On the morning following the final inspection of Subterranean Floor 3, an iridescent plume of golden vapor drifted into the valley beneath Mount Clear Sky.
Drawn by four winged cloud-horses whose silver-shod hooves kicked up flecks of shimmering blue frost, a royal carriage carved from fragrant red sandalwood and banded in sheet gold rattled to a halt outside the lower gate. Fifty imperial dragon-banner cavalrymen flanked the carriage, their mirror-polished breastplates reflecting the morning sun. None of them looked eager to fight. Their knuckles were white on the reins, their eyes darting nervously toward the newly graveled road and the concrete drainage ditches flanking the approach.
Lord Chancellor Wei, Chief Diplomatic Emissary of the Canglan Provincial Governor’s Court, climbed down from the carriage steps with knees as wobbly as warm bean curd.
Wei’s silk court robes were drenched at the armpits with cold, sour sweat. He eyed the pristine timber gate, the uniform gravel grading, and the neatly staked boundary posts with the dread of a man stepping onto a dragon's tongue.
In his trembling hands, cradled in seven layers of consecrated imperial yellow silk, rested an official Golden Edict. It bore the heavy square jade seal of the Provincial Governor and the coiled dragon crest of the Great Yan Crown Prince.
For two straight weeks, the provincial capital had existed in a state of quiet, twitching hysteria.
Fourteen days prior, Supreme Grand Elder Tie Kuang—the 'Iron-Blooded Tyrant of Canglan,' a man whose butcheries had terrorized the northern prefectures for two hundred years—had marched toward Sunset Peak. He had five hundred and thirty-two heavily armed combat miners at his back and the three-hundred-ton Earth-Drill Colossus churning the earth before him. The Governor had already prepared funeral proclamations for the Clear Sky Sect and drafted revised tax schedules for the mountain’s mineral rights.
Then Sunset Peak swallowed them whole.
No courier falcons returned. No battle reports arrived. Just dead, unnatural quiet.
When the imperial intelligence bureau finally got nervous enough to deploy high-altitude scout falcons and three long-range scrying basins, the court ministers had gathered around the water mirrors bracing for a slaughterhouse. They expected piles of dismembered Daoists, collapsed pavilions, and smoking pyres of spirit-ore.
What they saw broke the mind of every civil servant in the hall.
They saw Supreme Grand Elder Tie Kuang—the beast who had personally flayed rebel warlords and fed their bones to war drakes—wearing a neon-orange mesh vest and a bright-yellow plastic hat. The terrifying grandmaster was cheerfully wheeling a barrow full of washed gravel, whistling a jaunty mountain tune while demonstrating three-point contact on a wooden ladder to a rapt group of apprentice stonecutters. They saw five hundred elite imperial battle miners tapping basalt foundation blocks with rubber mallets, visibly petrified of exceeding a mysterious 'zero point one millimeter' holy law.
Worse still, Tie Kuang had sent an official courier back to the Provincial Mining Bureau. It wasn't a demand for reinforcements or a declaration of war. It was a supply requisition form. On thick yellow parchment, the Tyrant of Canglan formally requested five hundred pairs of wrap-around safety glasses, three pallets of heavy-duty work gloves, and twelve rolls of hazard tape. He noted that 'failure to provide compliant personal protective equipment constitutes a gross operational violation punishable by immediate administrative re-education.'
The Governor had read that dispatch three times before throwing up into a porcelain spittoon.
And on top of the bureaucratic nightmare was the economic collapse: every seventy-two hours, the Clear Sky Sect released a small crate of Tier 4 Stellar-Steel scrap onto the regional metals exchange.
A single bar of that alloy possessed enough molecular purity to cold-forge thirty high-grade flying swords. Within ten business days, the arrival of this impossible material broke the Great Yan Empire’s state-controlled metals market over its knee. The spot price of spirit-iron crashed by sixty percent. The Minister of Commerce fainted three times during morning audience, spilling hot medicinal soup all over the state ledgers.
The Provincial Governor had shattered his jade teacup on the dais, his voice cracking:
*"They didn't execute Tie Kuang... they domesticated him! They took the most brutal siege engineer in the northern empire and turned him into a cheerful municipal road-crew foreman! What kind of unbelievable ancient monster is squatting on that peak?!"*
Marching an imperial army up the mountain was ruled out immediately. The Governor knew that if he sent ten thousand heavy infantry up those switchbacks, they’d all be wearing orange vests and pouring concrete gutters within a week.
That left only one tool: absolute, prostrate diplomatic flattery.
***
Up on the sunlit timber porch of the Sunset Peak lodge, the morning was peaceful.
Austin sat in a high-backed cedar rocking chair he’d knocked together over the weekend, his newly forged master contractor boots resting casually on the top rail. He wore the full Tier 4 kit: midnight-blue hard hat pushed back on his forehead, modular tool belt loaded with measuring gauges and combination wrenches, and a steaming ceramic mug of jasmine tea balanced on his knee.
