Destiny in Cinders

The black market of Deepnight City was incredibly complex. According to Metalhand, it used to be a fortress that was built by the locals to resist fiends during the world calamity. The land all around had been bathed by fiend blood and covered in rotten fiend carcasses. As a result, their sinister essence seeped into the land and poisoned it, making it a difficult place for people to cultivate or deploy their divine sense.

The construction of Deepnight City began after the world calamity under rather unique circumstances. Not many people wanted to stay at the fortress permanently and it soon began to be treated as a lawless suburban area.

Later on, large numbers of gangs and freemen took note of this plot of land that was free of divine-sense surveillance. They gathered and cleansed the land of the impurities, restoring it to its former state but also reinforcing the existing restrictions on divine sense, resulting in the black market An Jing eventually found himself in.

One could find firearms, artifacts, pills and cultivation techniques of all sorts. There were even hackdoctors who offered body augmentation surgeries, allowing their people to replace their mutated body parts with manmade evergreen-wood organs. This way, the mutations they suffered wouldn't result in the permanent cessation of their cultivation path. The organs also made them more vigorous and resilient.

Rumor was that with enough merits, one would be able to buy foundation pills. An Jing recalled how Metalhand pined for one as he spoke of it. Everyone in Skysource was a cultivator, but due to the lack of resources and the corruption of spirit qi by fiend qi, only few geniuses and scions were able to make it far on the path of cultivation.

Even when one was able to reach the doorstep of the Foundation Building Realm, if they failed to build their foundation and allowed their qi essence to scatter, their divine sense would collapse, causing them to lose twenty years of lifespan.

Foundation pills, on the other hand, increased the odds of success during foundation building and also protected the cultivator's body and purple mansion. Even in the event of failure, one would only lose some vigor and half a year of lifespan without other ill effects.

Alas, this miracle medicine was almost extinct thanks to the scarcity of the ingredients used in its production. The moment any foundation pill appeared on the market, the proxy buyers of the elite would immediately buy it off during an auction, which was why foundation pills were considered urban legends at best. Even then, many cultivators dreamed of getting their hands on one.

"Are foundation pills that precious? I didn't think that Skysource would be such a deprived world, considering how incredible their artifacts are," Yvelbane mumbled.

However, it wasn't that strange to An Jing. "Pills need natural ingredients, even if they can be planted and cultivated like herbs. Given how bad the climate and environment of Skysource are, it's probably really hard to find a decent place to plant spirit herbs."

On that matter, An Jing had a rush of ideas. "Skysource's environment has been ruined by the world calamity, leaving most of the world corrupted apart from the places where spirit veins congregate. This has caused their cultivation civilization to weaken due to the lack of natural resources, forcing them to have to rely on technology and artifacts instead, which led them to industrialize. While Void Embrace also has fiend corruption, we're much better off in terms of resources.

"We didn't have the time to prepare this time around, but I wonder if we can come back next time with some of the goods that this world needs. We can also get some things here that Void Embrace lacks. We can flip resources between worlds and profit! Oh yeah, I still have one souljade left. I wonder if it's precious in Skysource too."

While Skysource's spirit-qi crucibles seemed to replace the functionality of souljades on the surface, An Jing felt that there was a marked difference between these two things. He didn't trouble himself over figuring it out himself and would simply ask around for the price later.

An Jing flashed some bills and descended down a long flight of stairs into the underground black market. Unlike what he imagined, however, the black market wasn't actually a dark and dingy place. It was black only by virtue of its legality. The venue itself was brightly illuminated with each store appearing incredibly legitimate. Though the guards seemed threatening and savage, the people that came and went were mostly well dressed and behaved reasonably. Some of them had veils or masks that covered their faces.

Some people noticed An Jing's torn-up mantle and gave him an extra look or two, but they lost interest soon after. That was the unspoken rule of the black market: Do not pry into others' affairs. As such, the entire venue was also really silent. It seemed even more of a place for serious business than legal markets.

"What are you looking for, Sir?" a beautiful staff member asked when An Jing stepped in. The quality of service and the orderliness of the venue was completely foreign to the Skysource that An Jing had seen so far, with all the gangs and chaos. Is this really the black market? It feels more like some secret club owned by some large faction in Deepnight City.

He raised his guard but didn't let it show on his face. Calmly, he said, "I'm looking for cultivation materials. Mystic and precious metals in particular. I also need weapons for taking out unsavory feys."

The staff member nodded politely. "Are you looking for materials from major or minor sects? Do you have any criteria for the weapons you need?"

"Materials from minor sects. As for weapons, I need something that counteracts regenerative capabilities. I'm talking about massive feys. Ice or fire elemental weapons would be nice, but ideally I'd want lightning ones."

"It seems that you have a really specific fey in mind." The staff member gave it some thought and shook her head. "I'm afraid you'd have to custom order something like that from an artificer on your own, Sir."

"That's alright." It seemed that his criteria was rather excessive. "Let's focus on the materials first."

"Then, come with me." The staff member smiled as she led him down the third underground floor. When they reached a specific store, she bowed and left.

The store's crimson sign read "Ocher Hill" and beneath it was a golden disc of dawn. A female cultivator with a veiled face noticed the new customer and immediately rose to greet him. Smiling, she said, "Sir, what do you require?"

The voice was practiced and carefully modulated. Even so, one could tell that she was genuinely happy to see a customer. An Jing didn't mind pleasantries like these. "I would like to browse on my own first."

"Please, feel free. Do you need a short tour?" The shopkeeper switched on the lights in the shop, revealing the rows of glass vitrines within. Lots of metals and ores were displayed within, complete with informative labels.

"There's no need." An Jing was rather surprised by how warm the shopkeeper was, but as long as he had Yvelbane with him, he wouldn't need someone to guide him around. This way, he could minimize contact, thereby reducing the risk of exposing anything about himself unnecessarily.

He looked through the store's collection at a leisurely pace. It was quite the selection they had there, including mystic metals that he needed for Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, such as black iron, purple tin, crimson bronze, sun gold and moon silver. They also sold normal gold and silver at much cheaper prices.

He needed to refine the Evenstar metal qi within those metals. It was metal-aspect qi that reflected the qualities of the Evenstar, sharp yet sturdy. That was the core principle of Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal. To obtain the qi, he needed forged metal ingots with as few impurities as possible. Luckily for him, the metals sold in Ocher Hill piqued Yvelbane's interest.