Heavy bronze landing gears slammed down onto the central docking ring of Commercial Planet #12, sending a metallic shudder through the three-mile-long hull of the Auction Department dreadnought.
Outside the viewport, Commercial Planet #12 didn’t look like the prosperous trading hub advertised in the Academy brochure. Although ten artificial mini-suns orbited the planet to light up its gilded skyscrapers, the streets below were eerily deserted. Row after row of family-owned alchemy shops, spirit-silk boutiques, and artifact smithies had their wooden shutters nailed shut, plastered with blood-red foreclosure notices stamped with the crest of the Hundred-Sun Treasure Pavilion.
At the center of the planetary capital rose the pavilion itself—a colossal, three-thousand-foot dome of polished black obsidian shaped like an inverted greedy cauldron, surrounded by thirty-six towering blood-iron pillars.
“All five hundred students, disembark in two columns!”
Professor Ao Man strode down the dreadnought’s brass gangplank first, his silver faculty robes billowing in the dry stellar wind as he puffed out his chest. The pale desperation that had haunted his face on campus yesterday had vanished, replaced by a gloating, sadistic smirk.
“Welcome to the grandest financial arena in the Eastern Star-District—the Hundred-Sun Treasure Pavilion!” Ao Man announced, turning back at the foot of the ramp to glare directly at fourteen-year-old Ye Xiao, twelve-year-old Gu Nian, and Gu Changsheng. “Today’s off-campus field trip is a live-fire practical examination in High-Stakes Asset Acquisition!
