Destiny in Cinders

Chapter 78: Boss Metalhand

At the end of the day, a celestial arc wasn’t a simple label of the lucky chosen one. Instead, it was an enhanced trouble magnet!

An Jing sighed. He had sensed that fate operated in mysteriously proactive ways around him. His luck was by no means bad, but he seemed to experience lots of obstacles. If this was the result of the Seven Ruins Arc, then it really did live up to its name.

He didn’t really have any thoughts about being the bearer of a celestial arc. Having a strong lifearc did mean being more talented, something which he was happy about, but he didn’t feel like making a big deal out of it or growing too proud because of it.

There were some things that he would do all the same whether he had a fancy lifearc or not. He did things because he wanted to. Even if his lifearc pushed him in a certain direction, it was already something he would have done himself. His core principle could be summed up as: the heavens merely write the story, it’s the mortals who act it out.

It was midday and the sky was scorchingly bright. Though the sun of Skysource wasn’t visible in the sky, there was no lack of illumination in the slightest.

An Jing had a few clear objectives. First, he needed to obtain some currency that he could use in Skysource. Thanks to the frequent gang wars and generous donations by Gunner and his goons, he had many firearms and other things like spirit-beam guns, bullets, stimulants and some kind of inhaler. Yvelbane said that it might be some kind of healing implement. According to Huo Qing, those were things that could be recycled.

Additionally, he wanted a weapon for long-distance shooting. It didn’t necessarily have to be a sniper rifle; all he needed was something that let him hit someone aboard airships. A few hundred meters wasn’t that large of a distance. An Jing was also confident that the white-robed scribe of the demonic cult was at the peak of the Aura Realm rather than the Fortification Realm. In other words, he wouldn’t be able to block bullets and could be killed by an effective shot.

He would spare no expense to obtain something like this. If he didn’t kill the scribe, the demonic cult could track him endlessly. He would even steal one if he couldn’t get his hands on a weapon like that by buying it normally, though he hoped that the people of Skysource wouldn’t force him to make such a choice.

He also needed some resources for Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal. The technique he had been using to train this whole time was the Imperial Sky Seethrough Nurturing Art. Though it was by no means bad, it focused more on assassinations and suffered in direct combat. It was also average in terms of agility and might have some kind of exploitable backdoor, hence why he didn’t feel safe relying on it.

Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, on the other hand, was among the best techniques from the era of Yvelbane, used by the best sword immortals. Not only could it ignore fiend-qi influence, it could also help strengthen his body’s innate qualities, something he desperately needed.

It was also a qi refinement technique that Yvelbane was far more familiar with. As long as An Jing could progress with it to a certain extent, he would be able to make up for one of his greatest weaknesses. All that he would need after that was a proper qinggong footwork technique.[1]

Unfortunately, Yvelbane didn’t have something like that. It was an immortal sword, not a sword immortal, after all, so it only really knew techniques relating to swords. It didn’t have to know the intricacies of qinggong either.

In Void Embrace, An Jing couldn’t just enter a city to buy the resources he needed. Fortunately, Skysource was an industrially developed world. One look at the city’s massive reactor cores was enough to tell him that this world was plentiful in mystic metals which were beneficial to Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal.

Lastly, he needed to find a good place to rest. Even cultivators had to sleep, and An Jing hadn’t had proper rest for a long time. Even so, it wasn’t high on his list of priorities. He was still young, so a few sleepless nights weren’t that detrimental. If anything, he got more alert as time went on.

As long as those four objectives didn’t conflict with helping Huo Qing, An Jing wouldn’t mind lending him a hand. Huo Qing was the first person whose fate that his Seven Ruins Arc had successfully altered, so he wanted to see how this fatigued-looking accountant would develop from then on. That, and the fact that Huo Qing could help him negotiate for better prices with his connections.

With his goals set, An Jing made his move; it was a habit of his to make sure every step was in place before he took action. This way, he would not lose sight of his objectives along the way.

After he ascertained that the fiend qi in the disposal facility had nothing to do with heavenly fiends, An Jing felt relieved enough to bring Huo Qing along with him. The two of them headed for Recycling House #2 near the southwest of the facility.

An Jing immediately noticed how eccentric the little building looked when he arrived. It was surrounded by many colorful, rusted metallic wreckage. The building seemed like the only thing in the area that was planted firmly in the ground. It had wooden windows and was covered in creeper plants, which gave it a luscious, clean look. The only thing about the building that seemed out of ordinary was its roof; it looked far too new.

