The morning gong echoed across the five floating peaks of Cloud-Mist Market.
At the municipal construction yards on the northern pier, Master Lu Jian adjusted his yellow hard-hat, staring down at empty supply docks.
Beside him stood thirty apprentice builders, looking at empty timber racks and cold forge kilns.
“Chairman Lin,” Master Lu Jian reported as Lin Mo walked onto the pier with Su Wan and Shen Qiaoqiao. “Grand Elder Kunwu’s orders took effect at dawn. The Nine Kunlun Spirit-Quarries have cut off all shipments of spirit-timber and star-iron.”
Lu Jian kicked a dry wood shaving on the empty dock with his heavy work boot.
“Floating islands require constant structural reinforcement,” Lu Jian explained, gesturing toward the bronze stabilizing keels beneath the docks. “The floating array beneath the eastern peak consumes twenty tons of spirit-timber and ten tons of refined star-iron every week to maintain altitude. If we cannot secure raw materials within five days, the market’s edge terraces will begin to sag.”
Lu Jian unrolled a massive leather architectural blueprint across an empty shipping crate.
“Worse, our master plan for the fifty-thousand-acre Taichu Sanctuary Valley is scheduled to break ground tomorrow morning,” Lu Jian added, tapping the schematic with a grease-stained thumb. “We require forty thousand tons of dense star-iron beams and hundred-year pine timber to build the thirty-foot outer perimeter walls. We need high-grade spirit-slate to anchor the foundations for forty automated anti-air flak arrays. We also need raw stone for five hundred municipal employee dormitories and the…
