The final survey began with a map and a five-hundred-page punch list. It did not begin with a completion stamp.
Austin, Tie Kuang, Dara, and the public council’s inspection team traveled from Cinder-Star to the Outer Ice Rim. Pug rode in the shuttle with his ball between his paws. Every sector had to show its own records before the group moved on.
At Cinder-Star, Jiang Taixu reported steady turbine speed and sixty hertz on all three phases. Austin checked the boiler certificates. Dara selected two valves at random and had a local apprentice test them.
At the Azure Cloud Sphere, Chen Tian showed them the public power board. Residential heat, water, food production, and hospitals were funded before heavy industry. The reserve schedule matched Season Eight’s budget and had not been quietly changed to feed the new outer lines.
At Iron-Crag, Chonker stopped the excavator so the inspectors could check a worn conveyor bearing. The mine lost eleven minutes of output. No one asked Austin to waive the stop.
At Frost-Belt, the survey team walked the rail bed built during restitution. Wu Ji stood with the work crew, not the delegation. His compaction results were good. His freight application remained pending.
