On Floor 2, Austin melted four Stellar-Steel ingots for a personal field kit.
Gu Qing, Elder Song, and Tie Kuang watched through the observation window. Gu Qing expected imperial robes. Elder Song imagined a cloak covered in dragons. Tie wanted plate with lifting lugs.
Austin made boots, a tool belt, and a hard hat.
“Loose sleeves near rotating shafts are a bad idea,” he said when they saw the result. The boots used naturally shed pangolin leather and Stellar-Steel toe caps. He shaped the insoles from casts of his feet. Magnetic studs in the soles could lock to steel decking.
The tool belt spread weight across his hips and held his wrench, calipers, rules, and grease pencils. The midnight-blue hard hat had a headlamp powered by his core.
He quenched the pieces in the Floor 3 loop and put them on.
The boots fit without pinching. His sore arches finally had support. The wrench settled into its magnetic holster with a clean click.
Austin took three steps and grinned.
“No heel slip. No rattling tools. I could stand through a double shift.”
He cared more about the insoles.
Tie nodded with professional approval. “No loose cloth. Proper toe caps. Sensible.”
Gu Qing wiped his eyes. “The ancient forge vestments.”
Elder Song looked disappointed about the missing dragons.
A courier arrived before Austin could finish the field test. Lord Chancellor Wei waited at the lower gate with a golden invitation and fifty nervous cavalrymen.
The court had spent two weeks trying to understand Sunset Peak. Tie Kuang’s army had returned to work instead of conquering it. The Pavilion had signed a supply contract. Small smiths were recovering after the scrap cap. The Governor had decided that diplomacy was safer than another army.
Austin climbed to the surface and accepted the scroll.
Lord Wei bowed so low that his hat nearly fell off. “The Canglan Centennial Artisan Expo requests your presence. There will be craft trials, trade meetings, rare blueprints, and a First Epoch matrix core for the champion.”
Austin unrolled the silk. His display removed the court poetry and gave him the useful details.
He read the trade section twice.
The expo would host metals guilds, independent smiths, shipping companies, and royal buyers. It was the right place to set long-term volumes and prices instead of relying on Gu Qing’s auctions.
Austin accepted the invitation.
“Two goals,” he told Gu Qing. “Find better pneumatic controls. Negotiate stable trade agreements.”
“And the matrix core?”
“If it is useful, yes. Do not pack fifty crates of ceremonial peaches.”
Gu Qing hid a relieved sigh. He had already ordered sixty.