Destiny in Cinders

Apart from matters that potentially concerned the demonic cult, An Jing was all too wrapped up in the matter of heavenly fiends as well. The village where he fought the vilespawn fiend wasn't the only one it had ravaged. The fiend had wiped out two more to restore its vitality.

The destruction of three whole villages by a heavenly fiend came at quite a fright to Keensight's citizens and many others nearby. Some people who had wanted to go home to spend the new year's decided to stay within city bounds. Keensight was usually much quieter at that time of year, yet it remained busy even as the end of the year approached, with more than a million people left. None of the other affairs had anything to do with An Jing. He was only staying in Keensight temporarily.

Knowing oneself and one's enemies is the key to countless victories. He stopped gathering information and found an inconspicuous inn, rented a room, and began to sum up his findings.

Unlike the barbarian tribes of Dustdawn that resided near North Han, the tribes that lived near Xishan maintained a friendly and peaceful relationship with Grand Chen for many years. Many of their people even settled in Grand Chen and facilitated trade between their brethren from the homeland, encouraging even sprites from the mountains to come to trade, painting a picture of prosperity.

An Jing spotted a group of small giants with deer antlers on the streets earlier, one of the many kinds of mountain spirits. They ate their steamed buns by the mouthful along with fistfuls of pine leaves as they picked through fine goods at the markets and even haggled for better prices just like normal humans.

Upon closer inspection, there were many humanoids who had scales or marks on their faces. Some of them even had full animal heads. Even folks like those came to Keensight to trade using the goods that their tribes produced, ranging from totem stones inscribed with special enchantments, wine brewed by monkeys from the rarest mountain fruits, or even unique weapons forged using the most peculiar techniques. As long as there was a buyer for such a thing, someone in Keensight sold it.

What about items from another world? An Jing felt that he could fully leverage his competitive edge to sell some trinkets he got from Skysource! The mixed and diverse city was the kind of place where the sale of such objects wouldn't draw undue attention.

An Jing was already quite well off. Not only did he have five remaining pieces of jadeslice steel, he also looted a grade-two spirit stone and spirit-qi crucible from the defeated soldier of the Fengdu Guard, not to mention the brightstart stone he got from Ocher Hill, OverSight sword case, jade armor pendant and other miscellaneous tools and equipment. On top of that, he had more than seven thousand merits.

The money he had obtained from Nian Qin was an unbelievably large sum. Nian Qin had feared using the money on her son lest she drew the attention of unsavory folks. Having so much money that she couldn't legitimately account for was a problem which could expose her position as an informant for a secretive organization.

An Jing, however, didn't share those concerns. He was typically written off as a badlander, didn't have children or dependents and could freely spend money without anybody batting an eye. Even if they tried to look into his background, they wouldn't find anything.

Even so, properly converting all those funds into actual things he could use was no easy feat. The black market had been completely decimated, after all, and other underground markets were locked down. An Jing would really struggle finding a place where he could spend large sums of money without being questioned.

Even if Metalhand and Huo Qing worked with him, the channels they could access were far too small and wouldn't be able to get him anything decent. An Jing had been wracking his mind over how to buy things in Skysource to speed up his cultivation and eventually came upon an idea.

He could use the money to buy some common items from Skysource that had a huge demand in Void Embrace! Cheap blades made from black iron or normal night-vision goggles or even nostalgic mechanical watches or multitool-knives would no doubt sell quite well in Keensight.

Perhaps he could market the black-iron blades as something that was forged using a secret technique of Dustdawner smiths. Night-vision goggles could be sold as equipment that were created based on ancient research on optics passed down at Voidsight Mountain. Mechanical watches or multitools could be sold as masterpieces of ancient smiths whose crafting methods were lost to time.

In Skysource, he could simply make up a nonexistent badlander tribe as a source of all the goods he had to sell. In Void Embrace, all he needed to do was to not sell too many things at once and claim that the treasures he sold were tribal heirlooms.

Most crucial was the fact that those objects weren't considered artifacts, so they wouldn't raise too much commotion. Yet, their novelty, function and foreign peculiarity were sure to fetch a good amount of silver for him.

Though silver couldn't buy much in Void Embrace, it could get him expensive medicinal ingredients to help him break through to the Tide Aura Stage and prepare the next stage of training using the Imperial Earth Art. If he had enough silver, he could buy spirit stones or other similar objects and trade them in Skysource for lots of merits! The interworld trade cycle would slowly gain momentum and generate massive profits.

After securing access to resources, An Jing would be able to break through at a rapid rate. Once he reached the peak of the Tide Aura Stage and mastered the Imperial Earth Art, he could also manifest six or seven divine seals.

By then, even if he had no access to his bulletproof mantle, sword case or other talismans, martialists of the Clearing Realm wouldn't be a threat to him. When armed with his whole kit of artifacts, he wouldn't even have to worry about them as he was now! Either way, using those artifacts as infrequently as possible in Void Embrace was the better call so that he wouldn't draw too much undue attention.

Once he was able to fight Clearing Realm adepts on even ground, he would be able to leave Keensight confidently. He could disguise himself as a traveling merchant from Dustdawn before going back to Hanhai to look for his mother.

"I can't really show off and buy too much. I came here alone and can't possibly carry crates' worth of things away with me. If I don't want to draw unwanted attention, I can't buy out all the good stuff either. Not unless I render some great service in the public eye to justify my purchasing power."

He gave it some thought and amended the less realistic parts of his plan. "It just so happens that I can't merely dump goods from Skysource in Void Embrace. I also have to keep an eye out for things that Skysource needs and lacks. What do you think, Yvelbane?"

"I'm a sword. I don't know that much about you humans and your squishy insides."

Oh, so all of a sudden you're just a sword now? What about all that indignant socio-economic commentary from earlier? You were so gung-ho about that manifesto. "How convenient for you. You're the immortal that wielded the sword when it's convenient for you, but you always claim to be an innocent sword with no ties to humanity when it's not. If only I was a sword soul with such a convenient excuse."

"Lalala I'm just a sword, I don't understand what you're saying!"

Having known Yvelbane for some time, An Jing learned that this was its true personality. He teased it a little more before preparing to rest.

It was already dark, so he fell asleep quickly after putting out the lights. He hadn't had such a comfortable bed and pillow for a long while and passed into a night of dreamless sleep. It would finally be time to put up a show the next day.