Felix Vance sat cross-legged in his porch hammock, his face illuminated by the soft green glow of the AetherDeck.
It was three in the afternoon.
A gentle mountain breeze stirred the edges of his faded hemp tunic.
Beside the hammock, on the cedar side table propped up by the Sovereign Heart Seal, sat an empty porcelain mug with a dried brown tea ring at the bottom.
Felix looked at the empty cup, then scowled at the screen of his obsidian slate.
"Ninety-nine pulls," Felix muttered, his voice dripping with pure gamer resentment. "Ninety-nine summons into the Heavenly Vault banner. And what do I have to show for it?"
He furiously scrolled through his virtual inventory.
"Fourteen rusty bronze toothpicks," Felix grumbled. "Twenty-two bags of common snail fertilizer. Eight duplicate chipped wooden ladles. And a cosmetic hemp headband that gives plus one percent resistance to lukewarm porridge."
He remembered yesterday's disastrous ten-pull.
The screen had flashed with a purple spark, making his heart leap into his throat, only for the summon chest to crack open and spit out an ancient rusted trowel that sold for three copper coins.
Then came the eight consecutive gray-tier bags of damp river sand.
"Typical predatory gacha mechanics," Felix muttered, shaking his head with bitter disgust. "The banner claims rate-up on divine treasures, but the drop tables are completely rigged. If this game were hosted on Earth, the consumer protection board would have shut down their servers six months ago."
He reached the bottom of the summon interface.
A massive golden counter was glowing in the center of the display:
Felix stared at the golden summon button.
"Hard pity," Felix murmured. "The blessed safety net of the free-to-play grinder. One hundred pulls of soul-crushing garbage finally pays off."
He rubbed his palms together, blowing on his fingers for good luck.
"Come on," Felix whispered. "Don't give me some stupid glowing broadsword with a five-thousand Strength stat requirement. Don't give me a set of spiky demon-lord shoulder pads that weigh four hundred pounds. Give me something I can actually use around the house."
He hovered his thumb over the button.
"RNGesus, hear my prayer," Felix said.
His thumb came down with a firm, decisive tap: `[SUMMON 1x]`.
***
The moment his finger contacted the glass, the AetherDeck let out an ear-splitting, majestic chime.
*SCHWIIIING-DONG!*
The obsidian slate began to vibrate with intense kinetic power.
On the screen, the usual gray clouds shattered into a storm of spinning rainbow lights.
Then, the background music changed.
A thunderous, orchestral fanfare of ancient brass trumpets and booming war drums blasted from the tiny speaker grilles.
*ROOOOOAAAR!*
A full-screen, unskippable cinematic cutscene took over the display.
A colossal, nine-clawed golden dragon carved from pure primordial starlight burst through the digital clouds.
Its scales burned with blinding thermonuclear brilliance. Its whiskers crackled with violet lightning, and its roar shook the borders of the UI window into jagged lines of code.
***
In the outside world, reality tore completely wide open.
Directly above Solitude Spire, the peaceful afternoon skybox shattered like fragile crystal.
A localized rift in the upper atmospheric strata expanded across five thousand miles of cloud sea.
From the center of the rift, a monumental projection of the Primordial Golden Dragon descended into the mortal realm.
Its golden scales spanned entire mountain ranges.
Its incandescent eyes blazed like twin supernovas, illuminating the eastern hemisphere with a radiant, breathless dawn that turned the afternoon clouds into rivers of molten gold.
A wave of supreme celestial pressure crashed down across the Radiant Dawn archipelago.
Every bell across the seven spires began ringing in wild, panicked unison.
Down on the First Spire, Grand Chancellor Morzan and Arch-Inquisitor Valen burst onto the grand observation terrace.
"The Dragon of the Primordial Vault!" Arch-Inquisitor Valen cried out, his ceremonial rapier clattering to the flagstones. "The ancient legends were true! The Ninth Firmament is opening its gates!"
Beside him, Elder Shen collapsed to his knees, staring through his cracked diagnostic mirror.
"Look at the celestial geometry!" Shen wailed in holy terror. "The golden dragon is not an illusion! It is the manifestation of the supreme universal law delivering a cosmic sovereign relic to the mortal world! The Solitude Recluse is pulling a weapon of the First Gods down to his mountain!"
Down in the academy courtyards, thirty thousand disciples dropped flat onto their stomachs, their foreheads pressed into the flagstones as ancient draconic sovereign might pinned their souls to the earth.
On the peak of Solitude Spire, the Thunder Gryphon let out a terrified squeak.
The colossal golden beast tucked its wings tightly against its ribs and shoved its beak straight under the porch steps, shivering from beak to tail feathers.
