With the final, exhilarating tests complete and the last, brilliant safety features in place, a quiet, focused, and deeply satisfying, period of finalization began. The workshop on Mt. A'ocang was filled with the soft, scratching sound of Ren's charcoal stick on parchment as he, with Xianyun's help, created the final, master blueprints for the Cloud-Piercer and the hoverboard.
They were not just simple diagrams; they were works of art, meticulously detailed documents that explained every screw, every rune, every alchemical process, with a clarity and a simplicity that would allow any skilled, and properly trained, craftsman to replicate their miracle.
Finally, after days of this painstaking, final work, the documents were complete. It was time. It was time to bring their new, beautiful, and world-changing, dream to the world.
A message was sent to Ganyu via the communication sigil, a simple, but very exciting, instruction: "Tell Lady Ningguang to clear a landing space on the Jade Chamber. We are coming to her. And we are not walking."
The day of their grand arrival was a beautiful, clear Liyue morning. Xianyun, a look of quiet, proud excitement on her face, took the driver's seat of the Cloud-Piercer. Ren, his heart a happy, thrumming drum, hopped into the passenger seat beside her. And in the backseat, a silent, watchful, and deeply, profoundly, curious, Shenhe sat, her presence a silent, formidable statement. This was a family outing.
With a smooth, powerful hum, the Cloud-Piercer lifted from the peak of Mt. A'ocang and soared out into the open sky, a single, sleek, and utterly impossible, vessel heading towards the bustling, golden heart of the harbor.
They landed, with a grace and a precision that was a testament to their perfect design, on the main, central platform of the Jade Chamber. Ningguang and Keqing were waiting for them, their faces a mask of pure, stunned, and utterly, completely, and profoundly, awestruck, disbelief. They had been told to expect an arrival, but they had not been prepared for this.
They stared at the beautiful, sleek, and silent, flying machine that had just descended from the heavens, and then at the three figures who calmly, and casually, disembarked from it.
"Master Xianyun," Ningguang finally managed to say, her voice a little breathless, her legendary composure momentarily, and completely, shattered. "You have… been busy."
Later, in the familiar, quiet of her office, the blueprints for both the hovercar and the hoverboard were laid out on her grand, mahogany desk. Ningguang and Keqing looked at the schematics, their brilliant, strategic minds already reeling with the sheer, world-altering, and economically explosive, potential of what they were seeing.
"The rollout," Ningguang began, her voice full of a new, grand, and very profitable, ambition, "will be similar to the man-made Visions. A controlled, initial distribution, for the citizens of Liyue first."
But Ren, who had been listening quietly, knew he had to interject. He had not just built a car; he had also thought about the world it would create.
"It can't be that simple, Lady Ningguang," he said, his voice polite but firm. "You can't just… sell these to people."
Ningguang and Keqing looked at him, confused.
"These aren't like the gauntlets," he explained, his logic clear, simple, and born of a memory of a world already full of such rules. "They are vehicles. They move fast. They can be dangerous if the person using them doesn't know what they're doing. You can't just buy one. You have to… earn the right to use one."
He laid out his new, and equally revolutionary, idea. "Before anyone can be eligible to buy a hovercar or a hoverboard, they have to go to a special school. A 'driving school'. They have to be taught the rules, the safety procedures, how to control the vehicle properly. And then, they have to pass a test."
He looked at them, his eyes full of a simple, profound, and utterly, unassailable, logic. "And only if they pass the test, do they get a license. A 'driver's license'. A small, official document from the Qixing that proves they are a safe, and qualified, driver."
He wasn't finished. "And that license," he continued, "it shouldn't be for life. It should have to be renewed. Every five years, maybe. The person has to come back and take a small, simple test, just to make sure they are still physically, and mentally, able to drive safely. And," he added, his mind already thinking of all the necessary, practical details, "we have to set an age limit. Maybe not for a hoverboard, since it's simpler. But, a standard eighteen plus for a hovercar."
The two most powerful, and brilliant, women in Liyue stared at the small, ten-year-old boy, their minds once again, completely, and utterly, boggled. He had not just given them a revolutionary new technology. He had, in the space of a single, calm, and perfectly logical, conversation, just invented the entire, complex, and fundamentally, necessary, bureaucratic infrastructure of a Department of Motor Vehicles.