The gilded glass elevator ascended smoothly through the open central atrium of the Baicao Immortal Pavilion.
Below them, the ground-floor showroom shrank into a sea of sparkling crystal cases and tiny, upturned faces. Dozens of clerks and wealthy patrons stood frozen in place, staring upward as the golden dragon carriage reached the pinnacle of the tower.
DING.
The elevator doors parted silently, revealing the lavish expanse of the seventh floor.
Unlike the noisy, crowded retail floor below, the Supreme Sovereign Treasure Vault was draped in deep emerald-velvet drapes and lit by floating globes of warm spirit-pearls.
The air was dense with the scent of thousand-year ambergris and pure dragon-saliva incense. Around the perimeter stood twenty pedestals carved from solid violet spirit-jade, each shielded by an individual miniature defensive array.
In the center of the hall, beside a pedestal glowing with brilliant azure-gold light, stood two men.
One was a stout, balding man in opulent golden robes adorned with the double-cauldron emblem of the Guild: Vice-Master Qian (Goodness: 5/100).
