As the morning sun rose over the eastern horizon, a long, dusty line of wheelbarrows, handcarts, and thin families stretched for ten miles along the stone highway leading from the Great Yan border into Dry-Well City.
Another forty-five thousand drought refugees from Red-River County and White-Sand County had walked through the night to reach Pei Xuan’s territory.
At the East Gate Welcome Camp, hundreds of clerks trained by Abacus Su were handing out hot bowls of Meat-Potato porridge, registering family names, and assigning newly built white-walled houses in the expansion district.
Up on the eastern watchtower, Pei Xuan looked over the sea of grateful faces below as his RTS System panel updated with a cheerful chime:
“Lord Pei,” Abacus Su said, standing beside Pei Xuan with a large rolled-out map of the Eastern Gravel Plains. “The good news is that our population just hit a quarter of a million people! The bad news is that every new refugee has a huge appetite after starving for months. We have fifty thousand acres of flat land right outside the east canal, but the ground there is Red-Iron Hardpan Gravel. It’s baked as hard as brick for three feet down.”
“Can our regular ox-plows or Scorpion-Tractors break it?” Pei Xuan asked.
“I had Foreman Wang test it at five o’clock this morning,” Abacus Su sighed, shaking his head. “Ordinary iron plowshares snap in half after ten yards on that red hardpan. Even our three Bulldozer Scorpion-Tractors can only scrape the top two inches of gravel, and if we want to turn fifty thousand acres into deep, soft potato soil before the afternoon planting shift, three scorpions would take forty days! We need something sharp enough to slice three feet deep into solid rock-gravel at fifty miles an hour!”
Right behind them on the tower stairs, Sword Genius Ye Guhan (Rank 5 Foundation Establishment), who happened to be walking past carrying a broom and a bucket of whitewash for his morning road-maintenance shift, suddenly stopped. His cold eyes narrowed as he gripped the broom handle like a peerless blade.
“Three feet deep into solid gravel?” Ye Guhan said in a frosty, proud voice. “Pei Xuan, are you hinting that you need my Supreme Foundation Sword Qi to plow your potato fields? I told you before—a true swordsman only cuts mountains and highways! Plowing fifty thousand acres of mud rows is repetitive farm work! Unless Old Guo adds three extra slices of spiced beef shank to my lunch bowl, I will never—”
“Oh, we don’t need to bother Brother Ye today,” Pei Xuan interrupted with a bright smile, waving his hand dismissively. “Slicing dirt is way beneath a Rank 5 Sword Genius like you! Go paint the highway curbs along the south gate—I’ll tell Old Guo to save you a beef shank anyway. For plowing dirt, we already have five genuine Crimson Cloud Sect flying swords sitting in the toolbox!”
Ye Guhan blinked, slightly disappointed that nobody was begging him to show off his swordsmanship, and marched off muttering to himself about how his curb-painting lines were the straightest in the desert.
Down at the foot of the eastern watchtower, Senior Brother Zhao and his four juniors were marched out into the morning sunlight by Envoy Lin.
After a full night of sleeping on warm heated brick floors and eating two bowls of steamed Meat-Potato buns for breakfast, all five of them looked much cleaner in their bright yellow Debtor Vests—even though Senior Brother Zhao still had no eyebrows and had drawn two thick black eyebrows onto his forehead using a piece of kitchen charcoal.
“Supervisor Lin, didn’t you say our first beginners’ spell class starts at nine o’clock?” Senior Brother Zhao asked nervously as they walked out onto the vast, rock-hard Eastern Gravel Plains. “Why did Lord Pei bring us out to the wasteland? Wait—look on that wooden table! That’s my Red-Flame Flying Sword! And Junior Sister Liu’s Pink-Cloud Sword!”
All five sect disciples gasped as they saw their five treasured Rank 4 flying swords laid out on a workbench beside ten heavy black-iron plowshares, an iron windmill gearbox, a padded leather tractor seat, and a giant round barrel full of fermented fertilizer from Pit #3!
Pei Xuan walked down the stone steps, rubbed his hands together, and opened the glowing blue [Fusion Cube] interface in his mind.
