Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 332: Gate 19

Chapter 332: Gate 19

At Kazi’s home, William was comatose, his breathing steady but shallow. Marta’s breath hitched. William lay in the corner on a king-sized bed chamber, alone. So, so alone. Marta crept over and looked down at William, his face pale and gaunt. He looked so vulnerable, so fragile.

Kazi went beside her. He reached out and gently touched William’s forehead, checking his temperature.

"Is he going to be okay?" Marta asked softly.

Kazi turned to her and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. "It will be okay, Marta. Once I have enough money, I’m going to ask the best healers in the White Abyss for help."

"Isn’t that Commander Cedric?"

"Templar bias. I asked around and there’s these people called the Sangoma. A vaguely interconnected group of healers who are unequivocally the best at what they do. Curses, sickness, ailment, injuries, anything the people of the White Abyss have, they go to them."

Marta’s brows knitted together. "Sangoma? I’ve never heard of them."

"They’re not a guild so they’re not well-known outside certain circles," Kazi explained. "But their reputation is impeccable. When we fought the Wendigo, we should have gone to them. But we were new. We didn’t know any better. " He let out a breath. "We did what we thought was best at the time. But now it’s different."

Marta was silent for a beat. "You and David are doing something," she stated. "Elena told me."

"Yep!" Kazi put a finger up against his lips, winking. "It’s supposed to be a secret. Don’t worry though, everything is going well."

"Is it?"

"Honestly? It’s going way better than I expected. You focus on your studies."

Marta sat on the chair nearby. "Oh, it’s warm."

"Ah, Sun-young must have come by," Kazi said.

"Wait, you still talk to her!?"

"Not really, but she can come here anytime she’d like. She’s a friend, even if she did join the Templars."

"She...really joined the Templars?"

"She did." A solemn silence arose which Kazi cut off with a small tease. "Miss her already?"

"I..." Guilt appeared on her face. "Yeah, I guess I do."

’She must have said something that she regrets. I get it.’

He more than got it.

Her arm prosthetics trembled. Looking at William while remembering what she said to Sun-young, Marta’s emotions welled up and a single tear broke out. She quickly wiped it out, trying not to let Kazi see even though it was too late.

"I really hope William is going to be okay." Marta’s voice cracked.

"I promised, didn’t I? I never break my promises."

***

The recent financial aid from the Imperial Sect had accelerated Kazi’s plans, turning his vision into reality at an astonishing pace. The factory, David’s personal dimension, was a bonafide working place.

Standing side-by-side with his spectacled friend, arms crossed, the noise and yells and communication was like music to their ears. Kazi and David were relieved as they were eager.

"Switching from flip phones to old-school landlines was a good idea," David said, his eyes scanning the assembly lines that stretched out before them.

"Prince Yuzin and I crunched the numbers. For short-term gains, the cost of the glass was too high. Rotary dial phones were our best bet, cheap and accessible," Kazi explained. "Technically speaking, the landline phone can be carried where you want. Buuut that wouldn’t be good to say for marketing. Plus, it’s kinda heavy."

"Honestly, I still don’t understand how you did that, setting up the connection between phones I mean. There’s no wi-fi and the wiring and processors here are, uh...shit, to be precise."

"You’re just not familiar with them, that’s all."

"But you are. Where’d you learn all this?"

"In the nineties and two-thousands, landlines were the ’shit’ as you might put," Kazi said. "You needed landline jacks, landline receiver, and the network interface device. When I was studying in America for trade school, I figured out a more efficient method of calling via an antenna. Back then, obviously, flipphones were the shit. I wanted to tell someone, but at the time. the financial crisis hit and I didn’t feel dealing with the mess, so I decided to discard it and became a mercenary."

"...what?"

"What?"

David looked at him like he was oddest human he had ever met. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

"So you went to trade school at the age of...?"

"I was sixteen-ish."

"How long did you study for?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"I studied a bunch of stuff, like plumping, welding, electrical stuff, construction, carpentry, air conditioning, and cooking too. I did piloting too! Oh, and I’m forklift certified!"

