Chapter 558 — The Civilian Direction
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Amid the cheers and gasps of tens of thousands of citizens lining both banks, the steel-built, state-of-the-art magic-powered warship sounded its whistle. It glided slowly across the water, and once it had cleared the lock gate on the north bank, it shifted into full-power cruising.
Reports from the control stations rang out across the bridge: "Magic net base layer normal!" "Power spine operating normally!" "Machinery compartment normal!" "Preparing to deploy magic energy wing panels—engine output rising!" "Attitude stable, power group—ahead three!"
On either side of the warship, wing-like assemblies of long, narrow metal plates and mechanisms slowly unfolded. The gleaming magic shields rose first, covering every potential weak point on the hull, while the dense runes and magic conduits across the surfaces of those three pairs of "wings" shimmered in answer to the shields' faint glow. This wing structure was one of the most important components of a magic-powered warship—and of any future super-large magic-powered vehicle—for it could supply the power spine with additional magic energy and vent great quantities of waste energy outside the arcane mechanisms in good time. Only with these wing panels spread could the warship run at full power.
With the roar of three magic energy engines, the warship gradually picked up speed and began to sail toward Tamsan Town.
On the riverbank, someone—no one knew who—started shouting, and soon the shouts rose into a single chorus:
"Safe voyage!!" "Safe voyage!!" "Long live Cecil!!"
Godwin Orlando stood on the high ground of the south bank and pressed the shutter of the magic energy terminal with his own hand. Then he lowered his head and wrote down his feelings of the moment in his shorthand notebook:
"…This steel-made floating fortress lifts everyone's spirits. People stand on the banks regardless of birth or station, cheering excitedly, blessing this voyage—the lord once said we must build a sense of pride among the people of Cecil, and now that pride is beginning to take root—powerful industrial creations, and creations made by 'us,' enough to make every citizen proud…"
The spring wind, still carrying a trace of chill, blew in from the river, and the old scholar from the royal capital could not help but tighten his clothes. Then he raised his head and gazed at the misty north bank, his eyes seeming to pass over the river, over the plains, over the mountains of the Southern Region, all the way to the north of the Holy Spirit Plain, to his hometown in Saint Sunil…
When would ships like this sail the broad waterways of the Holy Spirit Plain?
A student noticed the old scholar's abstraction and could not help asking, "Teacher? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing. Old people… tend to drift off."
...
The Pioneer would sail on. Its engine group and control mechanisms would undergo practical testing over the next several hours of the voyage, until it reached Tamsan Town—or rather, it ought to be called New Tamsan now—where it would finally come to a temporary stop.
By then the technicians would begin inspecting the engines' operation and the state of the power spine, while Gao Yang and the others would disembark at Tamsan Harbor and take a magic-powered car back to Xuanyao City. Some of the sailors standing by in New Tamsan would rotate aboard, and after that the Pioneer would set sail again to complete the nearly half-month tour that lay ahead.
—At this ship's speed, a full tour naturally would not take that long, but for the sake of the demonstration it would certainly not travel at full speed, and it would need to stop many times along the way for necessary mechanical checks and adjustments.
Gao Yang left the forward platform of the bridge. In the rest area at the rear of the bridge, he summoned Sir Byron.
"How does the ship feel to you?" he asked with a smile.