Chapter 146.1: Manufacturing a Magic Airship
A magic airship?
Cheng Qisheng went, “Wow.”
To be honest, this was difficult.
After all the Lilithians had joined Blue Sea and become her believers, Cheng Qisheng no longer needed to consult any records. Through their hazy memories, she could learn some things about the origins of the Lilith Kingdom—the vast magical world they had come from.
To completely deconstruct an object’s structure and recreate it as a magical construct was something only a Great Archmage could accomplish in the magical world where the Lilith Kingdom had originally existed.
Although Lilith possessed the strongest magical talent, [Ultimate Affinity], she was ultimately no longer in her native world. Her path to advancing through the ranks was far more difficult than that of ordinary people in the magical world.
It was like asking a fish to crawl on land, or asking a cultivator to practice in a world where spiritual energy was almost completely depleted.
Lilith was already incredibly impressive. Even in an environment with such scarce magic power, she had managed to skip the three ranks of Apprentice, Novice Mage, and Low-Level Mage, and forcibly raised herself to the level of a Mid-Level Mage.
Moreover, much of the magical knowledge she possessed was incomplete. As for magic airships, only a small portion of the relevant information had survived.
In other words, this wasn’t like the floating devices, where she only needed to draw the magic runes according to the existing designs. Most of the internal structure and magical rune system of a magic airship would have to be researched and worked out by Lilith herself.
There was essentially no difference between that and creating a magical construct from scratch.
Even Valentina, who had only recently awakened as a mage, couldn’t help trying to dissuade Lilith when she heard about her decision.
“That would be far too difficult, dear. Perhaps you should start by drawing some small magic runes and making some simple magical tools.”
Lilith shook her head.
“No, Aunt Valentina. I’ve thought this through carefully. I haven’t just been studying all the magical knowledge available to me. I’ve also been studying technological knowledge. Although the two are worlds apart, at their core, they’re both about generating energy.”
“If energy can be converted between the two, then why can’t we combine them and use them together?”
“If I relied solely on magic, perhaps I wouldn’t be able to create a magical construct. But what if I use my magic power to connect Blue Sea’s technology, some of the Moon Silk technology we’ve deciphered, the spaceship energy we’ve salvaged from the Great Universe, and all kinds of tools and equipment?”
Cheng Qisheng, watching from the sidelines: What an absolute hodgepodge.
She knew Lilith was serious.
Lilith had become a believer of the Blue Sea Creator God very early on, and Cheng Qisheng could see that she absorbed new knowledge every single day.
After reading all the magical books in the Lilith Kingdom’s collection, she immediately went to Blue Sea’s library and began studying the various kinds of knowledge stored there—knowledge belonging to Blue Sea’s civilization, as well as knowledge reproduced from other civilizations.
She studied everything.
Mathematics, physics, biology, chemical engineering, materials science…
She was like an infinitely vast sponge hungry for knowledge, absorbing everything she encountered and storing it all in the knowledge base inside her mind.
Lilith had probably been thinking about this for far longer than just a day or two. She must have made quite a few preparations for it as well.
However, Cheng Qisheng also understood Valentina’s concerns.
Lilith was too young.
Older people could always see through what young people were thinking at a glance.
Look at it from the positive side, and young people were always full of enthusiasm, their minds overflowing with all sorts of strange and wonderful ideas.
Look at it from the negative side, and most of the time, their eyes were fixed only on the possibility of a good outcome, while overlooking what might happen if things went badly.
Take this situation, for example. According to Lilith’s plan, building this airship would require Blue Sea to invest a tremendous amount of resources and energy, along with various alien technologies that were already exceedingly scarce.
If Lilith failed, a huge amount of precious, nonrenewable scientific research resources would be lost.
But so what?
Cheng Qisheng opened a can of Coke for herself and leisurely took a sip, savoring the refreshing fizz of that very first mouthful.
Anything humans did could succeed, but it could also fail.
If you don’t give it a try, how will you ever know what the outcome will be?
It was much like back in Blue Sea’s primitive era, when Cheng Qisheng hadn’t stopped the first inventor among the Old Eighths from making his very first invention:
—Using a barbed spear to stab prey in the butt.
And now, Cheng Qisheng had no intention of stopping Lilith’s innovation either.
As long as Lilith gave it a try, even if the magic airship ultimately failed, Cheng Qisheng believed she would still gain something from the process of building it.
Take Blue Sea’s first inventor, for example. He had decided to use the carefully crafted barbed spear he’d made to poke a tiger in the butt.
Naturally, the tiger went berserk and chased him all over the place.
The man ran for his life on two legs, eventually using vines to lower himself over a cliff. At the bottom, in the valley below, he discovered a herd of wild buffalo.
