The Grand Hall of the Martial Registration Bureau smelled of bitter pine-resin liniment, dried sweat, and damp limestone.
Housed beneath a vaulted dome of black river slate, the cavernous hall was packed with over two hundred martial artists from every corner of Gu Ning Province.
Iron-hilted broadswords clattered against wooden benches. Leather-armored hired blades chewed bitterleaf and compared scars from mountain skirmishes, their eyes darting toward the raised dais at the hall’s northern end.
There, on raised platforms of polished cedar, sat the exam guards of the Bureau.
Most were senior students of the Dragon-Tiger Pavilion, clad in dark blue silk robes stitched with silver tiger stripes. They drank fragrant green tea from celadon cups, flicked through thick parchment ledgers, and accepted silver bribes under the table with practiced indifference.
In the center of the hall stood the testing rig.
It was a massive stone ten-foot pillar of Black Dragon Granite, quarried from the frozen ground depths of the Northern Marches and bound in three-inch iron bands. Its dark, crystal-clear surface was scarred with thousands of fist dents, sword notches, and gouges left by ages of martial aspirants.
Along the top rim of the stone hung seven bronze deep ring bells.
