The golden characters of the Three-Month Milestone Seal settled into the bedrock of Kaelen Vance’s soul like cooling amber.
A profound, unshakeable calm spread through his dantian.
For the first time since landing on Void Lotus Isle, Kaelen felt completely insulated from the madness of the mortal world. Twenty-one thousand six hundred and ten times baseline cultivation. Under that kind of compression, his spiritual roots were as dense as celestial diamond.
Inside his core, the dual Spirit Vein hummed in perfect unison with his breath.
The two-to-one compression ratio of Stage 5 Hibernation Compression had turned his internal energy into a still mountain lake covered in crystal ice. Nothing could disturb the surface. Even the distant thunder of the northern naval battle had barely registered as a faint vibration.
He reached up, pushed his Absolute Silence Earmuffs back onto his forehead, and pulled off his lead sleeping mask.
The soft gray light of the subterranean cavern greeted his eyes.
He sat up in the hemp hammock, stretching his shoulders until his joints popped in four neat succession clicks. Beside his cot, the cedar side table held his empty melon bowl and a fresh pot of steaming roasted barley tea.
