Down where the switchback gravel met the packed-dirt provincial highway, Austin had set up shop under a faded green canvas umbrella.
His desk was a gray steel card table with one wobbly leg propped up on a cedar shingle. Pinned to the rough arbor behind him was a ragged slab of cardboard, scrawled with thick yellow grease pencil:
**[SUNSET PEAK CONSTRUCTION SERVICES: GENERAL CONTRACTOR INTERVIEWS]** **[POSITION: TIER-1 UTILITY TRENCHING & PIPE-BEDDING LABORER]** **[REQUIREMENTS: 0.1MM TOLERANCE / 100% OSHA COMPLIANCE / NO HORSEPLAY]**
Austin sat back in his folding chair, Sovereign Hard Hat tipped forward against the morning glare. He slid a twelve-inch framing square across the tabletop, squaring his stack of clipboards to a dead ninety-degree angle with the table edge before tapping the paper flush with his thumb. Beside his elbow sat an open can of lubricating spray, a dented stainless steel thermos of lukewarm chicory brew, and three spare grease pencils shaved to clean wedge points.
To his left, Tie Kuang sat with his beefy forearms resting over an open wooden crate of neon-orange Class-2 vests, his internal gear core chugging at a nervous idle. To his right, Jiang Taixu stood straight as an eight-penny finish nail, guarding two towering crates of yellow fiberglass helmets and clear polycarbonate safety glasses.
Stretching out from the card table, winding across three rugged ridges and dropping clean out of sight into the valley mists, was a single-file line of fifty thousand cultivators.
The mountain road smelled of dust, horse sweat, wet wool, and raw existential dread. Masters who had spent four centuries meditating in silent grottoes, warlords who had put entire provinces to the torch, imperial pill-masters whose elixirs bought dynasties—every last one of them stood in the red dirt, clutching printed trade questionnaires with shaking fingers. None of them dared cough. None of them dared fidget.
At the head of the queue stood Grand Elder Xuan Xiao of the Grand Void Sect and Patriarch Iron Blood of the Demonic Blood River Sect.
Between them sat two heavy mahogany chests studded with polished dragon jade. The old men stepped forward in lockstep, their embroidered hems dragging through the roadside grit, and hoisted both chests onto the steel card table with a groan:
*THUMP.*
The latches popped. Prismatic light spilled across the paperwork. Stacks of thousand-year blood ginseng looking like gnarled mandrakes. Flawless heaven-grade spirit stones radiating enough ambient heat to curl paper. Ancient spatial rings carved out of fossilized dragon spine.
"Supreme Grandmaster!" Xuan Xiao dropped so low his white beard swept the gravel. His voice shook with pure, weeping devotion: "The Grand Void Sect lays three thousand spirit stones and our ancestral dragon scrolls at your feet! Grant us only the title of First Celestial Disciple!"
"Ten thousand blood crystals from the Blood River Sect!" Iron Blood shoved his chest forward, demonic pupils burning with feverish desperation: "Forty thousand disciples ready to serve as the Vanguard Hounds of Heaven! Command us to wash the world in gore, Grandmaster!"
Austin didn't touch the jewels. He barely glanced at the ancient bones.
He simply reached down, grabbed his five-foot Stellar-Steel pipe wrench by the handle, and used the heavy hook jaw to shove the first chest clean off the table.
*CRASH.*
Then he caught the corner of the second chest and shoved again.
*CRASH.*
Wood splintered. Millions in priceless celestial tribute rolled into the ditch like loose gravel. Several high-grade spirit stones bounced into the culvert mud.
"Pick that junk up," Austin said, clicking his grease pencil with a sharp snap. "Sunset Peak don't accept personal gratuities or kickbacks during an open bidding window. That’s a direct violation of municipal procurement standards and anti-graft statutes."
The two legendary patriarchs froze mid-breath. They stared at their ancestral heirlooms sitting in the weeds, completely horrified.
*"Kickbacks... standards?!"*
"You think you can grease the super's palm with dried ginseng roots and old lizard ribs during an RFP?" Austin asked, shaking his head as he pulled a fresh application off the stack. "We ain't taking disciples, and I sure as hell don't need a vanguard hounds squad. We're hiring temporary ditch-digging subs for a high-priority mechanical cooling install. You want on this mountain? You show me your hands can work."
Austin leaned across the steel table, pointing the wax tip of his pencil straight at Xuan Xiao's nose:
"Applicant Number One: Xuan Xiao. Peak Golden Core. What's your commercial trenching background?"
Xuan Xiao swallowed hard. His throat clicked like dry bamboo:
"T-Trenching? I... for four hundred years, I have communed with the Nine Astral Stars! With a mere wave of my sleeve, I can summon the Ancient Void Winds to shear a walled capital clean in half!"
"Void winds don't cut grade," Austin said flatly, jotting a big zero in the margin. "All high-velocity wind does on a job site is whip up airborne silica and blow away your survey stakes. It's an OSHA dust violation, and it ruins trench bedding. Here's your field test."
Austin kicked an eight-dollar stamped-steel spade resting against the table leg, then pointed down the road shoulder. A neon-orange braided string line ran tight between two wooden stakes driven into the hardpan dirt.
"Take that spade. Dig fifty paces along that string line. Four feet deep. Vertical sidewalls. Zero sloughing. Two percent uniform grade falling toward the culvert for drainage. If your wall wanders off that string line by more than a sixteenth of an inch, your application goes in the burn barrel."
Xuan Xiao stared down at the spade.
The handle was plain ash wood, gray with weather. The carbon-steel blade had scratches from river rock.
