By early afternoon, the rain had tapered off into a mild, fragrant mist.
In the steaming hot-spring basin beside the toolshed, seventy-two ancient dragons were still floating in a state of absolute, comatose relaxation.
Their azure scales gleamed with a brilliant, polished sheen, revitalized by the 104-degree solar mineral runoff.
Their wings were sprawled lazily across the wet flagstones, and gentle plumes of sulfur steam puffed rhythmically from their nostrils.
However, the peaceful silence of the yard was suddenly broken by the sharp, dry clatter of an iron garden rake.
*Clack!*
Lord Nether-Bane strode out from the potting shed, his skeletal posture rigid with military authority.
The former Ghost King of the northern void wore his stained hemp apron tied securely around his ribcage.
Tucked beneath his bony arm was an enormous stack of coarse hemp aprons tied with rough jute twine, accompanied by a wooden crate overflowing with miniature iron hand-rakes and brass weeding trowels.
Beside him marched his two spectral corsairs, pushing a pair of empty wooden wheelbarrows with crisp, rhythmic discipline.
Nether-Bane came to a halt right at the edge of the steaming trough.
He leaned against his long rake, his bleached skull tilting forward as his empty eye sockets glared down at the mountain of soaking dragons.
*Clack-clack.*
His jawbone clicked sharply.
"Alright, that’s enough wallowing, you oversized pond newts!" Nether-Bane barked, his hollow voice echoing across the garden. "You’ve been soaking in the Master’s divine solar mineral spring for two entire hours! In this sanctuary, there is no such thing as an unearned buff!"
Great Elder Ao-Zhen blinked groggily, lifting his dripping head from between two wyverns.
"Unearned... buff?" Ao-Zhen murmured, his mind still swimming in hot-spring bliss. "Venerable Spirit... we are warriors of the Azure Court. What is the meaning of this summons?"
"It means room and board isn't free, you scaley freeloader!" Nether-Bane snapped, tossing a rolled-up hemp apron squarely onto Ao-Zhen's wet snout. "The Master provided the hot water, the sulfur infusion, and the dry porch! In exchange, the garden demands labor!"
The seventy-two wyverns blinked, lifting their massive heads from the water with clumsy, bewildered splashing.
"Labor...?" Inquisitor Ku-Lei rasped, his claws paddling lazily in the mineral broth. "You wish for us to construct a war fortress? To summon a hurricane to crush the Master's enemies?"
"Do I look like I need a hurricane to blow my topsoil into the next valley, you brainless lizard?!" Nether-Bane snarled, tapping his iron rake against the stone trough. "I have two thousand square feet of raised vegetable beds! Autumn weeds are encroaching upon the perimeter! Out of the tub! Aprons on! Grab a rake!"
Ao-Zhen stared at the rough hemp apron resting in his claws.
He looked at the iron rake.
Then, he looked toward the cottage.
Up on the porch, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood on his brass perch, the thick black rubber stopper firmly clamped between his mandibles.
Beside him, the low cedar table stood rock-steady, held firm by Grandmaster Vivienne's purple Sovereign Heart Seal jammed under the short leg.
On top of the table, the radiant Soul-Pearl held down Felix’s messy handwritten notes on gacha banner pity rates.
Right next to it, the white porcelain Infinite Cozy Teacup rested at an immaculate 68.5°C, wafting gentle herbal steam into the porch air.
And on the hammock, Senior Brother Felix Vance was snoring peacefully under his straw hat, completely undisturbed by the world.
Ao-Zhen’s breath caught in his throat.
*This is a test,* Ao-Zhen thought, his ancient draconic instincts firing at maximum capacity.
*The Master has cleansed our marrow.*
*He has dissolved our centuries of battle trauma.*
*Now, he presents us with the ultimate trial of the Dao: Humility!*
*Can the proud dragons of the Western Sky set aside their arrogance to tend the soil of the mortal realm?!*
"Brothers!" Ao-Zhen bellowed, splashing out of the hot-spring trough with dripping majesty. "Heed the words of General Nether-Bane! Tie your aprons! We shall cleanse the Master's soil with our lives!"
Within minutes, the lower clearing was transformed into the strangest agricultural scene the cultivation world had ever witnessed.
Seventy-two colossal storm wyverns and their elder riders were lined up outside the whitewashed cedar fence.
Because the wyverns were too massive to fit inside the garden beds without crushing the stone walkways, they shifted down into their compact, bipedal drake forms—ten-foot-tall scaled humanoids with folded wings and thick azure tails.
Each one wore a coarse hemp apron tied around their massive, armor-plated chests.
Nether-Bane marched down the line like a drill sergeant inspecting recruits, thrusting miniature iron hand-rakes into their massive, four-taloned foreclaws.
"Listen closely, you sky-slugs!" Nether-Bane hissed, pointing his rake toward the central bed. "That glowing golden plant in the center is the Master's five-star Sun-Lotus Cabbage! Around it are the prize Giant Astral Radishes!"
Nether-Bane leaned in close to a young drake named Ao-Ming, his skeletal teeth nearly touching the drake's trembling snout.
"Their root systems are microscopic filaments of pure celestial gold," Nether-Bane warned with bone-chilling coldness. "If I see a single talon scratch a cabbage leaf, or if one speck of dirt is displaced carelessly, I will grind your horns into bone meal and feed it to the radishes! Do you understand me?!"
"Sir! Yes, Sir!" Drake Ao-Ming squeaked in terror, clutching his tiny iron rake with both claws.
"Spread out! Weed by weed! Begin!" Nether-Bane roared.
The seventy-two dragons scrambled into the garden paths, moving with the terrified delicacy of jewelers handling explosive crystals.
