At crack of dawn the next morning, a crowd of two thousand townspeople gathered outside the south gate of Dry-Well Town to watch a brand-new spectacle.
Lined up at the head of the unpaved dirt highway leading toward Green-Willow Suburb stood five massive, twenty-thousand-pound solid black granite cylinders, each ten feet wide and six feet tall, carved out of the mountain rock that Ye Guhan had sliced earlier that week.
Yesterday evening, Pei Xuan had spent 1,500 LP in the Fusion Cube to combine those five giant granite cylinders with [5 Heavy Iron Ox-Yokes] and [Rank 2 Scorpion-Venom Shock Runes], creating five [Rank 3 Grandmaster-Grade Ten-Ton Highway Steamrollers]!
Strapped into the heavy iron pulling-harnesses in front of the five ten-ton stone rollers were none other than Elder Blood-Claw and his four fellow Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmasters of the Shadow-Bat Sect!
Each of the five terrifying assassins—who used to make wealthy merchants cry just by whispering their names—was now wearing a bright canary-yellow sleeveless vest over his black bat-suit, with the giant black characters [ ROAD ROLLER #1 ] through [ ROAD ROLLER #5 ] painted across his chest and back!
“Kill me! Just chop my head off right now!”
Elder Blood-Claw rattled his iron harness furiously, glaring at Pei Xuan, General Tie Zhan, and Abacus Su with bloodshot eyes. “I am the First Execution Elder of the Shadow-Bat Sect! A Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster! You want me to pull a twenty-thousand-pound stone roller down a dirt road like an ox?! I will starve myself to death before I take a single step for your town!”
“Yeah! We Shadow-Bat Elders would rather die than pave mortal roads!” yelled Road Roller #2 (Elder Poison-Fang) and Road Roller #3 (Elder Night-Wing) in unison.
Pei Xuan read the hidden flaw on the RTS Tooltip and didn’t even bother arguing with them.
He simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers toward the roadside fifty yards ahead.
“Old Guo, take the lid off the breakfast griddle.”
“Right away, My Lord!”
Fifty yards down the highway, Old Guo lifted the giant iron dome off his mobile roadside stove!
SZZZZZZZ—WHOOSH!
A thick, golden cloud of sizzling steam rolled straight down the road and hit the five starving, freezing assassins right in the face!
On the flat iron griddle, Old Guo was frying three-foot-wide [Golden-Blood Wheat Scallion Pancakes] brushed with marrow oil! Inside each golden, flaky pancake, he wrapped ten thick slices of Crispy Honey-Glazed Roast Iron-Duck, two fried Rank 2 Golden-Yolk Duck Eggs, and a ladle of spicy Braised Scorpion-Beef Brisket!
Because the five Shadow-Bat Elders had traveled across the desert for three days eating dry rations, and had hung from the oak debtor board all night in the cold wind with their bone marrow aching from their flawed poison kung fu, the warm, pure Yang-Qi of the Golden-Blood Wheat and Roast Iron-Duck hit their noses like a physical hammer!
GULP!
Five loud swallowing sounds echoed from the five iron harnesses at the exact same time.
Abacus Su walked in front of the five assassins, holding a brass pocket-watch in one hand and a steaming plate of five thick, golden Roast Duck Pancakes in the other.
“Listen carefully to Municipal Labor Policy Article 9,” Abacus Su said dryly. “We never force anyone to work against their sacred honor. If you wish to stand here and starve, you are completely free to do so! However, anyone who pulls their ten-ton stone roller one mile down this gravel road and flattens the roadbed before the incense stick burns out gets two giant Golden-Blood Roast Duck Pancakes and a washbasin of hot Ox-Bone Marrow Soup!”
Abacus Su turned to walk back toward the stove, waving the plate of pancakes so the crispy duck fat dripped sizzling onto the ground. “Oh, and Old Guo only fried ten pancakes for this morning’s shift. If someone pulls two miles, he can eat another man’s share!”
Eat another man’s share?!
Elder Poison-Fang (#2) felt the freezing corpse-dampness aching in his knees, looked at the golden pancake dripping with roast duck oil, and looked at Elder Blood-Claw beside him.
“Brother Blood-Claw,” Elder Poison-Fang whispered urgently out of the corner of his mouth. “If we don’t eat, our meridian dampness will flare up tonight! What if I just pull this stone roller one mile to steal a pancake, recover my strength, and then help you escape later?”