To Xuan Xiao's spinning mind, it was the Divine Scepter of Earthly Humility—a terrifying, mind-melting celestial trial meant to grind his four centuries of immortal pride into the mortal dust.
"I... I shall obey the heavenly decree!" Xuan Xiao gasped, eyes wild with religious fervor.
The four-hundred-year-old patriarch clamped his pale fingers around the splintery ash handle. He locked down his spiritual winds, burying every wisp of destructive gale deep in his meridians. Instead, he flooded his divine consciousness into the steel blade, pushing his senses into the microscopic grit of the earth. He felt every pebble of feldspar, every crumb of quartz, every vein of stubborn clay.
*Scritch-thump. Scritch-thump.*
Every scoop came out clean as a butter slice. Xuan Xiao’s silk robes soaked through with sweat. Thick blue veins stood out along his temples as he eyeballed the clearance between the clay sidewall and the orange nylon string:
Fifty paces. Four feet deep. Plumb as a church wall.
Fifty thousand cultivators behind him watched in breathless terror. Disciples clutched their robes, whispering in awe:
*"Look at Grand Elder Xuan Xiao! He has surrendered his ego to the Divine Spade! He is communing with the ancient essence of the Soil!"*
Ten minutes later, the grand elder dropped to his knees in the dirt beside the cut, chest heaving, staring up at Austin through sweat-stung eyes like a stray waiting for a scrap.
Austin pushed back his chair, grabbed his six-foot brass leveling rule, and walked over. He laid the rule across the cut:
*Clack.*
Austin crouched on his heels, squinting at the spirit vial:
"Bubble's dead center. Walls are plumb. Slope reads two point zero percent." Austin stood and gave a brief, begrudging nod. "Not bad for a guy who spent four centuries sitting on a rock. You pass."
Austin turned to Tie Kuang:
"Vest him."
Tie Kuang lumbered forward, hauled a bright neon-orange Class-2 safety vest out of the crate, and dropped it over Xuan Xiao’s embroidered robes, followed by a pair of clear safety glasses.
Xuan Xiao ran his trembling fingers over the silver reflective stripes.
Tears spilled out of his wrinkled eyes, splashing onto the polyester mesh:
"The... the Vest of Phosphorescent Dawn... the Goggles of True Sight... The Dao of Construction has chosen me!"
Patriarch Iron Blood shoved his way to the table, demonic aura flaring red around his collar:
"Master Austin! What about the Blood River Sect?!" Iron Blood roared, flexing his arms. "Test me! I can rip mountains apart!"
Austin glanced down at Iron Blood’s hands. Four-inch jagged talons dripped dark, sticky crimson Qi:
"Applicant Number Two: Iron Blood. What can you do for sub-base compaction?"
"I have torn ten thousand warriors apart with the Asura Claws!" Iron Blood bellowed proudly. "A single blow reduces cold steel to red dust!"
"Fine dust is useless for sub-base," Austin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And that dripping red gunk is an OSHA Class-B biohazard. You leak biological fluids on my aggregate and I'll fine your sect two thousand copper for hazardous waste remediation."
Austin pointed his grease pencil at a thirty-foot pile of crushed basalt gravel dumped along the ditch bank:
"Here's your audition. Sub-base compaction. Take that thirty-foot gravel run and pack it to ninety-five percent Standard Proctor Density. Use your boots, use your knuckles, do whatever you want. But if my penetrometer finds one soft pocket, you're out."
Iron Blood dropped onto the rock pile.
He pulled in a deep, trembling breath. With a savage mental heave, he reined in the ripping, flesh-tearing edge of his Blood Qi, retuning the harmonic frequency of his core into a rapid, bone-rattling pulse.
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!*
His hands blurred into twin air tampers.
He drove his palms into the jagged rock with relentless, mechanical rhythm, his demonic core thumping like a gas-powered compactor plate:
*THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!*
The whole roadbed rattled for fifty yards. Dust kicked up in gray clouds. Disciples of the Blood River Sect fell to their knees, weeping in astonishment:
*"The Patriarch has attained the Divine Vibrational Stomp! He is compressing the bones of the earth!"*
Within eight minutes, thirty feet of loose, razor-sharp basalt gravel had been hammered into an unyielding, seamless gray floor that rang underfoot like an anvil.
Austin stepped onto the packed gravel in his heavy steel-toed boots:
*Clomp. Clomp.*
The stone held rigid. Austin took a dial-indicator soil penetrometer from his pouch, planted the tip into the center of the pad, and leaned his weight down.
The needle swung, settled, and stopped.
"Ninety-six point two percent," Austin said, checking the gauge face. "Uniform bearing capacity across the whole spread. Good vibration control."
Austin jerked his chin toward Jiang Taixu:
"Hard hat."
Jiang Taixu stepped in, set a yellow fiberglass shell onto the demonic patriarch's skull, and cranked the rear ratchet knob until it clicked three times: *click-click-click.*
Iron Blood reached up, his demonic talons tapping gingerly against the yellow plastic dome.
The bloodthirsty terror of the western marches sank down into the dust, shoulders shaking as he wept like a child getting his first bicycle:
"The Golden Dome of Sovereign Enlightenment... after five hundred years of slaughter... I'm finally on the crew!"
Austin tapped the table with his steel framing square, looking down the line of forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight waiting cultivators:
"Listen up! Tie Kuang, Jiang Taixu, divide them by trade! Sword Sects get trench layout and grade-cutting! Demonic Sects take gravel tamping, trench shoring, and slab handling! Earth Sects handle aggregate haulage and spoil removal!"
Austin clicked his grease pencil and pointed down the road:
"Next man up! Grab an application! We've got three thousand linear feet of utility trenches to cut before sundown, and nobody goes home until the line is bedded!"