The high-altitude sky above Cogwheel-Prime burned with blinding, rhythmic flashes of furnace light.
One hundred massive orbital star-forges, each the size of a floating city, spun in steady synchronization. Their titanic intake vents pulled raw solar winds and stellar debris directly from the void, channeling the heat through colossal bronze smelting tubes.
On the central command deck of Forge Station Alpha, Master Lu Jian adjusted his magnifying goggles. He tapped a complex brass blueprint with a silver stylus.
“The resonance harmonics are drifting by three micro-degrees!” Lu Jian called out, his hands dancing across a mechanical control array. “Elder Mo, your containment chamber needs a firmer dampener! The starlight intake must stay centered!”
“Use the ancient interlocking dragon-joints from the Central Continent!” Elder Mo shouted back over the roar of the atmospheric blowers. His white beard was tucked neatly into his heavy tool apron. “If we seal the jade core with Lu family interlocking rivets, cosmic light won’t leak even during a warp jump!”
Beside them, Tang Xiaomi sat cross-legged on a hovering magnetic crate. Her fingers blurred across five holographic keyboards, sending streams of turquoise code cascading through the station terminals.
“Spirit-grid routing compiled!” Xiaomi chirped with a cheerful grin. “I reworked the astral frequency algorithms from the ground up. Instead of drawing dirty demonic ether, the intake manifold tunes into harmless cosmic background light. It sips natural radiation like drinking morning tea! The conversion efficiency is over ninety-nine percent!”
