Destiny in Cinders

An Jing decided to put three thousand out of his 4700 merits of profit in his personal cultivation fund. He would use the rest to buy some more goods to sell in Void Embrace as well as tools they needed for their warehouse.

First, he contributed three hundred merits to buy a used armored truck with Huo Qing, which they would use to travel to and from Hilltwixt. That way, they would no longer need to rely on Metalhand's old car. Next, he bought fifty black-iron blades, which cost 750 merits. He spent another four hundred on twenty-five sets of focus talismans and five merits on a hundred finely crafted jade-base mirrors.

There was a reason he bought what he did. First, he needed to maintain his image as a member of a badlands cult, so he picked the things that wouldn't seem out of place for him to buy.

Black-iron blades were common and popular weapons in the badlands, often paired with the antiexplosion alloy shield that An Jing also liked. Hunters in the badlands used them to fight feys and other beasts. In Void Embrace, black-iron blades were considered rather immaculate in construction. While they didn't have special effects, they were tough and durable enough that they could be used without special care. They were popular in both Dustdawn and Grand Chen, making it a sensible item to stock.

Focus talismans, on the other hand, were needed by practically everyone, both in Void Embrace or Skysource. As for the jade-base mirrors, they were there so that An Jing could keep up his cover in Void Embrace as a Dustdawner. They were common-use items that only cost five merits each. An Jing didn't plan to make a profit off them and instead wanted to use them as gifts.

As for the 245 merits left over, he used them to replenish his ammunition for the sword case and rifle as well as his stock of thunder beads. They were no longer that useful compared to before, but they were still enough of a threat against Fortification martialists.

Not to mention, An Jing had a different idea. He wondered if Trueblitz Pentaphase Infusion could be used with bullets as well. If not, could they be used on flying swords fired from sword cases? If those one-use projectiles could be enhanced by Trueblitz Pentaphase Infusion, they would become far more potent than before!

As his business took firm hold in Skysource, An Jing also made sure to pay his fees in Grand Chen. He never gave the officials of the administration a reason to worry about him. While Zheng Mo said that he would spare any convoys that traded in An Jing's name any taxes, they still had to pay the basic entry toll. Even so, An Jing paid the trade taxes all the same. He didn't take advantage of the special treatment that Zheng Mo offered him. This way, he would be able to conduct business as usual whether Zheng Mo was in power or not. It was far more important to get into the habit of paying taxes and learning the specifics than saving that meager amount of money.

Not to mention, the identity of Jing Xuan was that of a Dustdawner who spent money graciously, never haggling unless the price offered was outright ridiculous. To maintain consistency, An Jing made sure to not take advantage of the trade-tax exemption.

It didn't take long for the black-iron blades to be sold out due to their durability and astounding level of craftsmanship. An Jing made sure to spread the word that he had used blades just like those to behead the fiend followers, giving these so-called Dustdawn-forged weapons an extra air of mystique, causing many martialists from other Dustdawner tribes to scramble to buy some.

How much did I sell them for? Haha! I didn't sell them for silver, that's for sure! I sold the blades for their weight in frostjade!

Black iron was considered a low-grade spirit item in Void Embrace, being on the same level as frostjade. So, the raw materials themselves didn't fetch such a high price. However, the fabrication technology in Skysource produced industrial-grade black iron, which was far stronger than usual.

An Jing didn't feel bad about how much he sold them for, considering that they were produced at a quality that one would be hard-pressed to find in Void Embrace. Black iron was much denser than frostjade. Each black-iron blade weighed around three jin or thirty liang. That meant that each blade sold for thirty liang of frostjade, a price that the buyers were more than happy to pay. After all, frostjade was commonly produced in the northern frontier. After conversion, each black-iron blade that was capable of cutting through the stiff hides of feys cost a little over a hundred liang of silver.

An Jing was able to sell frostjade for twenty-seven merits per liang, while the black-iron blades only cost fifteen merits each. That meant that each black-iron blade he traded in Void Embrace got him enough frostjade to buy fifty-four more blades in Skysource!

A revenue of fifty-four times the cost would let An Jing amass a wealth of up to forty thousand merits in a flash! But after taking away various platform and advertising fees as well as warehousing costs, that amount would go down to around 32 thousand merits. It would decrease even further if he had to take into account losses during transport and other factors, but even considering all that, he still made a huge profit.

Then again, he couldn't just dump his entire stock of 1500 liang of frostjade in one go and would have to slowly sell them off over the span of six months. Even if Deepnight City's demand for frostjade was hundreds or thousands of times the amount he could provide, there was no way that his fictional badlands cult could produce this amount of frostjade all at once. Doing so would make it appear as if his cult had found a middle-sized frostjade mine, which would draw undue attention. Either way, An Jing knew well that he wouldn't be wanting for money in Skysource in the foreseeable future.

As for the twenty-five sets of focus talismans, An Jing didn't offer them up for sale. Zheng Mo would've bought everything up in a flash had he done so. The demand for focus talismans was growing among the administrations in the region, given the recent chaos in Xishan caused by the True Fiend Cult. While Keensight managed to survive the chaos, Zheng Mo planned to make it a shining beacon for the settlements in the region and offer them support.

After the divine armament's breakthrough and Zheng Mo's brave answering of the call to action, it wouldn't be long before he got promoted. Given those circumstances, the city manager would stop at nothing, even tapping into the city's treasury, to buy out whatever An Jing had for sale.

Speaking of the treasury, the previous guardian adept of Keensight, Shu Zheng, had some loose threads remaining there.

Zheng Mo had told An Jing that "a major smith from the city of Skybless told me that the weapon that the late Guardian Shu Zheng asked him to forge is complete. He's asking me to foot the bill. I looked into it and it appears that he ordered a set of twin maces forged with violetshine gold. They're a little over four chi in length and are enchanted with seals that grant Spirit Might, Celestial Yang, Fortitude and Heavy Metal. Coupled with the grand-yang and white-metal aspects of the material used to forge them, it's an amazing artifact that even mighty adepts would use.

"Guardian Shu had always been proficient with barehanded fighting and using short-range weapons. These maces were something he had commissioned for his own use, yet they will never be able to fulfill that purpose after his passing.

"Young Hero Jing, I noticed earlier that you're still only using normal black-iron blades. Oh, I'm not saying that the blades are of bad quality by any means. They're incredible, but a mighty hero like you deserves something much better. Since Guardian Shu is dead, this artifact weapon that was commissioned using official funds is the property of the administration. I figured that these amazing maces deserve to be wielded by a hero like you, so I plan to give them to you!"

An Jing's eyes narrowed when he heard that. What? Artifact weapons? Even though he did lack good close-range weapons, it felt like too much of a coincidence. He was well aware that he bore a celestial arc, but he knew that it wasn't a magical explanation for every delightful coincidence that came his way.

Clearly, this was part of someone's agenda! As for who was behind this... Aha! Since it has something to do with Shu Zheng, it must be the Heavenly Demon Cult! Then again, does this mean that my cover's blown? Did the demonic cult realize that Jing Xuan and An Jing are one and the same? No, it can't be that simple. It must be something else.

While An Jing couldn't be certain, he believed that his cover hadn't been blown yet. His Jing Xuan identity had already caught the Lord Inspector of the West's notice, after all, so it wouldn't be surprising if anyone else took note of him.

Maybe this is the Lord Inspector of the North. What if the Lord Inspector of the North learned that I was the one who organized Madam Huai's funeral and reached out in this manner? Perhaps this is the karmic relation that's being formed here.