The Grand Hall of the East City Apprentice Appraiser Guild looked like an ancient temple dedicated to the sacred art of looking through magnifying glasses.
Shafts of dusty morning sunlight filtered through stained glass skylights, lighting up rows of velvet-draped check tables. Dozens of apprentice testers clad in tailored silk robes were sweating heavily. He grabbed brass measuring tongs, jade-testing prisms, and spiritual spirit-thickness scales.
A choking silence hung over the room. It was broken only by the nervous scratching of ink brushes and the slow, rhythmic trickling of sand through two-hour brass hourglasses.
The double doors of the hall swung open with a screech of dry, ungreased bronze hinges.
Frank walked in.
He was wearing his faded grey linen robes. His denim shop apron was tied securely around his waist. A carpenter’s pencil tucked behind his right ear. His heavy leather work boots clicked with loud, unapologetic power against the polished white marble tiles.
Behind him, Shen Shitou and Niu Mang remained outside guarding the three wooden wheelbarrows. Meanwhile, Jiang Ling’er stood quietly by the entrance pillars. She held Frank’s chipped enamel tea mug.
At the head of the raised judge’s dais sat Master Guan.
Master Guan was an One-Star Master Appraiser of the Imperial Guild, wearing high-collared purple robes stitched with three silver magnifying lenses and circular gold-rimmed crystal glasses perched on his hawk-like nose.
Guan looked over the rim of his glasses. His eyes locked onto Frank’s denim apron and dusty boots. His thin eyebrows arched in immediate, high-born distaste.
“Halt right there, laborer,” Master Guan’s voice cut through the silent check hall like a dull saw. “The service entrance for coal delivery is behind the latrines. Clear the floor before you track soot across the exam carpets.”
Frank didn’t stop. He walked straight to the registration desk, pulled a crumpled ten-silver voucher from his pocket. Then he slapped it onto the dark wood counter.
“I’m not delivering coal,” Frank said, his voice entirely flat. “I’m here to take the Apprentice Appraiser sign-off exam.”
The fifty testers across the hall paused in their counts. That turned their heads to gawk at Frank like an escaped farm animal.
Master Guan let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter.
“You? An unwashed handyman seeking an official Guild Appraiser License?” Guan sneered, leaning over his desk. “Do you know what this hall represents? An appraiser must memorize twenty thousand stone variants, calculate crystal refractive indexes, and divine the hidden flaws of ancient masters! It takes twenty years of rigorous scholastic discipline! You can’t simply guess your way through artifacts with brute peasant hands!”
“I don’t need twenty years,” Frank replied calmly, checking his pocket watch. “I need the fifteen-percent wholesale tax exemption stamp for the lumber warehouse next door. Is the test ready, or do I have to file an office complaint?”
Master Guan’s face darkened with insulted pride. He snatched the ten silver coins and shoved a wooden check board and an ink brush into Frank’s chest.
“Ten artifacts,” Guan hissed. He pointed a manicured finger toward a long row of glass display cases lining the western wall. “Each ancient object is sealed within an anti-spiritual dampening case to prevent divine sense cheating. Standard time allowance is two hours. You must write the material composition, manufacturing era, load-bearing defects, and market valuation.”
Guan pointed to a massive two-hour brass hourglass on the table.
“If you fail to achieve an eighty-percent accuracy score, your check fee is forfeited. You’ll be barred from this guild for five years! Judge, turn the sand!”
Flip.
The judge inverted the heavy brass hourglass. Fine red sand began to trickle through the narrow glass neck.
The fifty testers huddled back over their artifacts, their brows furrowed, carefully positioning their magnifying crystals to inspect tiny carving lines.
Frank didn’t even pick up the magnifying glass sitting on his exam tray.
He walked over to Station One.
His right hand emerged from his apron pocket, his index finger extending forward.
He walked down the western wall at a steady, unrushed pace. He tapped the glass front of each sealed display case as he strolled past.
Tap. (Station 01: Bronze Incense Burner)
Tap. (Station 02: Jade Wine Goblet)
Tap. (Station 03: Rusted Iron Spearhead)
Tap. (Station 04: Four-Hundred-Year-Old White Jade Vase)
Tap. (Station 05: Golden Silk Calligraphy Scroll)
Tap. (Station 06: Ancient Spirit Mirror)
Tap. (Station 07: Carved Soapstone Seal)
Tap. (Station 08: Dragon-Bone Dagger)
Tap. (Station 09: Phoenix-Feather Fan)
Tap. (Station 10: Inlaid Obsidian Chessboard)
Ten taps.
Total elapsed walking time: twelve seconds.
As Frank walked, his internal DAO-QA console fired off a rapid, unbroken stream of hardware diagnostics directly into his eye nerve, logging every metalworking flaw, chemical impurity, and fabrication defect into his short-term memory buffer.
Frank stopped at the end of the row.
He picked up the coarse horsehair ink brush, twirled it once between his fingers. Then he began writing across the check parchment with terrifying, machine-like speed.
He didn’t use flowery poetic phrasing like “Radiates the ancient sorrow of the fallen dynasties.”
He wrote like an approved clockwork failure analyst drafting an insurance check report.
Item 1: 82% tin-bronze cast. Sand-mold shrinkage air holes at base pipe rim. Worth 4 silver.
Item 4: Hetian white green jade. 0.12mm sub-surface heat shock fracture running horizontally behind glaze leaf 3. solid strength: 42%. Value: 12 silver (Damaged).
Item 6: Bronze-silver alloy. Specular coating rusted by sulfuric acid exposure. 40% reflectance loss. Scrap value: 6 silver.
