In the highest, most secluded spire of the Southern Cloud Mountains, behind seven layers of ancient warding arrays and swirling banks of cold mountain fog, sat the Pavilion of Clear Sky.
Inside, Sect Master Gu Qing was having a quiet, furious nervous breakdown.
Gu Qing was four centuries old. He wore imperial violet silk stitched with silver cloud patterns, carried himself with the stiff posture of an emperor, and governed three provinces with an iron word. As a Peak Golden Core sovereign who had spent sixty grueling years scraping against the threshold of Nascent Soul, nobody questioned him. Nobody dared.
Right now, he was pacing the mirrored spirit-jade floorboards, digging his thumbs into his temples until blue veins stood out like rigging cordage across his pale forehead.
Around the central octagonal spirit table sat the seven supreme Grand Elders. Usually they looked like carved stone statues in an ancestral tomb. Today, their skin was the color of curdled goat's milk. Their fingers twitched on their silk knees like nervous sparrows.
"Let's review the incident reports one more time," Gu Qing said, his voice brittle as dry twigs in winter. "Three days ago, outer disciple Chu Yuan—whose spiritual roots were officially tested, sealed, and filed in our outer archives as dead, unyielding pig iron—ignited an unknown ancient fire on Sunset Peak."
He snatched a glowing green jade slip from the mahogany table, tapping it against his knuckle with sharp, rhythmic cracks.
*Tack. Tack. Tack.*
"Two days ago, the ancient Earth-Fiend General Yan Jiao—a demonic calamity sealed three thousand feet in the bedrock eight centuries ago by our founding ancestor—breached the crust. It took one look at Chu Yuan holding a rusty garden hoe, cried *'I obey the decree of the Sun Emperor,'* and clawed its way three thousand feet deeper into the boiling mantle to get away from him."
Gu Qing picked up a second jade slip. His left eyelid twitched with an angry, uncontrollable flutter.
"Yesterday afternoon, Elder Mu Chen—who had locked himself in his subterranean magma kiln for forty years, swearing to roast before facing his lifespan limit—ate a piece of charred radish peel from Chu Yuan’s fingers. In four breaths, he broke through two cultivation stages, purged three centuries of furnace sludge, and added four hundred years of fresh life."
He picked up a third jade slip. His knuckles went bone-white.
"Yesterday evening, Chu Yuan bought fifty common pine planks from Steward Qian. He paid with a ten-pound solid ingot of raw Nine-Yang Sun-Gold. And he told Qian to *keep the change.*"
Gu Qing drew a ragged, shuddering breath, grabbing the fourth slip.
"This morning, Patriarch Bai Tian marched three hundred heavy armored cavalry up the mountain to shake him down. A sixteen-year-old boy in rags swung a frayed bamboo broom once. Three hundred men and three hundred barded war beasts were launched two miles down the valley into the drainage sump. And then..."
Gu Qing pointed a shaking finger toward the pavilion doorway.
Chief Elder Zhao Shen was hovering in the shadows by the lintel. The old inquisitor was sweating so hard his black silk sash looked dipped in a creek. In his trembling hands, he held the empty velvet lining of his rosewood casket.
"...And then," Gu Qing whispered, his voice climbing into a ragged squeak, "Chu Yuan strolls into the Disciplinary Hall carrying a beat-up three-legged milking stool. Sits dead in the center of the suppression array. Ignores sixty Foundation enforcers. And orders Elder Zhao to hand over five structural screws to fix an eight-degree wobble."
Gu Qing slammed the four jade slips down together onto the table.
*CLATTER.*
"WHO IS HE?!" Gu Qing yelled, tossing four centuries of dignified reserve straight out the arched window. "Is he the Founding Patriarch reincarnated?! Is he an ancient monster from the First Epoch playing house in our weeds?! Or is he an eldritch devil who’s going to swallow this entire sect whole the minute he finishes his morning tea?!"
"He is the Sun Sovereign," a voice boomed from the gallery stairs.
The elders snapped their heads toward the door.
Strolling into the chamber was a man who looked barely thirty-five. His hair was thick, jet-black, and fell over broad shoulders like polished silk. His complexion held the clear, radiant flush of warm emerald jade, and a soft halo of emerald pill fire hummed around his brow. The sheer density of his spiritual pressure made the hanging oil lanterns flare white.
"Elder... Elder Mu?" Sect Master Gu whispered, half-rising from his chair, jaw hanging slack. "Your hair... your core... you reached Peak Golden Core?!"
Elder Mu walked to the center of the floor, his back straight as a plumb line. He turned toward the western ridge and bowed from the waist.
"Sect Master," Mu Chen said softly, his voice trembling with holy certainty. "I have eaten of His table. I have breathed the first-dawn heat that births stars. Chu Yuan is no demon. He is no reincarnated sect founder."
Mu leaned across the octagonal table, pinning each grand elder with a wide, feverish stare.
