The artificial suns of Sector 7 dipped toward their evening dimming cycle, casting long, bruised purple shadows across the northern ravine of the 1,000-Sun Astral Protagonist Academy.
Dormitory Row #4 was infamous across all one hundred floating campus islands, and Dormitory #404 sat at the very bottom of the ravine like a rotting tooth.
It had been built directly atop an ancient, bubbling yin-sewer where failed alchemy test subjects and purged elders were dumped for three millennia. The shack leaned precariously, its moss-covered planks surrounded by dead black briars and waist-high swamp weeds. Green corpse-gas seeped up through the cracked porch boards, forming skull-shaped clouds that smelled of wet socks, moldy turnips, and three-hundred-year-old resentment.
Fifty yards up the slope, perched comfortably on a flat boulder outside the miasma perimeter, sophomore campus bookie Fatty Liu sat behind a folding wooden table piled high with spirit stones. Moreover, Glowing betting crystals. Around him, more than two hundred sophomore and junior Chosen Ones were laughing, cracking roasted melon seeds, and watching the live projection screens trained on the shack’s front gate.
“Place your bets, brothers! Last call before the sun goes down!” Fatty Liu yelled cheerfully, waving a thick wad of betting slips in his chubby hand.
