CLANG! CLANG! HISSSSS!
At dawn the next morning, the brand-new stone shipyard at the western head of the Grand Desert Canal was bustling like an overturned anthill.
Ten flat-bottomed Heavy Iron Ore Barges—originally riveted together from scrap bandit armor and Black-Rock pig iron to haul coal along the canal—sat floating in the crystal-clear blue water of the basin. Each barge was a hundred and twenty feet long and thirty feet wide, looking like a giant floating iron shoebox.
Standing on the granite dock beside Pei Xuan was Old Boatman Liu, a sixty-year-old river captain who had led the seventy thousand refugees up the canal towpath the night before. Old Liu’s weathered face was full of worry as he knocked his knuckles against the two-inch-thick iron hull of the nearest barge.
“My Lord,” Old Liu said, shaking his gray head nervously. “It’s a miracle from heaven that your iron tubs can float on water without sinking! Truly, the Dragon God’s water is thick with Spirit Qi! But My Lord... how are we going to move these ten iron mountains down the canal and up the Silver River?”
Old Liu pointed at the heavy iron barges and held up five calloused fingers.
“Each of these iron barges weighs as much as ten wooden cargo boats! They don’t have masts for sails, and they don’t have oar-holes for rowers! Once we hit the Silver River, the current flows fast from north to south. To pull an iron tub like this upstream to Guild Master Qian’s main ports, you would need five hundred strong men pulling hemp ropes along the muddy riverbank! And if Guild Master Qian’s fast fifty-oar galleys spot us, they’ll row circles around us!”
“Five hundred men pulling ropes in the mud?” Pei Xuan shook his head firmly. “In Dry-Well City, human beings don’t pull boats like cattle, Uncle Liu. That’s how the Southern Canal Guild treats its workers—and we’re going over there to put an end to that today.”
“Then what’s going to push the boats, Young Master?” Hong Ling asked, peeking over the edge of the dock. “Are we going to ask Lord Ao Ming to swim behind them and blow on the sterns?”
“Lord Ao Ming is still sleeping off twenty spicy sheep at the bottom of the well,” Pei Xuan chuckled, turning his head toward the shipyard gate. “Today, our ships are going to be powered by Alchemy Science—courtesy of Master Sun!”
“Coming through! Clear the way! Watch your toes, everybody!”
RUMBLE-CLANK-BOOM!
Down the stone ramp rolled ten massive, round-bellied black iron cauldrons strapped to heavy iron handcarts. Each cauldron was ten feet tall, covered in thick brass rivets, and had three stout pressure pipes sticking out of its lid like brass horns.
Running alongside the carts was Boom-Pot Sun, wearing a pair of thick quartz goggles over his soot-blackened face and waving a giant iron wrench. Behind him, Elder Huo and Senior Brother Zhao—both dressed in bright yellow Debtor Vests with “Dry-Well Boiler Room Intern” printed on the back—were huffing and puffing as they pushed two wheelbarrows piled high with shiny black desert coal, low-grade fire stones, and hundreds of long, jointed chitin legs harvested from Giant Oasis Water-Spiders.
“My Lord! All ten of my Nine-Dragon High-Pressure Pill Furnaces are ready!” Boom-Pot Sun shouted proudly, slapping the belly of the lead cauldron with his wrench. “Yesterday at the Vocational College, I tried brewing a batch of Exploding-Bean Stamina Soup inside this baby with the lid bolted down! When the steam built up inside, the whistle blew so hard it launched Elder Huo’s wig three hundred yards over the roof!”
Elder Huo touched his bald, shiny head and muttered bitterly under his breath, “That wasn’t a wig, you madman! That was my real hair that got singed off at the roots...”
Pei Xuan smiled as he saw Elder Huo’s Loyalty bar quietly tick past 60, adding another +10,000 LP/day to the municipal treasury.
“Everyone step back ten paces from the dock edge!” Pei Xuan called out, walking to the front of the ten moored iron barges.
He raised both hands and opened the Fusion Cube inside his mind.
With his daily income now sitting at a whopping 5,400,000 LP/day, spending less than a million points to build an invincible river fleet was pocket change!
“System!” Pei Xuan commanded silently. “Select materials: [10 Heavy Iron Ore Barges] + [10 Boom-Pot Sun's High-Pressure Cauldrons] + [200 Giant Water-Spider Legs] + [Black-Rock Coal & Fire-Stone Furnaces]. Spend 800,000 Loyalty Points and fuse!”
HUMMMMMMM—KRA-CLANG!
A blinding curtain of golden-blue light enveloped all ten iron barges in the canal basin!