"I will be honest, I do not believe you."

"That’s okay." Kazi watched the telephone line build itself. What would happen to the mobile phones they made? Right now, there were only a couple hundred units. If, or rather when the rotary dial phone was successful, they would follow up with the mobile phone. So for now, they were going to store the mobile phones they had already built. Luckily, since rotary phones were so easy to build, they had already manufactured a hundred of them.

So while there were issues and the plan had adjusted, everything was going great.

"Want a Snickers?"

"Those exist here?"

"Nah, just pulling your leg. There is a Flickers though."

"Is it chocolate?"

"Vanilla."

"Vanilla...vanilla what?"

"Vanilla bar."

David side-eyed him. "Those exist?"

"If there’s a chocolate bar, of course there’s a vanilla bar."

"When you put it that way, that makes sense."

"Do you want it?"

"No, I hate vanilla."

Rows of automated assembly lines ran parallel to each other, each one dedicated to a specific stage of the production process. Robotics arms moved with strict motions, soldering components onto circuit boards and assembling the casings of the cellphones. Conveyor belts carried the partially assembled devices from one station to the next, where skilled engineers and technicians performed quality checks and fine-tuning.

In another part of the factory, a team of developers was finalizing and double-checking on the firmware that would power the rotary dials and their antennas. Quality-testing, put simply. The CRT monitors did what they could to capture the signals and adjust. The attached, Kazi-invented antennas were durable and the most vital bit to the operation. The length of the antenna mattered little: if there was at least an inch, the antenna would work as functioned. It was only long due to marketing reasons. Its range was over five miles or eight kilometers. The Nebulous Bazaar itself was fifteen kilometers long. David wasn’t able to gather the total dimensions. Kazi was. The Nebulous was longer than it was wide by a substantial degree, being fifteen kilometers long and approximately ten kilometers wide. Enough for neighborhoods and massive stores and palaces to be built.

According to Ming, there was a barrier at the very end of the dimensions. A blackness that no ordinary person could go through. It was the boundary between each dimension.

However, interestingly, it could be accessed by the extraordinary. Indeed, almost two hundred years ago during the transition between the Chaotic Era to the Heavenly Era, someone from the Old Mage Tower managed to create pathways between the dimensions; between the Nebulous Bazaar, the Hall of Players, House of Wisdom, Tvastar’s Forge, and Valhalla’s Colosseum. These pathways were called the Silk Road, a series of trade routes that connected the Nebulous Bazaar to everything else.

The Silk Road was primarily for the traders of the White Abyss, a lengthy road where camels, horses, and pegasi were ridden to be able go to the Hall of Players or the House of Wisdom. They were not for children or ordinary people. The Silk Path from the Nebulous Bazaar to Valhalla’s Colosseum was said to take a month to reach for a horse at blistering top speed.

It put into perspective just how blessed those players were. Stats that they could willfully adjust, classes that they could learn from, a personal dimension, removing language barriers, and simple access to the other realms.

The factory developers had a second job too; that being developing the agriculture devices. This operation was not smooth. It was the sole bottleneck so far. While the workers were smart, none were Kazi or David. They could not replicate what they did and Kazi and David were specific in the software they wanted and both were busy too. Slowly though, they were learning.

"I’m going to Gate 19 today," Kazi said. "I’m counting on you to watch over everything."

"No problem! You’re pretty much broke aren’t you?"

Kazi raised his arms high in the air, stretching. "Yep! I recently bought a bunch of expensive clothes! Marta is going to university too."

"Is she? Congrats! Are you paying?"

He continued stretching, arms locked and hips twisting along with it. "No, well, yes? Marta is going to have to pay monthly installments which, in her condition, is going to be easier said than done. I don’t want her doing university and fighting at the Heavenly Tower. At least not yet."

"So you’re going to be a good little dad and pay everything?"

Kazi chuckled and stopped stretching. "Her dad? As if."

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.