would have taken some effort before. But now, I'll slaughter them easier than chopping vegetables."

"You're getting arrogant."

"They're just weak."

Mika-chan puts a bowl of rice and a plate of grilled cat meat on the table. "Raymon-san, your breakfast. You should eat while it's still hot."

I frown. "You sound like a mother Mika-chan."

"I am a mother. Stop arguing with Vorn-san and eat."

"Yes, mom."

Mika-chan barely keep an amused smile off her face. "If I was your mother, I would have raised you with better manners. You earn your moniker, Beast."

After I eat, Vorn follows me to the roof of the factory and into the Silver Princess . As I stare at the hole in the superstructure of the airship, I do not bother to hide my frown. The explosion from the cannon shell warped most of the frame within ten meters of the point of impact. A hole in the crosshatched metal deck gives a clear view of the remaining curves of the outer superstructure.

Hefting a hammer, I begin knocking the plywood off the superstructure. Plywood, laminated layers of wood formed into a sheet, is an invention of the Dunkle Sonne Empire. For the past several centuries, they have used it extensively in their airship production, and they are perhaps the nation with the largest fleets of airships on the Great Plateau. Depending on the type of wood used, plywood has less weight than almost any metal and comparable strength to a sheet of Sky Iron of similar thickness. Woods exist, which can be made into plywood that is stronger than Sky Iron, but those woods have correspondingly greater weight. Ironwood is an example, but it weighs a little more than three times as much as sky iron per cubic meter.

For my purposes, the weight is not the problem. The reinforcement sigils I plan to use are the problem. A composite material, like plywood, will not take the enchantment from the sigils as well as a pure metal or alloy plate. The Ironwood itself is not too bad, but the changes in nature between the wood and the laminate material in plywood disrupt the reinforcement.

"While I repair the frame of the superstructure, can you build new deck plates and repair the frame for the gas bags?"

After looking over the damage, Vorn nods his head. "That's easy to do. I'll use the chain mesh that was armoring the superstructure for material. I can use the second crucible?"

"Yeah."

The superstructure's frame was made from Sky Iron. After cutting back the beams to the point where they suffered no damage from the explosion, I throw the damaged beams into the crucible with more Sky Iron ingots to reach the volume I need. Unlike the outer plates, the frame will not be directly enchanted, so I do not care about the exact nature of the alloy.

Using a small piece of the frame for the model, I create sand molds for the replacement beams and cast them once the Sky Iron has melted.

While working, I keep an eye on Vorn. Like me, he used damage sections of the deck plate and gas bag frame to make new sand molds. He has good skills with metal working. His speed would put any of the Master blacksmiths or engineers in Shizukana Gake to shame.

Shizukana Gake, Heian Kingdom

Month of the Tortoise 6, 172 ,328 DE

Once the superstructure frame, the gas bag frame, and the deck have been repaired, we run the Sky Iron alloy blocks from the first day through the roller. The roller cold forges each block into a two meter wide by three meter long metal sheet. Each sheet is only fifteen millimeters thick, but once the reinforcement sigils have been applied, they will have the tensile strength of roughly thirty-five to forty centimeters of solid Sky Iron and the hardness that exceeds that of casehardened steel. That hardness will extend throughout the entire plate; it will not be a simple surface hardening.

With the new outer plates ready, we strip the plywood from the remaining superstructure. The frame of the superstructure is not a proper circle. It was made as a series of one meter facets that ultimately create a rough cylinder. Each sheet of plywood spans two of the facets, giving it a slight curve and making the entire superstructure section look more like a cylinder.

Shizukana Gake, Heian Kingdom

Month of the Tortoise 7-9, 172 ,328 DE

We start fitting and riveting the plates to the superstructure first thing in the morning, but by sunset, we have yet to reach the halfway point. While we work, a crowd of common humans fills the streets outside the compound and watches us work. Hiding in the middle of the crowd, some of the engineers of Shizukana Gake stare up at us with sour expressions.

As we finish up for the day, Vorn gestures at the crowd with his hammer. "Do you know the five pinch-faced fools who've been glaring at us for half the day?"

"Engineers. Incompetent ones. They don't like me much." I grin and wave at the five engineers.

With more hostile glares, the five turn their backs on me and leave the area.

Vorn shakes his head. "You really know how to make friends. Everyone loves you."

