You Have an Intelligence Network, I Have Precognitive Psionics!

Radiant Haze Lake, one of the mountainfolk's three great holy sites. Though it could not compare to the sacred majesty of Rust-Steel Mountain, nor be mentioned in the same breath as Steel Dragon Nest, where the Dragon God rested, its value made it the very core of the mountainfolk Ascendant system.

The Rosy Radiance Grass once produced in Radiant Haze Lake was an essential component in many of the mountainfolk's inherited Magic Potions. The Psionic Nourishment Extract refined from it could effectively promote the development of many psionic and etheric organs. This was why, despite the mountainfolk's rather poor alchemical skills in the past, they still possessed quite a few high-level Ascendants—materials were an extremely important part of the equation.

Two hundred years ago, in the most crucial step of the policy restricting mountainfolk inheritances, Radiant Haze Lake and its surrounding regions were carved away wholesale and placed under the management of the Layan Family, who originated from the Xuanfeng Tribe and had intermarried with Imperial nobles. As new cultivation techniques came into use, the resources and fertile lands of Radiant Haze Lake were effectively developed, and a steady stream of Psionic Nourishment Extract was transported throughout Southern Ridge and even to all corners of the Empire.

Only the mountainfolk seemed to have been forgotten. As the former masters of this land, the many mountainfolk tribes received not the slightest benefit. Only the Layan Family and a small number of "privileged mountainfolk" such as the Xuanfeng Tribe—tribes secretly reviled by most mountainfolk as "Imperial compradors"—could gain wealth from it.

But now, everything had changed.

After Ian Silverpeak led his steel armor to crush the rebel mountainfolk forces and smoothly took over military, political, financial, and taxation authority in Rosy Glow City, the ancient mountainfolk holy land welcomed a new master