Shattered Lands: Book 8 of Painting the Mists

by Laplante, Patrick

  “Double?” Cha Ming said, aghast. “Why don’t you just rob me?” He’d only ever felt so aggrieved when dealing with the Clear Sky Brush.

  “Robbing is unethical,” the man said, wagging his finger. “We only deal in legitimate business here.”

  “Like information tampering,” Cha Ming said blankly.

  “Like information tampering,” the man said enthusiastically.

  “Since I’m here, I don’t suppose I can order massive quantities of goods while I’m at it?” Cha Ming asked.

  “I, Elder Zhong, would teleport them to you personally,” the old man said. “Any information you require, I would tell you personally.”

  “Then do you know the location of a Gold Essence Marrow or Gold Essence Core on the plane?” Cha Ming asked.

  The man paused for a second, then nodded. “Our preliminary survey of the plane indicated that if it existed here, it would be in the Shattered Lands. I can import some for you, but the cost would likely be too great for you to bear.”

  “Try me,” Cha Ming said.

  “Have you heard of high-grade immortal jades?” Elder Zhong asked.

  Cha Ming shook his head.

  “Then let’s move on to other items.”

  Since I’m here, I might as well stock up, Cha Ming thought. He listed a large number of medicinal herbs, metals, liquified elemental essence, and elemental essence.

  “The total comes to 150,000 high-grade spirit stones,” Elder Zhong said.

  “Including secrecy?” Cha Ming asked.

  “Including secrecy,” Elder Zhong said. Conveniently for the older man, this was the exact worth of the fifteen bottles of peak-grade Grandmist pills he’d placed in front of him. Cha Ming had expected this result, which was why he’d added on as many valuable goods as possible. He nodded, and Elder Zhong swiped the pile of bottles away. “Pleasure doing business with someone who appreciates the value of secrecy.”

  “I don’t suppose Zhou Li is one of those who doesn’t?” Cha Ming asked.

  “Unfortunately for you, he pays a premium for it,” Senior Zhong said. “I personally gouge him. The Spirit Temple, on the other hand… I’d be happy to provide you with details on them. For just ten bottles of peak Grandmist pills, I can give you all the juicy details about their dealings in the Ji Kingdom for the past thousand years.”

  “Not interested,” Cha Ming said.

  “A pity,” Elder Zhong said. “They’ve always been cheapskates. I could give you a discount. Maybe… eight bottles?”

  Seeing that Cha Ming wasn’t interested, he sighed and walked over to the side. The formation he’d come through activated, revealing a small ring containing what he’d asked for. Cha Ming inspected the contents and confirmed they were all there.

  “Are you sure you’re not interested?” Elder Zhong probed. “I’ll tell you what. Five pills.”

  Cha Ming ignored him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the information; he simply couldn’t afford it anymore. He only had two Grandmist pills left. Fortunately, the rest of his plan didn’t involve too much money. Besides, he already had a dossier of information on the Spirit Temple, courtesy of Wang Jun.

  “Maybe next time,” Elder Zhong muttered. “Is that everything?”

  “Yes, that’s everything,” Cha Ming said.

  The man nodded and stepped back into the teleportation formation, traveling to heavens knew where. Cha Ming, goods in tow, exited the Greenwind Pavilion. He made his way back to the hotel, where Mo Ling was waiting.

  Chapter 12: Weapon Focus

  Another day, another blade, Cha Ming thought, standing up from his cultivation. His room, though small, was well-furnished. It didn’t contain a bed—cultivators didn’t need beds—but it had a sofa and a tea table, complete with an Angels and Devils board. The area where he’d been sitting was inscribed with an energy-gathering formation, which could be used to convert qi from top-grade spirit stones and reinforce his cultivation. It was naturally a cover—the real location where he cultivated was the Clear Sky World, where he could accelerate time by up to five times.

  Cha Ming stretched before walking out the door and heading downstairs. He was greeted by a cheerful Mo Ling. At her insistence, she’d become the attendant and bookkeeper in his workshop. Her work, though slow, was impeccable, freeing up much of his time for cultivation and smithing.

