118 Bring Me the Sky

For the rest of the day, word spread through the town that the Scion of the Sun God was punched into a coma by a masked woman. The entire town was buzzing about it with many different versions of the event going around, each one more ridiculous than the last.

Zoey was aware of this of course, thanks to her reconnaissance drones. Her personal favorite version of the story was that she had grown three meters tall before punching the Scion. Completely untrue, but it was funny to listen in on the various storytellers in Brumau's taverns embellish the tale.

The Sun Church had actually excommunicated the Scion from the church and was in the process of selecting a new one. Their official statement was that it was the will of the Sun God that this had happened.

Everyone in Brumau knew that the real story was that they didn't want to piss off whoever had the balls to punch a Scion's lights out in broad daylight in the middle of the marketplace. Sometimes it was better to just take the hit and move on, especially when it dealt with an unknown factor like the masked woman.

Zoey and Viridi had extracted themselves from the public eye and found another empty rooftop overlooking the town. The whole event was funny, but Zoey was not a fan of the attention, so best to let it all blow over for a while.

In the meantime, she had a new task for 704. So, with Viridi guarding her, she sent her consciousness into the cube's space.

"Greetings Miss Zoey, how may I be of service?"

Custodian 704 was there with his usual polite greeting. Zoey had him stop calling her "Master" a while back because it felt... odd to her. Miss Zoey felt more natural.

"Hey 704, any chance you can add this to our resource production?" Zoey asked as she handed over one of the Aether Crystals.

The silver metal that 704 was made of suddenly turned into liquid metal, almost like mercury, and coalesced into a floating hand that separated from his main sphere. The silver hand then took the Aether Crystal from Zoey and brought it back to the sphere where it then turned back into its liquid state and rejoined with the main body, taking the crystal with it.

A soft clicking could be heard coming from 704 as the machine analyzed the Aether Crystal. Moments later the crystal and the silver hand emerged from 704's main sphere.

"Yes Miss Zoey, this space is fully capable of simulating the optimal environment for growing this resource. Shall I begin the process?"

Zoey nodded at the silver sphere, who bobbed once, then flew off towards the mountain region of the space. No doubt he would have results in short order. Meanwhile, Zoey had one more crystal that she wanted to do some tests with.

She turned her attention to the open field where her big project was awaiting completion. She had been working on this particular endeavor ever since she had opened this space on the trip to Brumau. At the moment it was only a framework with the structure and crucial components in place, and there was still much to be done.

But now she had Aether Crystal. That had been the only thing keeping her from completing the project. Without a proper magical power source, she had been unable to test many of the functions she had wanted to implement. But now she had what she needed.

As Zoey approached, she let her eyes take in the sight of possibly the most ambitious engineering project she had ever attempted.

She was over a hundred meters long, and had a sleek profile that only a human from Gaia would recognize at first glance. It was not a Kreppelin, this was a cruiser, and her design came directly from the Gaia Defence Fleet archives included in the database that Zoey brought with her.

Naturally, Zoey had made some modifications to the design, but most of that had been internal. The shape of the hull and outer profile of the cruiser had largely been maintained.

From above, the overall profile was that of a broad headed arrow, pointed and sharp at the bow and flaring wide towards the back of the vessel where she was about eighty meters wide at the widest point.

In total there were three decks that made up the structure of the cruiser. The lower deck was the belly of the ship, as it was closest to the ground and supported by the landing gear that emerged from the side of the ship structure to support it when landed. The chin of the cruiser was actually the loading ramp that dropped down to allow access into the lower deck. When closed, the loading ramp was not even visible, presenting a clean, aerodynamic line from the tip of the ship down to where it straightened out at the base.

Inside the lower deck was a spot that allowed access to the middle deck of the cruiser. This deck was the most protected area of the cruiser as the outer hull covering it was the thickest, and it was also the biggest deck in terms of space. There were three sections to this deck, first being the core which was the center of the ship from bow to stern, then there were the left and right wings on either side of the core.

The third and topmost deck was the only one that had open air access, as all the others were enclosed by the hull. Even then there were only certain sections on the third deck that opened to the outside. One such area was at the front of the cruiser, and the other two were close to the tips of each wing.

Also located on the third deck was the bridge. As the control center of the cruiser it was positioned at the very center of the ship structure and slightly higher up to provide a full 360 degree view of the surroundings.

She was big and beautiful, and though she did not have a name yet, once she came to life and soared into the skies, she would carve her own name into the heavens itself! Zoey could practically feel the desire for flight emanating from the clean lines of the cruiser's shape.

Soon she would get her chance... All that remained was to give her some juice!