Inside the golden glow, the ten giant pressure cauldrons lifted into the air and sank into the middle of the iron hulls, fusing seamlessly with the fire-stone furnaces to form twin-cylinder High-Pressure Spirit-Steam Engines.
At the same time, the two hundred tough, water-repellent Giant Water-Spider legs melted and reshaped themselves along both sides of the ten ships, turning into massive, twenty-foot-tall Armored Iron Paddle-Wheels!
Sloped armor plates rose over the decks, reinforced iron rams formed at the bows, glass-windowed wheelhouses popped up on the upper bridges, and two tall brass smokestacks with shiny steam-whistles sprouted from the roof of every vessel!
When the golden light faded five seconds later, the seventy thousand river refugees and Old Boatman Liu stood frozen like clay statues.
Floating in the crystal-clear blue canal were ten silver-gray Ironclad Paddle-Wheel Steam-Spirit Ships! The largest one in the lead—painted with big gold characters reading DRY-WELL NO. 1 on its armored bow—was a hundred and fifty feet long, three stories tall, and gleamed in the morning sun like a sleeping steel dragon!
“No sails... no oars... and iron wheels on the sides?” Old Boatman Liu rubbed his eyes until they watered. “My Lord, how can iron wheels roll on water without sinking?!”
“Climb aboard and steer the wheel, Captain Liu!” Pei Xuan laughed, leaping lightly onto the wide steel foredeck of Dry-Well No. 1. “Elder Huo! Senior Brother Zhao! Fire up the boilers! General Tie, load two thousand Furnace-Blood Riflemen and fifty thousand sacks of Dry-Well Premium Spirit-Rice and Snow-Salt into the cargo holds!”
“Aye-aye, My Lord!”
Down in the spacious, air-cooled engine room of the flagship, Elder Huo and Senior Brother Zhao didn’t even need shovels. They circulated their Rank 4 Crimson Cloud Fire Qi, clapped their palms against the furnace grates, and breathed streams of scarlet fire straight onto the desert coal and fire stones!
ROOOOOOAR!
Inside Boom-Pot Sun’s fused pressure boilers, Spirit-Spring water boiled into super-heated white steam in ten seconds flat!
The brass pressure needle on the boiler gauge swung straight into the green zone.
Up in the glass wheelhouse, Pei Xuan placed his hand beside Old Boatman Liu’s trembling fingers on the brass throttle lever and pushed it forward.
“Full steam ahead!”
CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA! WHOOOOO-WHOOOOOOO!
The twin brass steam-whistles on top of Dry-Well No. 1 let out a deafening, majestic roar that echoed for twenty miles down the granite canal!
On both sides of the iron hull, the twenty-foot Water-Spider Paddle-Wheels spun to life! Their curved blades bit deep into the canal water, churning up two foaming white wakes as the five-hundred-ton ironclad warship surged forward like a galloping warhorse!
Ten knots! Twenty knots! Thirty knots! Forty knots!
In less than a minute, the ten Ironclad Steamships were flying down the hundred-mile Grand Desert Canal in a single neat column at forty-six miles an hour—faster than the fastest warhorse on dry land!
Old Boatman Liu gripped the polished wooden steering wheel with both hands, tears of pure joy blowing horizontally back toward his ears in the wind.
“Forty knots! It’s going forty knots without a single man pulling a rope!” Old Liu wept, kissing the brass compass on the dashboard. “I’ve sailed the Silver River for fifty years, and even the King’s Dragon Barge going downstream in a hurricane couldn’t catch our tail smoke! My Lord, let me steer this iron baby until the day I die!”
Meanwhile, up on the wide, flat third-story roof deck of Dry-Well No. 1, the atmosphere didn’t look like a grim naval invasion at all—it looked like a floating holiday resort!
Old Guo had bolted four ten-foot-long charcoal barbecue grills right onto the steel deck plates. Using long bamboo nets dipped over the side of the moving ship, kitchen boys were scooping up fat, two-foot-long Spirit-Canal Silver Carp that had swum into the sweet water the night before.
Within minutes, Old Guo had scaled and slit the fish, stuffed their bellies with green onions and ginger, brushed them with bubbling red chili oil and crushed peanuts, and laid fifty whole fish sizzling across the iron grills!
“Get your hot grilled spicy carp here!” Old Guo shouted cheerfully over the chugga-chugga of the paddle-wheels, flipping four fish at once with two iron spatulas. “Crispy skin, tender meat, and zero small bones! Every soldier gets two whole fish before we reach the Silver River!”
At the very tip of the flagship’s steel bow stood Sword Genius Ye Guhan.
His white robes billowed dramatically in the forty-knot headwind, one foot resting on the iron anchor chain as he stared coldly toward the eastern horizon like an untouchable Sword Immortal on a flying cloud.
