The office door opened softly. Su Meilan entered, as she had been doing lately, almost out of habit—checking on Adrián's "world" from time to time.
As she crossed the threshold, her gaze froze. Adrián's face bore fresh cuts; a thin line of dried blood marked his lip, and a bruise was beginning to color his cheek.
"...Well," she murmured, more to herself than to him.
Adrián barely looked up from his desk, focused on the blueprints of a new raw materials transport project.
Su Meilan approached, and without realizing it, her hand brushed the edge of the wound on his lip as she pointed at something in the diagrams. The contact was fleeting, yet enough to send a faint shiver through both of them. A moment of heavy, ambiguous silence—where even the wind seemed unwilling to intrude.
Adrián blinked, and instead of reacting to the touch, his voice cut through the moment.
"Transport is the bottleneck."
Su Meilan slowly withdrew her hand, as if only then noticing how close she had been. She straightened her posture, recovering her usual composure.
"Excuse me?"
Adrián turned one of the scrolls toward her. It was not a cultivation scheme, nor a spiritual map. It was simple lines. Arrows. Loads. Distances.
"Everything in this world moves poorly," he continued. "Too slow, too expensive, too dependent on high-level cultivators."
He pointed to a route marked in red.
"Land. Caravans. Beasts. Armed guards. Three weeks to move materials that should take three days."
Su Meilan crossed her arms.
"Flying ships are expensive. We still can't afford one."
"Of course," Adrián nodded. "And only the major sects, imperial clans, or irreplicable relics possess them. They aren't a solution. They're a privilege."
That caught her interest.
"And what do you propose?" she asked. "Stealing one?"
Adrián shook his head.
"Creating one."
He picked up another scroll. This one contained stranger drawings: elongated wings, curved surfaces—something that looked neither like an artifact nor a beast.
Su Meilan frowned, leaning slightly over the table to examine the details.
"That isn't an artifact," she said, her voice low, filled with disbelief.
"No," Adrián confirmed, leaning closer to point at a detail on the wings.
"It has no cores, no runes, no formations," she whispered, her finger accidentally brushing the edge of the sheet while tracing a line.
The contact was brief, nearly imperceptible, yet enough to send another small shiver through them both. Their gazes met and lingered a moment longer than necessary. Neither the wind nor the hum of the city dared interrupt it.
She stared at him silently. Her spiritual sense instinctively swept across the paper… and found nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was like staring at a dead piece of wood.
"Then… how does it fly?" she finally asked, her gaze drifting slightly toward her hands.
Adrián looked up and met her eyes. For a second, their proximity became tangible: sunlight streamed through the window and played across her features, making his pulse quicken ever so slightly.
"It doesn't fly," he said. "It falls. But it falls in such a controlled way that the world believes it's flying."
The silence that followed was different. Not uncomfortable. Dense.
Su Meilan pressed her lips together. A chill ran down her spine. In her world, nothing moved without obeying Heaven, nothing existed without a core connecting it to the Dao. And yet… this simply worked. There was no challenge, no arrogance, no concentrated qi. Just… results. And those results were terrifyingly effective.
Adrián leaned a little closer, pointing to an internal circuit drawn on the parchment. His shoulder brushed hers. Neither pulled away immediately. It was a casual touch, but their bodies felt it. The proximity brought unexpected warmth, a subtle electric current neither fully recognized.
Su Meilan inhaled deeply, trying to regain her composure. Their eyes met again, and for an instant, everything else vanished: the world, the rules, even Heaven itself. There was only the two of them, the parchment, and the idea of something that ignored the laws of the Dao.
"This… is disturbing," she finally said softly, with a mix of curiosity and alarm. Her voice was nearly a whisper, as though addressed more to the air than to him.
"You don't need to understand it yet," Adrián replied with a slight smile, a hint of complicity she did not miss. "It just needs to work."
