Chapter 622 - 601: Giant Dragon Enters the Dock
Chapter 622: Chapter 601: Giant Dragon Enters the Dock
Build it. Even if he had to sell everything he owned, he had to build it!
"Jarvis, initiate the ’Lord of the Sky Vault: Monarch of the Clouds’ project immediately." Allen’s voice held no hesitation.
"Commander, there is an engineering bottleneck in the ’Monarch of the Clouds’ project," Jarvis replied. "The largest existing manufacturing station in Cybertron has an internal clearance height of 100 meters and a length of 120 meters. It cannot accommodate a dragon-shaped body with a total length of 1,056 meters and a maximum diameter of 86 meters. Even if we adopt a plan of segmented manufacturing and later final assembly, it still cannot provide enough working space."
Allen wasn’t surprised. With such a massive size, even Ultraman would look like a little brother in comparison.
He swiped his finger across the holographic Star Map, and the image rapidly shifted from the central manufacturing zone to the easternmost edge of the Cybertron Half-Plane.
There, a massive structure—three kilometers long and two kilometers wide—stood silently.
The giant shipyard. Ever since the *Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine* rolled off the assembly line, this industrial miracle, built specifically for Interstellar Giant Ships, had been gathering dust for a long time.
"Transfer the Monarch of the Clouds to the shipyard," Allen instructed. "The internal clearance of the dock is sufficient. The main manufacturing process shares the same origin as a battleship’s keel, and the energy pipelines follow ship-grade standards. The Monarch of the Clouds already heavily utilizes battleship-level technology anyway, so using the shipyard to build it is perfect."
"The plan is feasible," Jarvis confirmed. "The main dock of the shipyard has a clearance height of 400 meters and a length of 2,800 meters, which completely meets the full-scale final assembly requirements of the ’Monarch of the Clouds.’
"Estimated construction time: twelve months."
The super Golem project, costing 2.5 billion Low-Level Magic Stones, was officially thrown into the production process.
On the easternmost side of Cybertron, the long-silent giant shipyard reawakened.
Hundreds of suspended magical lighting arrays lit up in sequence, illuminating the inside of the dock as brightly as daylight. The hoisting arms slowly extended from both sides of the dock walls, and the Rune tracks of the final assembly platform began to warm up.
The first batch of Demon Pan Steel Ingots, calculated in the "tens of thousands of tons," had already departed from the storage area, continuously delivered into the dock by Factory Servants.
But Allen’s gaze had already shifted away from the design blueprints of the Monarch of the Clouds.
"Jarvis, simultaneously initiate the manufacturing of two standard PX-5 units. Re-designate them as ’Xiong San’ and ’Xiong Si’."
"Confirmed. The standard configuration for the PX-5 has a unit cost of 1.2 billion Low-Level Magic Stones, making the total for two units 2.4 billion. Should we continue using the fully-equipped plan previously applied to ’Xiong Da’?"
"Exactly the same. Equip them with all of it: the Silent Extinction Silver Armor, the Meteor II Type Ship-Slicing Blade, and the Dragon Cavalry Floating Cannon System."
"The directive has been logged, and the manufacturing work orders have been dispatched to advanced workstations No. 4 and No. 7. Estimated construction time: ninety-five days."
Two Dawn Star Level Golems for 2.4 billion Magic Stones, without even blinking an eye.
This way, with four PX-5s, one Thanatos, one No. 18—plus the soon-to-be-completed Monarch of the Clouds—his Dawn Star Level combat power would soon reach a total of seven units.
The gap in his top-tier combat power was being rapidly filled by money.
However, his mid-to-low-tier conventional combat power also needed replenishing. Escorting Wesren Heavy Industry currently occupied ten Golem Legions, and Plane development occupied another ten. In his own Cybertron, he was left with a conventional combat force of only twenty legions and five Flying Squadrons.
The channel-clearing operation had exposed a problem: when facing massive Star Thief Fleets, the greatest expenditure actually came from the basic Golem Legions responsible for blockading, surrounding, and wiping out the remaining enemies. During that operation, the replacement and repair costs for battle-damaged Golems accounted for a third of the total expenses.
"It’s time to expand the forces," Allen said, straightening his posture as he sequenced a series of production directives. "Jarvis, additionally manufacture twenty standard Golem Legions."
"Twenty standard legions. A single legion consists of 1,403 Golems of various models, with a unit price of 40.39 million Low-Level Magic Stones. The total price for twenty legions is 807.8 million."
"Add another ten Flying Squadrons."
