The base of the Nine-Flame Celestial Smelting Kiln hummed with the savage life-force of the planet’s mantle.
Blazing bright rivers of liquid dragon-magma surged through the freshly cleared fire-jade canals, bathing the white-jade island in radiant amber light. The huge dragon-bellows pumped with rhythmic majesty. That forced gale-force drafts of white-hot air into the kiln’s underground ducts. The Sun-Bronze superstructure had warmed to eighteen hundred degrees. It glowed with a soft, rich bronze-gold luster that pulsed in harmony with the underground bedrock.
Yet inside the central burning hearth, the crucible remained dark.
Through the nine dragon-head chimney pipes encircling the kiln’s midsection, one could see the crucible bed: a vast, twenty-foot basin of single-crystal void-graphite. Resting within the graphite bed were nine ancient Samadhi fire seeds—tiny, dormant crystal-clear embers no larger than pomegranate seeds. It glowed with faint, dying orange sparks.
“The fuel is present, but the spark is lacking,” Tie Shan rumbled, his thick gray fur shimmering in the amber light as he stood upon the narrow high walkway. “Ancient fire seeds that have slept for three hundred thousand years can’t ignite raw magma vapor on their own. If we force cold air or mortal fire into the chamber, the heat shock will cool the embers forever.”
