The Nine-Flame Celestial Smelting Kiln roared like an anchored sun at the center of the white-jade island.
Inside the single-crystal void-graphite crucible, all nine elemental fire circuits blazed in harmonious fury, churning at the blazing bright fury of a tiny star. Yet outside, shielded by the First Epoch Sun-Bronze superstructure and the cooling aura of the immortal white jade, the air was warm and steady, scented only with ozone and clean stone starlight.
“Follow me, Master Smith,” Da Shi rumbled. He gestured with a massive stone arm toward a backup vault carved into the eastern wall of the volcano bowl.
Lin Xiao, Tie Shan, and Su Ling’er followed the chief titan across a backup fire-jade raised stone road into the storage annex. The chamber was chilled by gentle jade-vein frozen stillness wards, lined with massive bronze bins secured behind heavy sliding grates.
Da Shi reached out and hauled open the central grate with a heavy metal clatter.
Inside rested hundreds of jagged, raw boulders of ancient ore. They were boulders of raw meteorite star-gold, quarried from the underground depths during the First Epoch and preserved in unending frozen stillness. The raw ore was dark, charcoal-black on the outside. But veined with glittering streaks of deep violet and flecks of pure astral gold.
