The morning radiance of the Second Sun descended upon Sunset Peak in a warm, unblemished blanket of pure golden light.
The light did not flicker or wobble like some erratic apocalypse glare. It hummed with the rock-solid, steady balance of a Level 55 Main Sequence Solar Core. In the valley below, morning birds warbled in the pines, while the gentle hum of eight eighty-foot titanium cooling towers provided a low-frequency hum vibrating through the granite foundation. The mountain air smelled brisk—a clean blend of resinous pine, ozone from high-voltage busbars, and heated Mobil 1 synthetic gear lubricant.
On the covered porch of the Timber Lodge, Austin had spread three broad sheets of heavy drafting vellum across the cedar workbench, weighting the corners with brass slide gauges, two Grade-8 flange bolts, and a set of 14mm deep-well chrome-vanadium sockets. In his right hand, Austin twirled a yellow grease pencil. Balanced across the back of his neck, resting comfortably across both shoulders, was his five-foot, forty-pound Stellar-Steel pipe wrench.
Gathered around the table in high-visibility orange safety vests, yellow hard hats, and UV-rated safety glasses were Supreme Grand Supervisor Tie Kuang, Framing Subcontractor Jiang Taixu, and Disciple Li Xiaoyao. Tie Kuang’s tool belt clanked softly with brass plumb bobs; Jiang Taixu stood with one hand resting reverently on his framing square; and Xiaoyao clutched an aluminum clipboard with the devotion of an acolyte guarding holy relics.
"Gentlemen," Austin began, tapping a prominent circle on the vellum with his grease pencil: "We have an impending foot-traffic crisis. At zero-three-hundred hours, the system woke me with urgent pings. Our base notoriety has officially hit SSS-Tier Endgame Boss Lair status."
Tie Kuang adjusted his safety glasses, his grizzled dwarf eyebrows knitting in concentration:
"Master Austin... what does 'Endgame Boss Lair' mean in facility terms? Has the Heavenly Dao declared our workshop a demonic disaster area?"
"Worse," Austin sighed, taking off his spectacles to wipe them on a cotton rag. "It means every min-maxing raid party on this continent just received a mental ping that there is a mythical encounter at Sunset Peak. In plain terms, we are no longer a private construction site on an imperial land grant. We are now a high-level dungeon instance. Cultivators from three empires think this mountain holds an ancient solar demon guarding legendary loot drops and lost scriptures."
Jiang Taixu drew a sharpened blue carpenter’s pencil like a broadsword, his eyes blazing with martial fervor:
"Master Austin! Grant the order and I shall deploy the Twelve Titanium Dreadnoughts from the staging bays! We can mount twin-linked railcannons along the ridge and vaporize their fleets the moment their flying swords cross our three-league perimeter fence!"
Austin stared at Jiang Taixu with the exhausted expression of a contractor listening to an apprentice propose using dynamite to pull a finish nail.
"Jiang," Austin said slowly, tapping the pipe wrench against his pauldron. "Are you crazy? Do you know what high-level raid parties bring when they march across a continent to storm an endgame lair?"
Jiang Taixu blinked, lowering his pencil. "Ancient battle banners?"
"Bags of high-grade spirit stones," Austin corrected flatly. "Chests of them. Dense, unrefined spiritual currency pooled from ancestral sect treasuries. Why in standard accounting would we burn forty thousand kilowatt-hours of grid power vaporizing paying customers into carbon ash when we can charge admission at the gate?"
Tie Kuang’s jaw dropped. "Master Austin... you want to sell tickets to an invading army?"
"Tickets, fast-passes, and commemorative merchandise," Austin said, his eyes narrowing with mathematical precision. "An invading army is an unlicensed liability hazard. A paying tour group is a municipal revenue stream. However, we are not letting a thousand armored paladins track mud across my freshly planed cedar porch. Nor are they wandering into my high-voltage substation. That is why we are implementing **Municipal Facility Access Zoning**."
Austin leaned over the vellum, the grease pencil gliding in bold, deliberate strokes:
"Zone A: The Surface Concourse. This covers the Obsidian Plaza outside the outer gate. We are erecting polished brass queue stanchions, heavy three-arm brass turnstiles, an octagonal cedar ticket booth, and a gift shop. Nobody steps onto this mountain without a paid ticket and an inspection stamp. Anyone attempting to vault the fence meets our capacitor bank."
He slid the pencil down to the subterranean elevation:
"Zone B: Floors One through Three. The Beginner and Intermediate Public Instance. Floor One is our automated conveyor sorting gauntlet. Floor Two is the heavy foundry slag basin. Floor Three is the cryogenic aquifer chiller maze."
