The seventy-five canisters sat in neat rows on the warehouse floor, looking like a clutch of dark, iron eggs. They were perfect. They were deadly. And they were heavy as hell.

  I tried to lift a crate containing just four of them. My knees buckled under the weight. "Eighty pounds per crate," I grunted, setting it down with a heavy thud that vibrated through my boots. "Mark, what's the total payload weight?"

  "[Calculated Payload: 1,400 lbs (approx. 635 kg).]"

  I stared at the map on the wall. The Academy was a fortress. High walls, magical wards designed to vaporize ground intruders, and gatekeepers who checked every cart. "We can't walk these in," I said, wiping sweat from my neck. "And we can't smuggle them. The weight alone would snap a cart axle."

  Amelia was sitting on a workbench, nursing a cup of cheap tea. She looked as tired as I felt. "Can't we use a Levitation spell? I know a basic one."

  "Levitation is slow," I shook my head, pacing the floor. "And it glows. A glowing crate floating toward the Academy at three miles per hour? We might as well paint a target on our foreheads."

  I looked up at the rafters. A pigeon was perched there, looking down at us. It spread its wings and dropped, catching the air effortlessly before gliding out the broken window. Gravity wasn't an obstacle for the bird. It was fuel.

  "We need speed," I muttered, my eyes tracking the bird. "And we need altitude. The Academy's anti-air wards are designed to stop high-velocity magical projectiles like fireballs. They aren't calibrated for... physical objects moving at sub-sonic speeds."

  I grabbed a piece of charcoal and cleared a space on the floor. "Amelia, come here. I need to explain something called 'Lift'."

  Three hours later, the floor was covered in sketches that looked like the fever dreams of a madman. Triangles. Curved lines. Airflow diagrams.

  "It looks like a kite," Amelia said, squinting at the design. "A very ugly, metal kite."

  "It's a fixed-wing glider," I corrected, tapping the charcoal drawing. "Or, more accurately, a crude UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). We build a frame out of the lightweight aluminum scrap Rax sent us. We skin it with thin iron sheets. It carries the payload under the belly."

  "But how does it move?" Amelia asked. "You don't have an engine. And there's no wind inside the warehouse."

  " That," I pointed to the tail section of the drawing, "is where you come in. I need a propulsion system. A constant, steady stream of force pushing from the back."

  Amelia nodded slowly. "Like a Wind Blast spell?"

  "Exactly. But not a blast. A jet."

  We got to work. The construction was brutal. We didn't have CNC machines or laser cutters. We had hammers, shears, and my [Internal Oscillation] skill to weaken the metal along the cut lines. My hands were covered in tiny cuts from the sharp aluminum edges. My back screamed in protest as we bent the wing ribs into shape.

  By midnight, the skeleton of the beast was finished. It was ugly. It spanned two meters, a jagged, Frankenstein creation of mismatched metal plates riveted together. It looked less like a bird and more like a predatory insect. We christened it "The Vulture."

  "Okay," I said, mounting the prototype on a test stand—a heavy iron rail bolted to the floor. "Let's test the engine."

  I pointed to the rear exhaust port, a copper tube lined with runes that Amelia had inscribed. "When I say go," I instructed, standing behind a makeshift shield of plywood, "I need you to channel wind mana into that tube. Just a steady push. We need to generate about fifty pounds of thrust."

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  Amelia rolled up her sleeves. She looked confident. "Wind magic is easy. I got this." She raised her hand. Her mana flared green.

  "Go!"

  BOOM.

  There was no buildup. No "steady push." The air inside the warehouse didn't just move; it exploded. A concussive blast of wind slammed into the back of The Vulture. The copper tube didn't channel it—it shrieked. The prototype didn't move forward. It bucked violently. The aluminum tail section twisted like a soda can. The entire test stand ripped out of the concrete floor bolts with a screech of tearing metal.

  "Stop! Cut it!" I screamed, diving for cover as a loose rivet shot past my ear like a bullet.

  Amelia killed the spell instantly. Silence returned to the warehouse, broken only by the sound of a metal strut clattering to the floor.

