Destiny in Cinders

”Thanks for the kind reminder, fellas,” An Jing said with a wave and a smile before getting Huo Qing to drive off.

”I thought they were really asking us for bribes,” Huo Qing said with some relief. ”The Noontigers did this often and forbade entrance to towns if you didn’t pay! Maybe you’ll even get a beating while they’re at it!”

”Don’t worry,” An Jing said. ”These folks might be foul mouthed, but they only go after pushovers. If you show weakness, they might actually prey on you. But if you’re not afraid, there’s no way that members of the garrison would dare touch a city dweller like you.”

”I see...” Huo Qing and You Ruhui nodded. The former was far too cautious in his ways while the latter had never witnessed interactions like these before.

Social skills were also a crucial part of one’s power. Even though An Jing often had the invasive thought of killing them all, most people simply didn’t deserve punishment that harsh. If he could solve things by speech alone, it would save him lots of trouble too.

”Ocher Hill’s representative in Hilltwixt is called Lu Huohong. Just call him Mister Lu,” Huo Qing said once he managed to establish contact. While he interacted with the person on the line through his chip, he explained the details of the transaction to You Ruhui and An Jing. ”We are going to buy Ocher Hill’s warehouse number three. It’s located to the southwest of Hilltwixt and occupies a large plot of land. The facilities are rather old and were last maintained six months ago. The transaction doesn’t include any aftersales service. We’re just buying the warehouse and the land itself. The details of the contract have been settled. All we need to do is to hand over the spirit items and sign to verify the transaction. It’s really convenient.”

An Jing agreed. It was indeed convenient to have Huo Qing, a citizen of Deepnight City, take care of things. It would be much more difficult for residents of the safe zone outside Deepnight City to buy property. First, they would have to submit their life records and draft many conditions for breach of contract. It was also difficult to get the transaction through the real-estate bureau. Many things needed to be submitted and signed again and again to ensure that the buyer was tied down to the property they purchased.

Badlanders like An Jing fared even worse. They would never allow the savages to purchase property in the safe zone. Only citizens of Deepnight City had the privilege of easy property transactions. That was the reason most people in the safe zone yearned to be a citizen of Deepnight City. It simply came with far too many benefits.

Hilltwixt Town wasn’t completely devoid of residents. However, most of them were either out working or hiding within their houses to wait out the fey attacks. The most they would see on the streets was a few patrolling guards, which only dwindled in number the farther away from the residential area that An Jing and the rest headed to.

Eventually, they arrived at a fenced warehouse of gray and white. They finally saw a resident who wasn’t a guard for once. He had a head of graying hair and a fatigued look, dressed in his company robes.

”Are you Mister Huo?” the middle-aged manager asked An Jing once they got out of the car. He sighed and said, ”Thankfully, you came quite fast. I would have left in the afternoon.”

”Manager Lu, this is Mister Huo.” An Jing motioned for Huo Qing to step forward.

The manager realized what was going on immediately. It wasn’t uncommon for rich badlanders to partner up with city dwellers to purchase property. He greeted Huo Qing and turned back to An Jing, who was clearly the one who was running the show. ”Let’s hurry up the transaction. Otherwise, the handover process would go from five days to a month or two. That would be really troublesome.”

”No problem,” An Jing said as he took out the spirit stone and said, ”This weight should be worth 7500 merits on the market.”

”Huh?” The tired manager who was trying to finish up his job quickly suddenly looked up. His strength was about the same as the manager with a ponytail that An Jing had met at Ocher Hill’s black-market branch, both sixfold Qi Refinement cultivators. He widened his eyes and gulped audibly at the sight of the spirit stone. Though he had wanted to put up an act at first, he dropped it completely and said, ”A natural spirit stone? Unused and uncorrupted by fiend qi?”

”Check it out yourself.” An Jing fearlessly tossed the stone to the manager, causing him to yelp in shock and use a wind-manipulation spell to steadily receive it in his hand.

”What are you doing!? I can’t possibly reimburse you if it breaks!” The moment he held it in his hand, however, he was completely overjoyed. ”A true natural spirit stone! Heavens... Such a pure and clean qi...”

An Jing patiently waited for the manager to inspect the spirit stone as he whispered to You Ruhui, ”How is it?”

”Upper intermediate,” she said softly, making a hand sigil to drown out the sound. ”The metal and fire aspects are potent. Fire shapes metal, making this a great place to forge and store metal. Even if we don’t use it as a warehouse, we can use it as a factory! Things will go smoothly for us that way.”

”That’s good.” An Jing nodded. After experiencing so many fights, he felt that it was about time for him to awaken the corresponding ability for the Evenstar. He had a spirit root of metal, after all, and should have quite a high affinity with that aspect. Perhaps he would be able to awaken it if he learned some forging or puppet technique.

”Yvelbane, do you know any such techniques?”

”I do. But we’ve been busy running for survival, so I had no time to teach you a technique that needs a stable location to practice. That’s why I was supportive when you said you wanted to buy property. We need a safe and secluded cave of our own for cultivation,” said the sword soul.

After ascertaining what he wanted, An Jing got You Ruhui to undo the silence sigil. ”How is it, Manager Lu?”

”It’s drained by five percent,” the manager said after some scrutiny. ”Have you used the spirit stone before?”

An Jing knew that the manager was trying to use it to negotiate, but he didn’t panic. ”One can only know that it’s a natural spirit stone by using it. This isn’t one of those cheap ones that are emptied out and recharged. It’s not drained much and still works well as a source of pure, uncorrupted qi for cultivation.”

”That’s true.” Manager Lu clearly couldn’t pass up on this spirit stone. He would definitely be making the transaction with his own spirit items of equal worth to keep the stone for himself. He had a few spirit items that were worth thousands of merits and even then, it was no guarantee that he would be able to get his hands on a spirit stone like this even if he could afford it. Merits were easy to earn, but spirit stones were rare finds. Even if An Jing’s spirit stone was worth less than the property’s price, the manager would’ve been willing to make up for the difference to pocket the spirit stone for himself.

”Alright, then.” Manager Lu seemed satisfied with that. ”We’ll make a deal for this spirit stone for seven thousand merits then. We can deal with the extra 1300 merits after completing the transaction. Mister Huo?”

He turned to Huo Qing, who had been using that time to study his formation diagrams. An Jing patted Huo Qing on the shoulder to get him to snap out of it.

He cleared his throat and put his diagrams away. ”Alright, let’s sign the contract!”

”No,” An Jing said, patting him on the shoulder to remind him. ”Automata!”

Since they had extra merits left over from the transaction, An Jing wanted Huo Qing to ask whether Ocher Hill had used automata for sale. Huo Qing picked up on it and asked, ”Can we buy the used automata of your company with the change? Resource-harvesting ones for ores or herbs would be good. We are also quite interested in automation technology.”

”Of course.” The manager stroked his beard and was more than happy to sell off their used automata. ”Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but without authorization from corporations, the automata won’t be able to tap into the terrestrial veins for power. If you want to use them, you’ll have to provide your own energy source.”

”We’re only going to study them,” An Jing said. ”How many do you think 1300 merits can fetch us?”

”Five units,” the manager said after some calculations. ”These automata are slated for abandonment after heavy mining, however, so there’s no saying when they’ll break down. If you want to buy them, I’ll throw in some spare parts and maintenance tools.”

They were basically junk that just so happened to still barely function, so Manager Lu was quite surprised he would be able to trade them for merits. There was no better deal he could have made.

Five units! To think that a casual spirit stone looted from a goon of the True Fiend Cult can get me such a large warehouse and five technologically advanced automata in Skysource... There was no better deal I could’ve made!