By the third safe test, the new line had produced only nine crates. Austin’s original plan called for thirty. He accepted the empty racks and kept the dampers in place.
The system awarded experience for completing a stable extraction and water-return design.
Austin had just enough time to read the warning below it.
The new return loop had done its job too well. It kept hot water near the furnace and turbine instead of dumping it into the deep fissure. Austin’s stronger core now heated the furnace exhaust, and pressure climbed in the closed pipe.
A gauge needle struck its stop. White steam hissed from a joint.
“Clear the cooling aisle,” Austin said. “Xiaoyao, open the upper bypass. Kang, keep everyone behind the yellow line.”
They moved without arguing. Austin closed the furnace feed and opened the first relief valve. It lifted, but the pressure kept rising. One valve was not enough for the hotter core.
He fitted a second valve to the tall exhaust branch he had installed during the redesign. The pipe led through the mountain to a high stone stack away from the valley camp. “A stuck relief valve is just a bomb with a delay timer,” Austin said.
Pug sniffed the lever and backed away.
“Good advice.”
Austin opened the stack.
A deep roar filled the pipe. A white plume rose above Sunset Peak, straight and controlled. On the surface, Gu Qing guided spectators away from the marked safe zone. No tents flew. No miners were scalded. The steam simply became a bright cloud over the empty ridge.
Inside, the pressure fell by steady degrees.
Xiaoyao read the gauges aloud. “Thirty. Twenty. Ten. Normal range.”
Austin closed the furnace bypass and left the relief stack warm.
Kang wiped sweat from his forehead. “You built that outlet before you knew you needed it?”
“I knew closed loops need somewhere to vent. I did not size it for a level-up.”
“That is a mistake?”
“That is a maintenance note.”
Austin wrote two changes on the board: a larger relief valve and a weekly pressure test. Xiaoyao added the startup steps in plain language so any shift leader could follow them.
The east spring still had not fully recovered, but its float had begun to rise. The west cellar was draining. The water table would need time, not another clever machine.
Kang signed the provisional production contract that evening. It set no quota until seven days of stable readings. It also required joint inspections and immediate shutdown if the wells changed again.
“Fewer bars, slower delivery,” he said. “Tie will call this weakness.”
Austin cleaned steam moisture off his wrench.
“Tie can call it whatever he likes from outside.”
Far to the east, Tie Kuang received news of the contract, the Stellar-Steel tools, and the reduced output. He ignored the water data.
He circled one phrase in the report.
Ownership remains with Sunset Peak.
“Not for long,” he said.