"Go fuck a cat." My almost mechanical response carries neither anger nor irritation. Insulting one another has already become as natural as breathing to us.

"You two get along better than I expected." Old Man Jones' sarcastic comment cuts into the middle of our conversation.

I do not need to look to know where Old Man Jones stands or to determine his posture. Since becoming a Triune, the gestalt formed by all my senses provides a clearer picture than my eyes. At least, it does so within a certain range. Even so, I turn my head to frown at him.

"Shitty old man. You disappeared for a long time this time. Mika-chan said you left the same day as me and never came back."

Old Man Jones returns my frown. "Shitty obnoxious brat. You dump something like that chest on an old man. Then you complain that it takes me a while to clean up your mess. You need to learn better manners."

I give the shitty old man my best obnoxious smirk. "I learned all I know about manners from you. Can't see yourself in my behaviour."

"Asshole."

I grin. "You give me such nice compliments."

Looking past me, Old Man Jones examines the Silver Princess . "You're making a warship out this yacht? You should have just started from scratch."

I shrug. "I don't know enough about airships to build one from scratch."

"Are you using Steel Mountain sigils to reinforce those plates?"

I shake my head. "Ehrbaum Series. The fifth transformation."

Old Man Jones' one human eye opens wide. "You'll be the only one that activate the sigils."

"You can do it, too."

Old Man Jones snorts. "I can't. You need to use Trinity to activate those sigils."

With a contemplative frown, Old Man Jones stares at me for a moment. "Once you leave for a Cultivation College, I have old business to take care of. I won't be around for a while."

"So you're finally done babysitting me?"

"You should join North College. It's build in the shadow of the old War Masters main temple to Life and Death. There are a few people there, who have been around a long time. One of them can manipulate Trinity. He's not a Triune, but he's still a Trinary. He found a way to use the three parts to Trinity to manipulate Trinity itself. He'll make sure you get what you'll need for the future." With Vorn here, Old Man Jones keeps his statements vague, but he clearly means that someone in North College can help me prepare for my war with the Dragons.

I hook a thumb in Vorn's direction. "He knows what I am. He's kept quiet so far. Don't kill him."

Hearing my word, Vorn's muscles tense, and he stares at Old Man Jones with narrowed eyes. He is ready to fight or flee, but against that shitty old man, he has no hope of doing either.

For a few moments, Old Man Jones returns Vorn's stare with a frown. Seeming to come to a decision, he waves his hand, and an invisible dome of Mana encapsulates the three of us.

"I don't know why you're still alive. Both me and that brat have killed people for catching wind of his secret. But if the brat wants to let you live, I won't kill you. For now. Don't spread word about him anyone. That includes your mother, your father, your current fuck. Anyone. If you do, I'll eliminate you and everyone who the secret spreads to. You understand me, boy?" Old Man Jones' words contain a threat of death and worse. He is a man who has lost count of the number of people he has killed. From some of the shitty old man's offhand comments, he has probably exterminated off nearly the entire population of more than just one or two nations in single rampages. As to how many people he killed in total, it might come close to the entire population of the Great Plateau.

After holding Old Man Jones' one-eyed stare for a few moments, longer than most people can, Vorn nods. "I understand."

Old Man Jones' appraises Vorn for another few moments, then he turns his attention to the piles of Sky Iron alloy plate on the roof. "You're taking your sweet time installing the armor on this yacht brat."

Old Man Jones raises his metal arm, and thousands of threads of pure Mana extend from his fingertips. Dozens of plates and hundreds of rivets float into the air. Without using a single tool, the shitty old man places the plate on the airship's superstructure, bend them across the two facets each is meant to span, and rivets them in place. Where the narrowing of the superstructure at the bow and stern requires narrower plates, he cuts the plates in place and secures them. It takes the shitty old man less than fifteen minutes to finish installing the plates on the superstructure. With the plates installed, he creates beams of light and uses them to weld the plates together at the seams.

With his mouth hanging slightly open, Vorn watches Old Man Jones' casual display. For a Cultivator like him, the precise control shown by the shitty old man should be more terrifying than the level of Power necessary to creates the hundreds of threads. While there are Cultivators, who have similar levels of fine control over Yuan Qi, almost none of them can do it as effortlessly as Old Man Jones. By finishing the plating of the airship in such a manner, he is making clear the threat he poses.

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