No one answered the opening call. Five hundred high-grade spirit stones could pay for three ironclad cruisers or keep a garrison supplied through a siege. The slab on the stage had already sent two people to the floor.
“The Deep-Mine Guild must need cash,” a merchant said behind his fan.
“Three Mystery Sect elders went mad trying to read it,” said another. “What would we do with it? Prop open the door to the hall?”
“Let Black Fiend Hall have it. If they can afford the stone, they can afford the headaches.”
Pei Jing leaned forward on his stool. He turned the lens ring a little farther to bring the figures on the bronze into focus. In his first life he had spent fourteen years following missing money through companies that had every reason to hide it. A line could be called whatever the owner wanted. The total still had to come from somewhere.
The top part of the tablet had three columns. The first counted what came off the surface of the world, including mass, heat and the energy held in living things. The second counted what would be lost along the way. The third gave the amount that would reach the people collecting it.
