Five hundred and thirty-two paid workers can move a great deal of stone when the shifts are sensible and nobody is asked to stand inside a failing boiler.
Sunset Peak’s rebuilding ran for fourteen days.
Tie Kuang recovered enough to supervise from the floor. He remained blunt and exacting, but he now carried the maintenance manual more often than a weapon. Xiaoyao became junior compliance inspector. He checked eyewash stations, fire tags, and the daily water readings.
Their morning meetings were short.
“Three points on ladders,” Tie told the crews.
“Report near misses,” Xiaoyao added.
“And nobody touches the return main without a work permit,” Austin said.
The twelve captured Siege Golems returned to service in a different form. Austin removed their blood-powered formations and installed electric motors, overload relays, and hydraulic lines. Their war spikes came off. Yellow paint and black safety stripes went on.
Now they broke rock and loaded mine cars. The pangolins hauled the cars on level rails. Chonker received a small hard hat and worked with great pride as long as roasted sweet potatoes appeared at lunch.
Two new floors took shape below Floor 1.
Floor 2, one hundred meters down, held four twin-crucible induction furnaces. Sealed white tile kept the foundry clean. Overhead bins fed the furnaces, and guards separated workers from hot metal.
Floor 3, at one hundred and fifty meters, held cooling channels and heat-recovery dynamos. Cold water moved through copper exchangers, picked up furnace heat, and returned through the protected loop. The water-table gauges stayed within their agreed range.
The first steam test produced heavy bangs in a pipe.
Tie reached for a sledge. Austin stopped him.
“Condensate. Cold water pooled in a low spot.”
They closed the valve, drained the line, and added a drip leg with a bucket trap. Austin sloped the pipe so water could not collect. On the next test, the trap clicked and the dynamos settled into a steady hum.
Tie studied the little brass device. “A Dao of separating the pure from the turbid.”
“Bucket trap. Weekly inspection.”
Xiaoyao wrote it on the maintenance sheet before Tie could write it on his sleeve.
A counterweighted freight elevator linked all three floors and the surface. Stellar-Steel guides, multiple ropes, and mechanical wedges carried twenty tons without a jolt. Gu Qing rode down with a full bowl of tea and did not spill a drop.
At the final inspection, Austin read the site summary.
The safe extraction line produced less than the old design, but output was steady. The village wells had recovered, and no new dry channels had appeared.
Austin signed the inspection.
“Three floors. Good routing. Paid crew. This is a real base.”
Then he looked at his split boots.
“Next job: work gear that survives my own workshop.”