“Cerqin—where’s Baili?”

Business done, Qianli slid up to Cerqin like a sparrow to a branch, peering left and right through the crowd like reeds in wind.

“She’s not here?”

“Took a mission—said there was work outside… slipped out last night like a boat at dusk.”

“I see…” His sigh drifted like a faint sea breeze.

“Hey, don’t look so deflated, tides return fast—she should be back soon.”

“Mm-hm…” His hum was a pebble dropped into still water.

Cerqin grinned at Qianli, sunlight on ripples. “Perfect timing—come help me, I promised Sister Baili we’d refit the Black Dragon Battleship.”

“I’m not good at this stuff… can I even help?” His doubt hung like mist over the deck.

“Relax, it’s pure muscle—just shape to the blueprints, like clay to a mold, you won’t crush steel like tofu.”

With a steady hand, a Sixth Rank mind shapes tiny parts like carving bamboo joints, precise and clean.

With extra hands, part-making picked up like a following wind, tools rising and falling like gulls over waves.

Meanwhile, Cerqin tweaked the schematics, threads of ink weaving to fit the Black Dragon Battleship’s inner bones like sinew under iron skin.

Able to carry more storage gear, the Silver Luan dove again and again like a silver fish, hauling up every ore needed for the refit.

When all was ready and dusk pooled like ink, Cerqin marshaled the knights to assemble parts, brushes sweeping new color like twilight on sails.

The cabins took on softer hues like warm lantern-glow, and the mana conduits were masked and segmented like bamboo nodes under lacquer.

They added ornaments like constellations and laid new arcane circuits like starlit rivers under the hull.

After a flurry of work like hammers in rain, the skin looked unchanged, but the Black Dragon Battleship had new bones and breath within.

“Mana consumption dropped this much…?” In the core control room, the resident captain stared, eyes wide like moons over a halved crystal trough.

After a routine cruise, he sighed in awe like wind over a calm sea. “This is incredible—the storage system cuts crystal costs nearly in half, and the segmented pipes trim maintenance like pruning a grove.”

“Miss Cerqin, you’re amazing,” he said, voice bright as sunlight on brass gauges.

“In truth, there’s still room to grow,” Cerqin said, thought flowing like an underground spring.

Time was short, so she’d added one core function like a heart chamber—mana storage, neat and sealed.

Plenty onboard could be enhanced with magitech like grafting branches, not ripping out old roots, just optimizing existing magic.

Magitech isn’t always stronger than magic—runes hold native grace like calligraphy in wind, especially for arrays that gather and carry mana like rivers.

“Overall refit’s a big project—we’ll take it slow, like laying a path stone by stone.”

The core room’s new door slid open like petals, and a knight hesitated in the frame like a deer before stepping in.

“Report, Captain: systems normal,” he said, words crisp as flags snapping.

Qianli followed, fingers brushing the doors that parted like quiet waves. “It opens by itself—so cool!”

“I set a trigger in the auto-door,” Cerqin chuckled, pride bright as a bell. “Only chosen folks make it open like a bloom at their step.”

At the threshold, the detection array feels a two-meter ring like whiskers in water, and only a recorded mana ripple lets the door glide.

She’d planned auto-doors only for public and critical rooms like watchtowers and vaults, a careful grid of light.

Halfway through parts, she realized if mana conduction was segmented like split streams, private spaces could register mana scent too.

It got more complex than planned like knots in rope, and real feedback on usability and stress will take time like curing timber, but the system works.

“Yeah, Baili should be happy with the Black Dragon Battleship,” she said, thoughts turning like a compass. “Further upgrades must wait—we need to solve mining first.”

After finishing, ideas bubbled up one after another like spring water, bright and restless.

Since they’d chosen not to return to Eastern Sea City and to remain at sea, the urgent task was deep-sea mining before shipped materials arrived.

She drifted a moment, and in the side window’s glass like a still pond, the watchtower reflected with two knights on duty.

One held a flag like a bright leaf, because the tower’s biggest job, beyond vigilance, was signaling other ships like lantern talk across waves.

“The Sanctuary mined deep-sea veins before,” she mused, “a mature method like an old road, but the cost is steep as a cliff.”

If a vein yields little—if it’s small—the cost becomes a millstone, and you lose more than you gain like pouring water into sand.

The Dragon Vein Ruins hold mega deposits like mountain ranges under the sea, worth any price, especially the sea-within-the-sea below with rare ores like stars in a trench.

By the Sanctuary’s method, cost explodes like an avalanche, because it’s very deep, beyond patience and coin.

At ten thousand meters of sea and ten thousand of strata, the method drills a downward shaft like a hollow spear and shapes a magic cavity at the seabed.

The deeper you go, the cost rises like an exponential tide, doubling like dark waves in a storm.

The best part is, once the magic cavity is set, mining inside feels like a land tunnel, steady and known as a footpath.

“But the materials for a downward shaft might exceed those for a sea platform,” she noted, weight heavy as iron on the tongue.

Even Qianli, who knew little, could imagine the trouble like tangled nets, frowning at the scale.

“Building a large magic cavity at extreme depth is brutal in theory,” Aileaf said, brow creased like folded paper. “Over 10,000 meters needs at least a Seventh Rank caster.”

“You’d need a sea of magic crystals to shape the array and feed it like a furnace, and keep it running without sleep.”

Ores dug inside must be precious like jade, or the method bleeds profit like a cracked jar.

“Outer zones hold mostly common mana stone, right?” someone said, voice dry as salt. “Then half the ore maintains the cavity—a loss.”

“If not for water pressure, underwater mining would be fine,” another offered, hope flickering like a lamp.

“Then there’s transport—you can’t give every miner a space ring, so you need fixed caches like waystations, and surfacing is a headache.”

“Even with pressure solved, you’ll burn through underwater breathing potions like rain on sand,” someone sighed, worry like low clouds.

In the control room, their debate crackled like a brazier, and even Qianli tossed in thoughts like pebbles, eager and bright.

Cerqin stayed quiet, thinking, weaving several feasible plans like nets in her mind, taut and clean.

They’d wait for the Divine Officer to return from Eastern Sea City with the first basic materials and the Sanctuary’s deep-sea schematics like sealed scrolls.

Cargo ships crawl like turtles, unlike warships; add the round trip and prep, and it’s at least a week like seven stones on a path.

In that time, she’d pick a site for the sea platform like choosing a harbor, and tinker up a few little gadgets like fireflies in a jar.