In the time that Sage had been recovering from his death, training, or out on the run, the Tiankong siblings had all grown quite close with Ling. They had been working together to build the Prosperity Company up and to build the foundation for the Tiankong Clan. Now that they were here in the Holy Flame Sect, they were eager to see the things that they had heard about from Ling and visit the best restaurants and places of interest that she’d told them about.
After the banquet, they started to get dragged to different sights by their friends. After a pair of extremely busy days, Sage asked for a favor from his three friends: Yuan Hu, Geng He, and Qiu Hou. He put them in charge of the Tiankong Siblings and the big group ran off to see all the sights. The next few days were spent alone with his new wife. At that point even their great stamina as cultivators was finally wearing out so they stopped to check in on everyone.
Ling went to see her friends and make the proper arrangements for her to be gone for a very long time. Left on his own, Sage was reminded of what Peak Master Lupeng had told him and he asked Peak Master Zhen to see the so-called ‘Steam Army’. Even if they were married, Ling wasn’t allowed into the secret facility, so this was a perfect opportunity. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already told her about it, but there were rules to follow for the actual secret location of this force so he had to abide by them. In fact if he wasn’t the source of their initial armaments, there was no way he would even know they exist, let alone be able to visit.
He was led down winding tunnels and corridors to a large stone vault door, which hid a Transportation Array. At this time, neither of the Peak Masters were with him, instead he’d been led here by a person with a full hood covering their face. Peak Master Zhen called this person and told Sage to follow them. After leading him to the array, that person didn’t step into it with him. Instead, as soon as he arrived at the other end of the Transportation Array there was a man waiting for him.
The man’s clothing was the usual cloud gray of the Holy Flame Sect, but it was not the usual robed uniform of the Sect. Instead, the man had on trousers and a sleeveless shirt, with a wide leather belt covered with metal loops and hooks. Other than his unusual outfit, the most defining features of this man was his dirty and well muscled arms. Sage was surprised to see the man not in the Sect’s usual uniform. For the most part, women altered their uniform a little, while only the Peak Master’s were able to wear whatever they wanted.
“Lang Sheng?”
Sage nodded and greeted the man with a clasped fist and bow of his head, “That is I.”
The man let out the breath he was holding and smiled, “That’s good, otherwise I would have had to kill you.”
Sage’s eyebrow lifted at this strange form of greeting, especially since the man was silent for a moment, with a strange look in his eyes. Is this guy imagining how he would have killed me?
Then the fellow snapped out of his little trance and turned around, “Come on then, this way.”
Sage was forced to follow after the man who immediately started walking, seeming less like a guide and more like someone who was forced to wait for him there. They were in a dark square tunnel, one that looked cleaved directly into the stone that made up the walls, floor and ceiling. Every few feet there were round angled arcs on the walls, likely the marks of a tool or weapon slicing through the stone. The floor was a different story as someone had laid out fine gravel as a path. The path turned a few times and each time it did there was a stone door the size of the tunnel with small arrow slits that had retractable covers. Only after the man held out a token and infused it with Qi did the gate open. After passing through three of these gates, they finally seemed to reach a large chamber.
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The passageway earlier had been lit by tiny illumination arrays that gave it the feel of torchlight, but upon entering this large chamber there was a giant light array up near the ceiling that was so bright it gave the place the feeling of daylight. The man led him over to a few buildings that were shaped somewhat like aircraft hangars, which he remembered drawing a doodle of on the side of the Airship blueprints. The structure was one huge arch, giving it great structural strength without requiring many columns or pillars and leaving a large opening on the ends. It was an ideal style of structure to house large objects without needing extremely large or strong beams to hold up a large span of roofing.
They walked into one of the hangers and the man waved and suddenly yelled across the room, “Boss! I brought the weirdo!”
The man still hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself, and at this point he didn’t even stop to acknowledge Sage any further. After calling out and waving his hand, he just turned and walked back out of the hanger. Sage looked into the room where the man had yelled, but there didn’t seem to be a response. From his words, it seemed like he was supposed to wait here, but then again, he didn’t know anyone here and his ‘guide’ was already on the move to ditch him.
Thankfully, he wasn’t left in limbo for too long. As soon as the first man had turned the corner of the big hanger doors, Sage was about to rush after him. At that moment, he heard footsteps behind him and turned back to the hanger. Inside this hanger, there was a large airship envelope lying on its side and blocking his view of everything that was going on inside. He could only hear the clanking sounds of metal upon metal along with unintelligible chatter in the distance. Then he heard footsteps approaching and he saw someone walk around the edge of the giant half-inflated balloon.
This person was also wearing the same outfit as the first man, but instead of having overly muscled arms, he had a bald head and there were tools hanging from the loops on his leather belt.
Did I ever sketch any leather tool belts?
With this odd thought, Sage realized it was not the style of tool belt of modern times. It was closer to a back belt or belly band. The wide leather completely covered them from just above the hips to just below the ribs. He wondered who had come up with that idea here. It was only an article of clothing after all, and there were many parallel inventions of things all over the world at different times. It was no great surprise that someone could also come up with a simple thing like a toolbelt with built in hooks and loops.
The bald man walked up to him with an appraising eye and smiled widely, “Are you truly the infamous Lang Sheng that gave birth to this whole place? You sure don’t look it.”
Sage wasn’t sure if he had been insulted, but he bowed and saluted the man with a clasped fist. He was able to maintain his decorum as he spoke, “I am Lang Sheng. Who are you?”
The man’s eyes widened a little. Asking someone ‘who are you’ was actually something of an insult in this world, clearly pointing out that a person was of so little repute that you’d never heard of them. Then, instead of being offended the man laughed, “Aha ha ha! Well said! We’re a secret team after all, if anybody has heard of us, we’d have to kill them!”