“In the hands of the Crimson Cloud Sect, five Rank 4 flying swords are just five skinny metal boards used to carry five lazy people through the air,” Pei Xuan said, shaking his head at such terrible wastefulness. “Let’s turn this bourgeois sect luxury into high-efficiency socialist farming machinery!”
[ Spend 400,000 LP? -> CONFIRMED! ]
[ Remaining Balance: 3,720,000 LP ]
HUMMMMMM—CLANG-CLANG-SHING!
A blinding cube of golden-blue light wrapped around the workbench!
Before the horrified eyes of Senior Brother Zhao and his four juniors, their five sacred flying swords floated into the air, stretched out twice as wide, and locked horizontally underneath a heavy, red-painted iron chassis!
Senior Brother Zhao’s treasured Red-Flame Sword was bolted right in the front center as the main deep-trench splitter, while the four juniors’ swords were mounted on two spinning iron axles behind it like high-speed rotary blender blades! Above the five humming flying swords sat a comfortable leather seat, a round iron steering wheel, two brass foot pedals labeled [ GO FAST ] and [ WHOA ], and a giant rear tank painted with the words:
[ DRY-WELL FARMING TRACTOR #1 — GLORY TO LABOR ]
When the golden light faded, the five Crimson Cloud disciples dropped to their knees in the gravel as if struck by lightning.
“My sword! My Red-Flame Sword!” Senior Brother Zhao clapped both hands over his charcoal-drawn eyebrows and let out a tragic wail that echoed across the plains. “That sword was forged from thirty-year Scarlet Star-Iron! Every morning I wiped it with white silk and fed it my purest fire-Qi! Look at it now—it’s welded under an iron manure cart right beneath the fertilizer pipe!”
“My Pink-Cloud Sword!” Junior Sister Liu burst into tears, pointing at the left rear axle. “Why is my sword bolted next to the mud-guards?! It used to look like a fairy ribbon in the sky! Now it looks like a giant vegetable chopper!”
“Stop crying, both of you!” Envoy Lin walked over in his #001 Debtor Vest and rapped Senior Brother Zhao on the head with a rolled-up attendance sheet. “What do you know about high technology?! Last week I had to dig up four thousand pounds of potatoes with a hand hoe! If I had a machine like this, I would have earned fifty Little Red Flowers in one morning! Look at the sign on the side—Lord Pei is giving the driver two Little Red Flowers per ten thousand acres plowed!”
Senior Brother Zhao stopped crying mid-sob. His charcoal eyebrows twitched upward.
“Wait... how many Little Red Flowers per ten thousand acres?” Senior Brother Zhao asked, wiping a tear off his nose.
“Two Little Red Flowers per ten thousand acres!” Pei Xuan smiled, patting the padded leather seat of the hovering red tractor and tossing a pair of windproof brass goggles to Senior Brother Zhao. “There are fifty thousand acres of red hardpan out here today, Teacher Zhao. Since the five flying swords underneath recognize your Crimson Cloud Qi, you’re the only one in the city who can unlock its full thirty-foot Sword-Qi cutting width. Plow all fifty thousand acres before lunch, and that’s ten Little Red Flowers—one hundred Spirit Stones off your fine, plus a whole roasted lamb leg at noon!”
Senior Brother Zhao stared at the brass goggles in his hand, then looked down at his Red-Flame Sword humming eagerly underneath the tractor chassis.
Strangely enough, his flying sword didn’t sound sad at all! After being upgraded by Pei Xuan’s Fusion Cube, all the tiny internal cracks in the blade had been repaired, and its edge was three times sharper than before! It was buzzing happily like a farm dog waiting to chase rabbits!
“One hundred Spirit Stones off my debt... and a whole roasted lamb leg...” Senior Brother Zhao swallowed hard. He looked back at Junior Brother Ma, who was already eyeing the driver’s seat greedily.
“Out of my way, Junior Brother Ma! That’s my Red-Flame Sword in front—I’m the certified driver!” Senior Brother Zhao shoved Ma aside, strapped the brass goggles over his charcoal eyebrows, and climbed up into the padded leather seat of Flying-Sword Tractor #1!
