Shen Yu looked down from the heavens to the earth. Just beyond his body, his Qi cut itself at the edges, so his scent would not reach his granddaughter. He was fairly certain the technique was successful; she had not looked in his direction once as he watched them with the Thousand-Li View. My, he was getting quite voyeuristic in his old age! Almost as bad as that amusing bee. But alas, it was necessary. His presence would disturb things. He wanted to see what they did, without them knowing his eyes were upon them. At first, he had investigated the Ironfields—yet they had been gone a week when he had arrived, and he saw nothing important. Nothing noteworthy, save a not-completely abysmal Qi level. But he had paid half an ear to what Tie Delun said, back at Jin’s home—the boy had earned that much. He had spoken of metal under the bare layer of topsoil. Not soft, loamy dirt. Then he listened to the whispers. He had learned of the change in the land; the titanic shift that had them all whispering a god had blessed them. He knew then that he had to truly see Jin’s next project. He had to see Jin in action. For one week he observed their efforts; how they spoke with the mortals, how they carved ditches into the lakebed to craft a formation… and how they pushed their Qi into the earth. There were, to conventional knowledge, two facts about the nature of the world. The first was that the overall strength of each province (...)