Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Sage Qian got up early again today, and as soon as he got dressed, he couldn’t wait to head downstairs. The apprentices were still asleep, and he had no patience to wait for them. He ran through the inn on his own and, once on the street, he saw the heavy chariot, only to notice Sage Yu poking his head out of the hatch on top of the turret.

What the hell, why is the hatch on this heavy chariot so small? It was the first time Sage Qian regretted having his elf-size body—it was too big. Yesterday, he tried to enter the vehicle’s body and almost got stuck.

Fortunately, Lord Malin pulled him out of that damned hole. Otherwise, Sage Qian might have been the first sage in history to get stuck in the turret hatch.

Dying like that would be truly embarrassing.

However, Sage Yu was not affected at all. As a petite domestic fairy, he slipped out of the hatch and waved at Sage Qian: "Lord Malin and I have already checked the internal systems. The fire control system still works, but the system has crashed and needs Bixiu and Sostak No.3 to reprogram the fire control system."

"Lord Malin? He’s in the vehicle?" Sage Qian was a bit surprised and felt somewhat insulted at the same time—come on, Lord Malin is taller and sturdier, how did he get in? Did he use a teleportation channel?

Sage Qian was puzzled—after all, just the thought of it seemed ridiculous. Wouldn’t Lord Malin fear embedding half his body into the chariot if the coordinates were off?

As he pondered this, Sage Qian noticed a small head poking out of the turret. Seeing Sage Qian, it immediately smiled: "Sage Qian, good morning."

"Good morning... Who are you?" Sage Qian couldn’t recognize this fellow at all and could only ask awkwardly.

"I’m Malin, this is my paternal lineage." With that, Sage Qian saw Mr. Malin, dressed in dark blue overalls and a gray shirt, crawling out of the turret. As he climbed down, holding the handle on the turret, he spoke to Sage Qian: "Sage Qian, this chariot is well preserved. I asked the members of the adventure team who discovered it, and they said they found it in an underground level of an abandoned base. Apparently, there was a stasis field protecting it. They only managed to deactivate it by consulting an expert from the Great Destruction Era. I think this stasis field protected the chariot."

"Yes, I’ve heard about this, the stasis field. Items placed within it can be preserved for a long time. Before the Great Destruction, this thing could even serve as a temporary emergency tool, allowing critically injured people to maintain their vital signs and not die for a period." Sage Qian had certainly heard of this. To be honest, this was a valuable item. Any stasis field that still worked would be worth a fortune.

"It’s a great thing, but when they deactivated the field, they accidentally overloaded it, and I think it short-circuited and burned out. Those unlucky fellows lost a fortune." Malin said, pulling out a tablet from the satchel on his waist: "Additionally, Sage Yu and I also checked the chariot’s propulsion system. It’s very complex, and before the Great Destruction Era, this might have been a design that combined reliability and ease of maintenance. But after the Great Destruction, when technological continuity was broken, this became very hard to maintain. If you need to move it or replicate it, it’s best to train some skilled repair workers."