In the garden, Lord Nether-Bane and his spectral corsairs froze in terror.
The ancient Ghost King dropped his garden trowel into the dirt, falling to his knees beside the glowing Sun-Lotus Cabbage.
"The Ancestral Golden Dragon of the First Firmament!" the Ghost King sobbed, clutching his bony chest with trembling claws. "The supreme primordial herald of the celestial court! The Sovereign is summoning a god-relic from beyond the starry sky!"
The two corsairs beside him immediately face-planted into the dandelion patches, weeping spectral tears into the soft soil.
On the wooden railing, Barnaby the clockwork owl’s amber crystal lenses expanded to maximum aperture.
The plump automaton’s internal gears whirred in frantic panic, his brass wings rattling like dry tin: *whirrrr-clack-clack-clack!*
Yet through all the cosmic terror, Barnaby kept his jaws locked shut around the thick black rubber stopper, his metal talons gripping the polished copper coin with desperate discipline.
Near the porch steps, Lyra Ashford fell to her knees.
Her hands rested flat upon the fragrant clover. Her golden hair whipped wildly in the swirling solar winds that smelled of fresh ozone and ionized honey.
Tears of profound, crystalline reverence streamed down her pale cheeks as she gazed up at the five-thousand-mile golden dragon coiling through the upper atmosphere.
*A Heavenly Vault Summon,* Lyra thought, her soul vibrating with transcendent ecstasy. *Senior Brother is not merely communing with the heavens. He is directly plundering the primordial treasury of the universe!*
*He has reached the hundredth threshold of the Great Dao! The supreme gods of antiquity must open their vaults and surrender their most sacred ancestral treasures to his divine hand!*
*What world-ending artifact will he claim? The Heaven-Cleaving Primordial Blade? The Armor of Ten Thousand Stars? The Divine Crown of Creation?*
【Target: Lyra Ashford】 【Comprehension: Primordial Vault Summoning (Transcendental)】 【Inspector Note: Fully convinced you are ripping a cosmic superweapon from the throat of an ancient god. Mentally preparing to conquer the continent in your name.】
Up on the porch, Felix was tapping the corner of the AetherDeck with frantic, furious irritation.
"Skip," Felix muttered, hammering his index finger against the top-right corner of the glass. "Skip! Why is there no skip button? Who made this cutscene ninety seconds long?"
On the screen, the golden dragon was still roaring in slow motion, doing three complete barrel rolls through virtual nebulas.
"Yeah, yeah, cool dragon, very dramatic," Felix grumbled. "Nobody cares about the summon animation after the first ten seconds. Let me see the loot chest already!"
He tapped the screen four more times in rapid succession: *tap-tap-tap-tap!*
Finally, the dragon let out one last digital screech, coiled into a ball of blinding white light, and exploded into a shower of sparkling golden stars.
The massive celestial dragon in the outside sky vanished just as abruptly.
The golden rift in the clouds snapped shut with a clean, muffled pop, leaving behind faint, shimmering ribbons of emerald aurora drifting peacefully through the afternoon air.
The crushing spiritual pressure evaporated instantly.
On the screen of the AetherDeck, a treasure chest carved from solid white jade creaked open, revealing a blinding column of radiant golden light.
A triumphant fanfare played through the speaker: *DA-DA-DA-DAAAAH!*
Felix Vance stared at the glowing prompt.
His jaw slowly dropped open.
His eyes widened until they were the size of porcelain saucers.
A single, beautiful tear of pure gamer gratitude rolled down his left cheek.
"A teacup..." Felix whispered, his voice trembling with profound emotion. "A teacup that never gets cold."
He pressed both hands to his chest, feeling the steady, warm thrum of his Sol-Class core beating in perfect harmony with the universe.
"No stat requirements," Felix said, his voice rising in ecstasy. "No stupid 'requires fifty thousand mana to equip.' No passive health-drain curse. It just... keeps the tea warm."
He clicked `[SEND TO REALITY INVENTORY]`.
A soft, golden portal the size of an apple opened in the empty air above his lap.
Out dropped a small, flawless white porcelain teacup.
It landed in Felix’s open palm with a gentle, satisfying clink.
The porcelain was smooth as polished jade, cool to the outer touch, with a delicate rim trimmed in faint, shimmering gold wire.
In the center of the interior basin, a microscopic constellation of golden stars pulsed softly beneath the glaze, waiting for hot water to awaken its magic.
Felix held the teacup up to the afternoon sunlight, his face glowing with pure, unadulterated happiness.
"Finally," Felix cried softly to the empty porch. "A developer who actually respects the player's quality of life. This is the greatest gacha pull in human history!"