The golden pillar of light rising from the Sun-Severing Sky-Spike lit up the northern castle walls with the warmth of a midday sun. Across the five-hundred-mile frontier, emergency alert beacons that had been flickering red for three months settled into a steady, calm emerald glow.
On the high watching deck of the main castle wall, an impromptu field assembly had convened. Grandmaster Feng, his white robes billowing in the clean mountain breeze, stood before a velvet-lined rosewood chest. Beside him stood General Zhao, still clad in his battle-scarred dark-steel layered-scale armor, his hand resting upon the handle knob of his ritual sword. Surrounding them were the guard post’s senior formation officers, their heads bowed with respect. Their faces were pale with the lingering shock of Frank’s spark hotfix.
“Master Lu,” Grandmaster Feng said, his voice echoing across the deck with deep gravity. “For sixty years, the formation masters of the Thousand-Rune Guild believed the Sky-Spike’s violent outbursts were the wrath of ancient thunder spirits. We burned thirty million spirit stones in useless appeasement rituals.”
Frank stood leaning against the crenelated low roof wall, checking the threading on a brass pipe nipple with his fingers. “Appeasement rituals don’t discharge static capacitance,” Frank said mildly. “You had a floating neutral and eight thousand ohms of ground pushback. If you don’t give electrons a path to the water table, they make their own path through your drywall.”
Grandmaster Feng nodded fervently, hanging on every word. Feng reached into the rosewood chest and lifted a heavy medallion cast from deep-space star-iron. Inlaid across the metal were four radiant golden stars forged from sky lodestone, orbiting a fine, detailed relief of the northern sky.
“By the joint power of the Thousand-Rune Formation Guild and the Hegemonic Military Command,” Grandmaster Feng announced, “I hereby confer upon you the supreme title of 4-Star Grand Formation Master!”
General Zhao stepped forward, presenting a heavy bronze tablet inscribed with royal military seals. “And by the power of the Northern Frontier Garrison,” Zhao added with fierce pride, “you’re granted total Tier-1 Claim Power. All royal metal depots, scrap yards, and refining warehouses are open to your command, entirely tax-exempt!”
A crisp neon-amber display flared in Frank’s outer vision.
Frank took the heavy star-iron medallion and weighed it in his hand. It had good thickness. The edge milling was clean, and the four stars were pressed with decent die-posture.
“Tax-exempt commercial wholesale,” Frank said, a rare, genuine smile touching the corner of his lips. “Finally. Now we don’t have to salvage rusted through telegraph wire from the mud just to run a three-way lighting circuit.” Frank turned the bronze tablet over, checking the government stamp with his thumbnail. “Does this trade card work at the regional timber yards, General? I need sixteen eight-by-eight cedar posts for the new wagon chassis. The local lumber merchants have been charging a forty-percent markup for decorative grain.”
General Zhao blinked, then thumped his armored chest with an iron fist. “Every warehouse in the Hegemonic Frontier is yours, Master Lu! If any merchant dares charge you a single copper coin above wholesale cost, my guard post cavalry will seize their ledgers for treason against border defense!”
“Good,” Frank nodded. “Keep the paperwork clean. I hate inventory audits.”
Frank tucked the 4-Star medallion into his tool belt, pulled a yellow pine clipboard from his back pouch. Then he handed it to General Zhao. General Zhao accepted the board with both hands. He stared at the strange black markings on the paper.
“Master Lu... Is this an ancient sky blueprint?” Zhao whispered.
“It’s a punch list,” Frank corrected flatly. “CIE-404 rule-following check for your bright light tower. You’ve got four major code violations that need immediate remediation.”
Zhao swallowed hard, his stance stiffening with military gravity. “Please... Instruct us in the Dao of Rectitude!”
“First,” Frank pointed with his red grease pencil, “the spiral stairs has thirty-two flights with zero nonstop handrails. If a sentry trips in the frost, he’s taking an eighty-foot header onto the flat stone slabs. Install iron pipe handrails at forty-two inches with a mid-rail. Second, you’re running bare spiritual channels right across the pedestrian walkways. Someone is going to trip over that high-voltage run and get boiled away. Put it in schedule-forty channel and bury it six inches under the stone. Third, bond all metal raceways to the new iron stake. And fourth, put a weatherproof breaker box on that subpanel so rain doesn’t drip onto the terminals.”
General Zhao gripped the clipboard to his chest, his eyes sharp with newfound resolve. “The Sacred Code of Structural Rectitude! Every word shall be carved into bronze plaques and posted in every watchtower along the five-hundred-mile border! We shall follow Master Lu’s building codes until the end of time!”
Frank rubbed his chin, letting out a weary breath. “It’s just basic job site safety, General. Stop carving it into bronze.”
Behind Frank, Princess Jiang Ling’er tilted her head, sniffing the crisp mountain air. “Master,” Ling’er murmured, touching the relief valve on her heat wand. “There’s a high-hum sky ionization spike approaching from the upper cloud deck. About four hundred and eighty volts, three-phase.”
Niu Mang leaned over the low roof wall with his trench shovel, squinting upward. “Sounds like someone dragging a heavy chain across an iron roof, Master,” Niu Mang said. He spat a bit of dried turnip peel into the breeze.