“Don’t you dare cave, Poison-Fang!” Elder Blood-Claw barked. “Have you no sect spine—”
Before Elder Blood-Claw even finished the word “spine”, Elder Night-Wing (#3) at the end of the line suddenly roared at the top of his lungs:
“OUT OF MY WAY!! THE EXTRA ROAST DUCK PANCAKE IS MINE!!”
BOOOOOOOOM!!
Channeling one hundred percent of his Rank 3 Peak Internal Qi into his legs, Elder Night-Wing leaned forward into the iron yoke, dug his boots into the gravel, and took off like a runaway siege catapult!
RUMBLE-CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH!
The twenty-thousand-pound black granite cylinder spun behind him like a toy wheel! Traveling at forty miles per hour, Elder Night-Wing dragged the ten-ton roller straight down the rough gravel road, crushing sharp rocks flat and packing the lime-and-sand roadbed into a smooth, hard ribbon in ninety seconds flat!
“NIGHT-WING, YOU SHAMELESS TRAITOR!! HE’S GOING TO EAT MY SHARE OF THE DUCK!!”
Elder Poison-Fang (#2), Elder Iron-Bat (#4), and Elder Ghost-Claw (#5) lost their minds immediately!
“WAIT FOR ME!!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three more Rank 3 Peak Grandmasters ignited their Internal Qi and sprinted down the road at forty-five miles per hour, dragging sixty thousand pounds of solid granite rollers behind them like a pack of racing war-chariots!
Left all alone at the starting line, Elder Blood-Claw (#1) stood frozen for two seconds as dust settled over his face.
Down at the one-mile marker, Elder Night-Wing had already crossed the line, grabbed two steaming Golden-Blood Roast Duck Pancakes with both hands, and shoved half a pancake into his mouth!
The moment the Rank 2 Golden-Blood Flour and Iron-Duck protein hit Elder Night-Wing’s stomach—
CRACK-HUMMMM!
A wave of pure, hot golden Blood-Qi swept through his body, instantly melting away the freezing corpse-poison dampness that had tortured his bone marrow for twenty years!
“MY OLD POISON INJURY IS GONE!!” Elder Night-Wing screamed in disbelief, tears pouring down his cheeks as he reached for the remaining pancakes on the tray. “OLD COOK! I WILL PULL FOUR MORE MILES RIGHT NOW—GIVE ME ELDER BLOOD-CLAW’S PANCAKES!!”
Hearing that his share of the miracle medicine-pancakes was about to be eaten by his subordinate, Elder Blood-Claw threw his grandmaster pride straight into the gutter!
“PUT DOWN MY PANCAKE, YOU BASTARD!!”
BOOOOOOOM!!
Elder Blood-Claw erupted with even stronger Internal Qi than the other four, dragging his ten-ton granite roller down the highway at fifty miles per hour—flattening the final lane of the road so fast that sparks flew off the stone axle!
Standing by the south gate, Pei Xuan watched the five Rank 3 Peak Grandmasters fighting over who got to roll the ten-mile road to the North Salt Mine next, while their Loyalty bars all turned bright green above 65 / 100!
Just like that, five deadly enemies had turned into `+5,000 LP/day` and a high-speed highway paving crew!
By noon of that same day, an even grander event began on the western plains.
All ten thousand acres of Rank 2 Golden-Blood Spirit Wheat had reached full seven-day maturity!
Under the bright autumn sun, ten thousand acres of four-foot-tall golden wheat swayed in the breeze, sending waves of rich honey-and-butter fragrance twenty miles across the desert.
“SOUND THE HARVEST DRUMS!!”
Pei Xuan stood atop the west gatehouse and struck the giant bronze war-drum three times!
DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
Five thousand townspeople poured out onto the fields carrying woven grain sacks, while twelve Armored Scorpion Dump Trucks lined up along the newly paved stone canal road.
“Wait! Do not cut the stalks with slow iron sickles!”
A cold, proud voice rang out from the sky!
Hovering thirty feet above the golden ocean on Frost-Star, Ye Guhan looked down with his arms crossed over his patched white chest.
“Cutting ten thousand acres by hand will take three days, which will delay Old Guo’s noodle grinding!” Ye Guhan announced solemnly. “Watch closely as I practice my newly comprehended Horizon-Skimming Flat Sword Wave!”
