The stairs wound forty feet down through the island. By the time Pei Jing reached the bottom, the cold around the star iron felt good against his neck.
The Earth-Vein Magma Crucible Chamber was forty paces wide. In the center, white magma churned in a pit wide enough to swallow a house. Four green bronze gates held it back. On either side stood great hardwood bellows with stone weights above them. With each pulse of the earth vein, the weights fell and the bellows breathed fire into the pit.
The anvil had been cut from one block of Deep-Mantle Basalt Ironstone. It was ten feet long and still bore hammer marks from before the first dynasty. Pei Jing walked up to it and let the star iron slide off his shoulder. The blow shook the cave. The anvil stayed where it was.
He rolled his shoulder and felt no pain. He drank the last of his water, then set the empty gourd aside and looked at his supplies.
Ordinary steel had failed on the bridge. A spirit sword would have its own weakness. Anything tied to his divine sense could be turned against him by a strong enough array, or stopped by the rings Yan Tianxiong wore. He needed a blade that would carry the intent directly from his body.
