A thatched roof was an insult to the trade.
Every time a northern squall rattled the jagged peaks of the Southern Cloud range, dry straw, dust, and dried sparrow droppings drifted straight down into Austin’s morning tea. The crooked rafter poles were bowing under their own dead load, riddled with powderpost beetles whose rhythmic clicking sounded like a dozen cheap kitchen timers ticking down to structural collapse. In any self-respecting survival sandbox, upgrading from Tier 1 Thatch to Tier 2 Milled Framing wasn't a luxury. It was the first milestone of basic site sanitation.
Austin stood by his domed basalt kiln, squinting into the firebox with a pair of iron fire-tongs.
Yesterday, while firing up the `/ignite_hearth` routine to roast those mountain radishes, he had tossed four fist-sized rocks pried from a dirty iron-pyrite vein near the eastern drop-off into the ash bed. He just wanted some ballast—a crude thermal sink to keep the radiant heat from scorching the stone floor.
Under an unshielded 11,500-Kelvin wash of proto-solar plasma, however, the rocks hadn't behaved like regular pyrite.
Intense magnetic torque and localized proton bombardment had slammed the iron and sulfur atoms together, triggering runaway nuclear fusion in a three-inch pocket of air. The sulfur had boiled off as volatile ozone gas. The dense iron nuclei had swallowed neutron pairs in rapid succession, collapsing into an element far denser than structural lead.
Sitting in the cool gray ash was a solid, ten-pound yellow brick.
Bright as butter. Heavy as an anvil. It gave off a faint, soothing warmth, like a flat stone left out on an August asphalt driveway.
Austin clamped the bar with his tongs and dropped it into a cedar tub of cold well water.
*HIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS.*
A thick column of charged steam mushroomed toward the rafters, smelling of warm honey and ionized air. Austin reached into the boiling water with his bare hand, hauled the dripping bar out, and bounced it in his palm.
Austin scowled down at the yellow brick, turning it over to check the grain.
"Gold slag," he grunted, disgusted. "Pure crafting junk. You couldn't frame a chicken coop with this soft garbage if your life depended on it. Zero shear strength. Low yield point. You try to drive a nail through it, it mushrooms like warm cheese. Try to grind an edge onto an axe, it rolls over on the first knot. It's literal inventory bloat meant to clutter player bags until you can find an NPC merchant with enough copper to take it off your hands."
He wiped water droplets from his forearm onto his hemp trousers and glared down the winding mountain path toward the valley floor.
"I need fifty seasoned pine planks. Two-by-sixes, dressed clean on four faces. Two boxes of three-inch flathead common framing nails, and four heavy iron butt hinges. If this zone has a trade post, I'm dumping this dead weight on the first shopkeeper who takes raw ore."
Beside the porch, Li Xiaoyao finished sweeping coordinate `[X: 14, Y: 08]` for the forty-seventh consecutive time.
The kid was practically glowing. Having spent thirty-six straight hours sweeping obsidian flagstones within twenty paces of Austin's thermonuclear kiln, the boy's mundane meridians had been steam-cleaned of birth impurities. He had quietly popped through to the Fourth Stage of Qi Condensation without even noticing the transition. His back was straight as a plumb line, his skin looked like polished jade, and his eyes burned with monastic fervor.
"Master!" Li Xiaoyao dropped into a low bow, his frayed bamboo broom held tight against his chest. "Are you descending to the mortal markets to grace the lower realms with your presence? Please allow this servant to shoulder the tribute basket!"
Austin eyed the kid's hovering status bar:
"Pack mule unlocked," Austin muttered, nodding once. "Inventory management in early access is always a pain in the ass. Here, kid. Catch. Don't drop it on your instep—it's got real heft."
Austin pitched the ten-pound yellow brick underhand.
Li Xiaoyao caught it against his ribs.
His knees slammed straight into the flagstones.
*OOF!*
The breath tore out of the boy's lungs. The second his fingers touched that butter-yellow surface, a wave of liquid sunlight roared straight up his arm bones, flooding his meridians with pure, unadulterated Yang essence.
He stared into the woven bamboo basket.
Resting on a bed of dried clover was a solid slab of **Nine-Yang Sun-Gold**. The mythical celestial ore that ancient sects fought thousand-year holy wars to secure single shavings of, just to tip the hilts of their ancestral flying blades.
And the Master had tossed it across the yard like a broken paving brick.
"T-To the market, Master!" Li Xiaoyao squeaked, clutching the basket like a man carrying an unpinned grenade.
***
The Outer Sect Market occupied a broad, muddy river bend between two lower limestone ridges.
It was a loud, disorganized mess of a bazaar. Disciples in dirty grey smocks, rogue cultivators in patched furs, and greasy merchants haggled over dried roots, beast bladders, cheap paper talismans, chipped blades, and cloudy spirit pebbles.
"Fresh Blood-Ginseng! Three spirit stones a bundle!" "Second-hand Flying Sword! Chipped tip, but flies straight in a tailwind!" "Spotted Lynx tendon bow! Guaranteed sixty-pace penetration!"
Austin strolled down the packed-dirt thoroughfare, thumbs hooked into his frayed belt, inspecting the timber stalls with the grim disgust of a licensed code inspector.
"Horrible craftsmanship," Austin muttered. "Half-inch gaps in the mortise joints. No diagonal knee braces anywhere. The rafters are green pine—first hard freeze is gonna split every tie beam right down the heartwood. And zero rain gutters in sight. One thunderstorm and this entire lane turns into six inches of raw muck. Pure lazy level design."