—How could anyone say that wasn’t a benefit brought about by his invention?
The process had simply been a little more winding than expected.
And it also required the person involved to have long enough legs and be fast enough on his feet.
Besides, by the second month after discovering the buffalo herd, the inventor had already recovered from his injuries. With his trusty barbed spear in hand, he began going around deliberately provoking wild beasts.
Then, whenever they chased him, he would lead them straight into traps he’d dug beforehand.
Children need an opportunity to grow.
Of course, the most important reason was that Blue Sea now occupied the Broken River Wasteland, giving it access to abundant resources. On top of that, hunting mutant beasts had yielded a great many nuclear crystals.
According to the current records, the nuclear crystals that had already been deposited into the temple alone numbered 350,000.
Blue Sea now had enough wealth to afford a little reckless spending.
If they were still poor, then it would indeed be a different matter.
Having made up her mind—and having once again become wealthy enough to splurge—Cheng Qisheng took another sip of Coke.
She was still faced with the same three choices:
President, Marshal, or Pope.
In the end, the Great Blue Sea Creator God chose all three.
At that exact moment, the three great leaders of Blue Sea, each busy with their own affairs, simultaneously raised their heads.
They had received an oracle from Our God.
Oracle: Cooperate with Lilith as much as possible, without affecting Blue Sea’s development, to manufacture a magic airship.
The three of them didn’t hesitate or question it in the slightest. They turned toward the statue of the Great Blue Sea Creator God and gently placed a hand over their hearts.
“Yes, Our God.”
In fact, Lilith didn’t make any demands, nor did she immediately pick up a hammer and nails and start banging away the moment she received the oracle granting her permission to build a magic airship.
She was still working on the first step: deconstructing the airship’s structure.
This part was relatively simple. Blue Sea’s mechanical engineering team had already taken it apart to a considerable extent.
A materials analysis team made up of numerous experts, a dedicated power and energy-core team, a navigation and information systems team, and a theoretical research team had all been working tirelessly on the airship.
Their work was a tremendous help to Lilith in understanding the airship.
And so, while studying and learning, she began drawing up design after design.
At first, Cheng Qisheng was quite interested in the manufacturing process of this ultimate hodgepodge airship.
But after seeing well over a thousand airship design drawings—and watching new ones continue to pour out—she could only say that the operating principles of the magical world sometimes really did make people feel like they were dealing with some kind of super-genius straight-A student.
Among Lilith’s designs were numerous overall schematics, as well as diagrams detailing individual structures and the power core.
The blueprints included plans for pipeline transmission, control interfaces, auxiliary systems, weight distribution, and more.
Every individual component and every section joint had its own dedicated drawing. Even a small piece of structural plating had a separate blueprint.
And each blueprint was further divided into an overall three-dimensional exterior view, along with front, top, side, bottom, and other perspectives.
To be honest, after seeing Lilith at work, Cheng Qisheng completely understood why she had stopped using magic to draw her designs and switched to pen and paper instead.
Because there were just way, way too many of them!
There were already more than a thousand blueprints simply because Lilith had drawn more than a thousand so far.
And she was still churning out new ones at a furious pace. Every now and then, she’d go back through the old drawings and select some to revise—or scrap entirely.
When Cheng Qisheng was watching her, a logistics staff member happened to enter the room to tidy things up.
There was no helping it. Once Lilith entered work mode, she practically wanted to go without eating, drinking, or sleeping. So whenever she started working, two staff members were always assigned to stay by her side specifically to take care of her.
This particular staff member was from the Dazzling Star people. After gathering up the discarded design drawings, they hesitated before asking,
“Should we not throw these away just yet? I could find a room to store them. What if some good blueprints accidentally got mixed in with them?”
“It’s fine. Throw them all away. The designs here are all just drafts anyway. It doesn’t matter if a few good ones get thrown out with them.”
Cheng Qisheng: “……”
You mean to tell me that these more than thousand blueprints, each so exquisitely detailed that every tiny feature was depicted with meticulous precision, looking less like engineering drawings and more like works of art…
They’re all just disposable drafts?
—With that level of patience and ability, Lilith was going to succeed at whatever she did.
The Great Blue Sea Creator God once again sighed inwardly.
Fortunately, all she had to do was wait for the results.
Oh, right!
It wasn’t like she did absolutely nothing.
She could pat people’s heads, too.
Cheng Qisheng reached out and patted Lilith on the head, giving her a double blessing. As she withdrew most of her mental power, she also took the opportunity to bless every member of the entire [Magic Airship R&D Team] working outside.
Now, all she had to do was wait for the results.
After patting everyone on the team who was working hard, Cheng Qisheng felt that she’d done her part. Her mental power then began following the guidance of the believer network, starting its daily patrol.
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