SHING—WHOOOOOOOSH!!
Ye Guhan dropped down until his boots were just six inches above the soil, and swung Frost-Star horizontally parallel to the flat ground!
A hundred-foot-wide fan of gentle, razor-thin silver Sword Qi skimmed across the field two inches above the roots!
SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!
Without spilling a single grain of wheat from the ears, fifty acres of golden wheat stalks were sliced cleanly at the base in a single breath! Even better, a second twist of Ye Guhan’s wrist sent a gentle whirlwind of Foundation Spirit Qi spinning across the field, separating the golden kernels from the straw and funneling fifty thousand catties of pure, clean golden wheat grain straight into the open cargo boxes of the waiting Armored Scorpion Dump Trucks!
“GREAT HEAVENS!!” Old Man Liu nearly fainted with joy as golden wheat rained into the scorpion trucks like a waterfall of solid gold coins. “One swing cuts fifty acres AND threshes the grain clean?! Immortal Brother Ye is the number one farm god in the world!!”
Up in the air, Ye Guhan’s ears turned bright red, though his Loyalty bar stayed stubbornly glued to `59 / 100` ("I am NOT a farm god! This is Horizon-Skimming Sword Control!").
With a Rank 5 Mid Foundation Sword Genius acting as a flying combine harvester, the five Rank 3 Peak Shadow-Bat Grandmasters hauling grain carts at fifty miles per hour along glass-smooth highways, and twelve Armored Scorpion Dump Trucks running non-stop, all ten thousand acres were harvested before sunset!
When Abacus Su finished weighing the final load at the newly expanded Twenty-Silo Stone Granary District, his hands shook so hard he dropped his golden abacus twice:
“TEN MILLION CATTIES OF RANK 2 GOLDEN-BLOOD SPIRIT WHEAT!!” Abacus Su shouted through his megaphone conch from the top of Silo Number One. “That is five thousand full tons of spirit grain—enough to feed twenty thousand people and an entire army for three straight years!!”
The news of Dry-Well Town’s ten-million-catty golden harvest and free stone housing spread across the barren northwest border like wildfire.
Over the next forty-eight hours, three thousand five hundred starving border farmers, refugees, blacksmiths, and carpenters from three neighboring counties packed up their families and ox-carts and poured down the smooth cement highways into Dry-Well Town!
At the same time, inside the Town Martial Yard, General Tie Zhan fed his guard regiments three meals a day of Golden-Blood Butter Rolls, Braised Scorpion-Beef, and Rank 2 Golden Duck Eggs while drilling them in the [Iron-Anvil Body Art].
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Across the drill grounds, five hundred town guards and fifty construction foremen felt their bones harden into dark iron as they broke through en masse to Rank 2 Mid Martial (Mercury-Blood Stage)!
Sitting in the Lord’s Manor on the evening of the tenth day, Pei Xuan opened his RTS Territory Screen and grinned at the dazzling numbers:
“Fifteen thousand loyal citizens, ten million catties of spirit wheat in the granary, and seventy thousand Loyalty Points coming in every midnight!” Pei Xuan stood up and stretched his arms, feeling the boiling blood-energy in his own meridians standing just half a step away from Rank 3 Grandmaster. “Even my father’s Iron-Wolf Marquisate capital doesn’t have this much spirit grain stored up for winter!”
Just as Pei Xuan walked out into the courtyard to join the town’s grand Harvest Celebration Banquet, a crisp northern gust brushed across the eaves, carrying a faint scent of polar ice from the distant northern horizon.
At the same moment, deep beneath the stone rim of the [Sweet-Spring Spirit Well]—which had gushed warm, sweet water day and night since his first day in the village—a low, muffled vibration echoed up from a thousand feet underground, and a scarlet early-warning alert flashed across Pei Xuan’s RTS screen:
Pei Xuan paused beside the well rim, listening to the faint, rhythmic clinking of ancient chains a thousand feet below the earth as the northern stars grew cold and bright overhead.
A calm, confident smile spread across the young Town Lord’s face.
“A once-in-a-century blizzard rolling south tomorrow, and a mysterious neighbour waking up deep under our well?” Pei Xuan chuckled, turning toward the brightly lit banquet tables in the square. “Everyone, eat your fill tonight and lock the wheat safely inside the stone granaries—starting tomorrow afternoon, Dry-Well Town is going to conquer winter itself!”