The northern cliffs of the Clear Stream River Valley rose like sheer grey castle walls against the morning sky. Towering three hundred paces above the valley floor, the cracked limestone spires were shrouded in eternal, drifting silver mists that smelled of cold moss, crushed slate, and ancient underground stone veins.
He stood on a raised granite ledge halfway up the bluff. Lin Xiao rested upon Xiao Hei’s broad, tightly packed shoulders. Beside them, Tie Shan gripped a heavy meteor-iron chisel and sledgehammer. Meanwhile, Su Ling’er held a rolled silk blueprint beneath her vermilion cloak, her fox ears twitching at the muffled, deep thrum shaking through the stone beneath their feet.
“It’s right behind this rock face,” Su Ling’er murmured. She pressed her slender palm against the cold limestone. “Can you hear it, Master Tie?”
The titan bear laid his grizzled cheek against the dark rock. His golden titan arm glowed with faint earthen runes as his senses reached into the mountain inside.
“Aye...” Tie Shan grunted, his amber eyes flashing. “A roaring beast trapped in a granite cage. Hundreds of gallons a breath, pounding against the stone. The mountain holds an ocean in its belly.”
“Omniscient Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao queried silently. “Display underground deep-rock cross-section.”
A crisp bronze chime echoed in his mindscape. It projected a fine, detailed topographical wireframe across his vision:
Four hundred and fifty thousand cubic meters of pure ice-slow spring water, Lin Xiao calculated with deep satisfaction. Trapped behind a twelve-foot plug of granite, seeping uselessly into underground rifts while our agricultural terraces sit dry. Nature already did ninety-nine percent of the work by putting the pool eighty feet above our fields. All we need is to build the tap.
“Uncle Tie,” Lin Xiao said aloud, hopping down from the hound’s back to land on the stone ledge with a floating wobble. “How long would it take you to chisel through twelve feet of dense granite?”
Tie Shan scratched his braided beard with a rueful grin. “With my sledgehammer and golden arm? Half a day of bone-jarring pounding. But when twelve feet of granite gives way under four hundred thousand tons of water pressure, the blowout will blow this entire ledge into gravel and sweep us halfway to the southern ocean.”
“Which is why we aren’t going to smash it with a hammer,” Lin Xiao replied smoothly. “We’re going to bore a care drainage water chute with hydro-lasers.”
“Hydro-lasers?” Tie Shan blinked, his leathery ears flapping in confusion.
“Watch and learn, Uncle Tie,” Lin Xiao said with a cheerful ripple.
Lin Xiao hopped into the mouth of the dark karst crevice. The fissure was barely five feet wide, dripping with cold, stone-rich slow leak water that tasted crisp and sweet on his outer membrane. Approaching the solid back wall of the fissure—a massive, upright dike of dark grey granite polished smooth by hundreds of years of moisture—Lin Xiao anchored his basal outer edge against the limestone floor.
He drew upon his internal liquid pool. It packed the fluid within his core to five thousand pounds of pressure.
“Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao focused his will. “Set bore width to four feet. Circular arched profile with a gentle five-degree downward slope toward the valley.”
“Fine-tuning checked,” the Dao Spirit chimed. “Engaging [Laminar Hydro-Cutter] at maximum focal speed.”
SSSSSSHHHHH-ZIIIP!
A needle-thin jet of semi-clear azure water, high-pressure to sky-high thickness, hissed from Lin Xiao’s forward apex. The waterjet didn’t merely splash against the granite. It struck the rock with the moving ferocity of a diamond drill, vaporizing the quartz and pink rock minerals into milky white dust.
Lin Xiao began to rotate his body in a slow, rhythmic circle.
Like a hot needle sliding through beeswax, the smooth-flowing hydro-jet carved a flawless, four-foot circular channel directly into the heart of the granite dike. As Lin Xiao advanced, the high-pressure water flushed the crushed rock dust out behind him in a steady slurry of grey mud. Tie Shan and Xiao Hei watched from the crevice entrance with jaws hanging slack, mesmerized by the sheer, easy shape of the cutting path.
Eight feet... Ten feet... Eleven feet...
Through the stone wall, the muffled roar of the trapped underground lake grew from a distant rumble into an ear-splitting, thunderous roar that shook the very foundation of the cliff!
“Host warning,” the Dao Spirit’s voice rang sharp. “Granite barrier thickness reduced to eighteen inches. Water-pressure head pressure approaching twenty-two bars. Rupture coming soon upon final pass.”
Xiao Long! Lin Xiao projected across the soul circuit. Take your position at the water chute mouth! When the torrent breaks, you’re the master of the current!
Down at the Clear Stream River, an amazing splash erupted.
Xiao Long shot into the sky like a spear of blue lightning! The fifteen-foot Horned Azure River Drake rode a billowing cloud of silver mist. It climbed the cliff face in waving loops before plunging directly into the mouth of the karst crevice. Coiling his jade-scaled body around the rocky entrance, Xiao Long’s pearl-white horns began to crackle with brilliant turquoise lightning. His amber eyes glowed with total aquatic power.
