by JunkAlchemist
In the colossal shadow of the Cloud-Reaching Sect, cultivation isn't a poetic journey—it’s a cold, calculated game of resource monopoly. Spiritual power follows the laws of thermodynamics, alchemy is precise chemistry, and artifact forging is heavy industrial engineering. But for the "Auditors"—the bottom-tier students denied formal teaching—survival means scavaging the sect’s scrap yards for leftovers. Lu Ran is a logic-driven "junk-geek" with a mountain of debt and a DIY galvanometer made from a broken compass. She believes there’s no such thing as "trash法宝," only flawed logic and wasted potential. Song Qiyan is a "scrap-chef" with a dangerous instinct for fermentation. She can turn toxin-laden "Bitter Roots" into black-market delicacies that offer powerful buffs—if they don't kill you first. Forced into an uneasy alliance over a cracked Warming Array, the duo opens "Shop Zero". Using illegal centrifuges, precision-cutters, and forbidden thermodynamics, they begin to upcycle the sect's garbage into high-tech cultivation gear. In a world of arrogant "True Disciples" and rigid traditions, two outcasts are about to prove that with a soldering iron and a heavy iron flask, you can hack the heavens themselves.
