The morning sun had barely crested the eastern ridges when the first whispers reached Classroom 404.
Dozens of junior students and curious instructors from neighboring departments were hiding among the bamboo thickets at the edge of the quarry ridge. They peeked through the mist with envious, confused eyes.
Word had spread like wildfire: Classroom 404 was no longer an eviction hazard.
It was now an official Independent Academic Department, granted century-long freehold sovereignty by Dean Shang himself.
Also, rumors claimed that Lu Zhen possessed ancient, forgotten methods capable of turning crippled outcasts into monsters that could shatter old family swords with their bare forearms.
Frank paid zero attention to the snoopers in the bushes.
He was standing in the center of the classroom wearing his denim apron, a carpenter’s pencil tucked behind his ear, checking the posture of a three-foot wooden spirit level resting across the newly installed floor beams.
“Decking is level to within one sixteenth of an inch,” Frank murmured with quiet skilled satisfaction. “No bounce. No bending. Now we install the radiant heating loop before we nail down the finish pine planks.”
Around him, the three students were working with timed together, military care.
Shen Shitou was outside with a hand planer, shaving two-inch tongue-and-groove pine planks with long, rhythmic strokes that sent fragrant curls of wood shavings flying through the air.
Niu Mang was carrying sixty-pound bundles of dried cattail reeds and cured clay from the marsh at the bottom of the quarry, stacking them neatly by the western wall.
Jiang Ling’er sat by the iron stove, carefully annealing a sixty-foot coil of half-inch flexible copper tubing with a gentle, controlled pulse of dragon flame.
Frank opened his DAO-QA screen to review the clockwork schematics.
“A standard building burns fifty pounds of charcoal a day in open fire bowls,” Frank explained. He pointed his pencil at the copper coil in Ling’er’s hands. “It fills the room with carbon monoxide, scorches the ceiling, and leaves the floorboards freezing cold because hot air naturally rises.”
Frank took the heat-softened copper tubing from Ling’er and began unrolling it across the subfloor floor beams in a snake-like pattern, spacing the loops exactly eight inches on center.
“Hydronic radiant floor heating,” Frank said, securing the copper pipe with small brass horseshoe clips. “We route hot water through the subfloor. Heat radiates upward through the wood, warming our feet first. And by using a thermosiphon loop, hot water rises into the floor while cooling water sinks back into the pool. Zero clockwork pumps, zero spark draw.”
He connected the return line to a fifteen-gallon copper spreading tank mounted behind the iron stove, securing the flare fittings with two turns of an adjustable wrench.
Clank-tight.
Frank poured five buckets of clean well water into the spreading tank, sealed the cap. Then he turned to Jiang Ling’er.
“Ling’er, light the pilot flame. Keep the water pool at sixty-five degrees. Nothing higher.”
“Student obeys!” Ling’er stepped forward, extending a slender index finger toward the base of the copper tank.
Tssst.
A tiny, steady bead of golden-red solar dragon flame ignited beneath the tank, purring with the quiet, flawless hum of a natural gas burner.
Within three minutes, the water inside the copper coils began to circulate.
Shen Shitou and Niu Mang helped Frank lay the final tongue-and-groove pine planks across the floor beams. He drove square-shank flooring nails into the seams with rhythmic, muffled thumps.
The last plank was driven flush. Then, a deep, miraculous transformation swept through Classroom 404.
HUMMMMMMM.
The cold, drafty, bone-chilling mountain air that had plagued this timber shack for thirty years vanished fully.
A gentle, soothing, perfectly even warmth began to rise from the golden pine floorboards.
It wasn’t the dry, choking heat of a smoky coal fire bowl. It was the deep, wrapping warmth of a smooth river stone baked by the summer sun.
Shen Shitou stepped onto the floor with his bare feet, his eyes widening in pure, thrilled shock.
“My... My feet...” Shitou whispered, his toes curling against the warm pine. “The warmth is rising through my Yongquan acupoints! It’s circulating directly into my marrow! The entire room feels like the inside of a divine hot spring!”
Niu Mang kicked off his sandals. He sat directly down on the floorboards with a broad, goofy grin spread across his face. “Master! It’s warm! The ground is warm! I could sleep right here on the wood and never wake up!”
Jiang Ling’er stood in the center of the room, her golden eyes shimmering with awe. She felt the underground warmth flowing through the copper veins beneath her boots.
A Nine-Dragon Earth-Warming Array... Ling’er thought, her soul trembling in religious veneration.
In the royal palaces of Great Da-Qi, emperors spend hundreds of thousands of high-grade fire spirit stones every winter to fuel the ‘Sun-Gathering Formations,’ and even then, the halls remain drafty and dry! Yet Master Lu used fifty feet of copper tubing and a bucket of well water to weave a self-sustaining Ancient Warmth Domain!
He doesn’t waste a single spirit stone. He bends the natural heat-powered currents of the cosmos to his will with simple metal and water!
Frank kicked off his heavy boots. He stepped onto the floor in clean wool socks, nodding in satisfaction.
“Seventy-one degrees,” Frank said, checking his brass heat gauge. “Drafts are sealed, the floor is padded with clay and cattails, and heat smooth speed is ninety-eight percent. Now we can finally sit down without catching pneumonia.”