Item 9: Counterfeit. White goose plumage treated with sulfur dye and copper-sulfate wash. Fake phoenix aura. Value: 2 copper (Kindling).
Item 10: Common black shale bonded with pine pitch and crushed charcoal. Fake black glass. Value: 1 silver.
In less than forty-five seconds, all ten lines were filled with neat, dense, exact handwriting.
Frank blew the excess ink dry, walked back up to the judge’s dais. Then he slapped the wooden board face-down directly in front of Master Guan’s teacup.
CLACK.
Master Guan was in the middle of taking a leisurely sip of his fragrant Jasmine tea.
The sudden slap of the exam board startled him so wildly that hot tea splashed down the front of his silk robes.
Guan choked, coughing wildly into his sleeve. He wiped his chin, glaring at Frank with veins bulging on his forehead.
“What’s the meaning of this?!” Guan barked, pointing a shaking finger at the sandglass. “The sand has barely trickled two grains! You have been at the tables for less than one minute!”
“I finished the check,” Frank said. He pulled his pocket watch and tapping the crystal face with his fingernail. “Twelve seconds on visual-sound scanning, forty-eight seconds on paperwork. Total check time: one minute flat.”
Frank extended his hand, palm up.
“Where do I get the wholesale tax exemption stamp? I have three tons of lumber waiting at the dispatch dock.”
The entire hall fell into dead, horrified silence.
The fifty testers stopped breathing, their magnifying crystals frozen over their artifacts.
Master Guan’s face turned bright, furious crimson. He slammed his teacup onto the desk, his voice trembling with sheer outrage.
“Insolent! Disgraceful! A mockery of the Imperial Guild!” Guan roared, slamming his fist onto the dark wood counter. “You strolled down the row like a tourist at a night market, tapped the cases with your fingernails, and scribbled random nonsense on the paper! Do you think the sacred art of test is a children’s game?!”
Guan grabbed the wooden board, his lip curling in a cruel, mocking sneer.
“I’ll read your disgraceful scribbles aloud before the entire hall! Then, I’ll have the guards break your fingers and drag you to the judge for academic fraud!”
Guan shoved his gold-rimmed crystal glasses up his nose and looked down at the parchment.
His eyes scanned line one: Bronze Incense Burner.
Guan’s sneer twitched.
Composition: 82% tin-bronze alloy. Sand-mold shrinkage air holes at base pipe rim.
Guan blinked. He quickly pulled out the confidential Master Key scroll stamped with the Imperial Guild’s crimson wax seal.
On the official royal answer key, line one read: Grade-1 Cast Bronze. Severe casting defect at base.
Guan’s breath hitched in his throat.
He quickly scanned down to line four: The Four-Hundred-Year-Old White Jade Vase.
Frank’s Answer: Hetian white green jade. 0.12mm sub-surface heat fracture running horizontally behind glaze leaf 3.
Master Guan’s eyes bulged so wide his gold-rimmed glasses slid off his nose, dangling precariously from their silk cord!
His face drained of all color, turning from red to ash-white, then to sickly green!
The White Jade Vase was a prized relic from the guild’s private vault! Three days ago, a Two-Star Master Judge had inspected the vase with a high-intensity spiritual deep ring prism, discovering a tiny, invisible heat fracture deep within the stone lattice that was entirely invisible to the naked eye!
The flaw was so subtle that it was placed in the exam specifically as an impossible trick question. No apprentice was expected to find it!
Yet Lu Zhen had identified the fracture down to the exact tiny fraction of an inch, pinpointed its location behind the third glaze leaf, and diagnosed heat shock as the root cause—all from a single, casual tap on the outer glass case!
Guan’s hands began to shake wildly.
He wildly read line nine: The Phoenix-Feather Fan.
Frank’s Answer: Counterfeit. White goose plumage treated with sulfur dye and copper-sulfate wash.
Guan gasped, dropping the parchment onto the desk like a hot coal!
The Phoenix-Feather Fan had fooled five approved One-Star Appraisers last month! Only after chemical distillation had the guild discovered it was a forged ancient object made from dyed waterfowl feathers!
And Lu Zhen had identified the exact chemical wash without even opening the sealed glass case!
“Ten out of ten...” Guan whispered, his voice trembling so hard his dentures rattled. “Every single stone percentage... Every single forging flaw... Diagnosed in twelve seconds flat...”
Around the dais, the exam guards and senior clerks leaned over, reading the sheet with bulging eyes and gasping in collective terror.
“A Godly Appraiser!”
“He possesses the legendary Heavenly Eye of Insight!”
“He didn’t use magnifying crystals! He diagnosed tiny sub-surface crystal fractures through ringing sound shaking!”
Frank folded his arms across his denim apron, entirely unimpressed by the panic.
“Like I said,” Frank spoke in that calm, infuriatingly rational handyman voice. “Every physical material has a natural ringing hum. A cracked piece of baked-clay sounds dull. An alloy with high lead content doesn’t ring. It’s basic sound testing. Now, are you going to stamp my wholesale tax exemption card, or do I need to explain the chemical rusting on that mirror?”
Master Guan stood frozen behind his desk, sweat pouring down his temples. It soaked his purple collar.
His high-born pride was shredded into ribbons. But the terror of being exposed as an unfit judge seized his soul.
“L-Luck!” Guan stammered, his voice rising in desperate, cracked defiance. “A fluke! You must have bribed an apprentice clerk in the storage vault! You bought the answer key before entering the hall!”
Guan slammed his trembling hands onto the desk, his eyes bloodshot with wild desperation:
“If you truly possess the Heavenly Eye of Insight... If you want an official Appraiser Token... You must appraise the Guild’s Unsolved Relic! The legendary Emperor’s Jade Dagger!”