Dawn broke over World 20 (Iron-Loom Planet), painting the stone streets of Cloud-Weave City in bright morning gold.
Down in the lower quarters near the Star-Train station, mortal weavers, blacksmiths, and dockworkers were already happily trading crisp green 1-Jin Dry-Well Grain-Notes for hot soy milk, fried dough sticks, and sacks of white Spirit-Rice. Nobody in the lower city wanted to touch Master Gold-Tooth’s crumbly gray Shaved Stones anymore.
Up in the Upper Cultivator Quarter, however, the atmosphere was completely different.
Outside the grand gates of the Iron-Cloud Sword Sect and the Hundred-Pill Pavilion, three thousand robed Immortal Cultivators—ranging from Rank 4 Qi Gathering disciples to Rank 5 Foundation Establishment elders—gathered in the street, sneering at the green paper bills drifting past in the hands of mortal errand boys.
At the center of the crowd stood Senior Brother Feng, the arrogant young Qi-Gathering Peak disciple who had mocked the dockworkers from his flying sword the night before. Around him stood fifty Iron-Cloud disciples wearing spotless white robes and holding pouches of Spirit Stones.
“Listen to me, fellow cultivators of World 20!” Senior Brother Feng declared loudly, stepping onto a stone lion statue so everyone on the avenue could see him. “Those ignorant mortal workers at the docks have lost their minds over a few sacks of rice! They actually traded their Spirit Stones for green tree-bark paper printed by that country mayor Pei Xuan!”
