The procedural opening of the Occupational Gauntlet was a study in ancient land-wide high council.
For three mortal hours before Frank took the stage, forty-eight heralds in scarlet tabards had blown silver trumpets, reading aloud the old family pedigrees of the seventy-two testers from scrolls of bleached calfskin.
Every single young master was announced with grand royal honorifics: ‘The Third Dragon of the Clear Sky,’ ‘The Sovereign Sword of Autumn Frost,’ ‘The Peerless Lotus of the Northern Mist.’
The crowd had roared with adulation for each name, tossing fragrant laurel leaves and gold-foil petals onto the dark rock flat stone slabs.
And then, the chief clerk had reached the final name on the registry.
The clerk had cleared his throat, squinted at the flat, eight-sided carbon pencil stone carving on the bottom of the Astral Jade Register. Then it announced in a tone of confused disgust:
“Tester Number Seventy-Two: Lu Zhen. Trade Title: General Builder and Site Upkeep Lead. Affiliation: Ironwood Peak Repair & Upkeep Workshop.”
The seventy square miles of floating platforms had gone dead silent.
