“Yes,” Shao Qiang said. He stepped forward and waved, bringing up a three-dimensional model of a thin, sleek instrument. Judging by its runic pattern, it was at least a late-grade-core treasure, a full step above Pai Xiao’s level. “I’m thinking of the shaft near the destructive tip more than anything else. The power conveyance.” He swiped again, and the three-dimensional projection unfolded, showing the full surface of the object.”
“Well?” Tian Zhi said, looking at Cha Ming.
“Forgive me, but this is beyond me,” Cha Ming said. “I can work with the runic diagram, but I’m not sure about how it will interact with the materials. I don’t think I could craft this.”
Tian Zhi chuckled. “You don’t need to craft it,” he said. “You’re part of a team now. What you need to do is narrow down potential options and create prototypes. If you need someone to actually work the metal, I can help with that until you get stronger.”
“I suppose I could create less-powerful versions to test the feasibility,” Cha Ming said. “Middle core grade, with a similar alloy, hoping it could be scaled up. I’d need to try several iterations to be sure.” He pointed to the base of each spike, where several runic lines spread out from the main device. “Judging by the shape of the device, it will be taking power from the bottom-most two thirds of the ‘thorn tip’ as you called it, am I right? And the power should be delivered swiftly and efficiently to the last third?”
“That’s right,” Tian Zhi said.
“I think I can work with that,” Cha Ming said. “Give me three days, and I’ll have a few mid-grade prototypes we can test. Is that acceptable?”
“It is,” Tian Zhi said. “If you need anything, go to the third floor, fourth workshop, and talk to Lu Yong. He will get you anything you need.”
“I won’t disappoint you,” Cha Ming said, clasping his hands and bowing.
Tian Zhi chuckled. “Look at him. He’s so proper and respectful. Like a child just out of primary school.”
“We’ll beat it out of him, sir,” Pan Su replied. “We’ll start by dropping the honorifics. Well?” She glared at Cha Ming, who coughed lightly.
“Pan Su, Shao Qiang, He Yin,” he said, nodding to each one. Then he looked hesitantly at Tian Zhi.
“You may still call me Boss Tian,” the man grunted. “Now off with you. You have work to do.”
“Yes, Boss Tian,” Cha Ming said. He nodded and exited the workshop, leaving the other four to their own devices. They likely didn’t fully trust his capabilities at this point, and he’d need to make something to earn it.
Now where did he say Lu Yong was again? he thought, pressing the lift’s rune to proceed to the third floor.
Two weeks later, Cha Ming sat at a small restaurant in a tiny rundown neighborhood in Bastion. He’d taken the afternoon off after three successful innovations on the project and substantial headway in his smithing abilities. His progress was astounding, if judged by a normal craftsman’s standards.
Little did they know that he’d actually spent much more time secluded in his Clear Sky World, frantically working to improve his smithing skills. Fortunately, he was strong with metal despite his weakness with fire, and runes were second nature to him. He was busy, but he still had time to cultivate.
He also found time to watch a young woman who’d just opened a shop across from the restaurant. Mo Ling, an industrious salesperson, had somehow scraped up enough spirit stones and found someone to lend her money. Using these funds, she’d opened up a small weapon shop, similar to what she’d managed for Pai Xiao but of a much lower grade. She’d also convinced two weaker smiths to work for her, despite not knowing anything about smithing.
Maybe I don’t need to check up on her so often, Cha Ming thought, thinking about his next steps in the Blackthorn Conglomerate. Although he wanted to foil Zhou Li’s pet project, he owed it to Wang Jun to have the Wang family fall out with the Spirit Temple. If possible, he wanted to drag Bastion’s Blood Master Monastery and the Ji Kingdom’s royal family into it as well.
But how to do it? Cha Ming thought. He couldn’t just show up and break things in those places. Not only would that give him away, his chances of success would probably be minimal as well. Any incriminating interactions he had with them would have to be using his identity as Pai Xiao and the services he provided for the Wang family. He’d need to build something for these groups, and what he built had to have consequences so serious these organizations would turn on the entire Wang family.
