Thirty feet beneath the muddy yellow surface of the Silver River, a round, shiny black-and-gold metal ball was crawling slowly along the river silt like an oversized dung beetle.
Inside the airtight shell of his treasured Rank 4 Black-Gold Turtle Armor, Guild Master Qian was sweating like a pig in a steamer basket, puffing and wheezing as he waddled downstream along the muddy river bottom.
Even though he had just lost three hundred Armed River Galleys to dish soap and fifty Iron-Beak Warships to pink laxative smoke, Guild Master Qian still had a sly, greedy smirk on his fat face as he peered through the crystal eye-slits of his turtle helmet.
“Hehehe... laugh all you want up there, Pei Xuan!” Guild Master Qian muttered to himself inside his echoing metal helmet, patting the thick Black-Gold Iron plates covering his belly and backside. “I spent three hundred thousand silver taels buying this Rank 4 Black-Gold Turtle Armor from a dwarf smith of the Central Continent! It weighs eight hundred catties of pure meteoric black-iron and sinks straight to the bottom! With the Water-Breathing Pearl in my mouth, I can walk underwater for six hours without coming up for air!”
He patted his bulging silk inner pockets and his oversized leather boots, which were stuffed full of gold bars, jade rings, and waterproof oiled-silk bank notes.
“Once I crawl three miles downstream past the bend, I’ll climb out in the reeds, take a hidden fast boat across Silver Lake to Golden-Abacus Island, and empty out my secret guild vault!” Guild Master Qian giggled greedily, pushing a startled catfish out of his way. “I still have five million taels of silver stored on that island! With five million taels, I can go to the capital, bribe the King’s Immortal Advisors, and hire a Rank 5 Foundation Establishment assassin to chop Pei Xuan into—”
Up above on the sunlit steel bow of Dry-Well No. 1, Pei Xuan took a bite of a crispy, garlic-buttered river shrimp off a bamboo skewer and looked down at the glowing blue RTS Minimap floating in front of his eyes.
Right in the middle of the minimap, a bright red dot labeled [BOSS: GUILD MASTER QIAN (Speed: 1.5 MPH — Crawling in Mud)] was inching along the bottom of the river channel fifty yards ahead of the flagship’s bow.
“Young Master,” Hong Ling leaned over the bow railing, staring down at the murky yellow water where not a single ripple could be seen. “Can that fat pig really breathe underwater like a turtle? Should we ask Inspector Ye to slash the river in half and dig him out?”
Beside her, Ye Guhan immediately placed his hand on the hilt of his black-iron sword, his eyes lighting up. “One vertical sword wave will part the Silver River for half a mile. I will try not to slice his gold notes in half.”
“Wait, wait, Inspector Ye!” Abacus Su threw himself in front of the bow railing with his arms spread wide like a mother hen protecting her eggs. “He is wearing a priceless Rank 4 Black-Gold Turtle Armor! And he has eighty thousand taels of bank notes in his pockets! If your peerless Sword Qi cuts that armor into scrap iron or shreds the bank notes into confetti, how am I supposed to balance this quarter’s military budget?!”
“Relax, Abacus Su,” Pei Xuan laughed, tossing his empty shrimp skewer into a trash bin and wiping his fingers with a clean handkerchief. “When you go fishing for an eight-hundred-pound iron turtle, you don’t use a sword—you use a fishing pole!”
Pei Xuan turned toward the heavy iron cargo crane mounted on the foredeck of Dry-Well No. 1. Beside the crane sat a crate of remaining Black-Rock Loadstones and three copper Lightning-Attraction Arrays stripped from the Crimson Cloud branch outpost.
He opened the Fusion Cube inside his mind.
“System! Fuse [Heavy Ship Cargo Crane Hook] + [100 Blocks of Black-Rock Loadstone] + [3 Lightning-Attraction Arrays]. Spend 200,000 Loyalty Points!”
HUMMMMM—DING!
In a flash of golden light, the iron hook hanging from the end of the thirty-foot steel crane arm transformed into a massive, six-foot-wide red-and-silver Horseshoe Magnet connected to the ship’s steam generator by a braided copper cable!
