WHOOO—OOOH!
The deep, cheerful roar of the brass steam-whistle echoed across three light-years of starry space, shaking the frost off a thousand passing meteors.
At the head of the Orion-Jade Main Line, Dry-Well Express No. 1 glided forward on a pair of golden, glowing sword-beam rails. Behind the massive black-iron locomotive trailed five hundred armored cars—including kitchen cars steaming with mutton broth, flatbeds stacked high with prefabricated red bricks, and thirty extra-wide construction cars where thirty-foot-tall Titan engineers sat cross-legged, happily munching on baskets of Supernova Pork Buns.
Out on the open iron observation deck at the bow of the locomotive, Pei Xuan stood with his hands tucked into his warm cotton sleeves.
He looked no different from a thrifty country landlord out inspecting his winter ditches, except for the faint, breathtaking glow beneath his ribs. Inside his dantian, his newly formed Dry-Well Inner Galaxy spun slowly—ten billion miniature golden stars linked by tiny lines of pure Qi, humming like the biggest, cleanest power plant in the cosmos. Having just broken through to Rank 9 Early (Galaxy Realm), Pei Xuan didn’t even need a protective array around the deck; the mere warmth of his breathing kept the vacuum of space seventy-two degrees and smelling faintly of roasted sweet potatoes for ten miles in every direction.
