Behind the ruined Grand Pill Palace at the summit of Myriad-Pill Mountain lay a forbidden courtyard surrounded by thirty-foot walls of black volcanic stone.
When Old Wei kicked open the heavy iron gates with his mechanical boot, a wave of icy, suffocating pressure rolled out of the courtyard.
In the center of the courtyard sat a deep stone pit a hundred feet wide.
Rising out of that pit was the top half of a colossal, two-hundred-foot-long black iron spike covered in cruel, barbed blood-red runes!
The spike was ten feet thick at the top, shaped like an ancient coffin nail forged by some giant god of death. Its sharp bottom point was driven deep into the bedrock of Myriad-Pill Mountain, pinning down a massive, glowing green-and-red artery of liquid light that writhed and whimpered beneath the stone like a chained dragon: the Southern & Western Central Continent’s Main Wood-Fire Spirit Vein!
Because the giant black spike choked ninety percent of the Spirit Vein’s throat, only a tiny trickle of Spirit Qi could flow down the mountain into the rivers and farmlands of the three surrounding mortal provinces. Meanwhile, eight thick bronze siphon-pipes welded to the sides of the black spike sucked the trapped Spirit Qi straight up into Myriad-Pill Pavilion’s private alchemy furnaces—and sent another hidden stream of pure essence down through a dark subterranean array toward the Central Lake!
