This was the flagship Leo had specially prepared for Ace. Those two pipes connected directly to the helmsman's station.
Large iron plates had also been embedded into the floor of the helmsman's station to prevent Ace's flames from scorching the deck.
The flames traveled through those pipes straight to the stern, where two propeller-like gears sat in the middle of the pipes.
As the flames passed through the gears, they drove them into motion. The other ends of those gears were connected to the propellers at the stern.
This allowed Ace's flame energy to be used a second time.
Of course, this was merely Leo's redesign and concept. How much of Ace's power it could actually harness, and how much it could increase the ship's speed, would have to wait until the sea trials.
Originally, Leo had wanted to design the ship as a hydrofoil or a high-speed wave-piercing boat. However, those vessels were all meant for coastal waters and did not yet have the capacity for long-distance ocean voyages. To play it safe, Leo abandoned that design and used more conventional warship modification techniques.
"Launch it," Leo ordered the merchants.
Although the shipyard was his property, the merchants had built it. Therefore, the workers in the shipyard only listened to the merchants.
Upon hearing Leo's words, the merchants nodded at the sailors and waved their hands. Several burly craftsmen took logs and wedged them beneath the hull.
The ship slowly slid down from the platform along those logs.
This shipyard was different from the shipyards of Water 7.
It had been built entirely from wood. The merchants' greatest difficulty had been gathering shipwrights from all over and bringing them here.
They had completed that task well. Although these shipwrights were not elite workers, they had even needed the help