Beside the porch steps, Cerberus Pug lay flat on his belly in a warm patch of sunlight, gnawing happily on a three-foot length of sheared drive axle salvaged from the Colossus's gearbox. The hellhound's three heads took turns licking thick transmission grease off the splines, his three spiked tails thumping a slow, contented rhythm against the cedar deck boards.
The wooden gate latch clattered. Sect Master Gu Qing, his white beard trembling with reverence, shuffled up the gravel path on his knees. He held the yellow silk scroll aloft over his bowed head with both hands.
"Ancestor..." Gu Qing whispered, keeping his pitch low so as not to disturb the morning tea. "The Imperial Court has dispatched an emissary of the highest ministerial rank. Lord Chancellor Wei himself waits at the outer perimeter. It is the Golden Decree of the Canglan Provincial Governor, countersigned by the Imperial Household. They... they do not dare demand restitution for the Iron Pavilion. Instead, they have delivered an urgent, humble invitation to the peak."
Austin lowered his mug, looking down toward the valley road where the golden carriage was idling. He squinted at the horses.
"Those winged cloud-ponies are tearing up my driveway crown with their frost hooves," Austin grumbled, taking a sip of tea. "Took me four hours with the drag-harrow to get that slope packed right. If they rut up my drainage swale, that chancellor is going to spend his afternoon raking crushed basalt." He looked at the scroll. "What do they want? A code enforcement hearing?"
"No, Ancestor," Gu Qing said, setting the scroll reverently on the low cedar table before Austin. "It is a formal imperial summons of honor."
Austin picked up the scroll, untied the gold tassels, and unrolled three feet of heavy embroidered silk. He squinted at the dense rows of gold-leaf calligraphy. It was packed with fifty lines of flowery classical garbage about 'celestial dragons gracing western peaks,' 'virtuous hermits whose wisdom anchors the realm,' and 'the imperial throne seeking communion with enlightened masters.'
Austin didn't have the patience to wade through three pages of imperial butt-kissing. The second his eyes skimmed the silk, his HUD chimed softly, filtering the poetic fluff into a clean, practical system window.
Austin straightened up in his rocking chair. His eyes locked onto the third bullet point: *High-Tier Hydraulic & Machine Blueprints*.
A spark of real, professional interest sparked in his chest.
"Now we're talking," Austin muttered under his breath, tapping his knuckles against his knee. "I’ve been stuck using mechanical levers, bronze spur gears, and counterweights for twenty-five chapters. Floor 2 is running smooth, but my stamping machines need directional spool valves, double-acting hydraulic cylinders, and high-pressure pneumatic actuators."
He looked down at Gu Qing, tapping the golden silk with his grease pencil.
"Tell me about this trade fair, Sect Master. Is it legit? Do they have tool stalls, raw material vendors, and decent street food?"
Gu Qing blinked, scrambling to translate Austin’s jargon in his head. "Tool stalls? Street food? Ah! Yes, Ancestor! The Grand Citadel of Canglan is the economic heart of the northern provinces! During the Centennial Expo, ten thousand spirit-artisan pavilions, heavenly alchemical guilds, and divine forge-masters assemble in the central plaza! There are rare roasted demon-beast delicacies, aged spiritual wines from the southern valleys, and the largest exchange of esoteric schematics and raw ore in the empire!"
"And what about that champion grand prize?" Austin asked, pointing the pencil tip at the screen. "The 'Ancient Heavy-Duty Matrix Core'?"
Gu Qing drew a sharp, reverent breath, his eyes wide. "A sealed artifact of limitless power, dug up from the forbidden ruins of the First Epoch! For three thousand years, the realm’s greatest array masters and smiths tried to decipher its inner gears. None could coax a single rune to ignite! The Provincial Governor offers it as the grand trophy to lure the hidden masters to the exhibition!"
Austin chuckled, shaking his head.
"An undeciphered First Epoch core. Classic locked mid-game progression item sitting in an NPC display case, waiting for somebody with the right crafting rank to right-click it."
Austin lifted his hand and tapped **[YES]** on the floating holographic window.
Austin stood up from the rocker, stretching his arms until his spine gave off three crisp, satisfying pops.
"Alright," Austin said briskly, stepping down to the gravel path. "Pack two crates of Tier 4 Stellar-Steel ingots into the heavy wagon, Gu Qing. We'll use them as vendor trade bait at the bazaar. We're taking a business road trip to the provincial capital."
Gu Qing pressed his forehead to the wood. "This disciple will prepare the escort carriage immediately!"
Before Gu Qing could get his knees under him, the mountain underneath them shuddered.
The timber deck didn't shake. No gravel rattled down the driveway. The entire mountain simply seemed to draw in a sharp, suffocating breath.
It was an instantaneous, inward **implosion of localized space**.
Deep inside Austin’s dantian, the blazing Compressed Plasma Sphere hit absolute, critical thermal saturation!
The miniature star crossed the final boundary of stellar physics. Austin’s breath hitched in his throat as an astronomical wave of density rolled through his core.
*DING.*
A chime echoed through his skull—infinitely louder, deeper, and heavier than any system prompt he had ever heard.
The final breakthrough of Season 2 had arrived.