As the airship workshop entered its final sprint, Ang took out all the mithril he had brought back from the Dampier Highlands and ordered it to be carefully stored.
The silvery-white metal gleamed faintly under the sunlight, cold and mysterious.
Ang decided to use this precious mithril for the airship's core components—the filling of the levitation runes.
Compared with the Empire's common airship designs, dwarven airships were utterly different in both structure and principle.
Imperial airships relied on a central levitation device to provide lift. Their massive hulls were dragged along by one or more levitation pillars, leaving their center of gravity high and their turns sluggish.
Dwarven airships, on the other hand, had dense runes covering their entire structure. They relied on the resonance of runes across the whole vessel for levitation and propulsion, making them more compact and better suited to flying through complex terrain.
Ang had once imagined that if these two systems could be combined, they might produce a more efficient and agile aircraft.
But there was one problem—the manufacturing methods of the Empire's levitation devices were military secrets, and there was simply no way to find the details.
That day, after returning from an inspection of the workshop, he gathered Puri and several rune apprentices to discuss how the two technologies might be combined.
Everyone crowded around the design drawings and a huge sand table, discussing the matter with great enthusiasm.
"Since we can't directly copy the Empire's levitation devices," a young apprentice suddenly said, "why not install paddle-like structures on both sides of the airship, then inscribe levitation runes onto those paddles? That could imitate the effect of levitation pillars."
Ang froze for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "That's an interesting idea. Imperial airships have plenty of lift but lack maneuverability. If