The General Affairs Department was packed. Word had spread fast: a car had rolled into Liyue Harbor with Takumi at the wheel, Keqing at his side, Klee in the back, and Zhongli—who'd followed them like a curious scholar—strolling along as if he'd been invited to a very proper, very unusual promenade.
Ningguang stood before the assembled ministers and secretaries, arms folded, eyes glittering like a merchant counting profits. Cloud Retainer and Albedo were near the blueprints table, comparing notes. Sucrose hugged a sheaf of paper that said "AGRO-ALCHEMY" on the cover in trembling handwriting. Klee had been corralled into the corner with a pile of paper dolls and a promise that no explosives would be made indoors.
Takumi cleared his throat. The moment had that particular buzz — half-excitement, half-anticipation — like the instant before floodgates open.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he started, "I'll keep this simple. The car is functional. The dump trucks are ready for load testing. We can use these machines as the backbone of Guili Plains' logistics, and—if you allow—scale them into basic transport across Liyue. That means faster material movement, lower labor costs, and quicker city completion."
Ningguang stepped forward, palms steepled. "And the electricity?"
"Prototype lights work," Takumi said. "Albedo's cores will handle generation. We'll need circuitry, transformers, safety standards. For now, we'll connect a microgrid to the purification plant and key public buildings."
Ningguang's smile turned into a calculating grin. "And water, waste management, slimes, and labor? You've presented a whole ecosystem, Mr. Takumi. Who will fund the mass roll-out? There's already talk among merchants about buying the lots in Guili Plains."
Takumi kept his face neutral. He remembered the system's little prompt when he'd activated the vehicle schematic back in Guili Plains — terse, clinical, and for his eyes only.
[SYSTEM] — BLUEPRINT TECHNOLOGY:
• Function: Manifestation & Specification Interface
• Outputs: 3D models, step-by-step construction sequences, assembly schematics, material lists, quality thresholds
• Restrictions: Materialization limited by USER energy; replicated manufacturing requires adaptation to local tech
• Visibility: SECRET — Only USER can access full logs]
He would not show the full log. He had promised himself secrecy for a reason: the system was unimaginably useful, and if everyone knew Takumi could simply conjure plans and objects, economies and social orders would shift overnight. Liyue needed structured growth, not panicked profiteering.
So he explained gently. "Think of the blueprints as extremely detailed design templates. People still need foundries, craftsmen, and raw ores to produce parts. The blueprints speed training and prevent repeated trial-and-error — they're a road map, not a magic factory."
Ningguang's eyes narrowed. "A profitable roadmap. Very useful. And your share?"
Takumi smiled, the smile that had made so many Liyue girls glance twice. "No share. For now — Ningguang funds the project and handles commercialization. I just want the city built properly."
Her smile deepened. "How noble." Then, without missing a beat, she turned to Baiwen. "Draft contracts. We'll bind leases to construction milestones. Profits will fund further infrastructure. Also… set aside a contingency fund equal to thirty percent of the projected cost. Large projects always need buffers."
Keqing slammed a hand on the desk. "Thirty percent? That's excessive."
Ningguang's eyebrow rose. "You wish to underfund the project, Yuheng? You'd like Guili Plains delayed because a storm hits and we lack reserve? No. Thirty percent is conservative."
Takumi watched the debate and realized: Ningguang loved numbers the way a poet loved words. She'd already computed risks and marginal returns while maintaining her public poker face. He could trust her to keep the city and its coffers in order — she'd just extract tidy margins while doing it.
Cloud Retainer folded her arms and, in a rare mortal concession, smiled in approval. "If money keeps hands steady, then this mortal has skill and you must plan to resist greed. Keep me on call; I will engineer the heavy mechanics."
Albedo frowned, rubbed his chin, and peered at Takumi. "There is one crucial point the plans must include: energy arbitration. Chaos cores and elemental crystals are not infinite. If too many devices tap the grid simultaneously, fluctuations will cause damage. We need protocols for priority allocation — hospitals before factories, navigation before entertainment lighting."
Sucrose brightened and produced a hastily drawn flowchart. "I can do load-shedding schedules! And algae biomasses for backup… and—"
Keqing cut in. "We'll cache power with electro crystal stores Albedo designates. Sucrose will oversee research into plant-like stores. Keqing will supervise resource deployment."
Takumi put his hand up. "And I'll provide the operational blueprints and training material — only as templates. Craftsmen will still be the ones to make these things. We won't remove artisan skills."
Ningguang hummed. "Good. Now, about land allocation…"
Before she could continue, Hu Tao barged in, breathless and picturesque as ever, with a tray of plum cakes and a grin that suggested she'd already eulogized a few backsides in the Wangsheng ledger.
"Did somebody say entertainment industry?" she sang. "If you plan to build a city, it must have a theater! I can coordinate the opening gala. Also, I brought cake!"
Klee launched herself forward immediately. "Sister Hu Tao! Cake! Do we get to blow up the cake later?"
Hu Tao blinked and then laughed delightedly. "Oh dear, explosive cuisine — we'll add it to the menu."