  “How have the latest negotiations with our material suppliers gone?” Cha Ming asked, stopping in front of the large wooden desk at the entrance. On top of her administrative duties, she also served as a gatekeeper for the workshop, keeping potential customers away as the blacksmiths worked between appointments. Workshops were dangerous places, and it wasn’t prudent to let outsiders wander inside.

  “They’re tough,” Mo Ling said, retrieving a pile of papers two stacks over from the one she’d been working on. “I’ve managed to secure a fifteen-percent discount by playing three of them off each other. I think it might be possible to negotiate a five-percent discount if we guarantee minimum volumes.”

  Cha Ming thought for moment, then shook his head. “I’d prefer not to lock us in. An open contract is fine with a fifteen-percent discount.”

  Mo Ling nodded. She’d grown used to his reluctance to commit to anything long term. “I’ll shoot for eighteen percent and see what that gets us.”

  Satisfied with her work, Cha Ming entered the workshop. “Grandmaster,” one of the apprentices greeted as he entered.

  “At ease,” Cha Ming said to the man, who was busy refining lakebed iron. The strong man pounded away at the material, working a fine dusting of amorphous demon shale into it. Lakebed iron didn’t need much refining, as much of the sediment had been washed away in underwater currents where it accumulated. The demon shale—at least the amorphous variety—would help mitigate the only downside of the ore: the excess water qi it naturally contained.

  Today, Cha Ming was going to make a work of art. It was an important weapon, the first of three that he’d need to create. He walked over to an area at the back, where many important metals were stored. There, he arrived at a heavy black chest that had been delivered yesterday morning. Rather than try to lift the heavy box, Cha Ming opened it using a special key he’d been given; the chest popped open, revealing a dark-red orb.

  A bloody aura instantly filled the room. As it did, the apprentice who’d been merrily hammering away at the lakebed iron suddenly yelled in anger and threw the ingot across the room. Cha Ming quickly closed the chest and faced the apprentice, who looked down apologetically.

  “I’m sorry, Grandmaster,” he said.

  “It’s my fault,” Cha Ming replied. “I’ve never worked with demon blood steel before. I didn’t know its rage-inducing effects would be so potent.”

  Now, how to mitigate this, he thought. His first instinct was to set up a formation, but Pai Xiao was no formation artist. So he walked to the front, where Mo Ling sat shaking from head to toe. It seemed she, too, had been affected by the malevolent aura.

  Cha Ming walked out of the workshop and returned one hour later with an arrogant-looking man. Upon arriving, he looked around the shop and placed many formation discs on the floor. Then, after painting between them with a large brush, he coughed lightly. Cha Ming sighed and placed a pile of high-grade spirit stones on the floor, which were instantly absorbed by the formation that hummed to life. “I’ll return once the rental period is over to retrieve the discs,” the man said, then left the room.

  Once again, Cha Ming opened the small black chest. The bloody aura, though just as potent as before, didn’t leak out from the containment. It pooled around Cha Ming, attacking his body with little success. Demon blood steel was an odd metal formed when a dead demon’s blood pooled in an area rich with a mutable ore. It took thousands of years to form, and as a result, it was in short supply.

  Cha Ming lifted out the orb, which was barely bigger than a fist, straining as he did so with his suppressed body cultivation, and placed it onto his soul-alloy w
orkbench. “Seems about the right weight,” he muttered to himself. He flicked his fingers, and an orange-gold flame roared to life in the furnace. Using his qi as fuel, he increased the temperature until it became too difficult to bear. He placed the metal brick on soul-alloy supports and continued heating it for three hours. Not only was the metal heavy, but it also had a very high heat capacity. He continued heating it until it glowed pink, after which he pulled the brick out using soul-alloy tongs and placed it on an anvil just in front of the furnace.

  Cha Ming struck while the metal was hot. He summoned his middle-core-grade hammer—he’d replaced his old one long ago—and began pounding away at the metal. As he did, he used his orange-gold flame to make up the heat the metal lost to the open air while using its metal-manipulation properties to aid him as he pounded. Under his direction, the brick became longer and thinner. He continued until it reached two feet in length, after which he flattened the top and shaped it into a sharp point. It now resembled a very short sword.

