The thirty star-copper bypass bars lay arranged in three neat rows of ten upon the gray granite.
Each shunt was a masterwork of metalworking building, forged in the underground workshops of the southern frontier before their departure. Unlike ordinary mortal copper, which was soft and prone to rusting under extreme spark loads, star-copper was an alloy infused with trace star-fallen nickel and cold-drawn under thirty tons of crushing pressure. Its surface was fluted with four spiral grooves designed to fade heat runaway. Its core contained a solid rod of refined heavy dark metal to withstand crushing force.
Lin Tao knelt over the central shunt, inspecting the fluting with his test eye.
“These will handle the first discharge,” Lin Tao said. He ran his bare thumb along the polished spiral flute. “When the trial daemon strikes, its main attack won’t be physical blade or spiritual palm. It will be a directed energy purge—a high-voltage, high-hum quarantine spike designed to turn to steam a strange flaw’s physical container.”
Tie Shan knelt opposite him, picking up an eight-pound iron sledgehammer. Beside him sat a clay jar filled with thick, black graphite grease.
“Heavy rods,” Tie Shan said, dipping a stiff hog-bristle brush into the jar and coating the threaded top of the first shunt. “Conducts fire well.”
