The Grand Guildhall of the Thousand-Rune Formation Guild didn’t look like a place of scholarly learning. It looked like an aggressively overpriced jewelry boutique built inside a dark rock bunker. Massive eight-sided pillars of polished magnetic lodestone rose sixty feet to vaulted ceilings inlaid with shimmering gold leaf. Along every wall, glass-fronted display cases rested on velvet stone stands, showcasing array flags carved from semi-clear mutton-fat jade, brush holders of solid mammoth ivory, and crystal inkstones filled with red stone so radiant it cast an eerie crimson sheen across the flat stone slabs.
Dozens of high-born examinees milled about the central pavilion, their stitched silk robes rustling like dry autumn leaves. Young masters from regional clans adjusted their wide sleeves. He preened as they showed off their expensive tools.
“Is that Heaven-Grade Viper Red ink, Brother Ye?” an apprentice asked, his voice dripping with sycophantic admiration.
Ye Han, a handsome youth with an arrogant sneer and jade hairpins, tossed his long silk sleeves back with practiced elegance. “Naturally,” Ye Han murmured, holding up a small fine china jar sealed with yellow wax. “Refined from the venom glands of a hundred-year Scarlet Scaled Adder, mixed with three drops of molten moon-gold. A single ounce costs eight thousand spirit stones. Without proper materials, one can’t hope to resonate with the divine patterns of Heaven.”
“Truly amazing!” the surrounding scions gasped in respectful chorus. “Only the ancient clans possess such sacred pedigree!”
The heavy oak doors of the guildhall creaked open. A draft of freezing northern mountain air swept into the perfumed hall. It carried with it the sharp smell of stale motor grease, wet canvas, and cheap pickled turnips. Walking through the doorway was Frank, flanked by his crew.
Frank wore his standard faded twill overalls, a pair of sixteen-gauge wire strippers hanging from his chest pocket. Over his left shoulder, he carried a thirty-pound spool of tarnished scrap copper wire salvaged from an abandoned frontier signal outpost. Shen Shitou followed silently behind him. He carried a stained burlap sack that clinked with the heavy, dull percussion of sixty rusty six-inch framing spikes. Jiang Ling’er walked at Frank’s side. Her canvas tool roll was tucked under her arm. Meanwhile, Niu Mang strolled behind them, gnawing on a strip of dried jerky and staring at the gold-leaf ceiling with open, bovine boredom.
The conversations in the grand pavilion ceased instantly. The high-born examinees froze mid-sentence. It stared at the newcomers as if a family of mud turtles had just crawled onto their stitched silk banquet tables.
“What’s that smell?” Ye Han muttered, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he pulled a stitched lavender handkerchief to his lips. “Did someone leave the guard post latrine doors unlatched?”
From the raised dais at the north end of the hall, an elderly man in gold-trimmed azure robes rose from a carved throne of purple sandalwood. This was Lead Examiner Elder Gu, the hereditary head of the frontier’s Red ink Supply Trade ring and the most feared gatekeeper in the Thousand-Rune Guild. His eyes were narrow and cold, resting atop cheeks that sagged like dry saddle leather.
“Halt!” Elder Gu’s voice cracked across the dark rock hall like a whip. “By whose power has a gang of vagrant ditch-diggers entered the Sacred Hall of Runic Math?!”
Frank didn’t stop. His heavy work boots left faint smudges of frontier mud on the spotless polished flat stone slabs. He walked straight toward the judge’s dais. He set his thirty-pound spool of copper wire down on the floor with a solid, echoing thud.
THUNK.
Frank reached into his side pocket, pulled out a chipped baked-clay mug of lukewarm barley tea. Then he looked around for a flat surface. Directly in front of Elder Gu’s desk sat an ornate red-velvet display stand holding three-sided array flags carved from thousand-year cold green jade, inscribed with fine, detailed silver filigree.
Frank casually set his tea mug right on top of the center jade flag.
Clack.
A collective gasp of sheer horror sucked the air out of the grand hall. Three exam guards dropped their brushes. Ye Han stumbled backward against a lodestone pillar. He grabbed his silk chest as if he had just watched a man spit upon the old family tablets of the emperor. Elder Gu’s face turned a world-ending shade of crimson, veins throbbing at his temples like agitated centipedes.
“You... You filthy animal!” Elder Gu shrieked, his voice climbing an entire octave. “That’s the Cold-Jade Frost-Wind Pennant! An old family 3-Star formation core consecrated by the High Elders of the Eastern Sea! You placed a tea cup... On a sacred heavenly ancient object?!”
“The table was full,” Frank replied mildly, blowing across the surface of his tea. He glanced down at the jade triangle beneath his mug. A neon-amber test rectangle flickered to life over the stone, scrolling down with sharp technical breakdowns.
Frank shook his head and took a sip from his mug. “Sacred ancient object? It’s low-grade stone-glass green jade with quartz inclusions. It has a spark pushback of nearly five mega-ohms. If you run more than eighty watts of spiritual current through this stone, the internal moisture pockets will turn to steam and shatter the whole flag like cheap peanut brittle.”
Elder Gu choked on his own spit, coughing in violent fury. “Nonsense! Blasphemy! Jade is the clean vessel of the Heavenly Dao! It channels spiritual energy through its pure, flawless crystal-clear soul!”
