The NPC would not stop headbutting the floor.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each hit left another smear of sweat and dirt on Austin’s clean black courtyard. Load-bearing disaster.
“Hey, kid. Stop the loop.” Austin nudged the boy’s shoulder with the wooden handle of his hoe.
Li Xiaoyao froze with his nose half an inch above the ground. His teeth chattered. “S-Senior Ancestor... This worthless worm awaits your punishment.”
“My name’s Austin, not Senior Ancestor. I don’t know what quest you’re running, but you’re scuffing the finish.”
He walked to the lean-to and kicked through a pile of kindling until he found an old bamboo broom. He tossed it between Li Xiaoyao’s knees.
[Worn Bamboo Broom | Durability: 8/30 | Removes loose debris]
“There’s a pail of gray water behind the rain trough,” Austin said. “Scrub off that clay. Don’t flick the broom. Pull it flat in twelve-inch strokes. If you just throw dust into the air, it settles right back down.”
Li Xiaoyao raised his trembling chin and looked at the broom.
To Austin, it was dry bamboo tied with rotten twine. To Li Xiaoyao’s spiritual senses, every split fiber hummed with power.
A divine cleansing relic! He isn’t killing me. He’s giving me a chance to wash away my sins through sacred labor. And twelve-inch strokes must be a lost technique of the Dust-Sweeping Dao!
Tears of joy ran down his face.
“Student Li Xiaoyao obeys!” He hugged the broom to his chest. “Even if my bones turn to powder, I will sweep until this ground reflects the purity of the Nine Heavens!”
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t miss the corners.”
Xiaoyao’s stomach growled loudly enough for Austin to hear. The boy tried to hide it by bowing again.
Austin took the grain sack, measured out two bowls of millet, and set them to cook in a battered pot. “You can eat when the floor is clean. And stop calling yourself a worm. You carried that sack all the way up here, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Senior.”
“Then you’re useful. Work, eat, and nobody hits you. Those are the rules.”
Xiaoyao stared at him. In Clear Sky, a ruined chore meant a beating, and a full bowl belonged to someone stronger. “You would feed me?”
“You can’t work hungry.” Austin went to the porch bench. “Strange game. The NPC needs lunch before the quest moves on.”
As soon as he sat down, a chime rang.
Austin opened the blueprint and nodded.
“Perimeter wire. Good reward. If you don’t fence your base on the first day, something always eats your supplies while you’re away.”
He searched the scrap pile behind the lean-to. Under a pile of wet shingles, he found a wooden spool of heavy eight-gauge copper wire. The last Chu Yuan had used it to tie bundles of firewood.
The copper was green with corrosion and full of kinks. Austin bent a loop around his thumb.
“Ugly, but solid copper is solid copper. Good enough for an electric fence.”
He drove an iron grounding rod into the rocky soil, cleaned one end of the wire, and fastened it to the rod. Then he ran the line around the yard. He added wooden supports to keep it off the damp posts and pulled it tight.
To Austin, this was a simple barrier for rabbits and boars.
He connected the circuit to the tiny amount of power leaking from his dantian.
Just twelve volts. Enough to make a pig pull its snout back.
The people of Canglan would have called connecting a star to a grounding wire insane.
The instant the circuit closed, half a million volts surged through the copper. The wire glowed violet, and heat shimmered around the fence posts.
Austin wiped his hands on his trousers. “Simple, grounded, and up to code. Let’s see a pest chew through that.”
***
Half an hour later, heavy boots crunched up the trail.
“Hey, dead man! Drag your worthless carcass out here and pay your dues!”
Three young men swaggered out of the bamboo. The leader was burly and wore dark indigo robes. An iron saber rested across his shoulders, and his flat face wore the easy cruelty of a bully who had never been punched back.
Wang Hu, personal guard to Young Master Bai Chen.
Two lackeys followed him with oak clubs. Every month, they robbed weak outer disciples of spirit stones, food, and herbs. Chu Yuan had always been an easy target.
“Brother Hu, look.” One lackey pointed. “Isn’t that Li Xiaoyao? Why is he crawling around like a dog?”
Li Xiaoyao was on his knees in the courtyard, carefully sweeping the black floor. Each stroke looked like part of a solemn ritual.
“Trash keeps company with trash.” Wang Hu spat on the trail. “Chu Yuan! Young Master Bai has seized your grain for the mountain defense tax. Hand it over, kowtow three times, and maybe I won’t break your other leg!”
Austin looked up from his crafting log.
Three people stood beyond his fence. No red warning markers appeared above their heads, which annoyed him.
“More bandit NPCs. The spawn rate on this mountain is ridiculous.”
He stayed on the bench and waved toward the wire. “Keep off the grass. Fence is live.”
Wang Hu’s face turned purple. “You crippled dog! You think cleaning your porch makes you an elder? What’s this scrap wire supposed to do against the Iron Sword Hall?”
He strode forward and kicked the copper strand.
Li Xiaoyao looked up in horror.
“NO! DON’T TOUCH THE BOUNDARY—”
Too late.
Wang Hu’s boot closed the circuit.
BZZZZZT—KABOOM!
The blast sounded like a bomb going off inside a steel shed. Violet-white fire burst from the wire. The shock wave flattened the nearby pines and rattled windows three peaks away.
Wang Hu didn’t have time to scream.
The current slammed into him. His saber shattered into red-hot fragments. His robes burned to rags, and his two-hundred-pound body shot backward like a cork from a bottle.
He sailed three hundred and fifty meters over the ridge, trailing smoke. Then he dropped through the thatched roof of the valley pigpens.
A wet SPLAT echoed across the mountain, followed by a chorus of terrified pigs.
The two lackeys froze. Their clubs had turned to charcoal in their hands. Their eyebrows were gone. They stared at the empty sky where Wang Hu had been.
Austin slowly lowered his mug of cold water. He set it on the bench with great care, like a man putting down a tool before he threw it.
“Unbelievable. The guy touched a low-voltage fence and got launched into the sky. The knockback math has to be off by two decimal places.”
He pointed at the lackeys. “Tell your developers to fix that. It ruins the whole physics system.”
They understood only one thing: the ancient monster on the porch had just ordered them away.
“DEMON! MERCY!”
They dropped their clubs and fled down the steps, tripping over each other in their panic.
Inside the courtyard, Li Xiaoyao fell flat on his stomach and wept.
Master Chu threw a Foundation Establishment guard across the valley with a wave of his hand. Then he complained that heaven’s laws were too weak. What kind of being have I found?