Uncle Soot leaned forward like a vulture spotting carrion. His bony fingers twitched eagerly as Aaryan placed the Dawnshard on the low table. Beside it, Vedik—who was in his real form—opened his mouth and spat out the ore with a wet plop.

It hit the table and rolled slightly before stopping with a soft metallic hum.

Soot didn't speak. Didn't blink. He just stared at the two items like they were ancient puzzle pieces that had finally landed in the same box.

Aaryan shifted uncomfortably. "…Well?"

Soot ignored him.

He picked the Dawnshard in his hands with exaggerated care, and spun it, squinting at it like it owed him money. "Hoo boy," he muttered, squinting at the cracks that webbed across the blade. "You know, this sword looks familiar. All these breaks, this desperate 'holding together through sheer will' look. Hmm… where have I seen this before?"

He leaned closer, raising a wild eyebrow. "Wait—don't tell me. Was the author watching anime again?"

Aaryan raised an eyebrow. "Anime?"

"Yes. That one. With the broken sword. The protagonist with lost memory. Lots of screaming, questionable pacing."

"…You're not going to say the name?"

"Do you want to get sued?" Uncle Soot deadpanned. "Let's just say this weapon is one protagonist haircut away from a copyright strike."

He gave the blade a light flick with his twisted cane. A soft ping rang out. "Still, not bad. Crack's got character. Probably explodes into fragments and flies back to your hand in slow motion, right? If not now, probably when you're at death's door." He tapped the blade with his cane. "You name it yet? Something dramatic like 'Fangs of Dawn' or 'Void-Biting Cleaver of Lost Heirs'?"

Aaryan's brow twitched. "It's just Dawnshard."

"Oh, restraint. Nice. Refreshing." He held it up to the light—or rather, the candle by the window that barely flickered. "Still. This thing looks like someone took a decent blade and threw it into a 'tragic backstory' arc."

Vedik snorted from the bed, his silver-scaled tail thudding once against the wood in bored disapproval.

Uncle Soot waved him off. "Don't look at me like that, feather-lizard. I've seen better weapons in filler episodes."

Then his gaze shifted. The orb was next—round and ordinary. Without the starlight, it looked no different from the metals Aaryan had bought for practice.

Soot poked the ore first. Then sniffed it.

Then—unapologetically—licked it.

Vedik recoiled, eyes wide and wings flaring in horror. He pointed a claw at Uncle Soot, then slowly circled it around his own head in the universal gesture for 'this one's completely insane.'

Aaryan's jaw tightened. "Is that really necessary?"

Soot coughed once. "Hm. Maybe. Maybe not. But you don't ask a painter why he stabs the canvas."

"I think that's vandalism, not painting."

The old man grinned. "Ah, sarcasm and context. You really might survive this arc."

Then he pulled back and whistled. "Star-Devouring Ore. Well now. Look at you, collecting rare cosmic materials like it's a gacha game."

Aaryan blinked. "You know it?"

"Know it? I've watched six cultivators lose their minds trying to use this stuff before their third arc break. One of them even tried to eat it. Spoiler: didn't end well."

"So… can you fuse it to my blade?"

Soot looked at him like he'd just asked if a toddler could tame a dragon. "Fuse it? You want to shove a star into a cracked teacup. You want me to help you break that sword in the most cinematic way possible?"

He leaned forward, cane tapping the ground. "No."

Aaryan frowned. "No?"

He waved his cane. "No. Absolutely not. You fuse this thing now, your sword will shatter, your soul will blister, and we'll have to retcon the entire arc just to explain how you're still alive. The author can't afford that many rewrites."

Aaryan gave him a flat look. "So then?"

"So then," Soot said, snatching the Dawnshard back and spinning it in his gnarled fingers, "we do the boring part. The part with grit. With low-grade ore, fumes, heat, soul blisters. You'll hate it. Readers might be bored. But that's training arcs for you."

He jabbed the blade toward Aaryan's chest. "This sword has potential. Dumb potential. Loud, explosive, and anime-protagonist kind of potential. But it needs to be reforged. Just like you."

He turned to the ceiling again, grumbling under his breath. "Of course, that's assuming the author lets me do my job and stops shoehorning in secret clans and love interests every three chapters."

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Aaryan stared. "You are insane."

"Wrong. I'm aware." Soot gave him a wink. "Now quit gawking and prepare. Tomorrow, we begin with ore that doesn't try to eat you."

He paused, then added with a grin: "Unless you'd like to start with comedy death. Always great for engagement."

And with that he started to limp toward his room.

Just before shutting the door behind him, he leaned back into view.

"Oh, and Aaryan?"

"…Yes?"

"You did well today. Probably ruined a few pacing charts, but well enough."

Click. The door closed.

He rolled his shoulders.

He looked at the Dawnshard. Then at the ore. Both sat there like questions he hadn't learned how to ask yet.

Training arc, huh?

He sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of his room, the hum of wind outside gently rustling the shutters. Vedik, curled at the foot of the bed, let out a contented snore, small puffs of silvery mist escaping his nostrils.

He steadied his breath, spine straightening as silence took over.

But just as he closed his eyes, something tugged at his memory.

His fingers twitched.

