The scorching heat rolled across the kitchen like a wave from an iron foundry.
Pine floorboards beneath Barnaby Holt began to char, weeping sticky black sap that hissed in the blistering air.
Barnaby lay twisted on the wood, his single arm clawing frantically at his ribs.
Blood bubbled between his clenched teeth.
The scar running across his sternum blazed with violent, molten crimson radiance.
It illuminated the rafters in bloody light, casting dancing shadows against the lime-washed walls.
The leftover tea in Kaelen’s clay cup began to steam and bubble from the sudden temperature spike.
Leaving her fallen porridge spoon on the floorboards, Mina gasped and took two frantic steps toward the thrashing old man.
“His chest is burning!” she cried out.
“Stop,” Kaelen said, his voice flat and steady as granite.
He caught her by the shoulder, pulling her back before the heat could singe her linen apron.
If I circulate my own Qi to suppress this fire, my streak shatters at one hundred and four hours.
Four entire days of napping down the drain.
Think, Kaelen.
Swinging fists and burning internal Qi breaks the tally, but administering medicine does not.
Inside his dantian, the Fallow Slate hovered in cold, undisturbed silence.
[The Fallow Slate]
[104 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 105x READY]
Kaelen looked down at his sister.
“Mina,” he said in a calm murmur. “Do not touch him directly. Use your fifth pulse frost. Breathe a cooling vapor across the floorboards so the timber does not catch fire.”
Mina swallowed hard and nodded.
She dropped to her knees three paces away, planting her small palms firmly on the pine planks.
She rounded her lips and exhaled a continuous stream of silver mist.
Her newly opened Fifth Pulse channel guided the frost with astonishing precision.
The freezing vapor spread across the wood, locking the boiling pine sap beneath a thick layer of rime.
White steam hissed into the air, but the scorched planks stopped smoldering.
The ambient temperature of the kitchen dropped from an inferno back to a crisp autumn chill.
Kaelen knelt beside the thrashing old man.
From his inner tunic, he withdrew the flat cedar box.
He slid the lid open.
Eight Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills rested on the white silk lining, gleaming with silver-blue frost rings.
Kaelen lifted one pill.
Seven pills remained in the box.
He snapped the cedar lid shut and slipped the container back into his robe.
He pressed the pill between his thumb and forefinger, cracking the outer glaze just enough to release its frosty aroma.
A sharp scent of mountain mint and winter lotus filled his nostrils.
He wedged his fingers between Barnaby’s locked jaws.
“Swallow, old man,” Kaelen said. “Stop chewing on your tongue.”
He shoved the pill past Barnaby’s teeth and clamped the old man’s jaw shut.
Barnaby’s throat convulsed reflexively.
The cracked pill dissolved upon contact with his saliva, turning into a rush of icy liquid that slid down his esophagus.
The medicinal vapor struck his upper chest like a freezing waterfall.
Instantly, the crimson light beneath his sternum flared with blinding intensity.
Hiss.
A sound like red-hot iron plunging into cold spring water echoed through the room.
Golden-crimson fire pulsed beneath the jagged scar, swirling in violent resonance with the frost pill’s essence.
The two forces clashed for three frantic heartbeats.
Then the flawless, zero-poison purity of the Supreme Pill asserted control.
The frost essence wrapped around the erupting heat like a heavy blanket of winter snow.
The fiery tendrils creeping across Barnaby’s ribs snapped back, drawn inward toward his breastbone.
The incandescent magma glow softened to dull red, then faded into pale pink, and finally returned to the dark, puckered gray of dead scar tissue.
Barnaby’s back arched one last time before he collapsed flat against the pine floor.
His breathing came in ragged, wheezing gasps.
Sweat poured down his weathered cheeks, soaking his ragged gray beard.
The kitchen fell dead silent, save for the crackle of red beans boiling gently in the iron pot.
Kaelen did not move.
He waited until the old man’s pulse settled into a slow, weary rhythm.
Then he reached down, took Barnaby by his good shoulder, and lifted him upright.
He propped the old man’s back against the sturdy leg of the maple chopping block.
Mina hurried over with a wooden cup of warm water, holding it carefully with both hands.
“Drink, Uncle,” she whispered softly.
Barnaby lifted his trembling hand, took the cup, and swallowed the water in three desperate gulps.
Water dribbled down his chin onto his shredded tunic.
He lowered the cup, staring at Kaelen with hollow, haunted eyes.
“You gave me a Supreme Pill,” Barnaby croaked, his voice like gravel grinding in a mill. “A real one. Cloud-veined.”
“Twenty-five Spirit Stones on a good day,” Kaelen replied, crossing his legs on the floor. “You owe me forty days of sweeping. Now explain why your chest looks like an active volcano.”
Barnaby closed his eyes.
Two heavy tears tracked through the soot on his cheeks.
“I thought it would sleep until spring,” Barnaby muttered. “The autumn cold always irritates it, but tonight... the lotus fragrance in the air woke it up.”
“Woke what up?” Kaelen asked.
Barnaby reached up with his calloused fingers and touched the puckered scar across his breastbone.
“Twenty years ago,” Barnaby began, his voice dropping to a fragile whisper. “I was not a drunken herb-shed keeper in a frontier border town. I was the Chief Cauldron Master of the Red-River Nine-Cauldron Guild branch.”
Mina’s eyes widened in astonishment.
Even Kaelen raised an eyebrow.
“I led an expedition into the deep magma chasms beneath the Fire-Vein Mountains,” Barnaby continued. “In the deepest fissure, where the subterranean earth-veins converge, I found it.”
The old man’s chest rose in a shuddering breath.
“A Tier 5 Earth-Heart Flame Seed.”
The words hung in the quiet kitchen like heavy stones.