"Standard Flying Squadron organization: 36 Storm Falcons, 6 Freedoms, and 1 Gabriel. The cost per squadron is 13.94 million Low-Level Magic Stones. The total for ten squadrons is 139.4 million."
"Construction approved."
The moment the directive was issued, the one hundred fully automated production lines of the Cybertron Fortress simultaneously switched to the highest priority.
Seventy conventional production lines all transitioned to manufacturing the various Golem parts required for the standard legions. Torso skeletons, limb joints, Power Cores, and weapon modules—every line was simultaneously churning out different parts. Precise mechanical arms completed engravings and assemblies at a frequency of several times per second.
Ten high-precision production lines were divided into two groups: one responsible for the core components of the PX-5, and the other for the manufacturing of the Flying Squadrons. The remaining twenty production lines continuously supplied materials to the dock for the Monarch of the Clouds.
In all of Cybertron, not a single piece of equipment was idle.
The power indicator of the Earth Vein Magic Furnace Array surged straight from a typical 40% to 92%, converting the Magic Power extracted from the plane’s ley lines and the Magic Sea into the industrial blood that drove everything.
Metal flowed in the furnaces; Runes lit up and faded on the decks.
The city of steel was operating at full capacity.
About forty minutes later, Jarvis’s voice sounded again.
"Commander, a space utilization warning."
An overhead map of Cybertron appeared on the holographic screen. The ninety-three-square-kilometer Half-Plane was divided into dense blocks of color—red for manufacturing zones, blue for storage zones, yellow for hangars and berths, gray for infrastructure, and green for undeveloped empty land.
The green was virtually invisible.
"The current space utilization rate of Cybertron has reached 94.6%," Jarvis reported. "Factoring in the berthing needs of the existing forty legions and the hangar reservations for the twenty new legions and ten Flying Squadrons, nearly half of the area is covered by hangars and berths.
"The remaining available empty space is approximately 4.7 square kilometers, which is only enough to maintain basic logistics channels and emergency buffers. If you wish to continue expanding the scale of the legions, it is recommended to enlarge the Half-Plane space."
Looking at the map that had been squeezed completely dry, Allen felt no anxiety. Instead, he experienced a bizarre sense of satisfaction, like having fully developed the map in a farming simulation game.
Ninety-three square kilometers. Back when he bought this Half-Plane fragment from Master Mercer, he thought it was so big he could never use it all.
Looking at it now, his vision had still been too small.
"Enlarging the Half-Plane isn’t urgent. Right now, our money needs to be spent where it counts the most. We’ll figure out a solution after the Monarch of the Clouds is completed."
"Understood."
Allen brought up the financial panel once again. A series of red expenditure figures lined up from top to bottom, a shocking sight.
Monarch of the Clouds: -2.5 billion.
PX-5 "Xiong San" and "Xiong Si": -2.4 billion.
Twenty standard Golem Legions: -807.8 million.
Ten Flying Squadrons: -139.4 million.
Total expenditure: 5.847 billion Low-Level Magic Stones.
Account balance: 4.54 billion Low-Level Magic Stones.
From 10.3 billion down to 4.5 billion, separated by just a single afternoon.
For Allen, right now, money was merely an intermediate state.
With the stable annual profits generated by Wesren Heavy Industry, plus the returns from the phase-one projects of the G-771 Plane successively entering production, and factoring in the increased profits from the Gray Channel resuming navigation, this number would quickly swell up again.
"Jarvis, based on the growth trends of all current revenue channels, calculate the timeframe for our liquid funds to recover to six billion."
"...Calculation complete," Jarvis answered. "Assuming there are no major unexpected expenditures, the on-book liquid funds will break through six billion in approximately fourteen months."
Fourteen months? Allen calculated silently in his mind.
The construction period for the Monarch of the Clouds was twelve months. The completion times matched up almost perfectly.
By then, the Monarch of the Clouds would be manufactured, the sixty legions would be fully organized and in position, and the phase-two project of the G-771 Plane would be ready to launch.
Six billion Magic Stones, all poured into the phase-two civilization construction project of the G-771 Divine Kingdom of Ten Thousand Machines.
Expanding the Star Gate Square, developing the Wizard industry, establishing the Wizard Academy... Those grandiose plans written on paper would become reality, one by one.
And the Monarch of the Clouds, which he had designed with his own hands, would coil in the high skies of that plane, using the Storm Law to regulate the climate and the Gravity Law to deter invading enemies.
It was both the guardian deity of that plane and an extension of Allen’s will.
With it, Allen would be completely liberated. He would no longer have to guard that plane at all times like a babysitter.