Before Frank could turn back toward the stairs to begin requisitioning copper spools, the clouds above the castle wildly tore open.
BOOM-CRACK!
A thunderclap of pure, packed violet lightning rattled the castle walls. It shook the dust from the castle walls. Dropping from the dark clouds was an amazing, two-wheeled war-chariot forged from polished purple thunder-bronze. Four sky Dragon-Horses, their hooves crackling with purple sparks and their manes trailing violet star-fire, pulled the chariot through the sky before landing on the castle muster grounds with a bone-shaking boom!
KABOOM!
The blast wave cracked three flat stone slabs and blew out the banners along the courtyard railing. Standing upon the chariot was a young man of eighteen, streaming an aura of choking, royal arrogance. He wore sweeping, wide-sleeved robes crafted from five-thousand-gold royal purple silk, stitched with the soaring sky lightning-dragons of the Sovereign Sword Pavilion. His hair was pinned with a crown of solid violet thunder-crystal. On his feet were a pair of delicate, clean slippers made of thousand-year white spider-silk, stitched with silver lightning clouds.
Flanking the chariot were four sword attendants in gold-trimmed brocade, their hands resting upon the handles of four matching flying swords. This was Murong Seven—Murong Qi—the Seventh Young Master of the Sovereign Sword Pavilion and the famed possessor of the “Purple Thunder Sword Bone.”
Murong Seven gripped the handle of a six-foot old family thunder blade resting in a sword sheath of dragon-skin. His eyes, crackling with sharp purple sparks, swept across the castle with supreme disdain until they locked onto the simple braided copper cable running down the stonework wall into the mud.
“Who did this?” Murong Seven’s voice boomed across the castle, amplified by thunderous qi that made the sentries tense.
Murong Seven leapt down from his chariot, his spider-silk slippers touching the muddy flat stone slabs with distaste. He marched toward the base of the lightning tower. He pointed his sheathed blade at the heavy copper cable.
“Who dared commit this abominable blasphemy?!” Murong Seven roared, his eyes flashing violet fury. “My Sovereign Sword Pavilion cultivated this frontier storm for thirty years to temper our clan’s old family thunder techniques! This lightning was sacred! It was wild, amazing, and pure!”
The sword attendants sneered, stepping behind him with their chins raised high. “To think mortal worms would defile the Young Master’s divine training storm! Whoever touched the sacred leylines deserves to have their nine ages cut!”
Murong Seven turned his blazing glare up toward the high watching platform. His eyes locked onto Frank’s grease-stained overalls. “And you... You terrible, dirt-eating mortal peasant! You tied an iron collar around Heaven’s wrath! You grounded my clan’s divine thunder into a drainage ditch with a piece of scrap wire!”
Frank leaned over the low roof wall railing, taking a sip from his chipped tea mug. He didn’t draw a sword. He didn’t summon an array shield. Frank casually tapped his temples, activating his HUD profiler.
A neon-amber test window flared open, scanning the arrogant youth from his violet thunder crown down to his clean spider-silk slippers.
Frank looked at the test readout and let out a soft whistle. “Look at that idiot,” Frank muttered to Shitou. “Four hundred and eighty volts of three-phase alternating current running through a meat chassis.”
“With zero ground path, Master?” Shitou asked, tilting his head.
“Worse than zero,” Frank said, shaking his head. “Look at his shoes. Thousand-year spider-silk. Spider-silk has an insulating pushback rating of nearly fifty giga-ohms. He’s fully padded his feet from the ground.”
Murong Seven unsheathed his old family thunder blade by three inches.
SHING.
A blinding arc of violet lightning hissed along the blade, scorching the flat stone slabs beneath his boots. “Tradesman! You have insulted the divine dignity of the Sovereign Sword Pavilion! Kneel! Strip off those disgusting rags! Hand over every scrap of that demonic red wire, and gouge out your own eyes as an apology to Heaven!”
General Zhao rushed to the low roof wall edge, shouting in warning: “Young Master Murong! Stand down! Master Lu is an officially approved 4-Star Grand Formation Master under royal martial protection!”
“A 4-Star tradesman is still a mortal dog!” Murong Seven barked with total arrogance. “In three breaths, my Ninefold Sovereign Lightning Slash will reduce him, his apprentices. His terrible cart into glowing purple ash!”
The four sword attendants drew their swords to block the courtyard exits. Frank sighed, checking his pocket watch. He put away his tea mug, slid his hands into his overall pockets. Then he casually took two steps to the left. He stepped behind a heavy iron low roof wall pillar.
“Three breaths?” Frank asked, his tone flat as an unplaned two-by-four. “Kid, you won’t even need two.”
“Die, insolent worm!” Murong Seven roared.
The young master drew his sword to its full six-foot length. A terrifying vortex of four hundred and eighty volts of raw, unbalanced three-phase purple lightning gathered along the blade, crackling with bone-shaking violence as it prepared to unleash a fifty-foot wave of sky destruction.
Frank leaned his head out from behind the iron pillar, watching the voltage spike on his HUD.
“Three...” Frank counted calmly.
“Two...”
Frank glanced down at Murong Seven’s clean white silk slippers resting on the damp flat stone slabs.
“One... Mind your pants, kid.”