Four thousand islanders cheered as a blast of violet flame shot sixty feet above the grand plaza.
The heat was blistering. Waves of scalding air rippled across the basalt tiers of the caldera arena, carrying the acrid stench of sulfur, burning kelp, and powdered sea-dragon scales. Pirate captains, rogue apothecaries, and armored sanctuary guards leaned over the stone balustrades, roaring wagers into the smoky wind.
At the center of the northern platform, Reef-Alchemist Zoran stood like a manic sorcerer.
His crushed right foot rested on a padded stool, wrapped tightly in medicinal linen, but his eyes burned with feverish intensity. In his right hand, his blackened bronze brazier-staff hammered against the flagstones, keeping rhythm with the roaring furnace before him.
The Tier 7 Violet-Star Furnace was a nine-foot behemoth of star-iron and black bronze. Seven exhaust flues ringed its flared rim, venting spirals of violet true-fire that cast jagged shadows across the arena.
Zoran spat a mouthful of dark blood into the intake grate, feeding his own essence into the flames.
“Thirty-four hours!” Zoran rasped, his voice shredded to ribbons by smoke and exhaustion. “The dragon-marrow core has liquefied! The spirit-rings are taking form!”
He channeled another surge of earth-attribute Qi into the bellows, his robes soaked with sweat, his temples throbbing with purple veins.
