Destiny in Cinders

An Jing called You Ruhui over and gave her a mantle and gas mask before preparing to leave. Madam Huai stayed behind so that she could prepare food for their return.

Naturally, they wouldn’t be walking the whole way to Hilltwixt Town. Metalhand had a small, well-maintained and bulletproof truck that looked more like a miniature armored vehicle. It was safe and plain enough to not draw attention.

An Jing noticed that he seemed to possess knowledge of driving when he got in the front passenger seat. Still, he let Huo Qing take the wheel since he didn’t know the way there.

”Cars in the city can drive themselves, but manual driving is still necessary in safe zones since we need to adapt fast to unpredictable events,” Huo Qing said. As the small truck was also an artifact, he had to use his spirit-qi imprint to unlock it and link up with the car’s central spirit core to drive it.

He began to reminisce on his past as he started the ignition. ”Back when I was with the Noontigers, I drove for Uncle Gunner and the others. I have quite a lot of experience!”

”Wow, so you were a part-time chauffeur too?” An Jing didn’t quite know what to say about someone who would do four jobs for only one pay. Perhaps Huo Qing was naturally blessed as a pushover. He shook his head and said, ”I don’t think that was a good thing. Drivers often hear a lot of things they shouldn’t. It’s no wonder they wanted to wipe you out. Come to think of it, how’s Gunner doing?”

An Jing’s Embodied Arsenal blood-lethal-qi swordstaff used Gunner’s spear artifact as part of its base. Even though it only lifted the construction and form of the spear, An Jing could continue to refine the swordstaff and raise its quality. It had nothing to do with the original artifact it was based on. Still, the haughty thug had left quite an impression on him.

”He’s dead,” Huo Qing calmly said as if he was talking about the stranger as he smoothly turned the truck and maneuvered out of the trash disposal facility. ”He was already in a coma by the time they sent him back. The boss nailed him on the wall of punishment in that state. It took him a little over a week to properly die.

”I heard he had embezzled around three hundred thousand merits and many spirit items. That number’s obviously fishy, but Uncle Gunner was a dead man either way, so they used him to balance their own budget.

”The boss was quite happy to have someone to make an example out of, so were the other uncles. On account of Uncle Metalhand, they also gave me a new identity. My name’s still registered as Huo Qing, but I’m no longer the same person in the registry. My slate has been wiped clean and I’m just a normal citizen of Deepnight City now.”

Huo Qing couldn’t help but laugh. ”I didn’t think I’d get proper residency in the city so easily. It’s something I’ve dreamed of getting since childhood. All it took was for the boss to say a word. He didn’t even have to do anything and his assistant took care of everything. That was something that I had to fight my whole life for. Don’t you think it’s laughable?”

An Jing didn’t laugh. Huo Qing didn’t think it was funny either. ”Fortunately, Uncle Gunner doesn’t have any children. I wouldn’t know how to face those hypothetical little ones otherwise.”

He gripped the steering wheel as he stared at the seemingly endless road ahead. Though Huo Qing’s tone was relaxed, An Jing could tell how heavy he felt about it. Death and betrayal were all too common among gangs, but the care the members felt for one another was just as genuine. Things were never that black and white. That was why people’s decisions often came back to haunt them.

An Jing broke the silence and said, ”Either way, you have a new start. Do your best and get into a first-rate academy or even a dao academy. Since your fate has changed for the better, aim as high as you can possibly go.”

”Will do,” he said with a resolute smile.

The clear, lit sky above Mortality Plains was a rare sight for An Jing. Since he first came to Skysource, he mostly experienced rainstorms or nighttime. Even when the weather was better, he was in such a rush that he didn’t have the leisure of taking in the view. As the car zoomed across the roads to their destination, there was no better time to do so.

Though rain wasn’t falling, dark clouds already started to gather. Fortunately, white beams of sunlight peeked through from behind the clouds and illuminated everything below clearly. He could hear the sound of rustling wind as the car drove across the wilderness. The thick formations of trees and mountains looked like an unscalable wall. In the horizon, pitch-black clouds loomed over the wasteland area outside the mountainous forest region.

”Clouds of fiend qi,” Yvelbane said. ”Who knows how many feys and fiends arose in the badlands of Skysource...”

An Jing came to understand why there was a designation for safe zones after witnessing that sight. This was what a world that emerged victorious over the fiend calamity looked like. Humans were relegated to living in crowded safe zones. Outside of that were fallen parts of the world where light had yet to be restored.

Even then, civilization in Skysource was recovering. During the ride, they saw cultivators controlling construction puppets on both sides of the road to build new residential areas. The puppets were made of black iron and looked incredibly sturdy. Their surfaces were covered in patterns that glowed with mystic power. Hints of green wooden structures could be seen peeking out of the metallic frame.

These puppets moved construction materials around and dug deep foundations. They could even mix cement and do all kinds of miscellaneous tasks that human laborers typically performed at a much higher efficiency.

An Jing asked Huo Qing to stop the car so that he could observe them for a couple minutes. Within that time, the puppets managed to construct the baseline structure of some fortifications the way the cultivator instructed them to. It was an unthinkable level of efficiency.

”What kind of puppets are they?” You Ruhui asked.

Huo Qing knew that these two were quite curious about technology in the safe zone, a trait typical of most badlanders, so he already had an explanation ready. ”These are earth-wood automata, one of the best-selling products of the Shouyang Group’s Sky Workshop.”

Puppets were typically metal constructs that needed manual human operators to be able to move. Automata, on the other hand, could move autonomously and had some semblance of intelligence. In essence, puppets that could move on their own from ensoulment techniques or those with an intelligence core of some sort were considered automata.

”Are you interested in these things?” Huo Qing was more than familiar with technology like this, being a local. An Jing had him to thank for his clear explanation.

While Sky Workshop manufactured these in the modern day, earth-wood automata had been around since the time of the Dao Sect. It was what they used to build countless powerful cities from the ground up.

An Jing noticed that the cores of the earth-wood automata were made from evergreen wood, one of the most common spirit items he came across in Skysource. It wasn’t just used as a base material for talismans either. Nian Qin’s skeleton was modified with evergreen wood.

This multi-purpose ingredient wasn’t used here for pills or concoctions nor was it used as a base material for puppets. Instead, it was used to program some kind of intelligence to move the automata for an extended period of time.

”To think that evergreen wood can be used for so many things...” An Jing found it to be rather wondrous.

Huo Qing didn’t seem to think much of it. ”Some say that evergreen wood is something that the ancient Dao Sect left behind for us. According to legend, it’s sourced from the Skyrise Timber!”