“It’s an insulator, pal,” Frank said flatly. “You’re trying to conduct high-hum alternating current through decorative landscaping gravel. It’s like wiring an entire apartment complex with dry macaroni. No wonder your frontier pipes are shaking themselves to pieces. Your whole array design is choking on its own internal pushback.”
A burst of snickering erupted from the high-born examinees. Ye Han stepped forward, sneering with dramatic condescension. “Dry macaroni? What kind of peasant delirium is this? The man speaks like an unwashed stable hand who drank too much swamp water! Elder Gu, have the guards drag this lunatic into the courtyard and whip him!”
Elder Gu’s eyes burned with vicious hatred. He reached for the heavy iron bell on his desk to summon the armed enforcement court guards.
However, in the far western corner of the grand hall, someone had stopped moving. Standing in the shadows of the lodestone pillars was a thin, ragged boy of sixteen. He wore a coarse hemp tunic covered in patches, his bare feet caked with dried clay. Across his narrow face was tied a stained strip of black linen, covering eyes that had been rendered permanently blind by toxic yin venom years ago. In his calloused hands, he held a worn broom of dried mountain grass, tasked with sweeping the ink splatters and discarded parchment from the check floor.
His name was Xiao Yu.
At that moment, Xiao Yu’s broom rested motionless against the stone. His ears twitched wildly. To the blind boy, the world was not made of colors or brush strokes. It was made of sound, shakes, and the subtle, invisible humming of surrounding spiritual currents flowing through the earth.
For three years, Xiao Yu had listened to the arrogant formation masters chant and paint. Their arrays had always sounded to him like brittle, jagged glass. Scratchy, harsh, and filled with violent friction that grated on his nerves like rusted shears scraping against slate. Yet Frank had set down that heavy spool of scrap copper wire. Then, Xiao Yu had heard something impossible.
The surrounding magnetic field of the earth was flowing through those copper loops with a deep, easy deep ring. It was a smooth, uninterrupted hum. A tone so pure and zero-drag that it made the hairs on Xiao Yu’s arms stand on end.
Xiao Yu’s chest heaved. He leaned forward into the shadows, his sightless face turned directly toward Frank’s tool belt. He speaks the truth, Xiao Yu thought, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird. The jade flags... They scream when spiritual qi touches them! They choke and burn! But that red metal... The earth loves that metal. He sees through the false skin of jade! He knows the true voice of the leylines!
Up on the dais, Elder Gu pulled his hand back from the summoner bell, a wicked, sadistic smile spreading across his wrinkled face.
“No,” Elder Gu said smoothly, his voice dripping with venom. “Whipping him is too merciful. This vagrant claims to understand the flow of energy better than our guild’s old family masters. Very well! The triennial 1-Star sign-off exam begins right away!”
Elder Gu slammed his jade gavel down with a sharp crack.
BANG.
“All examinees will proceed to their testing stations!” Elder Gu announced, glaring at Frank with unmasked cruelty. “The 1-Star trial is simple. You must draw a functional Spirit Gathering Array upon the standard test stone base within three incense sticks. If your array fails to activate the crystal measurement orb. Or if you disrupt the sacred dignity of this hall, you’ll receive fifty strikes of the soul-cracking cane and be permanently exiled to the Void Fault Line!”
The high-born youths smirked, gliding toward their chosen marble workstations. Each workstation was equipped with pure silk parchment, silver inkwells, and pre-cut jade boundary pegs. Elder Gu pointed a bony finger toward the far back corner of the room, next to a leaky drain and a pile of discarded sweeping rags.
“There’s your station, beggar,” Elder Gu hissed. “No brushes. No red stone. Let’s see you summon the spirits of Heaven with your dry macaroni!”
Frank looked at the damp corner, then at the rusty drain pipe dripping into a wooden bucket. “Table’s a little wobbly,” Frank remarked, testing the edge of the workstation with his thumb. “Needs a thin wedge on the back right leg. But the light is decent.”
He turned back to his cart crew. “Shitou, dump the nail sack on the table. Ling’er, give me the wire snips and the spark tape. Niu Mang, stay by the door and make sure nobody trips over our copper spool.”
“Right away, Master,” Shitou grunted, hoisting the burlap sack and dumping sixty rusty, six-inch load-bearing framing nails onto the marble desk with an ear-splitting iron clatter.
CLATTER-CRASH.
Several examinees jumped in fright at the sudden violence of the noise. Ye Han, seated at the center workstation beneath the main chandelier, laughed out loud as he dipped his golden badger-hair brush into his eight-thousand-stone adder red stone.
“Watch closely, peasant!” Ye Han called out arrogantly, his brush dancing across the silk parchment in delicate, swirling curves. “This is the Seven Star Flowing Ink Method! True art needs four decades of noble training and the blood of sacred beasts! You can’t cheat the heavens with scrap iron!”
Frank didn’t even look in Ye Han’s direction. He pulled his pocket knife from his overalls, flicked open the blade. Then he began scraping the green rusting off the tips of his scrap copper wire with rhythmic, scraping strokes.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
In the shadows behind the pillars, Xiao Yu gripped his broom tightly, his blind face tilted toward the sound of scraping steel. He listened to every breath.