Frank grabbed his heavy brass line-weight bob, his sixty-foot chalk line. A bundle of sharpened cedar stakes from the tool bench.
“Shitou, Niu Mang. Grab the sledgehammer. It’s time to mark our property boundaries.”
They stepped outside into the chilly morning air.
Frank stood at the center of the quarry ridge, unfurling the gold-sealed freehold land deed. He hooked his tape measure against the corner of the shack. Then he walked out seventy yards to the north, south, east, and west. It snapped straight blue chalk lines across the limestone bedrock.
“The deed grants us twenty acres,” Frank said, sighting down his brass line-weight bob to verify the boundary corners. “From this boulder to the cliff edge, down to the stream bank. Drive the cedar stakes four feet into the shale at each corner. This is Classroom 404’s official teaching zone.”
THUD! THUD! THUD!
With three thunderous swings of Shitou’s twenty-pound hammer, the boundary stakes were driven into the stone, claiming twenty acres of rugged mountain territory.
Just as the final stake was secured, a loud, sneering voice echoed from the base of the ridge.
“Enjoy your dirt while you can, Lu Zhen!”
Walking up the path was the Academy Supply Depot Master. He was flanked by four armored storehouse guards. In his hands, he held a black wooden signboard stamped with the scarlet seal of the Merchant Trade ring.
The Depot Master stood at the boundary line, sneering at Frank with cold contempt.
“By order of the Academic Financial Committee and Vice-Principal Lu,” the Depot Master announced loudly, hammering the black signboard into a nearby tree, “Classroom 404 is placed under a total Campus Trade Embargo! You’re barred from purchasing spirit stones, healing herbs, magic charms, and forging charcoal from the academy storehouses! Not a single grain of spiritual rice shall cross this ridge!”
The Depot Master laughed maliciously. “Let’s see how long your little independent department survives when your students have no herbs to cultivate and no coal to burn!”
Shen Shitou’s bronze jaw hardened, his hand gripping the twenty-pound sledgehammer. Niu Mang stepped forward, his eyes dark with protective rage.
Frank simply walked up to the tree, looked at the black wooden signboard. Then he tapped the timber with his pencil.
“Four-inch spruce pine,” Frank remarked, unimpressed. “Terrible wood for an outdoor sign. The moisture will warp that board in forty-eight hours.”
Frank turned to face the Depot Master, his hands resting casually in his apron pockets.
“Your storehouse charges fifty silver coins for a pound of moldy, low-grade Five-Leaf Salve that’s sixty-eight percent pig lard,” Frank said, his voice flat as an iron ruler. “Your charcoal is sixty percent sulfur ash. Your spirit stones are third-tier tailings that have been leached in acid. Why would I buy retail junk from a crooked middle-man when the wholesale salvage yards are full of raw, raw stock?”
The Depot Master blinked, his sneer faltering into confused annoyance. “Wholesale salvage yards?! You speak of the town scrap heaps?! That’s peasant trash!”
“One man’s trash is another man’s load-bearing inventory,” Frank replied calmly. “Keep your marked-up weeds. We prefer raw materials with proper metalworking strength anyway.”
Frank turned his back on the sputtering Depot Master and walked back into the courtyard.
“Shitou, Niu Mang, Ling’er. Fetch the three wooden wheelbarrows from the tool shed.”
“Where are we going, Master?” Ling’er asked, her eyes shining with curiosity.
“East City Black Market and Town Scrap Yards,” Frank said. He grabbed his tape measure and a small brass hammer. “We need copper wire, scrap iron metal bars, and raw stone ores for our plumbing overhaul. Retail is for suckers. Contractors buy scrap.”
Before they could push the wheelbarrows past the courtyard gate, an ear-splitting blast of ritual brass trumpets echoed from the grand entrance of the Hongwu Lower Academy in the valley below!
TOOOOOOT—! TOOOOOOT—!
Golden spiritual fireworks exploded into the morning sky, raining sparkling azure light across the academy towers.
Through the mist of the main campus road, an amazing golden carriage rolled into view.
It was crafted from solid white jade, adorned with golden banners depicting the nine sky stars of the Jiuzhou Continent, and drawn by four amazing, winged pegasi whose hooves ignited silver lightning with every step!
Riding alongside the carriage were twenty elite royal knights in shimmering white-gold plate armor. Their lances carried the royal standard of the Tianxuan Principality’s Capital!
Every student, elder, and judge in the valley dropped to their knees. It trembled in total, scared respect.
An official herald’s voice echoed across the mountains like rolling thunder:
“By order of the Imperial Master Teacher Pavilion! An official envoy of the Three-Star Imperial Academy has arrived to inspect Hongwu Lower Academy!”
Up on the quarry ridge, Shen Shitou and Jiang Ling’er froze. She stared down at the amazing royal entourage with wide, breathless eyes.
Frank barely glanced at the winged horses and golden carriage. He reached down, tested the axle play and oak spokes on his wooden wheelbarrow with the toe of his boot, and nodded.
“Good wheel bearing,” Frank grunted. “Come on, kids. Let’s get down to the scrap yards before the good brass fittings get picked over.”