COUGH! COUGH! CLANG!
When Pei Xuan took a single Spatial Step from the lakeside meadow of Planet #404 straight onto the rear alchemy deck of the captured fifty-mile Upper-World Harvester Flagship, Boom-Pot Sun was standing in front of a pried-open golden vault door holding a heavy iron crowbar in one hand and fanning away black smoke with his singed straw hat.
Behind him stood Old Wei, Hong Ling, and Old Guo—who had just come up the stairs carrying a bamboo basket of freshly harvested, snowy-white Sweet-Spring Radishes the size of watermelons. All three of them were staring into the open vault with dark, disgusted expressions.
“What blew up this time, Old Sun?” Pei Xuan asked, walking over as the smoke cleared. “Did you try to deep-fry one of General Jin Ge’s spare golden helmets?”
“I wish it was a helmet, my Lord!” Boom-Pot Sun spat onto the golden deck floor, his soot-stained face trembling with pure alchemist rage as he pointed his crowbar inside the vault. “Look at those ten bronze cauldrons sitting inside that crate! And look at the Upper-World alchemy recipe chained to the wall! Calling the bastards who built these things ‘alchemists’ is an insult to every cook and pot-maker in the universe!”