The Ji royal family is easy, Cha Ming thought. The Breaker was a project commissioned by them and not directly through Zhou Li as he’d initially suspected. A major failure with the weapon would draw the ire of the Ji Kingdom. The difficult ones to act on would be the Blood Master Monastery and the Spirit Temple.
The Blood Master Monastery regularly deals with the Blackthorn Conglomerate, so there’s an opening, Cha Ming thought. As for the Spirit Temple, it seems they only provide contractual assistance to the Blackthorn Conglomerate in the South. Their soul trade is overt and much less lucrative than in the North. It was also much less efficient. In the South, countless more deaths were required to produce the same amount of high-quality souls.
Cha Ming sighed. He had much to do and little idea of where to start. He wished he had clearer and more definite goals like Mo Ling did. The young woman, despite being young and pregnant, seemed to know exactly what to do. Two weeks after selling spirit weapons from a blanket, she was already the owner of a store and an employer of two. Her needs drove her to accomplish what most men would think was a foolish fantasy as they toiled away for lords who didn’t care for their hopes and dreams.
On his end, Cha Ming had two enmities to instigate, a trap to plan, and a whole lot of guilt to resolve. He wanted to incriminate the Wang family and the Blackthorn Conglomerate, but what of its members? Wouldn’t they be implicated in the fallout? And what of his newfound research companions He Yin, Shao Qiang, and Pan Su? What about Boss Tian?
He had many decisions to make, and none of them were easy.
Chapter 18: Opportunity
“Good morning, Grandmaster Pai Xiao,” an attendant said with a bow as he entered the Blackthorn Conglomerate’s administration office. “How can I help you today?”
It was a fine morning, and the building’s peculiar construction allowed light to trickle through the lobby’s ceiling windows. The lady at the desk, a wide-eyed foundation-establishment cultivator, practically trembled in excitement as she spoke.
“I’m just here to collect my wages,” Cha Ming said, ignoring her fidgety expression. It was common for cultivators, be they male or female, to revere more powerful ones. Some people just weren’t very good at hiding it.
The young woman scrambled to a back room and returned with a storage disk. Cha Ming looked inside, confirmed the number of spirit stones was accurate, then transferred all of them to his storage ring in one smooth motion.
“Thank you,” Cha Ming said.
“Don’t mention it,” the attendant said. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“Yes, I was wondering if Boss Tian was in today,” Cha Ming answered. As the head of the research and development group, Grandmaster Tian Zhi wasn’t always in the workshops. He often had to take care of administrative tasks and meetings. If possible, he liked to lump them all in the span of a few days.
“Yes, he’s in today,” the attendant said. “He has a fifteen-minute opening in five minutes. Would you like me to book it?”
“Sure,” Cha Ming said. “Seventh floor, right?”
“Seventh floor,” the woman confirmed.
Cha Ming proceeded up the stairs. The administration building didn’t have a lift like the research and development building did. Not only was such a contraption extremely costly, but there simply wasn’t a need to shuttle large quantities of heavy materials in a simple office. Here, people only did paperwork and had meetings. Or, heaven forbid, interviews. He shuddered at the thought of Southern interv
iews. The process was likely thorough and rigid beyond belief.
Though the building didn’t house many expensive materials, it did house many important people. As such, it was the tallest building in the complex. Cha Ming took in Bastion’s city layout as he climbed the steps. Each building sat neatly in its precisely measured position. Citizens lined up for whatever services they required, with higher-ranking members cutting to shorter lines if allowed by the rules of the establishment in question. It all operated like a well-oiled machine.
The Spirit Temple was no exception. In fact, it seemed rules were more strictly followed there than anywhere else. People kept their distance from one another as they waited for a number in the large square before the temple. Inferiors bowed and scraped when required, and everyone there acted extremely politely, especially in the presence of priests; offending the wrong person at the temple could cost you your life, or worse yet, your soul. Despite the risks, however, tens of thousands frequented the temple grounds every day. They had little choice, as the Spirit Temple was the biggest issuer and guarantor of contracts.
