Destiny in Cinders

Pilljungle was a town built around the Leafpill Viridian. At the center of town was a botanical garden where many precious herbs were planted. The many workshops and drug factories were built at the periphery of the massive tree. There was a residential area between the inner and outer ring of buildings, while the outermost region of town was the commercial area where the gangs gathered.

The closer to the center, the taller the buildings were. Buildings near the outer commercial regions were one or two stories tall at most. whereas the factories in the inner ring were near a hundred meters in height.

Huo Qing's residence was situated near the commercial area; He had inherited it from his parents. The hangout for the Noontigers was only just three streets over. Most locals would say that he was born to be a member of the Noontigers.

Despite the fights that lasted the whole night, the atmosphere in the city was quite peaceful. At the end of the day, it was only a proxy conflict between corporations. It seemed bloody on the surface, and people did die from these fights, but once everything was done and the elites settled their differences and split the spoils, everything came to an end.

After everyone including Huo Qing got the word to stop fighting, life returned to normal as if nothing had happened. The only ones who could complain about these were the dead, and the dead never made themselves heard.

The road where Huo Qing lived was quite clean. Each brick that paved the road was light yellow and tightly packed together. Though the building looked old, it wasn't dirty at all, unlike what An Jing had expected. Then again, it wasn't weird for it to be taken care of considering that it was something Huo Qing's parents had left him.

Huo Qing brought An Jing to a roadside stall and treated him to some flatbread and offal soup. The stall had a shaded seating area and was equipped with a large oven and pot. Flames blazed powerfully, causing the soup within the pot to evaporate and carry its fragrance all over.

"The owner of this establishment is really good at his craft. I've gone to a few other towns but none of their soup tastes nearly as good as this one."

Hearing the praise, An Jing turned to look at the owner, who seemed to be in his fifties. He had a dark face and a muscled build. The old man chopped up some half-cooked offal into thin strips and tossed them into the pot. He smiled at his new customers before going back to work.

Next to him was a girl who seemed like she might be his daughter or daughter-in-law. She shared the same darker complexion as the owner and also looked rather built herself. Like most others in town, she didn't wear a gas mask or raincoat.

Huo Qing ordered two bowls of soup and some side dishes to go with them. The owner brought the food over and sprinkled freshly chopped green onions and some pepper on the dishes before bringing out two pieces of flatbread from the oven, serving it up with salted chili powder.

The fragrant smell of spices entered An Jing's nose immediately. A mere look at the appetizing milk-white soup and luscious green onions as well as the seasoned flatbread was enough to stoke his appetite.

"Sigh... What shitty times we live in..." Huo Qing said with a defeatist tone before he wolfed down a mouthful of soup. "I thought that I was gonna die for sure, and the only thing on my mind was how I won't get to taste Boss Liu's soup one last time! Finally tasting it again makes me feel like I've been reborn."

"You could always quit the gang, Little Huo," the owner said with a chuckle. It was clear that Huo Qing was a regular customer here. "You're not a good fit for the gang. What's a sheep doing amidst a pack of wolves? Heed this old man's advice. You're still young, so work on your studies. Take the exams in one of those elite schools in the city and join a corporation. That's the path you should take."

Huo Qing merely shook his head, and the owner stopped giving advice.

An Jing drank a mouthful of soup. It had a mutton broth and was seasoned rather well. A few mouthfuls were enough to warm him up entirely. He picked up a piece of flatbread and sprinkled more chili salt on it before giving it a bite. The flavor was intense and paired perfectly with a mouthful of soup. It was absolute culinary bliss; An Jing had not been able to enjoy a good meal in the last few days. No wonder Huo Qing came here the first thing after he almost lost his life.

"Brother, you're not eating it right," Huo Qing interrupted when he saw An Jing chew his food and swallow it. He seemed genuinely surprised. "Why are you eating like one of the layfolk?"

"What do you mean? Do explain." An Jing wasn't mad that his meal was interrupted. He knew that something about his behavior gave him away, but it didn't matter. As long as he wasn't nervous about it, people would find a way to rationalize his odd behavior.

Huo Qing didn't think too much about it and brushed it aside as one of An Jing's primitive badlander quirks. "Enjoy the food, relish the essence. You have to savor the essence of the food along with the food itself. Merely swallowing it is leaving far too much to waste. Boss Liu's culinary skills are good, but he also puts a lot of thought into the ingredients he uses. Even though the goat offal he uses is cooked in the water, they're still packed full of qi essence. That's why this stall is so much better than many others that use diseased meat!"

Huo Qing raised a finger solemnly and continued, "To fully experience the benefits of these fine ingredients, you have to circulate your technique to digest the qi essence within!"

He even showed An Jing a demonstration of circulating his qi essence. As he swallowed the food, the qi essence in his body circulated near his stomach and broke down the food. His circulating innate qi was like a grinder that crushed the food and extracted the qi essence contained within. Not only did this process increase the amount of energy one could obtain from the food, it also relinquished the need for excretion as no waste product was left over from the process.

I see! So that's how the practice of fasting came about! An Jing's mind made many connections after seeing the demonstration. This was clearly a method of cultivation and nourishment that used innate qi to break down qi from the natural world. In a way, it was a form of qi consumption that long-lived immortals were famous for.

"Back in my time, there were consumption cultivators who were adept at this line of techniques. However, it's not something I'm familiar with," Yvelbane admitted.

Before it could explain why, An Jing consoled it, "You're a sword, so it's not surprising that you're unaware of how humans nourish their bodies."

An Jing looked at Huo Qing and noticed that the circulation pathways he used were rather complicated and seemed far more effective. The nourishment technique he used was not just any average one. "You seem to be quite good at eating. The whole process seems really stable."

"But of course! This is a secret technique passed down in my family, Pentaorgan Lifeforce Nourishment! It's different from normal nourishment techniques." Huo Qing seemed rather proud of that fact. It was one of the few techniques he worked hard to hone. "Everything in this world is hollow. Guns, swords and even merits are external to oneself and can vanish at any moment. The only things that truly belong to oneself are the things we consume! That's why I care about eating well."

"Swords are not hollow and external!" Yvelbane said from within An Jing's sea of consciousness. Though, it couldn't quite argue with the soundness of the rest of his logic. "That's just how consumption cultivators are. They're stubborn folk who only consider something a part of them if they consume it. But surely we can't rely on consumption for everything! An accomplished person uses everything he has to his advantage, external or not! Swords are also a part of the cultivator! That said, An Jing, you should ask your little friend here to teach you his technique. For someone so poor like him to still be able to establish a firm foundation means that his nourishment technique is worth picking up."

An Jing had the same thing in mind. "That's true. Cultivators don't seem that sensitive about these things. To them, it's merely a nourishment technique that makes consumption more efficient. But to martialists in Void Embrace, this is absolutely amazing!"

Martialists who refined their bodies had much higher intake requirements compared to qi cultivators. Void Embrace had many consumable resources, making nourishment techniques like that much more useful compared to a resource-drained world like Skysource.

Before An Jing even opened his mouth, Huo Qing said, "Even though I still don't know your name, you did save my life."

The tired-looking youth showed him a sincere expression of gratitude. "You have done me a great service, which I intend to repay well. But as you have seen, I am not someone with much to my name. After much thought, it seems like this secret technique is the only thing I can thank you with."

He took out a jade slip and put it on the table.

"What's this?" An Jing had never been one to hold back on the generosity of others. With a brow raised, he picked up the slip and inspected it. Unsurprisingly, it contained instructions for Pentaorgan Lifeforce Nourishment.