Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 862 - 861 - Fully Functional

It took 8 years, 4 months, and 2 weeks to complete primary construction. The Wings of Freedom had finally become fully fleshed out.

Wen floated off the port side and took it all in as 8 tethers held it down.

It was a strange feeling seeing it float without any cultivator infusing Qi into it. The Hacore tests had been smooth and now the ship floated in place as they had hoped.

The color was just the base color of the ore on the hull so it was a dark gray overall.

There were no windows built in despite some requests for them.

The major changes were the backend that had been covered by a crystal veil was now enclosed by a curtain of golden metal. She did not quite understand what it was for but she had seen it open and close for its own tests.

The main body had 4 extensions coming off it towards the tail end. They were able to move but she understood they were part of the flight ability of the ship.

Each arm ended in fins that had crystals on the back but reinforced metal armor on the front.

She now knew why the upper section had flat surfaces on the side as similar crystal structures could help with piloting it.

The True Lord called them thrusters but she thought of them more as Qi flow manipulators seeing how they pulled or pushed Qi through them.

The side she was facing was being decorated by Hope as she rode on the back of the dragon she had befriended. The golden letters were refined and elegant as they spelled out the name of the ship.

As Wen looked on, the various surfaces and thrusters were lighting up as tests were being run but it was essentially just confirming what they already knew.

The Wings of Freedom was fully functional.

The real test would be a true flight outside the dry dock barrier.

She flew over to the lower section and examined the hull with a critical eye as she did so. The energies flowing through the various conduits throughout the ship were not small. Even as a peak Sliver Tier, she felt a bit of fear at the power in front of her.

She was not alone as several dragons in their natural state also flew along the various sections of the vessel and checked each other as well.

The main reason being that once outside the protective shell of the dry dock, the interior of the ship could explode outward due to the shear between Qi density if there were leaks or cracks in the hull.

Inside the vessel, a small army of hybrids was crawling through various maintenance tubes set up to reach the various nodes and structures inside. The sheer number of artifacts was staggering but the result could not be underestimated.

The power of the ship did not lie solely in its ability to fly but she knew it could attack! It was able to use Immortal grade Arts to strike but they were all from something called the Storm Arts.

Until the True Lord demonstrated them, she had no idea the terrifying power of 6 primary elements. It was one of the limitations of the Hacore that it had to be able to use all elements in any attack.

The True Lord proclaimed it could be tweaked but they did not have the time to experiment when he had a ready made set of such devastating Arts to use.

It also relied heavily on weaving more than formations due to their time constraint. Once each section had been completed, the True Lord had to go through and engrave the sigils with Laws at each step.

The massive effort to build it revealed its impracticality but the True Lord had smiled and said only time would tell.

[Wen, please bring Hope to the bridge.] A smirk crossed her face as she glanced and found the young girl was indeed laughing as she flew loops for fun since the painting was now done.

It looked wonderful but it was not a reason to goof off. She quickly caught up and let her aura stop the dragon.

"Ah, come on! We finally finished it!" Hope was puffing up her cheeks like she was having a tantrum but after almost 3 decades with the woman, she understood she simply tried to tease responses out of people.

"True Lord Frey has asked for us to go to the bridge." Hope became suddenly shifty and Wen knew he had already asked her directly.

Sighing, she used her light Qi to snag her in solid shards and the dragon grunted but did not stop her.

"Report to your quarters for now. Prepare for the test flight." It bowed and flew off but Hope was now truly pouting. "You are almost ready to become an Immortal. You should act like it."

A frown crossed her face but Wen did not understand it. Why was Hope sad to become an Immortal?

They came to the back of the raised disc shape where a hatch appeared and slid aside to let them in.

A well lit room welcomed them with another door inside. Each entrance was secured with another door to prevent easy invasion but also to protect the rest of the ship at higher altitudes.

Immortals would not be bothered but artifacts had no way to adapt unless formations or weavings protected them. It was literally impossible to cover all the artifacts enough throughout the ship.

The pale white room had a bench on either side and a panel set with crystal and jade stone controls on both doors.

Wen infused her Qi and the outer door slid shut and fused back into the hull while the inner door hissed and they entered a wood paneled corridor.

The True Lord had skimped on most comforts but being stuck inside looking at metal was too much to ask so dark, golden, and pale woods were used as flooring and decoration along the walls.

It felt like a temple to her a bit but the pair quickly made their way to a set of stairs a few doors away from the entrance.

The upper disc area was far more living quarters but the back side had both a set of stairs and a sliding section that lowered to the primary power and control artifacts area below.

The section sealed off the upper area but could move a large number as needed between the 2 sections.

The True Lord had spoken about elevators but the complexity took too long to figure out so he settled for a simpler apparatus. The downside was a lot of stairwells had to be fit in as alternatives.

Cultivators had far more stamina than mortals but even Wen felt going from the very bottom to the top of the ship was a bit exhausting!

Thankfully, within the 2 sections, moving around on the stairwells was actually very quick. They were also circular stairways to allow stability when moving on them if the ship was suddenly disturbed.

The spiral design gave both a support and a good handrail using them while also clearly made to impede any possible invaders.

Such a thought showed that the True Lord considered an enemy encounter possible. It was also possible he simply found they took up less space than a straight away but Wen considered their possible destination as the more likely cause of his choice.

They came up to a new deck and the number '2' was right next to their doorway. They then proceeded towards the center of the disk until the hallway began to tilt upward and curve when they came upon a sealed double door.

Unlike the other hatches or doors throughout the ship, the bridge was sealed off with as much security as the Hacore. The 2 areas were critical to each section so were given the highest protections.

Wen placed her hand on a jade slab mounted on a pedestal to the right of the doors. She felt a flow of Qi wash over her and Hope before the doors glowed with sigils and slid open to let them pass.

Once inside, they found the True Lord working with a hybrid and a dragon to go through the final tests of each system and artifact.

Compared to the vessel he once had dissected in his lab, the Wings of Freedom had a lot of complexity that could go wrong. It had never been done before but even just floating proved it worked to her mind.

"There are some variances in the relay artifact 7 but it might be because it is made of a different set of stone and ores." A man with dark eyes and silver hair was looking at his control panel in front of him as Lind nodded.

"I agree but there is little we can do. I cannot conjure what I need beyond what we have. It is within tolerance and there are 2 other artifacts in its pathway to take up the slack in an emergency." Wen noticed he looked tired.

As the years passed, she noticed he seemed to be getting pale and even exhausted faster than should be normal.

Time was slipping away in more ways than one it seemed.

"True Lord, the Hacore is generating power at 86% capacity and is stable. We are ready for the test flight anytime." The dragon was currently in human form as the ship could only accommodate so much. She had pale yellow hair with similar colored eyes.

Wen had met a lot more of her people than in the last million years during her work. The passage of time for an Immortal was different than many expected in that millennia could pass and nothing much changed. New faces were not noticed much as they could be dead in a century so what did they matter?

Thus she had not actually known many of the people that joined her on the Wings of Freedom.

The dragon was from the Atharion Clan that was a fairly weak dragon clan but one that excelled in artifice work when they attained human forms.

Lind glanced at them and smiled a tired smile.

"Wen, please begin to relay the orders and gather the crew. We are heading out!" He made his way to the central chair that had 2 raised panels as part of it to give instant status updates or relay commands to the various areas of the ship solely from that chair.

She bowed and began to gather them while Hope gently stood next to him. Unlike the others, Wen noticed the deep concern in Hope's eyes.

It only confirmed the ship had to work. They were running out of time!