Unlike the Spirit Temple, the Blood Master Monastery was chaotic and unruly. No outsiders loafed within its spartan grounds, where its members brutally trained with their lives on the line. Its buildings also let off a hostile aura. Despite the chaos, no beggars could be seen anywhere near the complex. It was said that the monastery occasionally purged the city’s undesirables. As a result, most of them left the city voluntarily, even selling themselves into serfdom for fear of getting caught up in a potential sweep.
After much walking, Cha Ming finally arrived on the seventh floor. He passed several wooden doors before arriving at a small waiting area near Tian Zhi’s office, where he sat and waited. Five minutes passed, then another five. Whoever Tian Zhi was meeting with, they were running late, an unusual occurrence in Bastion. The door opened after two minutes.
“I’ll be sure to get someone working on it,” Tian Zhi assured two men, leading them toward the stairwell and passing Cha Ming. The men wore bloodred combat robes, and each one wore a weapon out in the open. There was no need to wonder about their identity; their bald heads, aggressive stares, and bloodred tattoos that crept up from beneath their robes marked them as blood masters.
“Be sure you do,” one of the men said before proceeding down the stairs.
“Come,” Tian Zhi said, waving Cha Ming inside. “I don’t have much time anymore. For all their talk of being disciplined monks, they have no concept of timeliness.”
“I think they focus their attention on violence and training,” Cha Ming said. “Everything and everyone around them are there to support them and their desires.” He took a seat in Tian Zhi’s well-furnished office as the man poured them both a quick cup of tea.
“What can I help you with today?” Tian Zhi said. It had been two months since Cha Ming had started working on the Breaker, and he’d made many significant improvements to his design. Slowly but surely, the artifact was pushing itself past the boundaries of a late-grade weapon of structural destruction.
“I’m at a bottleneck in my studies,” Cha Ming said, taking a sip of tea. “Unfortunately, focusing on the project doesn’t seem to be sufficient. I need to work on something else. Something to take my mind off of things.”
“Hmm,” Tian Zhi said. He tapped his fingers on his desk, thinking. “I have a few projects you could work on. The first one is a request from a coastal kingdom. Something about redesigning certain ship components since a good portion of their naval fleet was wiped out in a storm.”
“A storm?” Cha Ming asked, raising an eyebrow. “A single storm wiped out a naval fleet?”
“I didn’t say I believed them,” Tian Zhi said. “They’ll only share what happened if we take on the job. Are you interested?”
“That seems outside my field of expertise,” Cha Ming said. “I’m not very good with water-aligned construction methods.”
“Fair enough,” Tian Zhi said. “The second one is a request to develop larger flight treasures for more efficient transportation. With the war preparations going on across the South, they’ve finally realized the logistics of the battle are going to be a deciding factor. They need us to think up something—anything—to make transportation cheaper.”
“All right,” Cha Ming said. It wasn’t a bad project for Pai Xiao. Incorporating key weaknesses in the design would be easy, and that could provide the North with significant advantages. “I’ll think about it. Anything else?”
Tian Zhi tapped his chin and looked at Cha Ming. “You made a spear for the blood master abbot in Ashes, am I right?”
“Does the abbot here need a weapon as well?” Cha Ming asked.
“Nothing like that,” Tian Zhi said. “But we need someone with experience crafting compatible weapons. You know how they are—they focus on offense, offense, offense at all costs. They want a new line of stronger weapons. Their standard-issue weapons—the ones they had designed thirty years ago—are archaic. They want to completely replace the entire lot.
“I’d normally be very agreeable to all this, and so would Director Yong, but our research and development group is already flooded with work. Blood masters are very picky, you see, so we can’t just put anyone on the project. It would need to be a core member. But I can’t afford to dedicate too much of our time on it. We have a deadline looming for the project. If we don’t meet it, the most powerful man in the South will have our hides.”
“I’m no expert on blood-master weapons, but I’d be willing to give it a try,” Cha Ming said. “Do you have designs for the weapons they currently use?”
