đChapter 37: The Wood Wyrm
đ April 3rd, 97 BCE â Early Spring đ±
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After the Ore-Eater's outstanding performance, Junjie realized they needed another specialized shipâthis one for logging. The mountains were full of ancient trees, and clearing the timber responsibly would open up materials for construction, carpentry, and even fuel. But hand-cutting trees at high altitudes was slow and dangerous. They needed something... monstrous.
So Junjie built one.
This craft did not resemble a ship so much as a predator taken flight. More spine than body, its cockpit jutted forward like a skull's brow, flanked by two glowing lamps that burned like baleful eyes. Beneath that "face" hung the harvesting armâan obscene parody of a limb, jointed and twisting like the talon of some titanic insect. Its clawed hand was a nightmare of iron and teeth: rollers like grinding knuckles, saw-blades like jagged nails, serrated edges gleaming like fangs. When it clamped shut, it didn't just seizeâit chewed, tore, and stripped, reducing whole trees into naked poles before snapping their crowns with a casual twist. Along its flanks, vast skeletal ribs arched outward, yawning open like the cage of some dragon corpse before snapping shut to imprison heaps of lumber. Painted in hues of bone and blood, with its vents and engines hidden beneath plates carved like carapace, the Wood Wyrm was no mere machineâit was a flying carcass reborn, a demon dressed in iron. This was the vision the villagers beheld: a monster in the sky, all gnashing teeth and skeletal ribs.
Monster Illustration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yUFCLeLJ2tUTtUiIr72anfUUZuOOWLm0/view?usp=drive_link
Too bad Webnovel doesn't let me embed pictures in here like other sites do. đÂ
That was what the villagers saw. What Junjie and Nano built was something else entirely. In truth, the Wood Wyrm was no beast, but a machine of ingenious brutality. Its "eyes" were nothing more than a pair of floodlamps flanking the reinforced cockpit, mounted high at the vessel's prow. From this vantage, the pilot commanded the massive harvesting arm slung beneathâa hinged and rotating assembly ending in a claw lined with rollers and saw-blades. With it, the Wood Wyrm could seize a standing tree, cut it clean at the base, drag it through its grinding maw to strip it bare in seconds, lop off the crown, and finally stack the logs neatly into a pile. This was what its builders saw: engineering, nothing more.
The rest of the craft was little more than a spine reinforced with engines, from which extended its great hinged "ribs." These arms did not lead to a hidden hold; instead, they swung wide to encircle and clamp down on entire stacks of timber, cradling them openly beneath the vessel. Logs often jutted past bow and stern, grotesque protrusions that made the Wood Wyrm look even less like a machine and more like some carrion beast hauling its kill. Engines and thrusters were tucked under decorative plating, their vents masked by insectile paint. To the untrained eye, it was a skeletal horror; to its builders, it was simply a lumber machineâengineered for efficiency, then dressed in menace.
Mechanical Illustration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UC6TFOrqFk7BKdufXKK4-XvQsYrpimjK/view?usp=drive_link
Too bad Webnovel doesn't let me embed pictures in here like other sites do. đ
The villagers called it The Wood Wyrm. Some whispered it was a demon. The kids refused to go near it. But it worked.
đȘ Structure and Function
The frame was constructed from nano-forged alloy: lightweight, thermally stable, and strong enough to withstand direct impacts with rocky cliffs. Junjie reinforced the skeleton for rugged terrain and wild air currents, knowing the ship would be operating in harsh conditions. Master Blacksmith Goren and his apprentices, Tamra and Jinhai, stood at the Fabricator's output belts, wide-eyed as perfect alloy struts slid forth one after another. Not a burr, not a scratchâeach piece gleamed as though a god's hand had crafted it. They whispered among themselves, but when Junjie barked for the next rib, they shouldered the impossible weight with reverence and carried it into place.
"Like handling dragon bones," Goren muttered, hefting a spar across his shoulder.
"Bones the gods themselves made," Tamra whispered, not daring to blink.
