At the highest spire of the central Ten-Sun Greenhouse Ring in System #45, Pei Xuan stood alone under the vault of stars, his black-and-gold mayor’s robe fluttering gently in the warm solar breeze.
Spread out around him in a vast cosmic mandala were fifty glowing solar systems.
From the oasis desert of Planet Canglan in System #1, through the Three-Moon Shipyards, the Broken Star Belt, the White Dwarf Forges of the Heavy-Metal Cluster, and now the ten emerald-and-gold agricultural rings of the reborn Barren Dust Sector—five hundred inhabited worlds and fifty wrapped suns were linked together by gleaming ribbons of golden Star-Train tracks.
As the evening dinner bells rang across all five hundred worlds, one trillion well-fed citizens sat down at their tables to eat steaming bowls of Golden-Ear Spirit Corn rice, crispy Honey-Glazed Space-Shrimp, and warm Meat-Belly Potato stew.
HUMMMMMMMMMM—!
Triggered by the [1-Trillion-Heart Vitality Resonance] milestone reward, a boundless, invisible tide of warm crimson-gold Civic Life-Qi rose from the laughter, gratitude, and full stomachs of one trillion living beings!
Like fifty golden rivers converging into the sea, that astronomical wave of pure vitality poured straight through the Territory Link into Pei Xuan’s dantian!
Inside Pei Xuan’s belly, the Rank 8 Mid Solar Furnace—which had already been tempered with star-core iron at the White Dwarf Shipyard—began to roar like a waking dragon.