A Tier 5 Earth-Heart Flame Seed locked inside a grumpy old man who uses an iron stew pot to brew cough syrup.
Cultivation grandmasters would burn half the province to get their hands on a Tier 5 flame.
No wonder he hid in this drafty shack.
“A Tier 5 flame is legendary,” Kaelen said slowly. “It can melt celestial star-iron and refine supreme cauldrons without ash. It is a spark of planetary core fire.”
“It can also burn a mortal soul to cinders,” Barnaby said bitterly. “My junior brother Orson knew its value. The moment we secured the seed in a spirit-jade box, Orson struck.”
Barnaby looked down at his empty left sleeve.
“Orson ambushed me in the dark. He severed my arm with a poisoned broadsword. He wanted the flame seed, and he wanted my handwritten copy of the Nine-Breath Ash Sutra.”
The old man clutched his scar, his knuckles turning white.
“Orson used the stolen sutra to climb the ranks in the imperial capital,” Barnaby spat. “He became an honored elder, while I was left in the dirt. I knew I could not defeat him with one arm and poison in my veins.”
He paused, drawing a ragged breath.
“So I did the only thing I could. I swallowed the flame seed.”
Mina gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth.
“I used the third forbidden seal of the Ash Sutra,” Barnaby said. “I carved open my own sternum and drove the seed deep into my breastbone. I bound it behind my heart using a life-blood lock.”
He let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
“Orson could have carved the seed from my corpse, but extracting a violently bound Earth-Heart Flame destroys the core. It would have detonated, killing us both. So he stole my sutra and left me to rot in the volcanic ash.”
“You survived,” Kaelen said.
“Barely,” Barnaby muttered. “I dragged myself to Ashford, hiding my name and my face.”
He rested his head against the wood of the block.
“For twenty years, this flame has been slowly burning away my vitality. Every winter, the blood-lock weakens. That is why my hair turned white at thirty, and why my cultivation withered down to the Fifth Pulse.”
Barnaby looked up, his gaze locking directly onto Kaelen’s calm eyes.
The old man’s expression was no longer grumpy or tired.
It held the fierce, unyielding dignity of an ancient master.
“I am crippled, boy,” Barnaby said softly. “My left arm is gone. My meridians are scarred with poison. I will never reach the Golden Core, and I will never wield this flame seed.”
He leaned forward, tapping the center of his chest.
“You saved my life tonight. You saved Mina from Evelyn’s poison. And you beat Morvath into the dirt using the true principles of my master’s sutra.”
Barnaby’s voice trembled with solemn weight.
“When your cultivation is ready—when your body can bear the brutal fury of Earth-Fire—I will transplant this Tier 5 Earth-Heart Flame Seed into your dantian. It will be yours.”
“What does it take to bear Earth-Fire?” Kaelen asked.
“Mortal flesh would disintegrate in five seconds,” Barnaby warned. “You must reach the Iron Bone realm to reinforce your marrow against planetary heat. Until your bones are forged into living iron, opening this chest seal would kill us both.”
Kaelen looked at the jagged scar.
The dark mark was quiet now, asleep beneath the soothing residue of the Supreme Pill.
A Tier 5 flame seed would allow me to refine high-tier pills in thirty seconds flat.
I could smelt rare metals without moving from my chair.
But before I can bear that kind of heat, I need bones made of solid iron.
First things first: survive Vane-Locke.
“We will talk about transplants when the weather is warmer,” Kaelen said, rising from the floor. “Right now, you need to lie down before your porridge gets cold.”
Kaelen helped the old man to his feet.
Together with Mina, he guided Barnaby into the small back bedroom and settled him onto the rope bed.
Mina placed a folded wool quilt over his chest and set a clean, damp cloth across his forehead.
Barnaby closed his eyes, his breathing finally slipping into deep, healing slumber.
Kaelen walked out of the bedroom, quietly latching the wooden door behind him.
He stepped onto the front porch into the crisp midnight air.
Sera Thorne stood by the courtyard gate, her iron spear resting against her forearm.
Her dark eyes were fixed on the northern sky.
“Did the old man survive?” Sera asked without turning around.
“He survived,” Kaelen replied, walking over to his hemp hammock. “He had some heartburn.”
“It must have been severe heartburn,” Sera said dryly. “The tiles on the kitchen roof were glowing red from the alleyway.”
She turned to face him, her expression hardening.
“Our scouts just sent word from the north gate,” Sera said in a low voice. “Forty mounted men entered the outer district an hour ago. Blood-Wolf elites, disguised in yamen militia tabards. Vane-Locke’s vanguard has arrived.”
“What are they doing?” Kaelen asked.
“They are patrolling the market taverns,” Sera replied. “They are intimidating merchant suppliers, trying to cut off our grain and charcoal. They are probing our outer perimeter to see how many guards we hold.”
“Let them wander the streets,” Kaelen said. “Our thirty mercenaries have bronze shields and venom bolts. The bandits will find no soft openings here tonight.”
Kaelen climbed into his hammock.
He settled his back against the rough netting and placed a small feather pillow beneath his neck.
Inside his mind, the slate timer ticked forward steadily.
[The Fallow Slate]
[108 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 109x READY]
He looked up at the stars glittering between the thatched eaves.
The forty bandits in the outer district were confident.
Vane-Locke thought he held all the cards in Ashford.
Kaelen pulled his wide straw hat off the crate and placed it gently over his face, plunging his vision into soothing darkness.
Let them gather in the dark.
Forty bandits or three hundred bandits, it makes no difference to my tally.
I have one hundred and eight hours in the bank.
I am not moving a single muscle until this timer hits one hundred and ninety-nine hours and a two-hundred-fold multiplier.
He folded his hands across his stomach, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep.