Standing at the edge of the swirling gray Eight-Trigram Maze Fog, Pei Xuan tapped his chin with his folding fan while Deacon Luo and his four junior deacons were already sweeping the curb behind him in their fresh yellow Debtor Vests.
“Deacon Luo,” Pei Xuan called over his shoulder without turning around. “How many roadside Array Towers did your Sect Master turn on to make this fog?”
Deacon Luo flinched, leaning on his bamboo broom as his new tooltip hovered at [Loyalty: 14/100 — Terrified of Old Wei’s flying iron hand].
“S-Seventy-two towers, Lord Pei!” Deacon Luo stammered quickly, afraid that hesitating for even half a second would earn him another slap from Old Wei’s mechanical gauntlet. “There is one tower planted every ten miles along the old imperial post roads! Each tower is guarded by an Inner Sect Array Captain and ten disciples, and they are all linked to Grandmaster Zhen’s main astrolabe on Heavenly-Lock Summit! Unless you break all seventy-two towers at the exact same second, the neighboring towers will just pump more illusion mist over the road!”
“Seventy-two towers spaced every ten miles?” Pei Xuan smiled faintly. “Why would I break perfectly good tower foundations when we need poles for our highway traffic lights?”
