Elder Song blinked in utter, blank confusion.
“The Lower Potion Slag Pavilion?” the elder repeated, his voice rising in disbelief. “Are you mad, boy? The Slag Pavilion is the dumping ground of the Upper Sect! It’s filled with shattered cooking pots, toxic heavy-metal vapors, and volatile potion-made tailings that even the lowest outer students refuse to touch! The life expectancy of a melted rock waste handler is less than three years!”
Lin Tao didn’t blink. “That’s why it’s the perfect post, Elder.”
Lin Tao stepped closer to the trembling bureaucrat. His voice dropped to a low, quiet murmur that didn’t carry beyond the shattered flat stone slabs between them.
“In the Slag Pavilion, no Grand Elder will ever see my face. No clerk will ever question a laborer shoveling toxic fire ash. And when your promotion to the Upper Council is finalized next spring, you’ll never have to worry about a former quarry slave knocking on your gate to remind you who balanced your books.”
Elder Song stared at Lin Tao, a shiver running down his spine.
The boy was seventeen years old. But his mind operated with the cold, ruthless foresight of an ancient prime minister who had survived fifty years of royal purges. Lin Tao was not merely saving Song’s life today. He was voluntarily removing himself from the board, eliminating any potential debt that might tempt Song to silence him later.
“You’re a terrifying creature, Lin Tao,” Song murmured, his voice laced with genuine awe and deep relief. “A truly terrifying creature.”
“I’m merely an efficient tool, Elder,” Lin Tao replied. “Now, write the decree.”
Song didn’t hesitate.
He scrambled among the shattered sandalwood wreckage until he found an intact roll of golden silk parchment. The high-grade stationery reserved for executive personnel transfers. He snatched up his fallen ink stone, spat upon the dried black ink, and ground his horsehair brush with feverish, desperate speed.
In bold, sweeping strokes, Song drafted the official narrative:
Acting Senior Overseer Hu had succumbed to demonic madness, attempting to assassinate the loyal labor shifts and sabotage the Foundational Ward Pylon to hide five years of systematic flux embezzlement. Disciplinary Elder Song, alerted by the heroic vigilance of debt-bound laborer Lin Tao, had personally intervened, suppressing the mad overseer and securing sixty-four tons of strategic copper flux for the Azure Cloud Sect.
At the bottom of the scroll, Song applied the heavy red seal of the Disciplinary Bureau. He was followed by his own personal blood-stamp.
He rolled the decree, sealed it with red beeswax. Then he pressed it firmly into Lin Tao’s uninjured right hand.
“By this decree,” Song announced, his voice regaining a fraction of its former court power for the benefit of the surrounding guards, “the indentured sentences of the eighty miners of Sector Four are hereby reduced by five years, and their monthly grain rations are doubled from the central reserves. The slave Lin Tao and his assistant Tie Shan are reassigned to the Lower Potion Slag Pavilion to oversee the processing of fire refuse.”
The eighty miners behind Tie Shan didn’t cheer.
In the brutal reality of the quarry, cheering invited the lash. But their soot-stained shoulders straightened, their eyes shone with unspeakable thanks. Old Man Geng dropped to his knees once more. They pressed his forehead against the cracked marble in silent, respectful thanks.
For five years, these men had carried the crushing burden of impossible debt. Inherited loans from dead fathers, fines for broken tools, and penalties for failing impossible quotas. With a single stroke of the Disciplinary Elder’s vermilion brush, the heavy iron collars of generational bondage had been lifted from their necks. Their sons wouldn’t be born into the pits. Their wives would receive their full share of winter grain.
Old Geng looked up, his clouded eyes streaming with tears of disbelief. “May the spirits preserve you, Lin Tao... May the ancient stars guide your steps...”
Lin Tao didn’t linger to receive their adoration. He knew that thanks in a training sect was a fragile currency. As soon as the shock of the morning wore off, fear and greed would return. The only safety lay in distance and obscurity.
Lin Tao turned away from the ruin of the Disciplinary Hall.
He slipped the golden transfer decree inside his green jade ring, beside the four-inch land-mapper metal pen and Doctor Su’s bear-animal fat salve.
Beside him, Tie Shan stepped forward, his massive frame covered in limestone dust, his heavy iron pry-bar resting across his broad shoulder like a royal standard.
“The Slag Pavilion,” Tie Shan rumbled softly. His dark eyes looked toward the northern peaks where plumes of colorful, toxic smoke rose into the morning sky. “Hotter than the quarry. More poison.”
“Yes,” Lin Tao said, stepping past the shattered iron gates of the courtyard. “Hotter. More poison. And ten thousand tons of discarded potion-made artifacts with broken logic gates.”
Lin Tao glanced back one last time at the collapsed hall. He felt the steady, rhythmic thrum of his Sanity Anchor in his thumb callus.
Before leaving the outer courtyard gates, Lin Tao paused by the archway of the lower medicine room.
From the dark shadow of the roof edges, Doctor Su stepped forward. He grabbed a clay pot jar wrapped in damp cloth. The old physician’s face was sour, his brow furrowed as he looked at Lin Tao’s torn sleeve, the fresh blood staining his braced collarbone. The tightly bandaged frostbite along his forearm.
“You brought down half the Disciplinary Hall,” Doctor Su grunted, his voice dry as wood shavings. “The entire mountain is buzzing with rumors that an ancient demon broke through the floor.”
“The mountain was rotten, Doctor,” Lin Tao replied quietly. “We merely cleared the rubble.”
“Take this,” Su muttered, shoving the clay pot jar into Lin Tao’s uninjured right hand. “Bone-knitting marrow salve and purified animal fat. Smear it over that cryo-burn twice a day, and keep that splint tied tight for another three weeks. If you die in that toxic melted rock waste heap before your collarbone knits, don’t come haunting my clinic.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Lin Tao said, dipping his chin.
The old healer snorted, turned his back, and vanished into the darkness of his medicine room.
Lin Tao secured the jar in his hemp sash and stepped through the outer gate.
The quarry was conquered. The books were balanced. It was time to harvest the discarded technology of the gods.