A pillar of blinding green fire tore through the center of the grotto courtyard.
The Tier 5 Earth-Heart Flame Seed roared to life beneath the three bronze legs of the Star-Iron Cauldron.
Fueled by Kaelen Vance’s active 7,210x Track 3 Milestone Seal, the fire did not behave like ordinary flame. It bent, twisted, and spun like a living emerald vortex, roaring with immense subterranean heat.
In the corner of Kaelen’s vision, the countdown timer ticked with relentless speed:
[04:45] [04:44]
Five minutes of real time equaled thirty-six thousand and fifty baseline hours of uninterrupted alchemy comprehension.
To Kaelen’s mind, time stretched into a vast, silent lake.
Every single grain of dragon-marrow bone, every strand of thousand-year snow-lotus root, and every drop of purified zero-poison dew hung suspended in his spiritual awareness. He could see every microscopic impurity, every fiber of herbal grain, and every flicker of thermal energy.
