Chapter 179: The Tower’s Heart
The moment Iron announced the long-awaited break, the central square of Dornheim emptied out. A relative silence settled around the unfinished steel behemoth.
But while the workers eagerly scarfed down their lunch and caught their breath, Iron didn't even think about resting. Every minute counted.
He spun his wheelchair around and rolled swiftly into the depths of his workshop, locking the door behind him. He needed absolute solitude to work on the most critical part of the entire project.
Resting on his main workbench, concealed beneath a thick woolen cloth, lay the true heart of the camp's future defense system.
He carefully pulled away the fabric, exposing the device. It was an elongated, slightly rounded apparatus of impressive length. Externally, it resembled a sleek capsule, intricately webbed with an elegant maze of ultra-fine engraved energy channels.
Despite its substantial dimensions, the device was remarkably light—Iron could easily lift it with a single hand. This was all thanks to the unique physical properties of the Prism alloy he used as the chassis base. The metal was practically weightless, yet possessed colossal durability and flawless conductivity.
The core function of this apparatus lay in fine frequency modulation. It was designed to operate as a high-output frequency resonator: drawing Chaos energy from the lower capacitors, fracturing it, structuring it, and transforming it into a directional wave. This wave would cast an invisible but insurmountable barrier around the camp to keep monsters out.
The engineer hooked up test cables to the end of the capsule and issued a mental command. A diagnostic matrix instantly unfurled before his eyes.
[LUMON INFORMATION SYSTEM: FREQUENCY MODULATOR TESTING]
Device Status: Active (Simulation Mode).
Energy Channel Integrity: 100%.
Modulation Circuit Stability: Optimal.
Prism Alloy Resonance Purity: 1.4% above calculated target.
Iron meticulously double-checked every millimeter of internal wiring and every energy valve. His fingers punched in commands, calibrating the settings of the frequency grid.
If even the slightest glitch or short circuit occurred in the loop's frequency calculations, fixing it later would be a living hell.
"Show me a clean pulse," he whispered quietly, initiating the final micro-test.
Something clicked softly inside the capsule, and thin, azure streams of energy raced across its rounded chassis. The modulator worked perfectly. The protective frequency was modeled and locked into the device's memory banks.
Satisfied that the heart of the future Tower functioned flawlessly, Iron cut the power and draped the cloth back over the device.
The next morning breached the camp alongside the biting chill of an early dawn and Marek's sharp, booming roar.
The perimeter around the Tower transformed into a high-hazard zone. The giant's framework had grown noticeably during the first hours of labor, surpassing the halfway mark of its projected height.
The higher the structure's ribs climbed, the more grueling the construction became. The fluid momentum the crew had enjoyed at the start vanished without a trace.
Iron constantly spun the wheels of his chair, navigating the perimeter of the site. His gaze darted between the Lumon HUD and the workers clinging to the scaffolding logs, which were slick with frozen morning dew.
"Darwin, secure the bypass collar!" Iron's commanding voice repeatedly broke into a rasp. "Elyria, higher! Another half-meter up and hold the angle! Don't let the beam wobble, or it'll trash the entire upper groove!"
Breathing heavily, the spirit hovered level with the third tier. Her translucent wings beat with double the effort, and dense, whistling cords of wind coiled around her pale fingers to anchor the alloy crossbeam. Due to the elevation, the metal swayed, fighting to break free from her telekinetic grip.
Iron locked his brakes right at the base, craning his neck upward.
And why did I think the beginning was the hardest part? Iron thought to himself. Obviously, it wasn't.
Welding at this height turned into absolute hell. The portable rig powered by the "Sun" crystal produced a flawless thermal beam, but Iron had to meticulously time every single movement, catching the brief lulls between gusts of wind so the seam wouldn't warp from the drastic temperature fluctuations.
Another hour bled by. The structure crept up to roughly sixty percent when Iron noticed that the pace of production had tanked critically.
The miners on the scaffolding moved at a crawl. One of Marek's carpenters, trying to tighten a heavy anchor bolt, dropped his wrench three times—the tool bouncing off the steel flights of the internal stairs with a harsh, metallic clang.
The men's hands shook from overexertion, their faces were black with soot and exhaustion, and their breath raggedly escaped their chests in heavy plumes of steam. Even Elyria sank noticeably lower in the air.
"Stop! Everyone down!" Iron slashed his hand through the air, drawing everyone's eyes. "Marek, pull your men out. Drop the tools."
The workers didn't need to be told twice. They slid down the ladders, exhaustedly dropping their pickaxes and clamps onto the dirt.
The square cleared out in a matter of minutes.
Is it really that brutal for them? Iron muttered internally, backing his wheelchair a bit further away from the Tower.
"Lumon, is the projection ready?" he asked quietly.
[Affirmative.] Lumon replied flatly.
"Launch it."
Directly over the real, unfinished skeleton of the Tower, a massive neon hologram flickered into existence.
Lines of light instantly completed the missing upper portion of the structure. The virtual framework soared skyward, taking on its final, completed contours. Iron could see the 3D model in exquisite detail, from the thickness of the mounting plates to the layout of the cable runs.
Lumon automatically generated trackers and text annotations for the key nodes:
Tier 3 (15 meters): The thermodynamic cooling circuit was highlighted. Amber threads linked the "Sun" crystal cell to the primary distributor.
Tier 4 (22 meters): Storage capacitor bank. The system rendered a potential energy distribution graph.
The Apex (28 meters): Inside the protective dome, the elongated frequency modulator was sharply defined, primed for startup.
Iron swept his hand through the air, scaling the imagery. He zoomed in on the junction coupling the upper tier to the capacitors. Every calculation lined up flawlessly—there were zero clearances, and the power lines slotted perfectly into the grooves, eliminating any chance of overheating.
"Collapse the projection," Iron commanded.
The hologram vanished instantly.
Good thing I made you convert my paper sketches into a full 3D model after all, Iron pinged internally.
While Dornheim was celebrating its small victory, entirely different storm clouds were gathering many miles away from the camp.
An entirely different atmosphere reigned here.
Deep inside a castle, within a luxurious but dark and gloomy study, Count Wayland sat behind a massive desk of bog oak. The room's only light sources were a few dying wax candles, their flickering flames casting long shadows across the stone walls.
The count stared unmovingly out the window into the pitch-black void of the night, his fingers tapping a nervous, rhythmic beat against an expensive silver inkwell. His aristocratic face was fixed in a mask of cold calculation.
The study door opened noiselessly, and Walter stepped into the room.
"Did you send them the letter, Walter?"
"Yes," the captain said crisply. "The missive has been dispatched and will be delivered shortly."
Hearing this, Count Wayland finally stopped tapping his fingers on the desk. He slowly turned his head toward the captain.
"Good..." the count murmured softly. "I expect them to be here by tomorrow. See to it that all our forces are mobilized, Walter."
"It will be done," the captain replied, bowing before exiting the study.