Jinhai grinned as he pinned a joint. "Then let's not drop one."
The three blacksmiths worked tirelessly, fitting the skeleton together piece by piece, bolting plates where Junjie directed, and steadying the larger sections while the Fabricator continued to conjure its flawless parts.
At its front, a telescoping arm extended downwardâdesigned to grip entire trees by the trunk. Tamra steadied the gleaming claw segments as they were lowered from the Fabricator, while Jinhai ran the rivet-driver, sparks flying as steel met alloy. In a single, fluid motion, the saw-blade ring at the base would shear a tree off at ground level. Then the massive "paw" would roll the trunk through a series of trimming mechanismsâbranch strippers, de-barkers, and a saw for slicing off the tapered tip.
Once the logs were processed, they were stacked into a uniform pile using the arm. Jinhai tested the rig during assembly, easing the paw open and closed with a hiss of pneumatics. "Feels hungry already," he said.
When enough timber had accumulated, the ship would hover directly over the pile and lower its rib-like grippers. Goren braced the grippers as they were fixed into position, his arms corded with strain. It snatched up the logs, locked them in place, and carried them back to the valley in one massive trip.
The Wood Wyrm measured fifty feet in length, with a beam of twenty feet and a draft of ten. Its cargo capacity reached a full hundred tons, yet despite its size, it required only a single crew member to operate.
That job would not fall to the blacksmiths. Instead, Junjie turned to the loggersâmen who had spent their lives in the forests and knew timber better than anyone. The first was Ranin, broad-shouldered and scarred from years of swinging an axe. To teach him, Junjie ordered a temporary second seat mounted on top of the cockpit housing, lashed in place with iron struts. From there, Junjie rode above the pilot's canopy, shouting down instructions as Ranin tried the controls for the first time.
Easy on the throttle, Nano whispered in Junjie's mind, I've linked into the Ghost Mind. If he pulls too hard, I'll smooth it out.
"Steady nowâtilt left, grip down slow," Junjie called, his voice carrying over the hiss of torque fans. Below, Ranin wrestled with the controls, sweat beading as the Wood Wyrm lurched, then steadied. To the villagers watching, it seemed like master and student working in perfect unison. To Junjie, it was Nano quietly overriding dangerous inputs, keeping man and machine alive long enough for skill to settle in.
Over the following days, Junjie repeated the process until all four chosen loggers had taken their turns in the cockpit, each one trained up under his eye. The second seat remained bolted in place until they proved steady enough to handle the machine alone. By the end of the week, the Wood Wyrm had four pilots ready to work in shifts, the valley's first cadre of airborne lumbermen.
Its propulsion system relied on tiltable electric torque fans mounted at the rear and along the spine, delivering both lift and precise maneuvering. Gyroscopic stabilizers maintained balance, while atmospheric sensors fed continuous data into the Ghost Mind. Extra anti-gravity plates lined the spine, allowing the ship to fly low and stable even at odd anglesâideal for grabbing trees on steep slopes or uneven ground. The system made real-time adjustments, allowing the massive craft to fly with surprising grace, like a dragonfly gliding through the mountains despite its size.
The real magic, of course, came from the Nano-Fuel Reactor, safely tucked beneath the pilot's cockpit. Goren and the twins were not permitted near that part. Junjie handled it himself, sealing the core into its armored cradle.
When Junjie finally gave the villagers a demonstration, reactions were mixed. The older folk stared in silence. Some elders made protective signs. A few muttered that Junjie had gone too far. The kids? They said it looked like it ate trees and flew on the wind like a vulture looking for wooden prey.
But no one could deny the results. What would have taken a crew of twenty men weeks to harvest was now handled in an afternoon by a single pilot.
It put a lot of tree cutters out of workâbut few complained. The job had been brutal, dangerous, and exhausting. Now, with the mechanical beast handling the hardest labor, they were free to move on to better, less back-breaking roles in the growing valley economy.