However, every three seconds, Ye Guhan’s nose twitched violently as the smoky aroma of cumin, roasted garlic, and sizzling carp skin drifted forward from Old Guo’s grill.
“Inspector Ye!” Hong Ling trotted up to the bow carrying a wooden tray with two giant grilled carp buried under a mountain of red chili peppers and cilantro. “Young Master Pei says that since you cut the canal so straight that our ships don’t even bump once, you have to test the first two fish from the canal to see if the water quality passes inspection!”
Ye Guhan didn’t turn his head for two seconds. Then, without breaking his cool pose, his left hand shot out at lightning speed, took the wooden tray and bamboo chopsticks, and tucked them securely under his chin.
“Hmph. Since it is an official municipal water-quality inspection, I cannot refuse my duty,” Ye Guhan said stiffly—before taking a massive bite of the crispy, spicy fish belly and letting out a tiny, involuntary sigh of happiness as his Loyalty ticked from 86 to 88/100. “Tell the fat cook... the fish from Mile Thirty tastes slightly better with an extra pinch of roasted sesame!”
At forty knots, the one-hundred-mile journey down the Grand Desert Canal took just two hours!
Before noon, the ten roaring Ironclad Steamships shot out of the eastern granite hills and charged straight toward the wide, muddy confluence of the Silver River!
Right outside the mouth of the new canal sat five wooden Southern Canal Guild Patrol Boats.
Guild Master Qian had sent these five boats upstream at dawn after hearing rumors that a strange flood of clear water had burst out of the western hills. On the deck of the lead patrol boat, a scarred Rank 3 Martial River-Captain was squinting through a brass spyglass toward the canal mouth.
“Captain! What’s that black smoke coming down the ditch?!” a lookout yelled from the wooden mast. “And why does the water sound like a thunderstorm?!”
CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA! WHOOOOO-WHOOOOOOO!
Around the last granite bend roared Dry-Well No. 1, followed by nine identical iron monsters! Their twenty-foot paddle-wheels whipped the water into white cyclones, and the delicious smell of Old Guo’s grilled chili fish hit the five wooden patrol boats like a physical slap in the face!
“Monsters! Floating iron castles!” the lookout screamed, dropping his spyglass into the river.
“Drop the iron chain across the creek! Shoot fire arrows at them!” the scarred Guild Captain roared in panic.
Fifty Guild pirates loosed a volley of flaming arrows at the bow of Dry-Well No. 1.
Tink! Tink! Clatter!
Every single arrow bounced harmlessly off the two-inch-thick Rank 4 fused iron armor plates and fell hissing into the water! One arrow almost flew up toward the barbecue deck—where Ye Guhan casually flicked a discarded fishbone with his chopsticks.
SWISH-CRACK!
The flying fishbone sliced the Guild Captain’s iron helmet cleanly in half down the middle—shaving a two-inch bald stripe through his topknot without drawing a drop of blood—and pinned his collar to the wooden mast behind him!
“Captain Liu,” Pei Xuan said calmly from the bridge window, sipping a cup of iced Sweet-Spring tea. “Are those five wooden boats blocking the public waterway without a permit?”
“They sure are, My Lord!” Old Boatman Liu grinned fiercely. “And they just stretched an illegal iron chain across our canal mouth!”
“Don’t slow down,” Pei Xuan said. “Test the front ram.”
KLANG-SNAP!
The sharp steel bow of Dry-Well No. 1 hit the wrist-thick iron river chain at forty knots, snapping the links like wet noodles! Before the five wooden patrol boats could even row backward, the ten-foot wake from the flagship’s giant paddle-wheels lifted all five Guild boats into the air and tossed them neatly up onto the muddy reed bank like beached turtles!
Not a single Dry-Well soldier had even fired a shot. As the ten Ironclad Steamships turned south into the main channel of the Silver River, Abacus Su leaned out of the second ship’s window with a megaphone and shouted back at the dizzy pirates sitting in the mud:
“Attention Southern Canal Guild employees! You have been fined five thousand silver taels for obstructing a public shipping lane and littering arrows in the river! Stay right there on the mud bank—our Debtor Collection Boat will pick you up after lunch!”
DING!
Pei Xuan looked ahead down the glittering expanse of the Silver River, where the tall warehouse roofs and crowded docks of Silver-Fork Port and its two sister river cities rose against the southern sky.
“Guild Master Qian locked his granaries and drove white rice up to fifty coppers a pound to starve three hundred thousand river citizens into submission,” Pei Xuan said, his eyes glinting coldly. “General Tie! Have the men open the front cargo hatches and set up the brass loudspeakers! Let’s show the Southern Canal Guild how Dry-Well City fights a trade war!”