On the sixth morning, while the broth was beginning to settle, the cauldron’s hearth had dropped to four hundred and twenty degrees Celsius. Under its dragon feet, the cores of the coals still burned above twelve hundred. Pei Jing could let all that heat rise into the cave, or he could put it to work.
He carried the kit from the east wall to the west corner, where the draft would pull forge dust away from the cauldron. His fingers still stung when he closed them around the tools, but the split skin had sealed.
The twenty-two-pound Cloud-Splitter had served him from Cloudford to the border and into the Black Marsh. The edge had bent slightly against the dragon’s skull. A weapon that had reached its limit there wouldn’t last against a Foundation Establishment cultivator with a good spirit treasure.
He opened the portable forge kit he’d brought and laid out the hammer, folding bellows and quench trough. Then he set out twenty-eight vertebrae from the thirty-foot spine, eight pounds of star iron, and the Cloud-Splitter itself. The dragon bones carried veins of silver steel and quartz through them. They were as strong as steel and could flex like horn. Star iron could carry the vibrations of Gang Qi without splitting. The old blade would supply the steel for the cutting edge.
