Sunset Peak did not grow quiet after the battle. It grew busy.
Elder Mu and his healers worked along the porch. Zhao’s disciples carried water, washed wounds, and sorted the dead from the missing. Xiaoyao stood at the treatment path with his broom, keeping panicked survivors and stray attackers away from the wounded.
Austin walked among them with a pencil and a scrap of pine.
“Burns here. Broken legs there. Clean cloth on that table. Salvage crews stay in pairs. If a wreck is hot or unstable, leave it for me.”
He found two disciples arguing over a jeweled sword from a fallen skiff and took it away.
“No looting. We need bandages, timber, water, and a way home. Weapons go in one pile for Zhao.”
The disciples looked at the man who had saved them. Then they went back to work.
By sunset, every wounded person had shelter. Salvage crews had recovered intact sails for bandages, straight spars for crutches, and food from the ships’ stores. Clear Sky Sect was battered, but it was still alive.
Gu Qing came to Austin with a bloodied bandage around his chest.
“Sunset Peak will be protected ground from this day on. And Clear Sky owes you more than we can repay.”
Austin handed him a cup of water. “Start by getting your people home. Make sure the lower halls have healers too.”
Gu Qing nodded. There was no grand chant. The disciples were too tired, and there was too much left to do.
***
Inside the cabin, Austin finally sat down after checking that every patient had water and shelter. He still thought this might be a game, but there was nothing imaginary to him about doing the job in front of him.
He sat at his cedar table on the repaired milking stool and drank a cup of cold well water.
“Ahhh. Nothing beats cold water after a round of base defense.”
He leaned back and admired the tight joints in the pine walls. The floors did not squeak or bend. No drafts slipped through the seams. It was good, honest carpentry.
He opened the developer console.
Austin stretched until his spine popped.
“Tutorial cleared. Cabin built, perimeter secured, defenses automated, raiders removed. Now the real sandbox game starts.”
Then he noticed the cleanliness score.
His brow furrowed.
“Still need vinegar and baking soda for that soot on map point four-twelve. Ninety-nine point eight isn’t good enough for a finished handover. Leave a site sloppy, and clients start holding back your retainage.”
He closed the screen and entered the back workshop.
It smelled of sawdust, oil, and cold iron. Planes, drawknives, squares, and chalk lines hung in their marked places on the wall.
On the ash workbench rested his new Star-Fire Pickaxe.
He had forged its head from refined ghost-iron and connected the heat channel to a small power coil. Strips of leftover Celestial Dragon-Vein Silk wrapped the handle, giving him a firm, comfortable grip.
Austin lifted the tool.
It had the solid weight of a splitting maul, but its balance made the head feel light. He pressed the activation rune with his thumb.
A thin sheath of blue star-fire covered both points and hummed softly.
“Good balance. No kickback. A proper tool. An OSHA inspector would cry.”
He slung it over his shoulder and stepped onto the rocky shelf behind the cabin.
This was the highest outcrop on Sunset Peak, a bare ridge of black basalt leading deep into the mountain.
Austin set his feet, rolled his shoulders, and raised the pickaxe.
“Time to break ground on the industrial basement.”
He brought it down in one smooth swing.
CLACK—WHUUUUUM!
The blue edge cut six feet into solid rock. There was no dust and no flying gravel. The heat sealed the sides of the cut into straight, glassy walls.
RUMBLE—THUD.
A hollow groan answered from deep inside the mountain.
Cool underground air rushed through the opening. It smelled of rich minerals, cold stone, and dense spiritual energy.
Austin leaned over the cut.
Sixty feet below, a huge vein of electric-blue crystal ore twisted through the rock. It was five yards thick and branched downward like lightning frozen in glass.
A slow, delighted grin spread across Austin’s face.
Four hundred and fifty thousand metric tons of sovereign-grade metal. A deep cave system waiting to be opened. In his mind, the next base was already taking shape: automated minecarts, sorting chutes, drop shafts, and blast furnaces running far below the cabin.
“Oh yeah,” he whispered, shifting the humming pickaxe to his other hand. “Time to go mining.”