CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Inside the front observation car of Star-Train No. 1, General Tie Zhan stood on one foot while doing one-handed squats with a ten-thousand-pound black-iron dumbbell. Every time his broad boots hit the steel floorboards, the whole train car shook, and a pile of empty pork-bun baskets in the corner bounced two inches into the air.
“Ninety-eight! Ninety-nine! One hundred!” Tie Zhan let out a loud, happy roar, tossing the giant dumbbell into his left hand and wiping his sweaty forehead with a grease-stained towel. “Lord Pei! Since you broke through to Rank 7 Late yesterday on Frost-Mirror Star, the spirit-pressure inside this train feels twice as thick! My muscles are itching for a fight! When is that Pirate Queen Hong Ye going to show up with her fleet?”
“Stop jumping up and down, Iron-Head Tie!” Hong Ling snapped from the table across the aisle.
She was wearing her red-braided hair tucked under a crisp blue Minister of the Treasury cap. Two fused Rank 7 Laser-Cleavers hung from her belt, and in front of her sat three iron strongboxes overflowing with thumb-sized Star-Cores and glowing spirit-checks.
“You just made me miscount a stack of ten-million-stone frost-storage receipts!” Hong Ling smacked the table with her small hand, making the brass tea kettle jump. “And why are you wishing for pirates when we only have ten Dry-Well Class Patrol Battleships in the whole navy? Do you know how much raw Star-Iron it takes to build one battleship hull? Chief Shi…
