Pei Jing sat on the granite terrace and listened to the water drip. A low hum came from the Nine-Zhang Dao Foundation in his dantian.
He tapped a knuckle against his chest. It rang like an old bronze bell.
The star iron and the kraken’s marrow oil had completed the change in his bones. The marrow had turned to crystal on Thunder Cliff. The oil and star iron had opened new channels through that crystal, and golden Gang Qi flowed along them. His skeleton could hold under a hundred and eighty times the pressure of the air at the surface. In the deepest trench, he’d still need his qi to bear the rest.
He began Turtle Breathing. His throat closed, and his pulse slowed from forty-eight beats to six, then five, then four. His foundation now recycled almost all the oxygen in his marrow. What his body once had to breathe out could be used to strengthen his bones. At mid-stage, he had four days underwater before his muscles slowed. The Ledger estimated he could last twelve now. He had only tested four in the open sea.
Pei Jing braced one of the boulders with a hand and gave it a light push. It shifted farther than he meant it to. He set it back before the ramp could fill. Then he spent two hours learning to use less force when he only needed a little. The old cleaver made a familiar weight to work against.
