Grand Potion-maker Yan took the staging stairs three at a time, his boots clattering against the iron grating.
The Eighth-Rank Pill Master shoved Master Stoker Chen aside with a backhanded burst of spiritual force that sent the old overseer tumbling into an ash bin. Yan reached the upper platform, his chest heaving under his stitched gold tunic, his trembling hands clutching his fiery green jade scepter as if it were a weapon against the impossible. His waxy skin was mottled with purple blotches, the liquid silver poisons in his blood reacting wildly to the shock.
He thrust his face over the rim of Cauldron 084.
The golden-violet light from the twelve floating pills washed over Yan’s pale, waxy features, lighting up the wild terror in his eyes. He reached out with a gold-sheathed fingernail, hovering an inch above the nearest pill. His spiritual sense plunged into the medicine’s internal matrix.
The grand potion-maker recoiled as if he had been struck across the mouth with a star-iron pry-bar.
“Impossible...” Yan gasped, his voice cracking into a dry wheeze. “The marrow is unbroken! The nine rings are natural... They’re not drawn by human brush! Zero waste scum... Not even a grain of black ash!”