“Captain Liu,” Pei Xuan called back toward the wheelhouse. “Bring us fifty yards forward and hold position right over that patch of bubbles!”
“Aye, My Lord!”
Chugga-chugga-chugga!
Dry-Well No. 1 glided smoothly forward and stopped directly above the spot where Guild Master Qian was crawling on all fours through the river silt.
Down on the dark river bottom, Guild Master Qian suddenly paused.
A giant shadow had just blocked out the faint sunlight filtering through the water above him.
“Huh? Did a cloud pass over the sun?” Guild Master Qian tilted his heavy metal turtle helmet upward—and saw the flat iron bottom of Dry-Well No. 1 hovering directly over his head!
And then, with a loud SPLASH, a six-foot-wide red-and-silver horseshoe descended on a thick steel cable twenty feet above him.
“What is that? A giant horseshoe?” Guild Master Qian snorted inside his helmet. “Did Pei Xuan drop his anchor to try and crush me? What bad aim! He missed me by twenty feet—”
Up on the foredeck, Pei Xuan grinned and flipped the heavy brass power switch on the crane console to MAXIMUM MAGNETIC PULL.
ZZZZZZZ—HUMMMMMMMMMM!
A deep, resonant magnetic hum pulsed down through the thirty feet of murky water!
First, fifty rusty iron nails, three sunken boat anchors, seven lost kitchen woks, and four dozen iron horseshoes buried in the river mud shot upward like arrows and plastered themselves against the sides of the giant horseshoe magnet!
And half a second later, the twenty-thousand-pound magnetic field locked squarely onto the eight hundred catties of pure meteoric Black-Gold Iron wrapped around Guild Master Qian’s fat body!
“W-whoa! Wait a minute! Why is my butt lifting off the mud?!”
Down on the riverbed, Guild Master Qian’s eyes bulged out of their sockets as his heavy metal rear end floated up into the water against his will!
He frantically grabbed a sunken tree root on the river bottom with both armored hands, kicking his stubby legs wildly as the invisible magnetic pull yanked his metal turtle shell harder and harder toward the surface!
“Let go of me! What kind of evil water spell is this?!” Guild Master Qian screamed around the Water-Breathing Pearl in his mouth. “I weigh eight hundred catties! Why am I flying UP?!”
SNAP!
The rotten tree root broke in half!
Like an iron meatball sucked up by a giant chopstick, Guild Master Qian shot straight up through thirty feet of river water—butt first!
CLANGGGGGGG!
The solid black-iron rear plate and ankle-guards of Guild Master Qian’s turtle armor slammed straight against the bottom poles of the giant horseshoe magnet with a ring loud enough to wake the dead!
“Winch him up, General Tie!” Pei Xuan laughed.
“Up comes the big turtle!” General Tie Zhan cranked the steam-winch lever all the way back!
WHIRRRRR—SPLAAAAAAASH!
The thirty-foot steel crane arm swung up out of the Silver River in a spray of glittering water drops, lifting the giant horseshoe magnet forty feet into the bright morning sky above the bow of Dry-Well No. 1!
Stuck tight to the bottom of the magnet by his armored ankles and backside, hanging completely upside-down in midair like a giant pickled garlic bulb, was Guild Master Qian Baifa!
For three seconds, the hundred and twenty thousand citizens crowded along the piers of Silver-Fork Port, Reed-Bank City, and Iron-Dock Town—along with the two thousand surrendered Canal Guild pirates sitting on the toilet barges—stared up at the sky with their mouths wide open.
“Look at the crane on Lord Pei’s ship!”
“He just fished Guild Master Qian out of the river with a giant horseshoe!”
“Bahahaha! Look at his fat legs kicking in the air! That’s the invincible River King of the Southern Canal Guild?!”
Up in the air, forty feet above the steel deck, the blood rushed straight to Guild Master Qian’s fat head as he dangled upside-down.
