Destiny in Cinders

”A chip...” An Jing felt rather troubled. He really didn’t want to use a chip with an official backdoor for Deepnight City’s officials if he could help it. But going straight to using jailbroken chips felt a bit too brash. Using something like that would also prevent him from joining the ranks of the megacorporations in Skysource to learn their secrets.

As he was thinking about how to solve this predicament, he suddenly recalled dual-SIM technologies. Then again, he was a human and not a mobile phone. He also couldn’t run anything like a virtual machine in his brain. ”Metalhand’s Justice Restoration Army must have their ways. There’s no way they’d be able to get any spying done otherwise.”

This definitely wasn’t something that was available through normal channels. Only organizations that conducted corporate espionage had access to such things. He made a mental note of it before looking at his two friends again, realizing how much closer they had grown.

”Don’t worry and deploy the formations as you please. This residence is maintained by the people the principal hired anyway, so I don’t have to pay for it.” Nian Quan gladly encouraged Huo Qing to demonstrate more of his formation techniques. He had sensed how deep the latter’s formation knowledge was, not to mention his firm cultivation foundation, and understood why An Jing often hung out with him. So, Nian Quan encouraged him to do more demonstrations. It wouldn’t cost him merits and he would only benefit from it if he gained some insight through it.

Even so, Huo Qing was still hesitant. ”Umm... What if things go wrong and I break something?”

”If you do, consider it the fee I’m paying for your tutelage. You have no idea how much I made by defeating First Middle School. The reason the principal left in a hurry earlier was probably because sponsors are trying to reach out to him.” Nian Quan didn’t mind it in the slightest and knew how much he was worth. He was practically priceless to Third Middle School as someone who managed to defeat First Middle School’s representatives. From the moment he won, he would no doubt get more sponsorships and attention from important figures.

Principal He had been so amicable because he had already gotten his share of the benefits and wouldn’t mind letting An Jing and the others taste some of it too. Putting aside the drone and lethal-qi-resistant gear, even if An Jing had asked for a combat automaton, the principal would get it for Nian Quan through the sponsorship program and let him do whatever he pleased with it. At the very least, there wouldn’t be a direct record of him selling combat equipment to a badlander.

An Jing let the two talk it out while he went to open his packages. The drone in the box wasn’t that large. It was a black metallic sphere with no visible wings or fans. Eventually, he found the waterscreen remote for the drone. He infused some spirit energy into it and felt it connect with his psyche. Then, all the information from the drone got transferred into his mind through the flow of spirit energy. He felt that he had gained an extra field of vision that gradually opened up, bobbing slightly up and down.

The black sphere hovered in the air before him, letting out soft, mechanical sounds as it unfolded into a disc that glowed light blue. Spirit patterns occasionally flowed across the disc’s surface from time to time before the disc vanished completely.

”Whoa! Amazing!” This was his first time using a high-grade drone and he was surprised by how it worked. Narrowing his eyes, he could see a heads-up display that reported the drone’s status. The waterscreen in An Jing’s hand contained a manual that could be immediately pulled up for reference.

The drone was called ”Solace” and was specifically engineered by the Xuandu Group for scouting out dangerous areas. It was packed with spells like Soundless Phase, Water-Fire Proof, Tensile Malleability, Magnetic Hover, Lethal-Qi Integration, Spirit-Field Charge, Ground Cruise, Projectile Deflection and Form Change. It was a top-tier arcane artifact that was only just a step shy of being considered a spirit artifact.

In its dormant state, it took the form of a small black sphere, making it incredibly portable and light. When activated, it changed into a flying saucer around two-and-a-half chi in diameter. As it used geomagnetism to hover, it didn’t emit any spirit-energy signature, allowing it to remain undetected by formations and beasts. Soundless Phase wasn’t merely a stealth spell; it also allowed the drone to temporarily phase into the nether to phase through solid walls, easily overcoming many barriers. Ground Cruise also allowed it to cross thousands of zhang of land beneath the earth in a short time.

Apart from that, it was also incredibly resilient against sharp or blunt attacks. Its only weaknesses were beam spells or piercing qi attacks, but as long as its core survived, it could keep operating. Typical water and fire lethal qi weren’t able to damage its outer shell much. It could even integrate metal lethal qi as a resource for self-recovery.

Wow, so this is a high-grade arcane artifact of Skysource... He drew a cold breath once he learned all of Solace’s capabilities. No wonder Yvelbane had called Skysource a haven for artifact refiners. Arcane artifacts with nine spells simply couldn’t exist in Void Embrace. It took far too much effort and materials to make something like this, materials that people would rather use for spirit artifacts instead. Compared to this, the drones An Jing had bought before were utter trash. While Solace didn’t have any combat capabilities, its reconnaissance capabilities were unparalleled.

Apart from those nine spells, the Solace drone’s scouting functions were incredible. An Jing casually gave Nian Quan’s residence a sweep and immediately got a three-dimensional map of the place on the waterscreen. He could only imagine how impressive it would be if he surveyed things from a greater height.

Huh, isn’t this perfect for mapping out Brokeblade Mountain? That thought suddenly occurred to him. Though his main goal was to use the drone to scout out Palespirit Cave, it would surely make it much easier for him to have a detailed map of the wider region. Coupled with Frostwhite Dart, he could easily survey the region around Brokeblade Mountain, including the settlements and terrestrial veins nearby.

While the terrain seldom posed a challenge to martialists, knowing about it was crucial for developing the region using layfolk workers. One also needed to have a good understanding of it for the optimal deployment of major formations.

Most importantly, drones like that worked great in small-scale martialist battles, and that wasn’t just limited to self-destruct drones. Coordinating and updating information on the battlefield was one such amazing application. Should An Jing be the commander of a unit of martialists in the future, he would no doubt issue them drones on top of sword cases as part of their standard loadout. They can lock onto enemies using drones and snipe them with sword cases from afar. This kind of tactic is only possible with technologically advanced equipment from Skysource.

He messed around with Solace a bit more before carefully putting it away into his void artifact, satisfied. Next, he opened the package with the hazard gear. Unlike the thick spacesuits that he imagined, this equipment looked no different from two pieces of crystal wafer despite being just as high grade as the drone. He was rather puzzled, but he didn’t harbor any doubts considering how much more advanced Skysource’s technology was compared to what he could imagine.

After reading the manual, he installed the two circular crystal pieces on both sides of the mantle that came in the box before putting it over his shoulder. Then, the crystals hummed and glowed before deploying an invisible force field around him. Anything that An Jing didn’t explicitly add to his whitelist, even other non-harmful types of spirit qi, wouldn’t be able to enter the field to be absorbed by him, let alone the harmful blend of toxic lethal qi. It also had defensive power equal to two armor talismans, making it part of the standard loadout of Luofu’s elite expeditionary team.