On the eighth day the pool was down to Pei Jing’s hips. The five-hundred-year Earth-Stalactite Milk had thickened into an amber paste that held to his legs like cold honey.
The Ledger registered his eighth session.
Eighty percent. The change had reached his hips, spine, and skull. The bones in his neck moved as smoothly as polished stones in water. He held to Turtle Breathing, with his pulse at thirty and the thirty-six drops of qi turning in his dantian.
Then the mountain shook.
Forty feet above him, the crack in the roof tore wider. It opened three inches across. Quartz dust and broken stalactites fell onto the terrace. The sharp pieces that struck his bare shoulders broke into powder. They left no mark on his skin.
A draft came down the gap, carrying the smell of scorched copper, sulfur, and blood. It came through the foundations below the Treasury. Pei Jing could feel voices in the stone with his newly hardened bones.
“Junior Brother Chen!” Senior Disciple Yan shouted. “Hold still. If the venom reaches your heart, you’ve got thirty breaths.”
“I can’t feel my fingers,” a younger man gasped. “It went through my gauntlet. It’s burning all the way to the bone.”
