On Blaze-Cauldron Planet, the bustling capital world of System #23, the central commercial plaza in front of the brand-new Star-Train station was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with two million cheering citizens.
Twenty Dry-Well Pharmacy Vending Booths—numbered Booth #1 through Booth #20—stood in a neat semi-circle around the station fountain. Every three seconds, the brass chutes clinked cheerfully as hundred-pill glass jars of Rank 6 Golden-Crust Healing & Qi Pills rolled out into the hands of grinning herb-farmers, blacksmiths, and low-rank cultivators, while the side taps poured endless bowls of Old Guo’s steaming Pear-and-Mutton Herbal Bone Soup.
Right across the plaza, however, the twelve-story golden tower of the System #23 Nine-Sun Alchemy Branch looked like a haunted house.
Inside the grand counting hall on the top floor, Master Dan Hu—a barrel-chested Rank 7 Peak (Nascent Soul / Planetary) alchemist with a fiery red beard braided with gold rings—stared at the blank crystal profit-board on the wall, his eyeballs bulging with bloodshot rage.
“Zero?!” Master Dan Hu roared, slamming his heavy iron fist down on a marble table and shattering it into dust. “Yesterday at this hour, our eight hundred branch pharmacies in System #23 had already collected 450 Million Spirit Stones in cough-pill and bone-paste fees! How can our total revenue across the entire solar system today be ZERO?!”
