The Heaven-Measuring Spirit Pillar stood at the center of the fighting pit.
The sixty-foot obelisk had been cut from a single block of Nether-Obsidian. Ten thousand golden runes ran up its dark face. Three thousand years earlier, the imperial court had designed it to measure striking force and spiritual power.
One thousand points marked a respectable Foundation Establishment fighter. Five thousand earned one of the sixty-four places in the tournament bracket. Eight thousand was the stuff of royal generals and ancient patriarchs.
Arbiter Ruan opened his brass ledger.
“First contestant! Step to the chalk!”
An Iron-Palm Sect disciple took a deep horse stance and slapped his thighs. He roared until the veins in his neck stood out. Violet lightning gathered around his right palm, and he struck the base of the pillar.
THUD!
Golden runes climbed the black face: 1,000... 2,400... 3,800... 4,200!
“Four thousand two hundred! Disqualified! Next!”
Over the next hour, eighty young masters took their turns. Most scored between three and four thousand and returned to the benches with their heads down. A few sect heirs reached the middle five thousands and earned polite applause.
Then the stands erupted.
“HUO YUN! HUO YUN! THE BLAZING DRAGON OF CANGLAN!”
Huo Yun strode through the competitor gate. His scarlet robes billowed in the hot wind, and polished fire jade held his topknot.
He drew the Blazing Dragon Sword. Crimson fire curled along the Earth-Grade blade, and heat bent the air above the sand.
He paused beside Austin just long enough to sneer at his overalls.
“Watch closely, peasant. See true power before you scratch that sacred stone with your rusty sewer pipe.”
Huo Yun leaped twenty feet into the air. His Peak Foundation power flared, and a thirty-foot fire dragon formed above him. Its burning coils wrapped around his sword.
“BLAZING DRAGON HEAVEN-SEVERING STRIKE!”
He brought the blade down like a thunderbolt.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Fire swallowed the bottom third of the pillar. The arena shook. Hot sand sprayed the first four rows, and court scribes lunged to protect their inkpots.
When the smoke cleared, the numbers were still rising.
5,000... 6,800... 7,900... 8,300... 8,850!
“EIGHT THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY!” Ruan bellowed. “A NEW IMPERIAL RECORD FOR CONTESTANTS UNDER THIRTY!”
The crowd rose to its feet. Huo Yun sheathed his smoking sword with a flourish and cast a proud glance toward the royal gallery.
“Next contestant!” Ruan studied his slate. “Austin of... Sunset Peak Fabrication and Repair LLC?”
Confused murmurs replaced the cheers.
“What does LLC mean?” an elder muttered. “Limited Debt? Is it an ancient oath to cap a sect’s karmic debt?”
Austin ambled down into the pit with his pipe wrench over one shoulder. His boots kicked up small clouds of red sand. Pebbles and pine needles turned slowly around his ankles.
He stopped at the chalk line. Instead of taking a stance, he adjusted his glasses and scanned the pillar with his HUD.
Austin sighed.
“Three thousand years without a proper calibration. And the glass has been baking every day and freezing every night. The whole thing is stressed to hell. It’s a sixty-foot accident waiting for somebody to tap it wrong.”
Twenty paces away, Huo Yun laughed.
“Frozen with fear, ditch-digger? Drop your sewer wrench and crawl back to your ditch!”
Austin ignored him. He shifted his grip on the blue wrench.
No chant. No technique name. No flaming dragon.
He lifted the heavy jaw six inches from the pillar and gave it a light tap, like a piano tuner striking a tuning fork.
TINK.
The sound barely crossed the sand barrier.
Then physics clocked in.
The dense Stellar-Steel sent a sharp vibration into the stressed obsidian. The golden runes flared violet-white.
1,000... 5,000... 8,000... 10,000!
The display reached its limit in an instant. The runes turned yellow, then orange, then angry red.
20,000... 50,000... 100,000... 500,000...
CRACK-POP!
The quartz sensor burned out. An error message ran up all sixty feet of the pillar.
[FATAL ERROR: VALUE TOO LARGE]
The vibration found the obelisk’s natural frequency.
SKRRRRRRR—SHATTER.
The monument that had survived three thousand years of dragon kings, war gods, and sect heroes collapsed without throwing a single stone. It slid straight down into a neat mound of sparkling black sand thirty feet wide.
Poof.
A small cloud of black dust drifted over the chalk line.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then a lime seller in the lower seats laughed. The sound spread through the stands as people compared the tiny tap with Huo Yun’s huge display.
Ruan picked up his fallen ledger and wrote down the result. Huo Yun’s sword slipped from his hand and stuck point-first in the sand.
Austin lowered his wrench and kicked the mound twice to check the result.
“Told you. Stressed glass and the right vibration. It breaks itself apart. Always relieve the stress in your metalwork, boys.”
He turned to Ruan.
“So, does that pass five thousand? Or do you have a spare tester in the equipment shed?”
Ruan opened his mouth. Only a dry squeak came out.
Deep in Austin’s dantian, the force of the strike flowed back into the White Dwarf Seed. It crossed its next threshold.
DING.
A chime like a forge hammer rang through his soul.
Level 28 settled into place.