  Demon blood steel was difficult to work with. Not only was its melting point very high but melting it would destroy the demon blood inside it. So he pounded away at the metal, shaping it slowly but surely. Hours passed as the weapon became not a short sword, but the blade of a long spear. It had two serrated edges and a sharp point. Though such a feature might seem impractical to a normal cultivator, it was actually very useful for its intended recipient: a powerful blood master. Serrated edges drew more blood than their sharper counterparts.

  Cha Ming nodded in appreciation as he transformed his spiritual hammer into its chisel hammer form. For most metals, he’d use a carving blade, but demon blood steel was both hard and tough. His heavy strikes barely left a mark in the heated metal. He had to repeat each strike with surgical precision, never straying too far lest his runic marks be ruined. He continued this way for several hours, until finally, the blade’s runework was completed.

  It was dark outside by the time he finished. The same apprentice from before was done with his work but had remained behind to spectate. Though the pay was terrible for one of his position, the main benefit Cha Ming offered was allowing people to watch him work. The others in his shop either didn’t care to see or were off enjoying the few days off Cha Ming had given them. In Cha Ming’s opinion, it was their loss.

  Instead of directly quenching the blade, Cha Ming placed it back on the anvil and walked over to a rack in the back. There, many long metal rods awaited their companion blades. Cha Ming reached down to the lowest rack and found what he was looking for: a shaft made of nightmare elm wood. The wood was heavy, and Cha Ming’s muscles bulged as he lifted it.

  “Only a heavy, inflexible wood is suited to such a heavy spear blade,” he explained to the apprentice as he hauled it over to the bench. “Any less rigid and the shaft will bend uncontrollably during battle. Any less heavy and the weapon won’t be balanced.”

  The fact that he could barely lift it didn’t matter. The weapon wasn’t for him, but for a peak-marrow-refining cultivator.

  With the runework on the blade completed, Cha Ming moved on to the shaft. Instead of the chisel hammer, he turned his core-grade hammer focus into a carving knife. A core-grade hammer focus could easily accommodate three forms. He carved deft strokes into the wood, demonstrating them one at a time for the young but honest man. The runes were beyond him, but the charm Cha Ming demonstrated as he carved was not. If he could imitate Cha Ming, the boy would make great strides in his profession.

  Carving the weapon’s shaft took much less time than inscribing the spear blade. Once finished, Cha Ming brought the spear blade back into the orange-gold flame and waited for it to glow pink again. “Spear weapons are often crafted as two parts: the shaft and the spearhead. This is similar to the philosophy behind crafting a sword in two parts, the hilt and the blade.”

  The apprentice nodded. “The hilt can easily be replaced. The same applies to a spear shaft.”

  “Yes,” Cha Ming said. “And that works great for inferior weapons. I’ve found that the best spears are crafted as a single piece, however. Strictly speaking, it can’t all be done in one piece, as the material requirements are vastly different. But the runic array can be activated as a single entity.”

  Using tongs, Cha Ming connected the spear haft to the spear blade and twisted. The two parts let out a soft click as runic lines connected. Then, Cha Ming motioned to a shelf at the back. A rainbow of powder poured into the weapon as it absorbed the crystalized elemental essence powder. The apprentice widened his eyes in amazement as the spear grew brighter.

  Cha Ming grasped the softly glowing spear when it finished absorbing the powder. He walked further back into the room, where a barrel of liquified elemental essence lay. He poured five vials into it, one for each elemental evanescence. There was more water evanescence compared to the other types. This was to better reflect the properties of the demon blood in the spear. Then he plunged the spear headfirst into the barrel. As the metal quenched, the liquified elemental essence hissed. The runic patterns on the spear lit up with a bloody, malevolent light. This continued for some time before the glow faded, leaving a red spear in Cha Ming’s hands.

  “Run along now,” Cha Ming said to the apprentice. “I’m done smithing for the day.”

  The man nodded and moved to leave but hesitated on his way out.

  “What grade is it?” the man asked. Though Cha Ming thought of him as an apprentice, he was a master smith in his own right.

  “Late core grade,” Cha Ming grunted. “I lucked out.”