“Put me down! Put me down right now, Pei Xuan!” Guild Master Qian shrieked, trying to unbuckle his armor straps—only to realize that if he unbuckled his armor forty feet in the air, he would fall headfirst onto a solid steel deck! “I am a Rank 4 Mid Qi Gathering Immortal! You can’t treat me like a hooked catfish!”
“Oh, excuse my manners, Master Qian,” Pei Xuan smiled politely from the deck below. “Abacus Su says you still haven’t paid the one thousand percent compound interest on our ten carts of snow-salt, nor the cleaning fee for our river channel. Let’s make a quick down payment first!”
Pei Xuan pressed the second button on the crane console: [Shake-Dry Coin Mode].
BRRRRRRRRR-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
The giant horseshoe magnet began vibrating at five hundred cycles per second!
“Aaaaugh! Stop shaking me-e-e-e-e!” Guild Master Qian’s voice warbled like a vibrating goat as his fat body jiggled up and down!
Clink! Clank! Jing-a-ling! Plop! Plop!
Under the high-speed vibration, the neck-guard and wide sleeves of his upside-down turtle armor acted like an open funnel!
Out poured a literal rainstorm of treasure!
Shiny fifty-tael gold ingots, hundreds of silver coins, fourteen emerald thumb-rings, three solid-gold pocket abacuses, waterproof bundles of ten-thousand-tael bank notes, a roasted chicken leg he had hidden in his sash for a snack, and finally a heavy, foot-long Golden Key shaped like an Abacus all came raining down out of his armor!
Down on the steel deck, Abacus Su and Hong Ling didn’t let a single coin roll overboard. The two of them ran left and right holding a ten-foot-wide silk butterfly net, catching every gold ingot, jade ring, and bank note with pinpoint accuracy!
“Got it! Fifty thousand taels in Great Yan Bank Notes!” Hong Ling cheered, her eyes turning into little crescent moons. “Ooooh, and fourteen imperial green jade rings! Young Master, this fat turtle is a human piggy bank!”
“And look at this giant gold key!” Abacus Su held up the foot-long Golden Abacus Key, his spectacles nearly sliding off his nose with excitement. “It’s engraved with the seal of Golden-Abacus Island—the Southern Canal Guild’s secret central treasury in the middle of Silver Lake!”
“NO! My island vault key! Give that back!” Guild Master Qian sobbed upside-down in midair, his pride and his fortune completely shattered in a single morning.
Across all three river cities—Silver-Fork Port, Reed-Bank City, and Iron-Dock Town—the local town guards tore down the black-and-gold flags of the Southern Canal Guild from the city gates and raised the red banners of Dry-Well City to a deafening chorus of cheers and firecrackers!
DING! DING! DING!
Inside Pei Xuan’s head, the RTS System rang with a golden cascade of notifications as all three bustling river cities officially merged into his territory!
At the exact moment the 120,000 new citizens pledged their loyalty, a warm, surging torrent of pure spiritual energy—backed by Pei Xuan’s Furnace-Blood Scripture and a fused Rank 4 Pure-Yang Spirit Pill he popped into his mouth—exploded inside his dantian!
BOOM!
Inside Pei Xuan’s lower belly, the spinning vortex of fiery crimson Qi doubled in size, condensing from a misty vapor into a thick, glowing stream that washed through all thirty-six of his main meridians!
A golden halo of Rank 4 Mid (Qi Gathering Stage 5) aura flared beneath Pei Xuan’s boots, making the steel deck plates of Dry-Well No. 1 hum with power!
“Congratulations on breaking through to Qi Gathering Stage Five, Young Master!” Old Wei, General Tie Zhan, and Hong Ling all bowed joyfully.
Pei Xuan let out a long, refreshing breath, feeling his strength and spiritual sense expand across five full miles of the Silver River. He looked up at the weeping, upside-down Guild Master Qian and then out toward the shimmering blue waters of Silver Lake to the south.
“Lower Master Qian onto the deck and put him in an extra-large yellow Debtor Vest,” Pei Xuan ordered with a bright smile. “All ten steamships—full speed ahead into Silver Lake! Let’s go audit the Southern Canal Guild’s secret island vault!”