The straw hat fell onto Kaelen’s lap as he stretched his arms with a slow, leisurely yawn.
On the dais, forty thousand cultivators held their collective breath.
Across the platform, Royal Apothecary Meng was still cackling like a maniac. He cradled an iron tray containing a hundred and twenty dull grey pills, holding them aloft like an imperial scepter.
“Look at him!” Meng crowed, shaking with manic exhaustion. “Fifteen minutes left on the hourglass! He has not even lit his coals! The trial belongs to the Vermilion Court!”
Kaelen swung his legs over the edge of the cot.
His boots hit the stone platform with a soft clack. He scratched his chin, blinked at the afternoon sun, and stood up.
Sixty-eight hours of pure sleep, Kaelen thought, rolling his shoulders until his joints clicked. My neck is a little stiff from the bolster. But fifteen minutes is more than enough time to boil some dried roots and shut up an old man.
He walked past the feather cot and stopped before his cold Tier 6 Star-Iron Cauldron.
