Thick stacks of golden wire-transfer applications piled up across all fifty teller counters as thousands of honest outer-spiral sect masters and clan chiefs flooded the marble lobby of Taichu Galactic Sanctuary Bank.
Chief Yu Lin’s regrown right arm and fifteen-trillion-crystal grant inspired the crowd. Righteous cultivators with 82 to 95 Goodness Scores lined up ten deep at every window, eager to refinance their crushing Vault #1 mortgages into zero-percent sanctuary grants.
Suddenly, the side door of the back-office clearing room swung open.
Su Wan (Goodness: 95/100) hurried out onto the main floor, her translucent jade tablet flashing with angry crimson warning runes as she approached Lin Mo’s executive lounge table.
“Chairman Lin, we have a technical bottleneck,” Su Wan reported briskly, setting the glowing tablet down beside Lin Mo’s porcelain teacup. “Chief Yu Lin’s physical crystal chests were delivered here in the lobby. But the nine-trillion-crystal wire transfer to his homeworld’s dock—and the settlements for the next fifty righteous sects—just hit a brick wall.”
Lin Mo took a slow, unhurried sip of his iced plum tea and glanced at the crimson screen:
[GALACTIC CLEARINGHOUSE ERROR #909: OUTER-SPIRAL WIRE SETTLEMENT DELAYED.]
[CAUSE: VAULT #1 HAS ACTIVATED THE “NINE-HEAVENS PRIMORDIAL ABACUS CIPHER” ON ALL INTER-GALACTIC CLEARING CHANNELS.]
