Red Sun White Tower

Before Vereesa left, she said, "When we meet again, I'll be keeping up with Shane." The next day, she indeed did not come. Shane received a bracelet.

"Miss asked me to give this to you." The courier was an underage elf girl. She looked at Shane curiously. "The grown-ups say all Dawnblades are bad people, but Miss says you're a good person. Why do you just look like an ordinary elf to me, sir?"

"You're right. I'm just an ordinary elf." Shane gave the little girl two apple pies. "Where did Vereesa go?"

The young maid accepted them and took a bite. "Miss went to train. I heard she'll be undergoing the strictest training. It's so good! Miss mentioned it before—it really is delicious. Sir really is a good person."

"There's plenty more, don't rush." Shane gave the girl the apple pies he had originally prepared for Vereesa. "Tell Vereesa that I'll miss her."

"You adults are so mushy, but I'll pass it on." The little girl left happily, and Shane was promoted from an ordinary elf to a good person.

The bracelet Vereesa had sent consisted of twelve orichalcum prisms strung together with mithril wire. Each of the six faces on every prism was set with tiny rubies. Shane put the bracelet on and returned to his room, where he spread out the mage tower blueprints in the study.

The mage tower to be built had a cylindrical structure, with five floors above ground and three below. From bottom to top, they were the energy center, construct workshop, warehouse, hall, members' quarters, library, alchemy laboratory and magic item workshop, and the chief mage's residence.

The blueprints contained everything from the overall design and floor-by-floor layouts to the designs of necessary installations and their operating principles. It was basically a standard textbook.

Arcane conduits that Shane had never seen in the Sun Sail Harbor library were clearly displayed in the blueprints before his eyes.

Ley line energy would be transmitted from the energy center to every corner of the mage tower through arcane conduits. Embedded in the tower's outer walls, floors, and partition walls, they sustained the mage tower's operation just as the heart and blood vessels sustained a human body.

The mage tower's exterior was painted the dark gold favored by elves. After thinking it over, Shane changed it to the white he preferred, accented with dark gold inlaid patterns.

"But there's no observatory." Shane picked up his pen and copied out the overall design onto a draft. He removed the original round dome and replaced it with a ceiling, then installed a hemispherical glass cover on the ceiling in place of the dome. A cross-shaped channel was left on the glass cover's surface for mounting an astronomical telescope.

In the floor plans, the glass dome and ceiling were connected by rail joints. The telescope's base would be installed at the center of the dome and linked to the glass dome by six metal supports. Rotating the base would allow the glass dome to rotate three hundred and sixty degrees as well.

The observatory's basic design was complete, with only the decorations left to add. Yet it still seemed to be missing something. Shane looked over the top view, side view, and front view of the overall design.

"Hmm... it looks like a crayon. That's awful!"

Looking at the design again, he realized the passages between the floors could be built outside the mage tower, spiraling upward around it like a snake. Red would serve as the primary color, trimmed with gold. This would give every floor a terrace extending from the mage tower, and it looked much more pleasing.

But the top view still looked awful. Shane added twelve red terraces around the observatory's edge. From above, it looked like a red sunflower. The glass dome was the flower's center, while the terraces extended outward like petals.

"Eye of Truth, what do you think?" Shane was fairly satisfied with the altered exterior.

"The user has not altered the internal functional design. This is very wise. The knowledge accumulated by the user's elven people over thousands of years is reflected in this design. Its functional structure is already highly refined, and there is no need to change it."

Shane understood that. "What about the exterior, then?"

"The exterior appears very beautiful to this device, though minor adjustments using the golden ratio are recommended. However, no matter how beautifully the user makes it, to someone with an evil heart, it will always be a crayon. The only difference is whether it has decorations or not."

"Why couldn't you leave out that last part? Shut up already!"

"By your command."

Shane still took Eye of Truth's advice and used the golden ratio to adjust the curves and exterior. The revised blueprints were delivered to his mentor's desk the next day.

