The platinum banner hung across the sky like a ribbon of pure celestial dawn.
Ten days of relentless, sweat-soaked community service had fundamentally altered the appearance of the Central Ring.
The shattered meteor pathways were swept clean of stardust. Four hundred fractured moons had their gravity anchors reinforced.
Millions of stolen ancient treasures, family heirlooms, and ancestral jade slips had been returned to weeping mortal villages with handwritten letters of apology signed by terrified sect elders.
And now, standing in the center of the main bootcamp concourse, five thousand exhausted cultivators stared up at the giant holographic scoreboard.
Their pink volunteer aprons were stained with engine grease, damp mortar, and soapy water from scrubbing elderly space-turtles.
At the head of the group stood former Iron-Fist Elder Tie Chui.
He was a hulking, broad-shouldered man of four thousand years, formerly known for crushing entire trade caravans with his bare fists whenever a fee was delayed by five minutes.