Even Zhongli indulgently sipped a cup of tea and allowed himself a rare chuckle. "Entertainment and culture will make the city liveable. We must not make a cold industrial settlement; balance is crucial."
Takumi's chest warmed. This was precisely what he'd hoped: infrastructure plus soul. A city needed streets and sewage, but it also needed tea houses and opera.
Blueprint Tech — Practical Explanation (the sanitized version)
Takumi gave a quiet demonstration of the blueprint tech to a small delegation — Ningguang, Keqing, Albedo, and Cloud Retainer. He manifested a miniature 3D city model above the table: streets, pipe layouts, a two-story house that opened to reveal wiring paths, a cross-section of a transformer, and a labeled list outlining stepwise construction.
"Blueprints give you the sequence," he explained. "Lay foundation A, then insert conduit B, reinforce with rebar pattern C, pour concrete D. The model tells you tolerances and temporal sequencing — who does what, when, and which tool to use. It reduces miscommunication."
Albedo's expression was the textbook of curiosity. "Essentially a design-state emulator. For those who can read it, construction times are reduced by ninety percent."
Cloud Retainer murmured, "The trick will be converting artisan intuition into repeatable modules."
Takumi nodded. He was careful to avoid any mention of the system's deeper capabilities — the threads the blueprint technology pulled from seemingly nowhere — and that was by design.
Only he knew the little diagnostics the blueprints provided about structural resonance, energy harmonics, and long-term alchemical fatigue. Those entries remained on his private console: red-flag warnings to be handled personally or by Albedo.
A Subtle Budget Sunder
Later, alone with Ningguang, Takumi felt the conversation turn frank.
"You have grand plans," she said. "You don't lack knowledge, but you lack an institution to scale indefinitely. My vault has resources, but we must control inflation, wages, and merchant hoarding. If traders hoard cement or if certain materials vanish from open markets because investors buy them up, construction halts."
Takumi tapped his chin. "We'll fix that with regulated sales. Ningguang, if you release materials directly to the construction consortium at fixed prices, and levy taxes on speculative hoarding, we maintain supply."
Her smile became thin and businesslike. "Good. I'll release a tranche of Mora to set the factories rolling. But if the project requires more — and it will — I'll need guarantees that profits return to Liyue's reserves. No rogue industries."
He agreed. "Understood."
Ningguang placed a small seal on the table as if signing fate itself. "Very well. I'll authorize an initial budget increase. But don't waste it on showpieces. Keep books clean."
Takumi bowed. "Agreed."
Budget crisis averted for now, the needle clicking back into the green. But both of them knew this was only the first of many financial negotiations. Building a nation required more than plans — it needed guardians at the chest.
Assignment & Departure
By late afternoon, tasks had been distributed:
Albedo & Cloud Retainer: finalize production specs for vehicle frames and core interfaces; begin small-batch manufacturing.
Keqing: supervise logistics, contracting, and draft a tentative traffic code with Yanfei.
Ningguang: manage funding, property leases, and merchant relations.
Sucrose: lead agricultural experiments with Qingce crops and wild rice hybrids.
Klee: supervised demolition for remaining dockbed work (under strict protocols — Jean's money now held by Ningguang, which strangely solved Klee's 'funding' problem).
Takumi: remain project lead; prototype and maintain secrecy of system functions; handle architecture of larger systems and inter-department coordination.
Before he left the harbor for Guili Plains, Takumi took a moment to look at the miniature model he'd made earlier. The system's display pulsed beneath his palm, the secret logs whispering in a language only he and that cold console could understand.
He couldn't show everyone the hidden edges — the way a blueprint could predict stress fractures decades ahead or generate a precise alloy recipe from mined ore quality. For now, that remained his burden. He would guide Liyue into industry, not overwhelm it with miracles.
Klee tugged his sleeve. "Brother Takumi, when we finish, can we make the seaside villas with a slide that goes into the sea?"
"Of course." He ruffled her hair. "But first, finish building the dock without blowing up the tea houses."
She saluted, serious and tiny, then ran off to bother Hu Tao.
As the car rolled back onto the smooth four-lane road toward Guili Plains, Takumi allowed himself a small smile.
There were a thousand things to solve: electricity, water, steel, roads, workers' rights, food security, entertainment, and the ethics of using slimes as resource reservoirs. Each night the system whispered a little more: optimizations, risks, warnings.
He had systems, blueprints, allies, and the emperor's quiet blessing.
And he had a secret.
One day, perhaps, he would write everything down.
But for now, Liyue needed work — and he'd rather sweat building it than have the world collapse under a single, flashy miracle.
[SYSTEM] — NEXT TASKS:
• Industrial District feasibility study (Electronics / Food / Entertainment / Agro-tech).
• Start pilot line: 10 vehicles.
• Sucrose: hybrid rice trial — Autumn planting window.
• Albedo/Cloud: transformer prototype testing.
(All logs: PRIVATE — USER only)
Takumi stepped on the accelerator. The cement road hummed under the tires. Guili Plains awaited.