"Adding an observatory without changing the overall height—very good." That was what his mentor said after the first glance. Shane was a fifth-circle mage, and mage towers had a five-floor-above-ground height limit. Height was not merely used to demonstrate status. Keeping a mage tower operating normally was no easy task, and the taller it was, the more difficult it became. That was why there were corresponding height restrictions for each circle.

"The exterior is quite good as well. It seems you are gradually beginning to understand aesthetics. An arcane caster without a sense of aesthetics can never be called a master." His mentor sounded very proud when he said that, but from Shane's observations, his mentor's aesthetic sense was only that of an ordinary elf. Naturally, he would not say it aloud.

"Red Sun White Tower." That would be the mage tower's name once it was complete. "The sunflower symbolizes the sun, which happens to fit our traditions. White is the tower's primary color, so the name is very fitting. The blueprints will be sent for budget assessment. Once the budget is approved, the clan will help you recruit a construction team. You need not worry about purchasing materials and the like. Go back and thoroughly learn everything in those blueprints. They will help you greatly."

"Thank you, Mentor."

Shane returned to his residence and studied. The most essential material was the design of the ley line energy-gathering core and methods for maintaining arcane conduits. With Eye of Truth's help, understanding and memorizing them was easy, but hands-on work was another matter entirely. Shane was not the sort to claim he had mastered knowledge just because he understood what was written in books. The ley line energy-gathering core was the concentrated embodiment of elven arcane technology. Understanding the design alone made independent manufacture impossible. Materials science alone contained secrets that had not been made public. Otherwise, Shane would have been itching to give it a try.

After waiting a few days, the budget was approved. The amount shocked him: one hundred and fifty thousand gold! In his previous life, how long would he have had to grind crocodiles to earn that much?

Gold could make even devils work, and within three days, the construction team was assembled: two sixth-circle mages from the clan, twenty-two engineers, and fifty assistants.

The two mages did not think much of Shane's trip to the Ghostlands. Silvermoon City had the Sunwell, and serving a master could earn them some energy allotments for large-scale experiments.

Shane had his own plans and could not reveal them. A sapling weathered by wind and rain was always stronger than a flower in a greenhouse. Though the two mages belonged to the same faction as him, they remained nothing more than nodding acquaintances because of this.

Over the next few days, Shane retrieved the construct Taigo from the factory. Its armor plating had been replaced, and it had recorded Silvermoon City's teleportation coordinates. He placed an order with the engineering workshop for the astronomical telescope's tube, base, and power transmission apparatus, all paid for with public funds. Once everything was settled, the team set out.

When he had left Windrunner Outpost, he had been alone. When he returned, he was surrounded by people. The little outpost became a construction site. Sylvanas had received notice long ago and was not surprised. As a Windrunner, she showed no warmth toward the two Dawnblade mages.

Yet that very night, she slipped into Shane's room.

"As a poison, someone is still somewhat useful." Sylvanas was as blunt as ever. While Shane was doing his evening practice, she claimed his bed. Lying on her side, she stacked one leg over the other, her hand idly brushing over her thigh.

Shane withdrew the spell in his hand. He would never believe Sylvanas was trying to seduce him.

"Alleria told me. I saw it—that bracelet was from Vereesa, wasn't it? Lucky man, just wait. The day will come when you wake up laughing from your dreams, though it will be a long time from now."

"What happened to Vereesa?" Shane could hear the implication in her words.

"Vereesa joined the Farstrider Corps."

The Farstrider Corps—Shane had heard of them often. They were the elite among rangers, long regarded as the bravest and most glorious elves. They lived like ascetics and entered the most dangerous battlefields. Their mission was to defend the distant borders of Quel'Thalas and protect the interests of high elves throughout Azeroth. The Farstriders' supreme commander was granted a unique title: Ranger-General of Silvermoon City.

"You too..."

"Yes, I'm a Farstrider. Alleria is too. Vereesa has taken the path every Windrunner takes. Only much earlier than expected. It seems someone's influence has been quite great."

There was far more than curiosity in Sylvanas's eyes. Shane felt as though he might be swallowed whole.