Drake Ao-Ming dropped to his knees in the dirt beside a row of Giant Astral Radishes.
Before him grew a small, stubborn cluster of purple crabgrass, its wiry roots tangled inches away from the radiant golden taproot of a radish.
Ao-Ming began to sweat cold drops of moisture down his scales.
His claws were designed to tear through celestial warships and rip open mountain ridges.
Now, he had to use those same world-ending talons to pluck a three-inch weed without bruising a radish skin.
Ao-Ming extended his right index claw.
His breathing slowed to an absolute halt.
His slit pupils contracted into razor-thin needles of draconic focus.
*Careful... careful...* Ao-Ming told himself.
He focused his internal storm qi, compressing the wild lightning into a microscopic, pinprick field around the very tip of his talon.
With surgical precision, Ao-Ming’s talon slid half an inch beneath the damp loam.
*Snip.*
The weed's root was severed cleanly.
Using the flat of his claw, Ao-Ming gently lifted the weed out of the soil and deposited it neatly into the wooden wheelbarrow held by a spectral corsair.
Zero dirt fell onto the radish.
Ao-Ming let out a long, trembling gasp of air, his tail thumping the grass in ecstatic triumph.
"I did it..." Ao-Ming whispered in awe.
Beside him, Great Elder Ao-Zhen was watching with his jaw wide open.
As a grand marshal who had observed thousands of martial geniuses over five thousand years, Ao-Zhen recognized what had just occurred in an instant.
*By the Celestial Primordials...* Ao-Zhen thought, his scales tingling with electric shock.
*Look at Ao-Ming’s qi circulation!*
*To avoid damaging the cabbage root, he was forced to compress a tempest of Calamity-Grade storm energy into a single microscopic point!*
*That is the lost Nine-Pinnacle Micro-Spatial Claw Technique!*
*Our ancestral clan spent twelve centuries trying to master that level of fine spiritual manipulation through grueling meditation in the Thunder Grotto!*
*Yet here, kneeling in the dirt with a hemp apron, Ao-Ming achieved it in thirty seconds simply by trying not to ruin a turnip!*
Ao-Zhen turned his gaze toward the other wyverns.
Every single dragon was crouched in the dirt, their massive tails curled neatly behind them, sticking out their tongues in intense concentration.
Miniature iron rakes scraped the topsoil with feather-light touches:
*Scritch... scritch... scritch.*
Weeds were plucked.
Pebbles were sorted into neat geometric piles along the drainage borders.
The soil around the five-star Sun-Lotus Cabbage was fluffed to an airy, breathable perfection that allowed the cabbage's golden leaves to expand another two inches in diameter.
Up on the porch hammock, Felix Vance stirred.
He pushed his straw hat up with his thumb, blinking against the afternoon light.
He sat up, reached for his white porcelain Infinite Cozy Teacup, and took a slow sip of the Nine-Sun tea.
Then, he looked down at his garden.
Felix rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was still experiencing an REM cycle hallucination.
Seventy-two massive blue dragons in hemp aprons were on their hands and knees, meticulously picking dandelion greens with miniature garden rakes.
Beside them, Lord Nether-Bane was walking up and down the rows, occasionally tapping a dragon’s tail with his rake handle to correct their posture.
Felix pulled his obsidian AetherDeck from his pocket to verify his screen.
He tapped open the Pocket Garden management app:
Felix blinked at the screen, then looked back at the dragons.
He brought up his Inspector HUD to examine Drake Ao-Ming:
【Target: Drake Ao-Ming】 【Equipment: Stained Hemp Apron, Mini Iron Rake】 【Current Status: Micro-Weeding around 5-Star Sun-Lotus Cabbage】 【Mental State: Deep Agricultural Zen】 【Inspector Note: A young dragon who has successfully redirected his destructive spatial claws into high-precision horticulture. He considers removing chickweed to be the highest honor of his mortal existence.】
Felix stared at the tooltip for three full seconds.
Then, he reached into the ceramic snack bowl on the cedar table, pulled out a dried mountain plum, and popped it into his mouth.
*Chew, chew.*
"Zero labor cost," Felix murmured softly, a faint, contented smile gracing his lips. "Automated weeding with zero wage overhead. The Pocket Garden DLC really is the best expansion they ever released."
Down along the front walkway, Lyra Ashford adjusted her sleeve, her eyes sparkling with tears of absolute enlightenment.
She dipped her jade brush into her inkpot, recording the glorious scene in her sect journal:
*The Dragon Sovereign cleanses the roof of decay.*
*The Seventy-Two Wardens tend the soil with sacred humility.*
*Senior Brother Vance has unified the sky and the earth into a singular, eternal cycle of agrarian peace.*
*Under his supreme Dao, the fiercest beasts of the Upper Heavens have laid down their fangs to become the humble gardeners of the cosmos.*
Felix leaned back against the porch railing, took another sip of his warm tea, and let out a relaxed sigh.
"Hey, skeleton," Felix called out lazily toward the garden.
Nether-Bane immediately paused, bowing deeply toward the porch with his rake held across his chest.
"Yes, Master Vance?!"
"Tell the blue guys they can have some leftover rice crackers when they finish the radish patch," Felix said, waving a hand. "They're doing a decent job with the gravel."
Down in the garden rows, seventy-two dragons gasped in unison.
Their draconic eyes lit up with wild, ecstatic fervor.
"DID YOU HEAR THAT?!" Drake Ao-Ming yelled in a manic whisper. "THE MASTER PROMISED RICE CRACKERS! DOUBLE YOUR SCRAPING SPEED, MEN! ZERO WEEDS SHALL SURVIVE!"
The miniature iron rakes flew into a blur of terrified, joyous motion.