  The man nodded and left. Only Cha Ming knew how long he’d spent in the Clear Sky World, training his smithing skills to achieve this result. His smithing skills were subpar for his professed middle grandmaster certification, but he more than made up for it with clever runework.

  Now to sell it to a man who doesn’t deserve it, Cha Ming thought. The weapon, one of the three main focuses required for Sun Wukong’s deception array, was to be gifted to the abbot of the Blood Master Monastery in Ashes. The next two weapons would go to the head of the Spirit Temple, and to this city’s duke. Each of them was a despicable individual with a terrible history. Unfortunately, he had little choice in the matter if he was going to create an artificial reputation for himself.

  “Why are you so grumpy about it?” Sun Wukong asked. “You and I both know what sort of trap you left inside the weapon’s runic array.”

  Cha Ming grinned. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe I’m just worried about short-term damage.”

  “You won’t feel bad and chicken out, will you?” Sun Wukong asked mockingly.

  Cha Ming shook his head. “Not in the slightest. These men are far from innocent. My debt isn’t to them but to the good people in this city.”

  “And how will you make it up to them?” Sun Wukong asked.

  “I don’t know how much good it’ll do,” Cha Ming said, “but once my work in Bastion is done, I won’t need them to believe my ruse. What’s the point in laying a trap if you don’t intend to set it off?”

  “See? I knew you’d come around,” Sun Wukong said.

  “Come around?” Cha Ming asked. “You’ve seen the Blood Master Monastery. You’ve seen the city lord’s information.” He shook his head. “I’ve never needed an excuse to kill evil men. The method doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re no fun at all,” Sun Wukong said. “Why don’t you at least pretend to succumb to corruption? Just this once.”

  “Why pretend?” Cha Ming asked. “Letting you try again and again without making any headway is satisfying in its own right.” He walked out of the workshop and into the reception area where Mo Ling worked. It was past closing time, but the poor girl was at her desk, apparently taking a nap. As quietly as he could, he tiptoed out of the building. He suppressed the sadness in his heart as he heard her mumble the names of the family she’d abandoned and the friends she’d left behind.

  As he walked down the crowded streets toward the Blood Master Monaste
ry, he ignored the gawking guardsmen and shivering people that made way for him. Instead, he focused on a very real but pressing problem: Mo Ling had come with him to Ashes, but she could hardly keep following him. He might be able to shield her from the inevitable backlash that ensued when the three most important people in the city died cruel, tragic deaths, but bringing her to Bastion was just asking for trouble. It was only a matter of time before he had to leave her behind.

  Chapter 13: Offer

  It was a busy day in Pai Xiao’s forge. All of Cha Ming’s smiths, whether young or old, were busy toiling away to fill the day’s orders. The sheer number of weapons and armor requested had increased significantly over the past few days, so no one dared slack off. Anyone forging too slowly would get brow-beaten by their coworkers until they caught up. Mo Ling also worked double-time, frantically pushing papers, paying invoices, and submitting work orders to supply the busy smiths.

  Unlike Mo Ling and those men in the forge, however, Cha Ming wasn’t particularly busy. He spent most of his free time in the Clear Sky World, perfecting his spiritual blacksmithing as much as he could in as short a time as possible. He didn’t need to be the best—that would undermine everything he was hoping to achieve in this city. But he did need to be a miracle worker, a smith who, against all odds, forged his way through sheer genius.

  The three weapons he’d crafted—a spear for the Blood Master Monastery’s abbot, a crook for the Spirit Temple’s shepherd, and a saber for the duke of Ashes—were flukes. They were completely different than anything else he’d crafted. His other works were simple, imperfect creations, though in each mid-grade treasure he forged, he left an inconsistency that hinted at what it could be with a little more tweaking.

  Since Cha Ming needed to eventually make good on that potential, he studied as much as possible. Pai Xiao was not only a genius smith, but a man of academic talent. He spent most of his time upstairs theorizing, working hard to combine hints of inspiration as the smiths worked the forge’s day-to-day operations. Every once in a while, he had an epiphany. When he did, he went downstairs and forged something. He then provided pointers to everyone present before secluding himself once more.