Master, I’m ready! Xiao Long’s youthful voice rang through the soul link. The waters of the earth answer my call!
“Final cut,” Lin Xiao commanded.
With a flick of his azure tendril, Lin Xiao traced a clean cross-hatch through the leftover eighteen inches of granite:
KRRR-KRAAAACK!
The granite plug shattered inward with the ear-splitting bone-shaking roar of an erupting volcano!
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A huge column of crystal-clear, ice-slow mountain water—white with foaming aeration, roaring with the fury of a thousand coiled serpents—exploded through the four-foot channel! The huge striking force surged forward like a liquid battering ram, threatening to tear the crevice walls to pieces.
Lin Xiao, fully calm by water, simply allowed the raging torrent to wash over his floating form. His non-Newtonian body absorbed the high-pressure shock effortlessly. It rolled with the current like an unsinkable rubber ball.
At the channel mouth, Xiao Long went to work.
The fifteen-foot river drake didn’t fight the raging flood. He embraced it. Xiao Long threw his snake-like coils into the swirling heart of the torrent, his pearl-white horns blazing with blinding sky light. Waves of ancient, dragon-vein sovereignty radiated from his scales, imposing total order upon the chaotic floodwaters.
CALM, Xiao Long commanded the waters through his spiritual will.
The violent, churning white foam suddenly smoothed out. The roaring high-pressure hammer subsided into a swift, singing, smooth-flowing stream of pure turquoise glass, flowing smoothly down the channel without overflowing the banks by a single drop!
Tie Shan leaped into action at the portal exit.
Using his golden titan claws, the master smith hoisted a massive, pre-carved dark rock slab into the newly cut stone guides flanking the water chute mouth. A sliding weir-gate fitted with an iron-heavy cedar lever. By raising or lowering the dark rock slab, the outflow of mountain water could be dialed from a gentle trickle to a roaring torrent with a simple pull of the hand.
From the cliff portal, the water surged into the newly carved stone aqueduct.
Spanning forty paces across the northern gorge, the aqueduct was a masterpiece of gravity-fed building. A channel carved from solid granite blocks, lined with polished quartz sand. He carried the singing mountain brook across the empty air before delivering it directly onto the crest of the highest southern agricultural terrace.
Down on Tier Twelve, Su Ling’er stood watching with her hands clasped against her chest.
The crystal-clear stream arrived with a joyful, bubbling rush. It poured into the main header channel. It filled the stone water chute to the brim before spilling evenly through twelve carved stone spillway notches.
The water cascaded downward!
From Tier Twelve to Tier Eleven... From Tier Eleven to Tier Ten... Down through all twelve stepped levels of the mountain tiered arena! The singing ice-slow brook wound through deep irrigation furrows, soaking into the dry, black fiery loam, replenishing hundreds of years of dormant earth with rich, oxygen-soaked ice-slow minerals.
Surplus water gathered at the bottom of the lowest terrace, flowing smoothly through a stone weir before returning cleanly into the Clear Stream River, completing a closed, harmonious water-system cycle that left zero standing swamp or eroded soil.
Under the bright afternoon sun, the entire thirty-five-degree southern hillside transformed into a breathtaking spectacle.
Twelve massive stepped tiers of black earth and grey granite glistened like liquid silver mirrors. It reflected the boundless blue sky and the emerald branches of the Primordial Spirit Willow.
A bronze chime chimed softly in Lin Xiao’s mindscape, with the Dao Spirit’s victorious report:
Lin Xiao emerged from the stone water chute, riding atop Xiao Long’s noble dragon head. The drake glided through the air before landing gently on the top terrace embankment.
Hopping down onto the damp, fragrant earth with a soft gloop, Lin Xiao scooped up a handful of the soaked soil with an azure tendril.
The fiery loam was crumbly, cool, and singing with rich stone life-force. It smelled of deep caves, crushed stones, and boundless, dormant life.
Su Ling’er knelt beside him, dipping her fingers into the clear water flowing through the furrow. A radiant smile lit up her face as her three white tails swayed in sheer, pure happiness.
“The water is sweet,” Su Ling’er whispered. She looked up at Lin Xiao with eyes shining with tears. “Sweet, pure, and rich in ice-slow essence. Lord Xiao... The earth is cooled. The mountain has become a garden.”
Tie Shan strode onto the terrace, his heavy boots sinking slightly into the damp loam, his booming laugh rolling across the valley.
“Forty-five mu of watered terraces!” Tie Shan roared, wiping his soot-stained brow with a broad grin. “By the earth titans, I never thought I’d live to see a mountain turned into a rice paddy! Lord Xiao, the water is singing and the earth is soft! What do we plant first?”
Lin Xiao looked across the glistening stepped terraces, his white eye crescents crinkling with boundless culinary joy.
“We plant the champion of all survival staples,” Lin Xiao announced with an enthusiastic bounce. “Tomorrow, we plant the Spirit Sweet Potatoes!”