The underground heat of the Imperial Forge Hall hit Frank like a malfunctioning commercial boiler room.
Located beneath the eastern wing of the headquarters, the cavernous chamber stretched for three hundred yards, lit up by the violent red glare of a hundred heavy-duty smelting cooking pots. Earth-heat magma channels snaked across the dark rock floor like glowing orange veins, feeding white-hot heat energy into towering crucible towers.
Dozens of muscular blacksmiths clad in fire-retardant dragon-leather aprons swung massive iron hammers in heavy, rhythmic cadences, their bodies glistening with sweat and spirit soot.
At the center of this fiery hall stood Grandmaster Forger Mo.
Mo was an imposing figure with a braided iron-grey beard, shoulders as wide as a blacksmith’s anvil. A 4-Star Master Blacksmith medallion forged from solid red gold resting against his hairy chest. In his right hand, he held a fifty-pound dragon-headed sledgehammer. He watched over his apprentices with the stern, unforgiving gaze of a man who believed fire was the only true judge of worth.
Frank walked onto the casting floor. His yellow hard hat reflected the red magma glow, his steel-toed boots clumping firmly against the iron-grated narrow high walkways.
Behind him, Shen Shitou carried a leather tool roll, his eyes widening in skilled appreciation at the size of the heavy-duty billet shears.
