Chapter 310: The Final Stage of the Dragon’s Construction

Three days had passed. The dragon's massive body was fully assembled: a powerful metal frame, heavy legs, a long tail, and enormous wings filled the entire vast space of the pocket dimension. Its huge head was in place too, but it still needed a few finishing touches.

Iron and Abel hovered in the air right beside the massive skull, examining the exposed control panels.

"If we route the main energy flow through the central node straight to the jaw, like you're suggesting, it'll burn out all the optics the moment we accelerate," Iron began, crossing his arms over his chest.

Abel frowned and waved off his words.

"Nothing's going to burn out if we install a wave stabilizer at the input. Without a direct feed, the sensors will start going blind at any high speed, and that whole panoramic view of yours will turn into a useless mess of pixels."

"What's the stabilizer got to do with it?" Iron shot back irritably, leaning forward slightly. "We're not building this so she has to reboot every time. The optics need to be spread across the side plates, not all crammed together under the forehead armor."

"Across the sides? You want to leave blind spots right in the middle, in front of her snout?" Abel raised an eyebrow skeptically, looking at him like he was an idiot. "Brilliant. We'll be flying blind, but at least our sensors will be nicely spread out."

"I'm talking about a distributed network, not blind spots," Iron replied, his tone growing harsher.

Both fell silent at once, letting out a long breath.

A brief, ringing silence followed.

Iron leaned one hand wearily against the dragon's metal head, looking off to the side, before finally breaking the silence:

"Still, I don't quite get... why the hell we needed a dragon in the first place."

Abel shook his head, slowly drifted down, and landed right on top of the dragon's massive head.

"There was a vote on what we'd use to get there. Most people voted for a huge, sturdy, beautiful machine that I invented."

Iron gave a skeptical snort, still not really sold on the idea.

Abel smiled a little and added:

"And when the vote was almost over, Kai said: 'Let's make it a dragon.' And everyone went along with it." He lightly tapped the dragon's head with his foot. "And, well, there it is. As you can see, it's finished."

Iron looked over the massive metal skull skeptically and snorted.

Noticing his doubts, Abel immediately suggested a compromise, adjusting the idea to account for what Iron had said:

"Listen... what if we don't cram everything into one node or spread it out along the sides? Let's do it differently: we'll run the sensors through a distributed bus, but route them into a quantum buffer, like the one you suggested. That way, the power won't burn them out, and we won't have any blind spots in front of the snout. The image will be clear, and the energy flow will be distributed evenly."

Iron glanced at him over his shoulder, mentally worked through the setup, and finally nodded.

"All right. Let's do that."

Without wasting any time, they got to work.

First, they carefully removed the top armor plate from the skull, exposing the internal assembly compartment. With a few deft movements, Iron secured a silicon-crystal distributor in the central slot, which was responsible for filtering out visual noise, while Abel worked alongside him, soldering the power buses to ensure an uninterrupted energy supply.

With practiced movements, they installed quantum-resonance lenses into the dragon's eye sockets and forehead. These lenses had been specifically designed to detect the slightest changes in air density, see clear streams of mana over enormous distances, and provide a full 360-degree panoramic view.

All that remained was to secure the final protective covers to make sure the system wouldn't be damaged during its first sudden acceleration or an overload. The work went smoothly, and before long, everything was ready for the first test.

Abel pressed the biometric module on his wrist once. A couple of quick movements across the touch panel, and a panoramic 360-degree display unfolded in the air before them.

Iron moved a little closer, studying the screen carefully. The image came into focus instantly: the grass of the pocket dimension, the sky, and the tools and parts floating in the air were all clearly visible. Everything was displayed with perfect clarity, covering the full 360 degrees.

"The focus is a little off around the edges," Iron pointed out, indicating the edge of the screen with his finger.

Abel immediately tilted his wrist, tapped a couple of virtual keys, and the system adjusted the lenses. The image straightened out, eliminating even the slightest distortion.

Wanting to see how the system performed, Iron lightly tapped a wrench floating nearby with his finger. The tool immediately shot away and teleported far ahead.

The wrench appeared perfectly clear on the screen: even the tiniest scratches on the metal and every little crack in the handle were visible, despite the fact that they couldn't see it directly from their current position. Abel tapped the screen once more, and the system highlighted faint traces of residual mana around the wrench.

Satisfied smiles appeared on both Iron's and Abel's faces.

Abel flicked his wrist, and the holographic screen immediately went dark. The device on his wrist returned to its original position with a short beep.

Both let out a breath after the intense adjustments, slowly descended, and began examining the structure from the outside.

A few seconds later, Abel spoke calmly as he looked over the dragon's massive silhouette:

"Well, that's it. The vehicle is completely ready. All that's left is to build the place where we'll all live."

Iron nodded in agreement, then immediately asked:

"Yeah... Do you have any sketches or at least a basic framework for it?"

Abel turned around and waved a hand.

"Yeah, I've got something."

In the very next second, a massive structure materialized before them, consisting of two enormous, slowly rotating rings. They glowed with a bluish light and took up quite a bit of space.

Abel stepped forward, gesturing toward them as he turned to Iron.

"I think you've already figured it out... This system is designed to completely cancel out inertia and maintain perfect balance. We won't be shaking, tilting, or getting thrown around during flight."

Iron looked at the rings carefully and replied calmly:

"Yeah, I already figured that out."

"Basically, the foundation is ready," Abel continued. "All that's left is to build the actual place where we'll all stay."

"So, a house?" Iron asked.

"You could put it that way," Abel nodded.

Slight, excited smiles appeared on both their faces.

"A week," Abel said.

"A whole week," Iron repeated, a hint of excitement in his voice.

Without wasting any more time talking, they immediately got to work.

"So, where do we start?" Iron asked, looking over the work ahead of them.

Abel thought over the order of things for a moment before answering confidently:

"First, we'll build the supporting frame for the living module right between the rings, so the load is distributed evenly."

"Okay," Iron said, immediately getting to work.