The heat inside Classroom 404 plunged past forty below zero in less than ten seconds.
Black nether-frost climbed the pine walls like crawling swarms of crystal spiders, coating the desk, the window frames, and the ceiling floor beams in brittle, pitch-black rime.
On the floorboards, Jiang Ling’er arched her back in blinding agony.
Her beggar silks tore open at the collar, revealing skin as white as moonlight, beneath which a pulsing crimson star burned with terrifying intensity. The trapped steam within her Primordial Solar Dragon Core shrieked like a runaway steam locomotive trapped in an airtight underground tunnel.
Shen Shitou and Niu Mang rushed forward. But the intense cold knocked them back, frosting their eyebrows and freezing their breath in their throats.
“Master!” Shitou shouted through chattering teeth, raising his bronze arms to shield his face. “The Princess is combusting from within! Her core is exploding!”
“I told you,” Frank said, his voice entirely flat as he rummaged through his heavy leather tool pouch. “It’s not a blast. It’s an unvented pressure vessel running past design limits. When a spreading valve freezes shut, you don’t pray. You manually actuate the bleeder.”
Frank’s hand emerged from his pouch holding two simple tools: a six-inch solid copper grounding rod with a blunt chisel tip, and a four-ounce brass ball-peen hammer.
He stepped across the ice-coated pine planks, his heavy leather work boots crushing the black frost into fine powder.
The surrounding cold was intense enough to crack mortal bones, but Frank paid it zero mind. The micro-star-fire spark within his Sea of Qi hummed at a fraction of a milliwatt. That created an invisible, six-inch heat shield around his skin that kept the frost at bay.
He knelt beside the gasping princess.
Her violet eyes were rolled back. Her jaw clenched so was tight blood trickled from the corner of her lips.
“Hold her shoulders, Shitou,” Frank commanded. “Keep her spine straight-across to the deck. Ling’er, stop holding your breath. You’re about to experience a nearby pressure drop.”
“Yes, Master!” Shitou lunged forward, his star-forged bronze arms locking around Ling’er’s trembling shoulders with the unmoving grip of a heavy-duty vise.
Frank extended the copper grounding pin.
His fingers found the exact junction between her third and fourth upper-back bones. The precise body nexus where the eleven-year ice buildup had formed a solid crystal-clear plug over her main steam exhaust port.
He set the blunt tip of the copper rod against her spine.
He raised the brass ball-peen hammer four inches.
Clink.
It wasn’t a brutal blow. It was the crisp, tuned strike of an instrument technician tapping a stuck pressure gauge.
A tiny, ultra-dense pulse of 10,000 Degrees of star-heat star-fire traveled from Frank’s wrist, through the brass hammer head, down the copper rod. Then it struck the frozen spirit vein nexus with total ringing care.
CRACK.
The black ice plug shattered into vapor.
And then, the heavens and the earth went fully deaf.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
A sound louder than a hundred thunderclaps blew up through Classroom 404!
A roaring column of golden, white-hot overload steam—narrow as an arrow, glowing like the noon sun, and traveling at Mach 4—erupted from the exhaust point between Ling’er’s shoulder blades!
The faster-than-sound steam jet punched clean through the ceiling shingles of Classroom 404, blew a six-inch hole through the roof ridge. Then it shot four thousand feet straight up into the midnight sky!
High above the Hongwu Mountain Range, an approaching autumn rainstorm had blanketed the valley in dark thunderclouds.
The golden steam jet pierced the center of the cloud deck like a sky spear.
BOOOOOOM!
In less than three seconds, the moisture in the entire cloud front was flash-boiled away! The storm clouds dissolved into a swirling halo of golden mist, leaving behind a clean, star-filled night sky lit up by the roaring pillar of light!
Inside the shack, the black nether-frost shattered into harmless, glittering powder.
The crushing pressure inside Jiang Ling’er’s chest collapsed from bone-crushing pressure straight down to a safe, purring working baseline of forty-five PSI.
Deep within her dantian, the sleeping Primordial Solar Dragon Core fully awakened.
A phantom dark shape of an ancient golden dragon coiled behind her ribs. It roared in joyous liberation! Waves of pure, clean solar zhenqi flooded her spirit veins, washing away eleven years of chemical toxin residue.
Tier 1 Layer 1... Layer 4... Layer 7... Layer 9 Peak!
Her skin flushed with radiant, rosy warmth. Her black hair billowed around her shoulders, tipped with faint flecks of golden fire. Her breathing settled into the deep, rhythmic purr of a well-tuned fire.
The pillar of steam gradually narrowed off. That left behind a faint smell of roasted cedar and clean ozone.
Jiang Ling’er opened her eyes.
Her violet irises were gone, replaced by pools of brilliant, molten gold that radiated royal majesty.
She looked down at her hands, bent her fingers. Then she felt the limitless, soothing warmth circulating through her limbs. For the first time since she was four years old, her chest didn’t hurt. Her bones didn’t ache. She wasn’t cold.
Ling’er slipped out of Shitou’s grip and sank onto one knee on the pine floorboards.