He stopped before the largest storefront on the street, marked by a massive varnished cedar signboard: **"Qian Clan Lumber & Iron Works"**.
Behind a broad counter of polished camphor wood sat Steward Qian. Plump, sleek, wearing silk robes lined with fox fur. The Middle Foundation Establishment merchant was lazily flicking beads on a bone abacus while sipping steaming jasmine tea from a celadon bowl.
"Well, well," Steward Qian drawled, barely lifting his chin to look at Austin's frayed hemp robes and mud-stained straw sandals. "A beggar from the back peaks. What do you want, boy? A bundle of cedar kindling? A replacement axe handle? Speak fast, my tea is cooling."
Austin leaned his calloused palms against the camphor counter.
"Fifty seasoned pine planks. Two-by-six, sixteen-foot lengths, planed square on all four faces. Two boxes of three-inch iron framing nails with broad flat heads. Four heavy iron butt hinges with matching mounting screws. Delivered to Sunset Peak before sundown."
Steward Qian let out a wet, mocking snort, his wispy mustache trembling with laughter.
"Fifty dressed spirit-pine planks and two boxes of cold-forged nails? Boy, that order runs six low-grade spirit stones! An outer disciple's monthly sect ration is two stones! You couldn't scrape six stones together if you sold both your kidneys to the pill cauldrons. Clear out before I have the market enforcers toss you in the ditch."
Austin sighed. He glanced over his shoulder.
"Kid. Hand over that yellow scrap from the basket."
Li Xiaoyao, hands shaking until the wicker rattled, reached in with both palms, lifted the ten-pound yellow brick, and passed it forward.
Austin took it with one hand and dropped it onto the camphor counter.
*THUD!*
The timber groaned under the sudden dead load. Steward Qian's abacus leaped two inches off the counter, its bone beads clattering like dry teeth.
"I don't have your fictional spirit rocks," Austin said, leaning in with a cold, dead-eyed contractor stare. "Will this yellow scrap cover the lumber? If it comes up short, I've got three more lumps sitting in the bottom of my kiln."
Steward Qian scowled, leaning over to rap his knuckles against the yellow bar. "You think you can dump common mortal brass onto my counter to buy refined sect—"
The words locked in his throat like a dry fish bone.
His fingers went numb. The expensive celadon teacup slipped from his limp grip, crashing to the dirt floor and shattering into twenty shards.
Midday sunlight striking the yellow bar cast no dull, yellow reflection.
The metal seemed to swallow the light, radiating a soft, translucent solar corona that rippled across the counter in shimmering waves. Tiny, hairline arcs of violet-gold plasma crackled along the beveled edges, hissing softly against the damp air. The sheer spiritual density leaking from the brick was so intense that the seasoned camphor wood beneath it began to char, curling thin ribbons of white smoke from the contact points!
Steward Qian's bone abacus suddenly caught fire.
The merchant's eyes bulged until the whites were traced with burst red capillaries. His knees turned to cold jelly, and he clamped both sweating hands onto the smoking edge of the counter just to stay on his feet.
"N-N-N-NINE..." Steward Qian stammered, his voice rising into a cracked, wheezing squeal that split the market racket in half. "NINE-YANG... DIVINE... SUN-GOLD?!"
The entire street went instantly dead.
Disciples forty paces away froze mid-haggle. Merchants dropped their scales. Flying swords slipped out of scabbards, clattering against the cobblestones.
Every elder, rogue blade, and caravan guard within earshot jerked their necks toward the lumber counter, their divine senses screaming in paralyzed, raw panic.
"A-A FULL TEN POUNDS?!" a passing rogue swordmaster shrieked, tearing at his own topknot in disbelief. "A single sliver the size of a fingernail buys a high-grade spirit vein! Ten pounds... ten pounds funds a grand sect for five hundred years!"
Austin pinched the bridge of his nose, an expression of profound, soul-weary irritation washing across his features.
"Here we go again," Austin muttered, tapping his sandal against the dirt. "Every single shopkeeper in these games has an over-acted appraisal cutscene. 'Ten thousand spirit stones'? Give me a break. It's unrefined slag from an unshielded backyard smelter. Stop stalling to force a bartering mini-game."
He leaned across the smoking camphor plank, his flat eyes locking onto the merchant's trembling pupils.
"Listen to me, vendor," Austin said, voice cold and steady as an iron girder. "I don't care about your lore exposition. I want fifty planks. I want two boxes of nails. Four hinges. Hauled up to Sunset Peak before the sun drops behind the ridge. Keep the change. Do we have a deal, or do I walk down the street to your competitor?"
Steward Qian looked at the smoking, ten-pound slab of cosmic gold.
Then he looked at Austin's bored, indifferent scowl.
*He... he is trading a supreme ancient treasure that could provoke a three-sect slaughter... for fifty pieces of pine lumber and some iron nails?!*
*AND HE TOLD ME TO KEEP THE CHANGE?!*
Steward Qian dropped straight down behind the counter, planting his forehead into the mud with a wet *smack*, sobbing in sheer, hysterical terror:
"DEAL! SENIOR, IT IS A DEAL! I WILL PERSONALLY HAUL THE ENTIRE WAREHOUSE TO SUNSET PEAK! I WILL CARRY EVERY SINGLE PLANK UP THE MOUNTAIN ON MY OWN BACK!"