Deep-Dive Ore Carrier—that’s what Cerqin named the boat-shaped submersible, a steel fish that ferries ore to the Deep Sea Ladder’s vaults like tides carrying shells.
But the deep sea has a hundred tempers, so it can’t be the main miner like Northfort’s rigs, which bite rock like iron locusts on dry earth.
The real digging still falls to miners, hands guided like oars in black water, on the last piece of the three-part system.
Magitech Deep-Dive Personal Suit.
Also called Magitech Deep-Dive Personal Armor, a shell like a small whale, about two meters long, runes clustered like barnacles against crushing pressure.
Its filters drink air from seawater like gills, and its frame carries a rock-breaker and metal cutters that bite stone like sharks on coral.
It mounts precise mana sensors that ping like lanternfish eyes, and a lighting rig that throws sun-threads through the cold.
At a glance it looks not of this world, a star dropped into the surf, strange as driftglass under moonlight.
Ugly on the outside, yes, but its guts are sound; tests showed it could slip through fissures into the Dragon Relics like an eel through reef cracks.
Mining becomes easy—ore pried free like pearls—loaded onto the deep-dive carrier, then hauled to the Deep Sea Ladder like crates riding a tide.
Once the Ladder fills, it rises like a slow-breathing leviathan to the sea platform, foam glittering like scales.
That’s the whole chain, a rhythm like oars and bells across water.
Each suit carries a comms system, a voice-thread tying it to the sea platform and the Deep Sea Ladder like nets linking boats.
Only one flaw: mana comms buckle under deep-sea mana turbulence, a chaos like storm-static gnawing ropes.
At the upper seabed, around ten thousand meters, voices stay steady like a lighthouse in drizzle; drop into the fissure and the mine, and words fray like wet paper.
Sink to twenty thousand meters and touch dragon remains, and interference pounds like thunder in a cave, gagging speech.
To fix it, once formal mining began, Cerqin sketched a sea-platform overhaul like a carpenter redrawing beams, and planned a seabed building at the Ladder’s fixed docking point, a stone lantern set on the ocean floor.
Fixed-point work made it easy; they raised a ward like a glass dome over sand, and in days the deep-sea structure stood like a pearl tower in dusk-blue water.
With comms smoothed, the sea-city’s affairs were tidied like nets hung to dry, knots straight and salt glinting.
Cerqin finally breathed, tossed herself a holiday like a leaf to a stream, and let the current carry her.
A month still lay ahead of the planned date, a pale moon of time, and with Eastern Sea City’s tech team, the work finished faster than the wind.
There are still thin twigs of tasks and piles of drawings like starlings on wires, but tomorrow’s bundle belongs to tomorrow’s hands.
Thinking that, Cerqin walked light as a reed in spring, aiming to find Silver Luan and Aileaf for a little ease.
She left the platform lab and hopped into a prototype small magitech car, a humming shell that shot across the vast sea platform like a gull skimming waves.
The platform is huge, broad as a town cast upon water, larger than many thousand-soul villages spread like wheat, but the car crossed it in a breath and nearly leapt into the sea, spray flashing like knives.
Its speed beats a unicorn-horse carriage by a long gallop, hooves traded for whirring gears like wind through rigging.
“Guess speed tests belong back on land,” she muttered, heart thudding like drums, clutching the car as one wheel hung over the edge like a coin on a brink.
If her Sixth Rank body hadn’t braced like a pillar against tide, that sprint would’ve been a nailed certainty, a plunge into blue silence.
“And I’ll need tiered speed modes,” she sighed, helpless as foam, stowing the prototype into a spatial device that folded like silk.
No more joyride around the platform, but the trial rang true; the speed ran wild like a stallion, yet stability was calm as an anchor.
The sea-crystal core thrummed like whale-song, strong beyond her charts, a bright note that outstripped her forecasts.
Cerqin was certain: magitech cars will largely replace unicorn-horse carriages, a new wind over old roads.
Not fully, though—roadwork is a dragon to tame; in the Holy Dragon Empire, aside from imperial roads smooth as ribbon, most paths are rough as root and rock.
Magitech cars ask more of roads than hooves do, wheels picky like cats on wet stone, so the map has miles to mend.
There’s a long list to improve, but the key step is a footprint in wet sand; the path has started.
Next is cracking compatibility between larger magitech cars and spatial expansion arrays, a puzzle like dovetail joints under starlight.
She pondered, then shook it off like rain from a sleeve; today is a day off, and labor can wait like clouds.
Feeling reckless as a fish flick, Cerqin headed for Aileaf’s research ship, quiet as a winter harbor, a cargo vessel remade into a lab of bottles like moons.
Only a few crew kept the engines breathing, and a dozen medium warships patrolled around like iron fins, danger held at bay like wolves beyond torches.
She pushed open the lab door on the lowest deck, and a faint fragrance drifted out like mist through bamboo, laced with a mana scent seven parts akin to Silver Luan, yet turned like a new leaf.
Cerqin frowned, a weight settling like a stone in her chest, pressure rising like deep water pressing the hull.
After a heartbeat she recognized it, the echo of dragon might they’d tasted in the Dragon Relics, a shadow growl like old thunder.
In that thought, the phantom dragon remnant soul curled in her spirit shivered like a sleeping lizard, and a thin, thirsting emotion rose like steam.
Luckily the dragon’s awe was only a whisper woven into the scent, faint as moonlight on scales, so Cerqin walked deeper, curiosity a lantern in her palm.
In a back corner, she found two figures poised and focused, still as cranes watching ripples.
“What are you two up to?” she asked, voice soft as felt.
Silver Luan and Aileaf stood before a device shaped like strange bones, ribs of brass and glass, and Cerqin knew its frame like handwriting.
Most of the bottle-and-gear contraptions here were built by her on Aileaf’s commission, though their uses were tides beyond her shore.
She stepped closer and saw a bottle filling with golden liquid, light pooling like dawn honey, dragon breath streaming from it like warm fog.
“What are you doing? And what is this?” she asked again, curiosity pricking like needles.
She knew Aileaf had been brewing strong elixirs, even pressing Silver Luan for daily blood months ago, a routine like tapping a maple.
But she hadn’t visited much, and the pharmacy of names was a forest to her, leaves unnamed.
Only then did Silver Luan and Aileaf seem to notice, heads lifting like deer from a stream.
“Cerqin?”
“When did you get here?”
Cerqin rolled her eyes, playful as a cat. “Just now. What’s going on? What’s this golden—hey!”
Before the words finished, they grabbed her arms like vines, and Silver Luan’s dragon tail slapped behind her like a banner.
The Love God’s gift flicked on instinctively, a soft bloom like a rose opening, and Aileaf finally exhaled, breath cooling like rain on ash.
“This elixir’s effect is far stronger than we projected,” Aileaf said, voice steady over a tremor like a string after pluck. “Near the capacity peak, it snapped into a qualitative change.”
There was fear in the edges, a lingering chill like night surf in ankle-deep tide.
“So what is it?” Cerqin asked, danger absent like a calm bay, but knowing the aura had tugged them like moon on tide.
“Divine Dragon Elixir,” Aileaf said—“refined blood of the Divine Dragon bloodline, boiled down like dew from crowns.”
Using Silver Luan’s plentiful blood, she’d found a way to spur blood growth like spring shoots, then refined dragon blood with many beast essences, a blend like tea of thunder and root.
“Nearly four months, and it’s done,” Silver Luan murmured, desire in her voice like heat under snow.
That yearning flowed into Cerqin and was drawn in by the Love God’s gift like wind into a flute, converted and pressed down, quiet as coals under ash.
