In the center of Dust-Rock Moon’s fifty-mile main crater, ten giant Scorpion Mining Trucks had their spotlights aimed down into a sixty-foot-deep foundation pit.
Surrounding the pit, five hundred thousand construction workers in crimson Space-Overalls and one hundred thousand newly hired Moon-Rabbits in blue station-attendant uniforms stood on tiptoe, peering down at what the excavators had just uncovered.
At the bottom of the silver bedrock pit sat an ancient, octagonal bronze platform thirty feet wide.
Right in the center of the platform rested a twelve-foot-wide Ancient Bronze Star-Compass, covered in verdigris patina and ten-thousand-year-old star runes. Around its outer ring were ten recessed crystal sockets—one bright blue socket in the center representing Planet Canglan, one silver-gray socket right next to it representing Dust-Rock Moon, and nine dark, unlit sockets arranged in a spiral around them!
“Careful with the crane hooks! Don’t scratch the bronze dial!” Abacus Su shouted down into the pit, already calculating the antique value of ten-thousand-year-old star-bronze on his golden abacus. “If that’s an ancient Star-Lord relic, even a chip of rust off the side is worth ten thousand Spirit Stones!”
Pei Xuan leaped lightly down into the sixty-foot pit, his crimson Space-Overalls glowing faintly as his boots landed beside the octagonal platform. Chief Bai Rong of the Moon-Rabbit Tribe hopped down right behind him, her two long white ears perked up as she recognized the carvings on the bronze base.
