A single nod sealed the bargain before Kaelen turned on his heel and disappeared into the twilight.
On their tenth day in Red-River City, morning sunlight poured across the Grand Examination Hall of the Nine-Cauldron Guild, glinting off forty polished copper trays.
The hall was vast and drafty, dominated by towering stone pillars carved with entwined dragons and alchemical cauldrons. Forty individual black marble desks stood arranged in neat rows across the granite floor, each separated by five paces of empty air.
On each desk sat thirty small black lacquer bowls filled with mystery colored powders, flanked by a blank jade slip and a sheet of coarse testing parchment.
“Candidates, take your stations!” Elder Iron-Guan’s gravelly voice bellowed from the raised dais.
The burly Iron Bone Peak elder stood with his arms folded across his barrel chest, his scarred jaw set like an iron vise. Beside him, Elder Yan adjusted a massive sand-glass filled with crimson quartz grains.
“Round 2: The Blind Herb-Compatibility Trial!” Iron-Guan announced. “Thirty powdered spirit herbs. You must determine their names, grades, and medicinal affinities. In addition, you must identify and correct three deliberate flaws in the Tier 2 pill matrices inscribed on your desks.”
He slammed his fist against the bronze gong.