Quite a few other people had come to the recycling house like An Jing, most of them dressed simply in raincoats with no gang signs. They were most likely common folk who were trying to recycle their goods. As the recycling house had yet to open, all of them waited at the empty lot outside without causing any trouble. The worst they said were things along the lines of ”Boss Metalhand must have overslept again” without any intent on causing any ruckus to wake him up, which was surprising, considering the local customs of Skysource.

An Jing knew the real reason for this, however. He could tell that the creeper vines on the recycling house weren’t normal plants. Instead, they were special spirit plants that were part of a formation that spanned the entire area around the building. According to Yvelbane, once the formation activated, even a sevenfold Qi Refinement cultivator (the equivalent of a full-power Fortification Realm martialist) wouldn’t be able to stop it, even when armed with artifacts.

Most of the people here were at the Silk Essence Stage and could only just barely count as cultivators. Though they seemed mean and dangerous, there were few among them who were at the River Essence Stage, so they naturally didn’t dare to mess around.

An Jing and the rest were different. For starters, Huo Qing was an acquaintance of the proprietor and was in a rush to get things over with. He resolved himself and stepped forward to ring the bell as the people around them watched in fear, wanting to stop them but not daring to make a move.

The loud bell resounded throughout. After a while, a loud, angry cry could be heard from within. ”Shut it! Stop pressing that fucking bell! You cursed scavenger jackals and vultures can’t even let me sleep in peace! I’ll fucking slaughter you all!”

The door swung open in the next instant, revealing a huge man who towered above two meters. The man scanned his surroundings swiftly.

Huo Qing leaned against the door frame as if the exhaustion was about to kill him. There was a freshly healed wound on his shoulder. Not far from him was a masked kid who was clearly wearing the clothes that had belonged to a dead person, cradling Gunner’s unconscious body.

”What in the world is going on?!” the man spat. ”Qing my boy, how did you get hurt? Why in the world did Gunner send you to the frontlines? And who hurt Gunner? Who’s that kid?”

The giant’s left arm was a silver-white metallic prosthetic whose joints were covered by some kind of wooden roots. There was a red jade in his left eye that seemed like some kind of optical artifact. He furrowed his brow and scanned An Jing with that red left eye of his. ”Such a young badlander... Things seem serious.”

”They are indeed, Uncle Metalhand.” Huo Qing had many things to complain about, but his recent experiences had toughened him up. He mustered his focus and spoke with clear intent. ”Uncle Gunner and his crooks wanted to frame me for something. My friend here defeated him, but what I did with him earlier is reason enough for the boss to have me killed. I have no other choice. Even though I don’t want to cause you trouble, coming here to ask you for advice is the only thing I can think of.”

”Fool! You fucking idiot!” Metalhand snapped halfway through Huo Qing’s explanation of how he had helped Gunner misappropriate gang funds. ”How in the world did you grow the balls to do such a thing?”

He glared at the unconscious Gunner and turned back to Huo Qing with a steely look. ”You really bumble along before you take a good look at where you’re going, don’t you? Look where you ended up! Darn it... You knew that was a bad thing to do, so why did you choose to stick with that Gunner fool? Betraying the gang is the same as making light of your own life! It’s the least filial act you could do to your parents! You stinking unfilial son... Now that you’re out of options, you come to me for help?!”

Huo Qing knelt and kowtowed without saying a single word. Metalhand sent him flying with a kick some ten meters away. Despite the broken bones, Huo Qing rose shakily and approached Metalhand once more.

”Come in! You know where the medical supplies are, you brat!” Metalhand gave Huo Qing another slap that bloodied the corner of his lips, which seemed to be enough to vent his anger temporarily. At the end of the day, he still cherished this little junior of his. Letting him into the shop he ran was a sign that he took him under his care.

”Alright, screw off, the rest of you!” Metalhand said to the rest of the scavengers. ”I’m busy today so the shop’s closed! Come again tomorrow!”

”You made us waste the whole trip, so make it up to us tomorrow!”

”Curse you!”

The crowd could tell that something serious was afoot, so they didn’t make too much of a fuss and soon scattered.

After all that, Metalhand finally turned to An Jing, who stood ramrod straight with Gunner in his arms. With a deep and polite voice, he said, ”Huo Qing must have survived entirely because of you, little friend. Am I right? The wind outside is strong, so come in.”

1. Qinggong 轻功 is a wuxia staple that allows people to perform incredible acrobatic feats as if they’re unaffected by gravity. ☜