"He is an **Ancient Celestial Sovereign**. He sits on Sunset Peak in coarse cloth, experiencing the mortal dirt, framing a pine cabin with His own hands to comprehend the Ultimate Dao of Simplicity and Zero Tolerances! When He tossed me that charred peel, He saw through three hundred years of my rot with one glance. He wasn't giving charity—He was testing whether my heart had room for humility!"
Chief Elder Zhao stepped forward from the shadows, nodding with grim dread. "Brother Mu speaks truth. When Chu Yuan sat on that wobbly stool, he looked into my marrow. He said our laws had an eight-degree tilt! He wasn't talking about timber. He was warning the Disciplinary Hall! He told us that if we keep measuring heaven with crooked, biased rules, his fire will strip our sect down to bare rock!"
Silence slammed shut over the council room.
The seven grand elders sat frozen. A cold trickle of sweat ran down every spine, dampening their embroidered collars.
"Then... what do we do?" Gu Qing breathed, mopping his neck with a silk handkerchief. "If we cross him, he could turn these peaks into slag. If we ignore him, what if he decides our buildings spoil his horizon?"
"We appease Him," Elder Mu said flatly. "We don't get in His way. If He wants to be a carpenter, we find Him the rarest dragon timber in the province. If He wants to plant radishes, we haul wagonloads of spirit dew. Declare Sunset Peak an **Untouchable Ancestral Forbidden Ground** right now! Any disciple, deacon, or elder who wanders within three miles without His summons gets their legs broken by my own hands!"
Gu Qing swallowed hard, chest heaving under his purple robes. He looked at the two oldest, most cynical men in the sect—both turned into wide-eyed zealots in forty-eight hours.
"Issue the decree," Gu Qing said, collapsing back into his jade chair. "Open the Heavenly Vault. Ten bolts of Imperial Dragon-Vein Silk. Five slabs of Celestial Jade pavers. One jar of Concentrated Thousand-Flower Dew. Load them on a handcart and leave them outside his fence as an anonymous gift of goodwill. And tell the deacons: zero boot prints. Don't even scuff the gravel."
***
Two hours later, Sunset Peak was quiet under the afternoon breeze.
Austin sat on his porch bench, the three-legged milking stool wedged securely between his knees.
He had an iron flat-head turn-screw in his right hand. The five gold-plated screws from the town hall rested on an oiled rag beside him, catching the late sun.
First, he cleared the split mortise. Using a small pocket gouge, he scraped away the gummy old pitch and dried tree sap the previous owner had used to glue the cracked tenon. He sliced a thin cedar spline from a scrap shingle, tapped it into the split with a wooden mallet, and clamped the joint with his palms until the grain seated flush.
Next, the fasteners.
He lined up the cross-brace, centered the gold screw over the pilot hole, and bore down with his shoulder weight.
*Screeech-crick.*
The machine-cut threads bit into the cured pine with a clean, biting crunch. Sweet resin and old turpentine wafted up as the iron drove deep. Austin drove the head home until the bevel sank flush beneath the wood surface, counter-sunk by a sixteenth of an inch. Zero split. Zero tear-out.
He set the stool down onto the black obsidian flagstones.
*Tup.*
Austin stood up, hooked his hands on his hips, and kicked the base of each leg with his sandal.
Solid. Not a wiggle. The seat sat dead flat, trued to zero point zero degrees against the mountain horizon.
"Clean," Austin said, running his calloused palm over the smooth pine round. "No rocking. No twist. Proper mechanical fastening beats spit and pitch every day of the week."
A clean chime rang directly behind his ears:
Austin blinked, glancing past the porch railing toward the fence.
Parked just outside the copper wire was a carved wooden freight cart lined with padded velvet. Stacked in the bed were ten massive bolts of shimmering silver fabric, five thick slabs of translucent green stone, and a cut-crystal jug filled with glowing liquid.
The delivery crew was already a mile down the trail, kicking up a rooster-tail of red dust as they sprinted for the valley.
Austin walked down the porch steps, crossed the yard, and leaned over the fence to inspect the load.
He pinched the edge of the silver fabric between his fingers. It felt cold as river ice, smooth as glass, and when he tugged on a loose selvage thread with both thumbs, it pulled taut like braided steel wire. Then he looked at the green stone slabs—six feet long, three feet wide, four inches thick, with flat sawn faces and zero crown.
"Daily login package already?" Austin grinned, shaking his head in mild amusement. "Free cosmetic fabrics and hardscape stone dropped right at the spawn point without grinding a single world boss. Clunky combat physics aside, the developer retention rewards are surprisingly decent."
He hoisted one of the heavy bolts over his shoulder, turned around, and walked back toward his cabin.
"These will make solid blackout drapes," he muttered, eyeing the front windows. "Sun hits my bunk at six sharp. Time to kill that glare."