The Ancient Blood Resonance Cauldron was not merely a vessel. It was an eight-ton bronze monument to thirty hundred years of high-born supremacy.
Cast during the Second Epoch from sky bronze and inlaid with dragon-blood jade runes, the cooking pot stood eight feet tall on three massive lion-claw feet.
Protruding from its ornate side were two polished bronze intake valves, an array of clockwork pressure needles carved from white bone. A massive silver chime bell suspended from its crown arch.
For ten thousand years, whenever a royal heir was born, a single drop of his infant blood was placed into the intake. If the cooking pot chimed, his noble bloodline was authenticated. If it remained silent, the child was quietly discarded as a mortal defective.
Twelve armored attendants locked the cooking pot’s iron wheels into the center of the First Rostrum with heavy bronze chocks.
Elder Gu stepped forward, his nine-dragon brocade robes fluttering in the high-sky wind.
“The blueprints of the ancestors may confound the ignorant, Lu Zhen!” Gu declared, his voice ringing with cold, poisonous confidence. “Modern builders may babble about elbows and friction, but the blood doesn’t lie! Round Two of the Grand Debate will judge what no commoner words can disguise: The Absolute Purity of Imperial Spirit Blood!”
