The air in the storage closet was one hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit.
Lin Ke’s breath tasted of baked rust. Sweat poured from his brow in nonstop, stinging rivulets, dripping from the tip of his nose and hissing as it hit the hot slate slab beneath his crossed legs.
Inside his chest, the solid-state spiritual vessel was running hot.
Every time his Early Foundation spiritual fluid completed a working cycle—pumping from his dantian, up through the spinal channel, and down into his outward palm ports—the friction against his non-elastic glass spirit veins converted five percent of the striking force into raw heat fading away.
Normal fighters had compliant, elastic channels made of living organic tissue. Their vessels dilated under heat load, venting heat outward through sweat glands and skin pores like a radiator.
Lin Ke’s congenital glassy glass channels didn’t dilate.
They were rigid waveguides. The internal heat climbed past critical working limits. Then, the heat stress caused tiny spreading tension between the rigid glass channels and the surrounding living muscle tissue.
If he entered a prolonged duel in the Conclave arena without fixing the cooling stonework, his core heat would cross one hundred and eight degrees. Heat stroke would arrive before his enemy’s blade did. His brain tissue would cook inside his skull while his spirit veins remained clean.
