The morning sun over Iron Crucible City was clear for the first time in thirty years.
With forty blast furnaces brought under the smooth-flowing-flow air-flow standards of the OpenDao specification, the thick canopy of black sulfuric soot had thinned to a pale, misty amber. Cool mountain air swept down from the volcano bowl ridges, carrying the clean scent of highland pine and thawing snow through the streets.
In the courtyard of the newly chosen Azure Cloud Provincial Smelting Guild—formerly the Patent Trial’s regional headquarters—twenty freight wagons were being loaded for the return journey to the Seventh Ward.
Two hundred thousand spirit stones lay packed in lead-lined cedar chests.
Dozens of crates filled with high-purity star-iron billets, medical herbs donated by the grateful rogue guilds. The official royal sovereign mining charters granted by Inspector Tie were lashed securely beneath oiled canvas tarpaulins.
Elder Wu DeZheng stood beside the lead wagon, dressed in spotless new robes of royal checker’s blue. He held an iron counting frame in his left hand and a jade seal in his right.
His glasses were polished to a mirror shine, perched proudly on his nose as he stamped shipping manifests with rhythmic, blissful satisfaction:
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
