On the fifth day of seclusion, the internal fire produced its first clockwork waste.
Pei Jing sat upon the black dark rock table. His newly regenerated was pale grey scar-mesh reflecting the dull red glow of the lava river. His skin was cold to the touch despite the one-hundred-and-sixty-degree air. His newly lined up osteon matrix held him locked to the bedrock. Outside his five-foot rock island, the underground cave remained an unrelenting blast fire. Plumes of yellowish sulfur gas coiled toward the distant ceiling eighty feet above. Meanwhile, the river of molten rock hissed and burped with earth-shaking pressure.
Then, deep within his chest, the twin bellows of his Lungs—the Metal Viscera, governed by the spirit hum of the White Tiger (Bai Hu)—woke from their seventy-two-hour dormancy.
Turtle Breathing had kept the lung alveoli collapsed to prevent breath in of fiery sulfur gas. But in the stonework of the Living Cauldron, the Lungs couldn’t remain permanently passive. Metal was the element of severance, care, and air-powered squeezing. To forge the internal reactor, the Lungs had to supply the sharp air-powered shearing force that split cellular dirt from the gut-deep tissue.
His chest muscle tightened with the sudden, violent force of a trip-hammer.
