The heavy iron cauldron lifted into the air with a faint metallic hiss.
Two pale hands set the five-thousand-pound Star-Iron Cauldron gently down onto the manicured grass of the Royal Tea Garden.
Kaelen Vance stepped out onto the damp turf.
He wore his loose white linen bathrobe, a pair of embroidered dry slippers, and his white cotton blindfold propped up just above his eyebrows. In his left hand, he held a warm porcelain teacup of silver-needle tea.
Across the lawn, thirty sect patriarchs watched him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
“He was sleeping in there for three weeks,” Patriarch Cloud-Sigh stammered, his chin quivering. “The entire city nearly collapsed, and he looks like he just took a warm bath.”
Nearby in the turnip patch, Grand Alchemist Xuan dropped his shears, staring in awe.
“That bathrobe is pure northern silk,” Xuan muttered, rubbing his eyes. “He is walking to a battlefield in bedroom slippers.”
