Ten miles south of the Eastern Border Town lay the Dry-Crack Plains—a vast, sun-baked expanse of five hundred thousand acres stretching deep into the heart of the Central Continent.
Originally, this region had been fertile farmland fed by the Winding Jade River. However, three hundred years ago, the Azure-Sword Sect and the Heavenly-Lock Array Sect had dammed the upper river to create an artificial swan lake for their elders’ summer villas, leaving three million mortal farmers down on the plains with dry riverbeds and cracked yellow clay.
Now, a bright white chalk line—drawn straight as an arrow by Ye Guhan’s surveyor crew—ran for three hundred miles across the middle of the dry plains, linking the Dry-Well Kingdom’s overflowing Sweet-Spring Spirit Reservoir directly to the parched farmlands of the central provinces.
Along the first ten miles of that white chalk line stood three thousand and one figures wearing bright yellow Debtor Vests.
Clink... clank...
Young Master Zhao Feng (Debtor #1001) held a fifty-pound Fused Gravity-Iron Debtor Shovel in his soft, pale hands.
Even though the Qi-Locking Collar around his neck still left him with ten percent of his Rank 4 Peak body strength—more than enough to lift five hundred pounds—Zhao Feng had never held a tool heavier than a porcelain teacup or a two-pound flying sword in his entire life.