“I do,” Tian Zhi said, taking a bloodred jade from his desk and handing it to him. “Though I don’t want you spending too much time on this. A week at most. If you don’t have any ideas, we’re going to pretend you didn’t look at it. Though I don’t want to upset the blood masters, I’d rather upset a hundred abbots than a grand vizier of the Southern Alliance.”
“All right,” Cha Ming said. “I’ll see what I can do.” He pocketed the red jade and stood up. “I won’t stay for another cup. It’s time for your next appointment.” The long hand on the man’s clock had almost reached a quarter after.
“The spirits remember men who respect others’ schedules,” Tian Zhi said.
“The spirits remember,” Cha Ming replied, passing a pair of sinister-looking men on his way to the stairwell.
Who would have thought I’d end up working at an evil research and development company? Cha Ming thought, shaking his head. Next thing you know, I’ll be making extra-scratchy chairs that keep employees uncomfortable as they work to increase their productivity.
Cha Ming and Tian Zhi were seated on a thick concrete platform, observing red-robed martial artists sparring in the center of Bastion’s Blood Master Monastery. Though there were fifty men fighting one-on-one duels, there were only two sides to the fight: the ones using older, outdated weapons and those using test weapons. Both weapons were bloodred—a branding requirement from the monastery. To differentiate between sides, those using new weapons wore black armbands. Thus far, neither side had the advantage.
“You said you had a surprise,” the sharp-toothed blood master who had visited the Blackthorn Conglomerate a week earlier said, “but thus far, I’m disappointed.”
Xue Xiao was the second-ranking member here. He was a peak-marrow-refining cultivator, and the brimming vitality he let off told Cha Ming he’d survive a fight if all that remained of him was a drop of blood.
“Patience,” Cha Ming said. “The previous generation of weapons was the most cost-effective way to arm your forces at the time. We didn’t have much to work with given your pricing requirements.”
“So you’re saying what we asked for was impossible,” Xue Xiao said flatly.
“I didn’t say that,” Cha Ming said. “I just had to look at other ways to improve combat effectiveness. Whether it was the power, sharpness, elemental conductivity, or power-transfer pro
perties of the weapons, all of them were very close to optimal. There was one area, however, where I could make some improvements.”
“Please enlighten me,” Xue Xiao said.
“The blood masters themselves,” Cha Ming said solemnly. The battle had started only a half minute ago. At first, it hadn’t been obvious, as the fighters were evenly matched. Their weapons, it seemed, were of the same grade. But now, it was growing increasingly clear that the ones with the new weapons were fighting differently. They were forsaking their traditional training in favor of more aggression. Moreover, their raw physical strength was increasing. They were surpassing their limits.
It started with a nick here and there. A few drops of blood spilled. A full minute later, these drops of blood accumulated, and the blood masters using the new blades were scoring more and more hits. Everyone regenerated, of course—blood masters were nothing if not durable—but it seemed the ones with the older weapons were weakening, and those using new ones were growing stronger.
“Interesting,” Xue Xiao said, taking a goblet of red liquid to his lips and taking a sip. It could have been blood, for all Cha Ming knew, and he tried his best not to probe the goblet. “You’ve put something into the weapon that digs into their physical potential.” He grinned a wolf’s grin.
“For most cultivators, this would be a taboo,” Cha Ming said. “And most people don’t have the know-how to do this. I once had the pleasure of crafting a spear from demon blood steel, however, and happened to discover some runes that aligned with its blood-drinking nature. By combining hypnosis-inducing runes with these blood-drinking properties, the weapon feeds on blood from the blood master—or those he wounds—and intensifies the hypnosis. It removes the body’s limits, which exist to avoid damaging it. But since this damage isn’t a problem for blood masters, they should be able to use the weapons to great effect. It’s only…”
“Only what?” Abbot Xue Xiao asked. “This is a grand idea! Why would we bother with defense when more offense would suffice? Why care about being reckless?”
Shattered Lands: Book 8 of Painting the Mists Page 23
