The sun blazed over the construction site of the newly planned residential district. Warm golden light spilled over the exposed yellow earth, and the wind swept fine sand across the foundation pits.
Temporary fences surrounded the site. What should have been a construction zone roaring with machinery was eerily quiet, with workers standing far away, holding their breath as they stared at the sight in midair.
Tons of bagged cement, neatly stacked fired red bricks, bundles of rebar...
Building materials that normally required cranes and tower cranes to move now hung motionless in the air, as though frozen by a spell.
Beside the foundations, Gion stood quietly, her eyes slightly lowered as she gently crooked a fingertip.
Like iron snakes brought to life, thick steel bars bent, joined, and locked together, while thinner bars coiled around them, securing and finishing the edges. Welds fused automatically, even the slag shaking cleanly away. In moments, the complete framework of a two-story building took shape.
Next, red bricks stacked themselves along the framework, their mortar joints automatically leveling. Cement mortar spread evenly across the walls, smoothing and polishing itself, while the embedded water pipes and electrical conduits settled into their channels, every connection fitting perfectly.
In barely the time it took to drink half a cup of tea, a sharply defined, unfinished reinforced-concrete house stood on the site.
Its inside and outside corners were as straight as if they had been set against a ruler.
Fine beads of sweat dotted Gion's temples as she slowly lowered her fingertips. Looking at her work, a genuine smile bloomed on her alluring face.
The reborn Float-Float Fruit had ultimately been given to her.
People tended to fear this fruit for its ability to lift mountains and float warships, treating it as a weapon capable of destroying