“Master...” Ling’er whispered, blinking away hot tears. “Eleven years of freezing hell... Master cleared it with a single copper rod. Disciple Jiang Ling’er swears on her blood: this life belongs only to Classroom 404!”
Frank picked up his copper rod, inspected the tip for pitting, and wiped it clean on his apron.
“It’s a copper grounding rod, not a nail,” Frank said, blowing away a wisp of smoke. “And next time, don’t let unqualified court doctors install dry ice on an unvented boiler. You have a four-inch hole in the roof now. You’re helping Niu Mang cut wooden roof shingles tomorrow to patch it.”
Before Ling’er could reply, Frank’s internal HUD lit up with brilliant golden text.
Frank gave a satisfied nod. “Two down. One page left to collect.”
He turned his head toward the corner.
Niu Mang was standing there. He stared at Ling’er’s golden aura. He grabbed his rusty trench spade so hard the ash wood was groaning.
Tears were streaming down the farm boy’s broad face.
“Master...” Niu Mang snorted, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Senior Brother Shitou has star-iron bones. Senior Sister Ling’er has a solar dragon. But student... Student is only good at digging dirt. I’m too stupid to wake up a grand vision...”
“Digging dirt is the foundation of great realm,” Frank said. He stepped over to the boy and slapping his massive shoulder. “Without foundation digging, every fancy palace collapses into the mud. Grab your shovel. The sun is coming up.”
Dawn broke over the eastern peaks, casting pale pink light across the quarry ridge.
Frank led Niu Mang out to the western outer edge of Classroom 404. There, the bedrock formed a jagged, sloping ledge that threatened to slide during heavy rains.
Frank took his piece of blue chalk and snapped a straight forty-yard chalk line across the shale stone.
“Here,” Frank said. “Four feet deep, three feet wide. Slope the trench walls at a sixty-degree angle of repose to prevent sidewall collapse. Remember your shovel kinematics: pivot at the hips, engage your belly wall, and let the footpeg take your body weight. Clear this trench before breakfast.”
Niu Mang looked at the chalk line. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t complain about the solid stone.
“Student obeys!” Niu Mang bellowed.
He stepped up to the line, gripped the ash handle. Then he drove the hard dark metal iron blade into the shale with a thunderous downward stomp of his bare heel.
THWACK!
The iron blade bit three inches into the bedrock.
Niu Mang dropped his hips, engaged his hamstrings, and levered the shovel backward.
CRACK!
A thirty-pound slab of shale popped out of the ground, flying ten feet through the air and landing neatly in the spoil pile.
Thwack! Crack! Scoop!
Thwack! Crack! Scoop!
Niu Mang moved with the relentless, unbending rhythm of a heavy steam shovel.
Ten yards. Twenty yards.
With every strike into the bedrock, the thirty-six ergonomic postures from the butcher paper manual fired in perfect set through Niu Mang’s massive frame.
His breathing synced with the earth’s natural deep ring. His heart pumped like a heavy-duty piston, circulating thick, golden-brown life-force through his dense marrow.
At the thirty-yard mark, Niu Mang’s bare feet sank two inches into the solid stone.
MOOOOOOOOOOO!
An ancient, terrifying roar echoed from the depths of his soul!
Behind Niu Mang’s back, a huge golden phantom of an Ancient Earth-Tearing Bull materialized in the morning mist, towering thirty feet tall with horns that seemed capable of piercing the heavens!
Every shovel strike sent blast waves rippling through the mountain bedrock.
His skeletal thickness multiplied. His tendons thickened into iron-hard braided cables. And his dantian exploded with the raw, crushing power of the land-wide earth!
Tier 1 Layer 1... Layer 5... Layer 8... Layer 9 Peak!
THWACK!
On the final yard, Niu Mang drove the shovel four feet deep into the rock, finishing the entire forty-yard trench with walls so smooth and straight they looked like they had been laser-cut by a master engineer.
Niu Mang stood at the end of the trench, his chest heaving, his muscles bulging with earth-shattering power.
He looked at his hands, then at the trench spade. The rusty iron blade was now glowing with a faint, black glass sheen, fully unmarked by forty yards of solid granite digging.
CLANG.
Niu Mang set the shovel upright in the dirt and sank to one knee. He wiped a massive sleeve across his eyes.
“Master!” Niu Mang boomed. “Student understands! Shoveling dirt isn’t mindless labor—shoveling dirt is leverage and earth! Thank you, Master!”
Frank leaned against the doorframe of the shack, sipping hot water from his enamel mug.
Frank smiled, looking out over his three students.
Shen Shitou, glowing with star-forged bronze skin.
Jiang Ling’er, streaming solar dragon warmth.
Niu Mang, grounded with mountain-shattering earth force.
Three crippled rejects, assembled from dung heaps, frozen haystacks, and punishment rings.
In less than twenty-four hours, all three had broken through to the total peak of Mortal Tier 1, possessing pure, zero-defect training foundations that rivaled the old family saints.
Frank checked his pocket watch.
“Twenty-four hours until Vice-Principal Lu’s competency audit,” Frank murmured, taking another sip of hot water. “Good. The crew is fully onboarded. Now, let’s see what happens when the building checker shows up.”