A golden avalanche of condensed jade tumbled across the crags, rattling like giant hail against the stone.
The eighty-foot bronze hatch landed on the mountain terrace with a dull, heavy thud that cracked the granite flagstones. Behind it came the contents of the First Pill-Moon’s central vault.
It was not a trickle of loose coin. It was a torrential river of pure wealth.
Millions of polished jade octagons poured from the sheared conduit mouth, sliding down the natural stone slopes like liquid sunlight. They cascaded into the natural basin below the grotto porch, pooling into a luminous, shimmering lake.
Each coin was stamped with the double-crescent mark of the Upper Firmament: Sovereign Jade Core.
The ambient spiritual pressure rose so fast that the surrounding air tasted sweet, like wild honeycomb dissolved in spring water.
Scout Ren and the seven other vanguard scouts stepped out from the grotto shadow, their eyes round with disbelief.
In the lower realms, an outer elder would murder his own cousin for a pouch of Low-Grade Spirit Stones. Even a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone could buy a decent courtyard in a provincial capital.
