More than half a month had passed since the earth-shaking battle that had nearly wiped Alubarna off the map.
Amid the ruins that had once been so horrifying, new miracles were taking shape at an astonishing pace.
Under Zhou Yu's coordination, the vast supplies, skilled artisans, and efficient management expertise from Hua Country combined with Alabasta's nationwide efforts and the enthusiasm of countless citizens eager to rebuild their homes, unleashing a force that left everyone dumbfounded.
The palace district, destroyed by lightning and magma, was not immediately rebuilt with palaces. Instead, it was designated as an enormous central square and memorial park. The square expanded outward from the original site of the Royal Tomb, with a towering black obelisk erected at its center. Its inscriptions recorded the disaster and rebirth, commemorated the fallen, and warned future generations. Paved with special stone transported from oasis cities such as Yuba and Ermal, the square was level and solid, with drought-resistant greenery and palm trees transplanted around its edges. The once-bottomless crater left by molten rock had been filled in, and its terrain reshaped into a terraced open-air theater and several artificial lakes. Flowing water drawn from the Sandora River and purified using Hua Country's craftsmanship shimmered in the sunlight, bringing unprecedented moisture and coolness to this desert capital.
New streets radiated from the square like a spider's web. Broad and straight, they had ceramic pipeline systems from Hua Country laid beneath them, some supplying water for daily use and others carrying away sewage. Along both sides, uniform houses of stone and timber rose from the ground, simple and practical in design yet exceptionally sturdy, capable of withstanding the desert's frequent sandstorms. More remarkably, under Zhou Yu's direction and the guidance of several Ministry of Works artisans from Hua Country, a new water-storage