If the Tier 2 Nourishing Jade pool was a calm lake of communal laughter, the Tier 4 High Dragon Plunge was a potion-made crucible of pure underground steam.
Perched upon the highest dark rock shelf, just beneath the main cooling chimney pipes, the forty-three-point-five-degree stone water roiled with intense heat-rising currents. Thick plumes of white vapor boiled continuously from the surface, obscuring the stars above and forming an iron-hard mist curtain that smelled of molten earth, sweet cedar, and crisp pine resin.
To an ordinary mortal bather, entering this pool would feel like lowering oneself into a bowl of freshly boiled noodle broth. But to Old Man Tie, it was home.
The nine-foot titan bear was underwater to his collarbones. It sat squarely upon the underwater storm-cedar bench. His huge chest, broad as an iron shield and covered in thick, grizzled iron-gray fur, rose. Then he fell with slow, rumbling breaths. His right arm—an iron-hard masterpiece of living star-iron marrow and golden titan bone—rested along the smooth cedar lip. It sent tiny ripples across the water whenever his knuckles twitched.
Every few seconds, Tie Shan let out a deep, gravelly groan that sounded like a heavy iron door swinging on ancient hinges.