“Put one low-grade Spirit Stone in the ignition slot, hold the steering wheel with both hands, channel a trickle of your Crimson Cloud Fire-Qi into the column, and step on the right pedal!” Pei Xuan instructed, stepping back with the forty-five thousand newly arrived refugees who had gathered along the edge of the field to watch.
Senior Brother Zhao took a deep breath, gripped the iron steering wheel, sent a wisp of his Rank 4 Mid fire-Qi down the steering column, and stomped his right boot down on the [ GO FAST ] pedal!
SHING—VROOOOOOOOOM!
Beneath the iron chassis, all five Rank 4 flying swords lit up with dazzling crimson and pink sword-light!
Instead of flying up into the clouds, the five linked flying swords projected a thirty-foot-wide fan of condensed, spinning Crimson Sword-Qi straight down into the rock-hard red gravel!
CRACK-RIIIIIIP-SHUUUUU!
With a roar like a metal dragon, the red Flying-Sword Tractor lifted six inches off the ground and shot forward across the wasteland at fifty miles an hour!
Wherever the tractor passed, a miracle happened right before the eyes of the forty-five thousand refugees:
In front, Senior Brother Zhao’s Red-Flame Sword shot out twin beams of fiery sword-Qi that sliced two neat, three-foot-deep irrigation ditches on the left and right sides of the lane!
In the middle, the four spinning junior swords whipped up a whirlwind of thousands of tiny sword-waves that sliced three feet deep into the rock-hard red hardpan! Boulders, tough thorn roots, and baked clay slabs were instantly chopped into powder as fine and soft as sifted wheat flour! Even better, the fire-attribute Qi from the Crimson Cloud swords heated the cold underground dirt to a cozy eighty degrees, killing every bug egg in the soil while the rear spreader drum sprayed a fine mist of Sweet-Spring water and fermented fertilizer right into the warm furrows!
Behind the speeding tractor, a thirty-foot-wide carpet of dark, steaming, fragrant farm soil unrolled across the barren desert at fifty miles an hour!
Up in the driver’s seat, the fifty-mile-an-hour wind whipped Senior Brother Zhao’s yellow Debtor Vest like a superhero’s cape!
Through his brass goggles, Zhao Kuang felt the terrifying power of five linked Rank 4 flying swords vibrating through his hands. Back in the sect, when he flew alone on one sword, he always had to worry about running out of Qi or falling off.
Now, sitting in a padded leather chair with a Spirit-Stone engine backing him up, he felt like an unstoppable god of war tearing across the earth!
When he reached the one-mile marker at the edge of the stone boundary wall, Senior Brother Zhao didn’t even slow down—he yanked the iron steering wheel hard to the left, pulled the handbrake lever for half a second, and executed a magnificent fifty-mile-an-hour Sword-Qi Power Drift, spraying a twenty-foot fountain of soft brown dirt into the air before lining up perfectly for Row Two!
HONK! HONK!
Senior Brother Zhao squeezed the brass rubber horn on the steering wheel and threw his head back, laughing at the top of his lungs!
“WOOOOHOOOOO! LOOK AT THAT TURN! NOT EVEN AN INCH OFF LINE!” Senior Brother Zhao roared with pure joy as he floored the gas pedal down the second strip. “Who wants to fly in the stupid cold sky when you can drift a five-sword tractor on the ground?! Eat my dust, Lin Cang! This machine is ten times faster than your hand hoe!”
Down by the edge of the field, Junior Brother Ma, Junior Brother Chen, and Junior Sister Liu chased after the tractor waving their arms.
“Senior Brother Zhao! Let me drive one lap! That’s my sword under the left wheel!”
“Get lost! Go teach your morning spelling class! Only Qi Gathering Stage 5 is licensed to drive heavy farm equipment!” Senior Brother Zhao honked the brass horn again and zoomed past them at fifty-five miles an hour, leaving a cloud of warm, fertile soil in his wake.
Along the canal bank, the forty-five thousand newly arrived refugees from Great Yan stared at the steaming, dark-brown fields stretching out to the horizon.
Back in Red-River County, a whole family of five had to pull a wooden plow with ropes over their own shoulders until their skin bled just to scratch half an acre of dry dirt a day.
