A bell rang inside Pei Jing’s Dantian. The sound rose through his spine and reached the inside of his skull. When it stopped, the Golden Core had lost its shape.
He could still feel the force of the Five Cosmic Fires in it. They had changed liquid silver into gold in the chamber beneath the Iron Rift Basin. Years of work had made the shell heavier and harder. Now it was coming apart along the lines he had struck with the Internal Martial Hammer.
Nine curved plates came loose. They held in the space around the soul.
The old manuals would have him melt the plates and feed the liquid to a newborn spirit. Pei Jing could see what the fifty-four bolts had done to that gold. Each plate could already take more heat and weight than when the trial began. He meant to keep its shape where he could.
The soul reached with both gauntlets. It had Pei Jing’s face, down to the lines at the corners of his eyes. Silver marks from the Void Eye ran under its dark skin. Its chest and shoulders already wore the thin plates it had formed in the first volleys. Now it pulled the first large piece of gold over its chest to strengthen them.
