CLANG! CLANG! HISSSSS!
At the edge of the Star-Gate marshaling yard, thirty burly Furnace-Blood soldiers were straining to pull a thirty-foot-tall crimson alchemy cauldron onto the front flatbed of a thousand linked black-iron train carriages.
Standing on top of the shaking cauldron was Alchemist Sun Baolu—“Boom-Pot Sun”—wearing a soot-stained leather apron and brass safety goggles with one cracked lens. In his left hand, he held a giant iron stirring rod; in his right hand, he held a sack of dried chili peppers and sulfur crystals.
“Careful with the left leg of my Nine-Dragon Boom Cauldron, boys!” Boom-Pot Sun yelled down as purple smoke whistled out of the lid’s pressure valves. “I just brewed three thousand gallons of Rank 6 High-Octane Pepper-Fire Pill Broth inside! If you bump the bottom valve too hard, it’ll launch us all the way to the moon without needing the Star-Gate!”
Below the cauldron, Abacus Su jumped three feet backward, clutching his ledger like a shield.
“Sun Baolu! Did you say exploding pill broth?!” Abacus Su shrieked, his spectacles sliding down to the tip of his nose. “Do you know how much those one thousand heavy black-iron carriages cost the Municipal Ironworks?! Eight hundred thousand Spirit Stones! If your cauldron blows up the train before Lord Pei even fuses it, I will dock your spice budget until the year five thousand!”