Here in Dry-Well City, a genuine Qi Gathering Immortal from the legendary Crimson Cloud Sect was wearing a yellow worker vest, honking a brass horn, and using five glowing Immortal flying swords to plow fifty thousand acres of rich farmland for them in a single morning!
An eighty-year-old refugee grandfather scooped up a handful of the warm, soft soil that had just been pulverized by Sword-Qi, smelled its rich mineral fragrance, and dropped to his knees facing the eastern watchtower.
“Immortal tools used to plow food for common folks...” the old man wept, knocking his forehead against the soft earth. “Back in Great Yan, the nobles treat us like grass and the Immortals treat us like bugs! Only Lord Pei treats ordinary farmers like human beings! My family will never leave Dry-Well City even if the King himself begs us!”
“Long live Lord Pei! Long live Dry-Well City!”
Forty-five thousand refugees knelt across the newly plowed fields, their cheers shaking the clouds as pairs of women carrying baskets of sprouting Meat-Potato seeds marched out behind the tractor to begin planting right away.
Even more impressive, because the five flying swords underneath the tractor had infused a trace of warm Crimson-Fire Qi and Sweet-Spring water into every single clod of soil, the moment the refugee women dropped the fist-sized Meat-Potato seed chunks into the furrows and covered them with dirt, tiny green shoots began poking out of the ground within fifteen minutes!
“Look! Look at Row One!” a young refugee mother cried out, pointing at the ground behind her boots in disbelief. “I just planted that potato seed ten minutes ago, and it already has four green leaves! Is this immortal soil?!”
“Don’t be shocked, little sister!” Cuihua, the veteran Team Leader of the Ward 3 Potato Sorting Crew, walked down the furrow carrying a watering can and laughed warmly. “These are Lord Pei’s fused Overnight Meat-Potatoes! Plant them in the morning after the Sword-Tractor warms the dirt, water them once with Sweet-Spring canal water at sunset, and by tomorrow morning each root will grow five ten-pound potatoes that taste just like boiled lamb! Every family that helps plant ten rows today gets to take home a fifty-pound sack tomorrow!”
“Fifty pounds of lamb-tasting potatoes in one day?!” The forty-five thousand refugees jumped up with tears of joy in their eyes, grabbing hoes and seed baskets as they raced each other down the warm furrows like they were picking up gold ingots!
Up on the tractor seat at the far end of the field, Senior Brother Zhao pulled the handbrake at the end of the fifty-thousandth acre, wiped the happy sweat off his forehead, and looked back at the vast ocean of dark-brown, steaming farmland he had created in a single morning.
Strangely enough, inside his dantian, his Qi Gathering Stage 5 spiritual energy wasn’t exhausted at all—instead, after four hours of harmonizing his Qi with five linked flying swords and the rhythmic hum of the earth, his sword control was twice as sharp as before!
Just as Senior Brother Zhao finished plowing the final acre at noon and hopped off the tractor to claim his ten Little Red Flowers and his roasted lamb leg, a small green jade token inside the confiscated sect pouch in Abacus Su’s hand suddenly began to flash bright blood-red and buzz like an angry wasp!
BZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZT!
Senior Brother Zhao froze with a bone sticking out of his mouth. His charcoal eyebrows jumped half an inch up his forehead.
“Uh-oh,” Senior Brother Zhao swallowed his lamb meat and pointed a greasy finger at the buzzing green jade token in Abacus Su’s hand. “Lord Pei! Director Su! That’s the Spirit-Sword Tracking Token linked to our master, Branch Elder Huo! Back in Green-Jade Valley, Elder Huo has a map that shows the flight path of all six of our sect swords! He must have just seen all five of our swords spinning in fifty-mile-an-hour zig-zags back and forth across a potato field for four hours!”
Before Pei Xuan could even reply, the green jade token cracked open with a loud SNAP, and a furious, booming voice echoed out of the jade:
“ZHAO KUANG! LIN FENG! WHY ARE SIX CRIMSON CLOUD SPIRIT SWORDS MOVING IN NEAT RECTANGLES INSIDE A MORTAL MUD TOWN?! WHO DARES DETAIN THE DISCIPLES OF THIS ELDER?!”