And as their fingers brushed again across the table while exchanging the blueprints, a faint, inevitable warmth passed between them. Neither wanted to move first.
The underground workshop of the Jade Pavilion smelled of ozone, heated metal… and Su Meilan's subtle perfume.
It was not a place for traditional refinement. There were no cauldrons or formation altars, but workbenches, precision tools, and several disciples and artisans moving in silence, focused on their tasks.
At the center of the workshop stood the frame of what resembled a bird of prey, constructed from an alloy of spiritual silver and treated spirit wood. It had no feathers. It had structural ribs, reinforced axles, and carefully assembled control panels.
The finish was far too clean to be the result of improvisation.
"The main frame was designed by Elder Mu," Adrián said, as if reading the question in the air. "Before retiring, he was the sect's greatest master craftsman. He built spiritual ships… back when wind oars were still used."
Su Meilan studied the structure more carefully this time. Now she saw it: the elegance of the joints, the distribution of weight, the way the spirit wood absorbed vibrations.
"So you didn't build it," she remarked.
"I'm not a blacksmith," Adrián replied casually. "I just explained what I needed: lightness, resistance, and symmetry. He handled the rest… and then we argued for three days."
A slight curve appeared on Su Meilan's lips before she could stop it.
Adrián adjusted a screw with a precision wrench as he continued:
"The angle of attack of the wings generates lift. That's pure physics. But for takeoff and initial acceleration, we need an extra push."
Su Meilan stepped closer, ignoring the artisans working around them. She stopped beside the rear section of the aircraft, where a jade core was connected to a network of copper tubes and sealed chambers assembled by disciples specialized in energy matrices.
She extended her hand, examining the design.
"The original matrix was too rigid," she whispered. "Elder Mu thinks in terms of structural stability, not dynamic flow."
Her fingers traced the contour of a chamber.
"I modified it. If we inject qi in short bursts through these combustion chambers, the thrust will remain constant."
She paused, as if testing the word in her mind.
"It isn't magic, Adrián," she added quietly. "It's… propulsion."
Their fingers brushed over the control panel. This time, neither withdrew.
The silence that followed was electric, broken only by the distant murmur of artisans pretending not to watch.
Su Meilan lifted her gaze. For an instant, the strategic partner and sect envoy disappeared. Only a woman remained, observing the man who did not forge artifacts… but ideas—and knew how to unite the right people to make them real.
"If this flies…" she murmured, her face inches from his, "…you will have destroyed the concept of distance."
Adrián swallowed. He felt his pulse racing—not from danger, but from a chemistry absent from any profitability report or business plan. He opened his mouth, ready to say something—perhaps something not cynical for once—when…
[DING]
A mechanical chime rang inside his mind with the delicacy of a hammer strike.
[System Alert: Main Plot Event Activated]Mission: Selection Tournament for the "Son of Heaven."Requirement: Register immediately.Final Objective: Reach the finals and be publicly defeated by Ye Chen.Note: The "Son of Heaven" requires prestige to consolidate political power.
[Penalty for Failure: User Soul Extinction]
Adrián closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. The moment evaporated, like vapor dissipating into cold air.
"Is something wrong?" Su Meilan asked, noticing how his expression had turned distant, sharp, calculating.
"Nothing," he replied with a tired smile. "Looks like I have to go play gladiator. The sect is going to choose its next 'Son of Heaven.'"
Su Meilan blinked, confused by the abrupt shift in tone.
"You're going to participate in that?" she asked. "You don't need that sect. The Chamber of Commerce can give you the same… or more."
Adrián lowered his gaze toward the unfinished aircraft, tracing the elegant curve of the fuselage with his fingers.
"I know," he said at last. "But my grandfather belongs to the sect. It's family tradition."
He looked up again, a mixture of irony and resignation in his eyes.
"And his greatest dream is for someone of his blood to reach the top."
The workshop fell silent once more.
The aircraft waited.The artisans waited.And the sky… still had no idea what was coming for it.