  We looked at the wreckage. The tail was mangled. The engine mount was gone. "I... I did what you said!" Amelia stammered, looking horrified. "I used Wind Blast!"

  I stood up, dusting sawdust off my hair. I walked over to the twisted metal. "I know," I said, suppressing the urge to yell. It wasn't her fault. It was a translation error. "Amelia, how do mages usually cast spells? Is it 0% or 100%?"

  "You cast the spell," she said, confused. "You release the energy. That's how magic works. You don't... trickle it."

  I rubbed my temples. This was the problem. Magic was digital—On or Off. Engineering was analog—it needed curves, gradients, control. "A jet engine can't start at full power," I explained, using my hands to simulate the flow. "If you dump all that energy at once, the structure fails. We need a throttle. We need a way to open the tap slowly."

  "I can't do that," Amelia admitted, looking down at her hands. "Holding a spell at 10% power... it's unstable. It flickers. It's like trying to hold a heavy door open just an inch."

  "Then we don't rely on you holding the door," I said, my engineer's brain finally clicking into gear. "We build a doorstop."

  I grabbed the charcoal again. "We don't change the magic. We change the intake."

  We spent the next four hours rebuilding. This time, I didn't just build a tube. I built a valve. I scavenged a butterfly valve from an old steam pipe. I installed it inside the copper exhaust port. "Okay," I explained, showing Amelia the new mechanism. "You cast your Wind Blast at full power. Go crazy. But you cast it into this chamber." I pointed to the valve lever. "I will control how much escapes. I am the throttle."

  We reset the test stand. The Vulture, now sporting a patched-up tail and a heavier engine mount, looked even uglier than before.

  "Attempt Number Two," I announced. My heart was hammering. If this failed, we were walking the bombs in.

  "Cast!"

  Amelia unleashed the green light. The wind roared into the chamber. The pressure gauge spiked instantly. The metal groaned. I grabbed the valve lever. My hand trembled. Gently.

  I cracked the valve open 10%. Hiss. A sharp, focused jet of air shot out of the nozzle. The Vulture shuddered and strained against the clamps.

  "Holding!" I shouted over the noise. "Pressure is stable! Give me more!"

  Amelia poured more mana in. The chamber glowed hot. I pushed the lever to 50%. WHOOOOOSH. The hiss turned into a roar. The thrust hit the back wall of the warehouse, kicking up a storm of dust. The prototype lifted slightly off the rail, fighting gravity.

  "It's working!" Amelia yelled, her eyes wide with shock. "It's actually pushing!"

  "Stability check!" I focused on the wings. They were vibrating. "[Skill: Acoustic Mind - Active]" I could hear the airflow. I could hear the micro-turbulence over the left wing. It was uneven. "Mark, adjust trim tab!" I manually twisted a screw on the left wing, altering the angle by a fraction of a degree. The vibration smoothed out.

  I pushed the lever to 80%. The roar was deafening. The entire heavy iron test stand began to slide across the concrete floor, pushed backward by the sheer force of the thrust. The Vulture wanted to fly. It was straining at the leash like a living thing.

  "Cut it!" I signaled.

  Amelia dropped her hand. The green light faded. The roar died down to a whistle, then silence. Smoke drifted from the copper nozzle. The smell of ozone and hot aluminum filled the air.

  I slumped against the workbench, adrenaline crashing out of my system. Amelia walked over to the machine. She touched the warm metal of the exhaust port. "It didn't explode," she whispered, sounding genuinely surprised.

  "No," I grinned, though my hands were still shaking. "It didn't."

  I looked at the clumsy, ugly metal bird. It wasn't elegant. It was loud, it leaked mana, and it required two people to operate—one to be the fuel, one to be the brain. But it generated thrust.

  "We have an engine," I said. "And we have a frame."

  I looked at the pile of canisters. "Now we just need to figure out how to make it fly quietly. Because right now? That thing sounds like a screaming banshee. The Academy will hear us coming from a mile away."

  I picked up my tuning fork. "Next problem: Acoustics."