Chapter 233 — The Eighth Ring

CHAPTER 233

The Eighth Ring

The cavern was empty after the lamps went out.

Shi Feng walked down the main tunnel with a water gourd on his belt and a dry towel over one shoulder. The jade tallies on their stone shelves glowed softly at every ring. They had no keeper to guard them tonight. Even the heat seemed to be resting.

Rings one to four he had already visited twice. He passed them without stopping.

At ring five the rock turned red. At ring six sweat ran down his back in lines. By ring seven the walls themselves were giving off light, a slow pulsing orange, and the air tasted of hot iron.

Something moved ahead of him in the glow.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian called from the glow. “I saved you a place. Come and eat before you go any farther.”

Lin Langtian sat cross-legged on a flat rock beside a stream of molten stone, in the same scorched robe as the first day they met. A row of sweet potatoes sat on a ledge above the lava, with a stick laid across them like a roasting rack. He turned one over with two fingers. The ember underneath didn't burn him.

“You're not supposed to be here,” Shi Feng said. “Ring seven is for elders.”

“I'm an elder's chief disciple,” Lin Langtian said. “That makes me a fraction of an elder. Fractions are allowed in the cavern.”

“Is that a rule?” Shi Feng said.

“It will be, once I write it down,” Lin Langtian said.

Shi Feng stopped beside the rock. The glow washed over his face, and his skin prickled, but the Physique had already begun to stir.

“I'm going to ring eight,” Shi Feng said.

“I know,” Lin Langtian said.

“You aren't going to stop me?” Shi Feng said.

“You came to train, didn’t you?” Lin Langtian said, offering a potato. “I’m not stopping you. Eat first, though. You’ll need your strength for that much fire.”

Shi Feng took the potato. He ate it in four bites. It was sweet and slightly burnt, and for a moment he thought about the Qingliu Lane courtyard and a different table, and then he didn't.

“Why are you here?” Shi Feng asked.

“Witness,” Lin Langtian said. “Every great deed needs one. I'm the cheapest available.”

“How much?” Shi Feng said.

“I'll bill you later.” Lin Langtian waved a hand toward the dark tunnel beyond. “Go on. Ring eight is a hundred steps that way. Watch your eyebrows. Gongsun Ce lost his the other day and he's still in mourning.”

Shi Feng walked on alone.

The tunnel narrowed. The orange glow turned white at the edges, then pale blue. Each step felt like walking into the mouth of a furnace. A cultivator’s road goes against heaven, as the saying goes, and this one went straight through fire. His robe began to smoke, and his skin cracked, and underneath it his golden bones pulsed in answer, slowly.

Ring eight opened into a round chamber about thirty paces wide. Pale fire covered its walls. In the centre, years of dust lay on the jade tally and its black stone shelf. Shi Feng checked the empty chamber before stepping closer.

Nobody's touched that tally in sixty years, Shi Feng thought. The dust is thick enough to write in.

He walked to the shelf. The heat pressed down on his shoulders. Blood ran from his nose, and his vision trembled. He didn't stop.

He sat down on the black stone and closed his eyes.

The Physique woke.

The pull began suddenly. Pale flames bent toward Shi Feng and streamed into his chest. Heat filled his meridians, then sank into his golden bones and the foundation beneath them. He held his posture while the walls flickered around him.

Three hundred and sixty-five meridians. Every one of them drank.

The cavern's roar began to fade. The flames that had been dancing for centuries shrank, one after another, until only a thin white line remained along the wall.

And then, for one breath, the fire stopped.

It didn't gutter or flicker. It simply held, as if the whole cavern had paused to look at him, and in that breath Shi Feng felt his foundation click into place.

Peak Foundation Establishment.

His qi surged. His bones sang. Dust on the black shelf lifted off the jade tally and drifted away. Somewhere above him, a rock pinged against the ceiling.

The fire came back.

It rolled up the walls again, pale and slow, and filled the chamber as if nothing had happened. Shi Feng opened his eyes. His robe was ashes. His skin was whole, and so clean that it shone.

[Devoured: ring-eight fire | Gain: peak Foundation Establishment | Note: that was fast]

“Hm,” Shi Feng said.

He dusted off the tally and tucked it into his sleeve. Then he wrapped the towel around himself and walked back along the tunnel.

Lin Langtian had not moved from his rock. He had finished three potatoes and was working on a fourth. When Shi Feng stepped out of the dark, the chief disciple looked him up and down, from his bare feet to his towel, and began to laugh.

“Peak Foundation Establishment,” Lin Langtian said. “Without a single eyebrow lost. Do you know what the elders will say?”

“That the cavern is cheaper than they thought,” Shi Feng said.

“Nothing, if we keep quiet,” Lin Langtian said, licking his thumb. “Nobody comes down here, and I won’t tell them. Disaster comes from the mouth, as the saying goes. Poor Gongsun Ce. You couldn’t even wait one more night.”

“He lost the wager by a night,” Shi Feng said.

“By one night. It's art.” Lin Langtian looked genuinely moved. “Are you going to tell him?”

“He'll ask,” Shi Feng said. “I'll answer.”

“Of course you will. Honest to the point of foolishness.” Lin Langtian wiped his eyes. “That is the single flaw I will fix in you first. Go to bed, Junior Brother. Tomorrow a man is named something, and you're supposed to clap.”

Shi Feng nodded and turned to go. Lin Langtian's voice followed him up the passage, quieter now and a little less loud.

“Peak Foundation Establishment, and still nobody can say which grade,” Lin Langtian murmured. “Strange. Very strange.”

Shi Feng stopped, but he didn't turn around.

“Good night, Senior Brother,” Shi Feng said.

“Good night, Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said, cheerful again. “Don't forget my bill!”