Tie Kuang gasped, his eyes bulging:
"Master Austin! You're letting armed crusaders onto Floor One?! That's where the raw ore feeds the blast furnaces! If they swing broadswords at the machinery—"
"They won't swing broadswords at machinery because they'll be scrambling for balance," Austin interrupted smoothly. "Our automated rubber conveyor belts on Floor One operate at twenty-five miles per hour across continuous roller beds. Above them sit six rotating, dual-deck cylindrical trammel screens tumbling fifty tons of basalt per minute. To an arrogant sword cultivator, a twenty-five-mile-per-hour conveyor belt isn't mechanical material handling—it’s the 'Rushing Nether-River of Samsara.' The tumbling trammel cages look like ancient soul-grinding traps."
Austin smiled—a thin, unnerving smirk:
"Do you know how much basalt dust cakes the trammel screens every four hours? Maintenance golems spend half their shifts scraping the mesh. But when a hundred terrified Golden Core paladins jump onto running belts and scramble to keep their footing, they stomp, leap, and blast qi downward, knocking the lodged ore free! It is automated, crowd-sourced conveyor maintenance! We charge them five hundred spirit stones per head, and they clean our slag filters for free!"
Jiang Taixu stood frozen, his pencil hovering in midair as awe rippled down his spine.
"The ancient trials of the mountain..." Jiang breathed. "The demonic ordeals of the First Epoch... are facility maintenance protocols disguised as tests of martial worthiness! The profound wisdom is boundless!"
"It’s basic labor offsetting," Austin muttered. "Zone C covers Floors Four through Six: The Advanced Instance. Siege golem staging bays and the Vault 04 trunk link dome. If any raid party survives Floor Three without freezing from chiller exhaust, they earn the privilege of sparring with twelve-foot titanium security automatons. Finally, Zone D covers Floors Seven through Nine: The Endgame Raid Tier. That's the Core Containment Chamber and Radiative Sump. If an ancient patriarch buys the VIP Pass and reaches Floor Nine, I will personally step into the arena with my pipe wrench and handle customer service."
Austin picked up a thick stack of freshly printed parchment from a packing crate. The sheets had been run on Floor 1's rotary press, smelling of solvent and black carbon ink:
Austin handed the fourteen-page document to Li Xiaoyao.
"Xiaoyao. As of eight o'clock this morning, you are officially appointed **Chief Guest Experience Officer and Lead Ticketmaster** of Sunset Peak Labyrinth."
Li Xiaoyao took the legal waiver in trembling hands, his eyes wide with solemn dread:
"Master Austin... I hold the sacred covenant of the mountain?"
"You hold the liability waiver," Austin said. "Nobody passes the turnstile without signing every page. If an eight-thousand-year-old Grand Patriarch drops from the sky riding a celestial dragon, he does not cross the threshold until he initials Clause 14.2 regarding loose robes and trammel pinch hazards. Understood?"
"Understood!" Xiaoyao shouted, pressing the packet against his orange vest. "Not a soul enters without initialing Clause Fourteen! I shall guard the velvet stanchions until my last breath!"
"Good enthusiasm, dial it back ten percent," Austin said. He grabbed his pipe wrench and gestured toward the freight hoist: "Tie Kuang! Jiang! Grab your tools. We have two heavy three-arm brass turnstiles on a pallet by the hoist. We need to drill twelve anchor holes into the obsidian bedrock, blow out the dust, and torque down the five-eighths-inch wedge anchors before the morning crusaders arrive."
Ten minutes later, the air of the Obsidian Plaza rattled with the roar of pneumatic masonry drills.
Austin stood over the entrance threshold with a four-foot brass-bound spirit level. Behind him, Tie Kuang operated an SDS-Max rotary hammer drill powered by a 240-volt pneumatic line. The carbide bit pounded into dense volcanic rock—*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*—spraying plumes of stone dust against their safety glasses.
"Hold it there!" Austin called, raising a hand.
Tie Kuang let off the trigger, breathing hard through his dust mask. Jiang Taixu immediately stepped forward with a high-pressure rubber blow-bulb, squeezing the nozzle into the anchor hole. A sharp puff of pulverized granite shot out, leaving the hole clean.
"Drop the anchor!" Austin commanded.
Jiang aligned a five-eighths-inch stainless steel wedge anchor with the turnstile baseplate and drove it home with a four-pound copper mallet: *CLINK! CLINK! THUD!*
Austin knelt down with an eighteen-millimeter box wrench. With two sharp pulls, he torqued the hex nut until the lock washer flattened against the steel plate. He laid his brass level across the turnstile rotor hub:
"Bubble is dead center. Zero point zero five millimeters of runout. Within municipal tolerance."
Austin rose, dusting off his leather work gloves, and gave the three brass arms a firm push. The rotor turned with hydraulic smoothness, its internal ratchet engaging with a crisp mechanical snap:
*CLICK.*
"Look at that," Austin murmured with deep contractor pride. "Plumb, level, anchored into bedrock, and rated for twelve thousand pounds of dynamic shear load. Let the holy crusaders try to push past that."