It was still his sixty-fourth practice year when he checked the atlas and sailed for Iron Rift Basin. Iron Rift Basin was the only coastal stretch on the chart where all five kinds of fire had a source within a day’s travel. He set his course for the basin. By the time he reached the coast below Iron Rift Basin, black smoke hung over the hills. He moored the fishing boat in a sheltered inlet and carried his gear into a fissure that led inland. On a flat shelf of stone, he set his back against the wall and drew the Nine-Fold Astral Bone Blade.
The air smelled of wet basalt and burnt copper. He rubbed his shoulder where Yan’s blow had passed through the blade. The edge had held. He’d needed all his weight to keep the rest of the force out of his chest. His Foundation had reached its limit.
Pei Jing felt the slow beat of his heart. He still had the face and hands of a man in his early thirties. Many of the people he’d known in Cloudford were long dead. The foundation had given him a life that could reach two hundred and fifty years, yet he had almost died coming out of the tomb. Another hundred years would do him little good if he spent them at the mercy of the great sects.