With a thought, a ring shimmered into view on his left hand—a sleek black band etched with fine golden lines. It wasn't his. It was the one Viyom had thrown at him, back in the arena. The one he'd won in a duel that hadn't fully started before it ended.

He stared at it for a beat before narrowing his eyes and pushing his soul sense into the ring.

Immediately, he felt resistance. A sharp flick of rejection, like a wall of heat pressed against his will. Viyom's soul imprint. Of course.

A smirk tugged at Aaryan's lips. "Let's see how long you last."

He pushed again, steady and focused.

The resistance flared—desperate, rigid—but Aaryan's will was unrelenting. His soul power surged like a tide, crashing against the embedded mark over and over. Minute by minute, it weakened, eroding under his persistent effort.

Until—crack.

A final shiver ran through the ring, and the resistance vanished. The soul imprint was gone. With a swift flourish, Aaryan embedded his own mark.

Across the city, in a luxurious manor carved from stone and moonlit ironwood, Viyom shot upright in his bed, gasping.

Naked bodies flinched and scattered as he roared, eyes bloodshot. "He broke my imprint?! That damn peasant—!" He staggered to his feet, staggering past spilled wine and startled women. "I'll tear him into a thousand pieces! You hear me?!"

Back in the quiet room, Aaryan had already begun checking the contents of the ring, unaware of the rage storm brewing across Steel City.

His eyes widened.

Spirit stones—so many he had to pause and count. Over five thousand. Enough to live comfortably for years. Or to build something powerful.

He continued.

Herbs, some rare enough that their scent lingered even sealed within jade boxes. Pills of varying grades—vitality restoratives, qi amplifiers, and at least two he couldn't immediately identify. Chunks of refined metal shimmered within the space, some etched with mysterious runes. Expensive, clearly.

A rack of weapons caught his attention next. Blades, spears, sabres—refined Spirit Weapons, all likely second grade. One of them, a sabre almost identical to Lao's, pulsed with familiar qi.

Instead, he shifted his attention to something else—something he currently lacked far more than weapons: Qi techniques.

There were five or six jade slips nestled neatly near the bottom of Viyom's ring. Given Viyom's background, these techniques had likely come from proper clan vaults—real resources, not the ragged scraps of manuals he'd scavenged off corpses and bandits.

Aaryan had picked up a few techniques from the rings of Karek and the other thugs he'd fought before, but they were crude. Most were meant for brutes, simple to the point of being laughable. Worse, they didn't suit his way of fighting at all—too linear, too rigid, lacking the kind of flexibility and precision he preferred.

Even if these new techniques didn't match him perfectly, they were still valuable. He could study them, adapt them—or, if nothing else, use them as trade goods to barter for something more fitting later.

He simply stared at them for a while, mind buzzing, before letting out a long breath and sealing the ring again.

"What a windfall," he whispered, smiling.

Even Vedik stirred from his sleep and snorted approvingly.

🔱 — ✵ — 🔱

Morning light streamed through the wooden shutters, painting golden slats across the floor of Aaryan's room. He stirred from his meditation, eyes opening with a slow, practiced calm. Beside him, Vedik—now in his illusory form of a small silver bird—was curled into a fluff of feathers, snoring lightly.

Aaryan stood, stretched, and washed up before donning a fresh robe. As he opened the door to step out, something fluttered against his foot.

A rag?

He glanced down. A filthy scrap of cloth, stained with who-knew-what, was pinned to his doorframe with a splinter of bamboo. Soot's handwriting—if it could be called that—was scrawled across it in jagged, ink-blotted letters.

"Buy one Soulfire Crucible and one Essence Bed. Cheap but not too cheap. Also: Coldiron shard x300, Molten Sand block x100, Refined Cloud Tin x150, and Black Ash Bark x200. Back by night. Also you owe for breakfast. Pay up."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Two hundred Black Ash Bark…? Is he teaching me about forging a Spirit Weapon or building a funeral pyre?"

Vedik chirped and peeked at the note, then gave a disapproving flick of his tail and hopped onto Aaryan's shoulder.

Pocketing the dirty cloth with a sigh, Aaryan made his way downstairs to settle the mysterious bill.

The inn's front hall was mostly empty. A few early risers sat slurping soup in silence. The innkeeper stood behind the counter, sorting through payment slips with his usual half-lidded expression.

"I'm here to settle the old man's breakfast tab," Aaryan said, dropping the filthy note on the counter.

The innkeeper's sleepy expression sharpened immediately. "Ah. Yes. Of course."

He reached under the counter and, with all the gravitas of a judge handing down a life sentence, placed a bamboo slip on the table.

Aaryan glanced at it.

Then squinted.

Then double-checked.

Two hundred spirit stones.

"...For breakfast?" he asked flatly.

The innkeeper nodded solemnly. "Well, technically... it was breakfast, lunch, and the destruction of the wine shelf. The old man insisted the vintage was too young and needed to be 'liberated from its bottle.'

Vedik made a pitying chirp.

He exhaled through his nose, resigned.

A long pause.

"…Fine."

He placed two pouches on the table and walked out without waiting for a thank-you.

The market streets of the Outer Commons were waking up, but the stores Aaryan visited were quickly proving useless. At the third shop, he finally asked for everything at once, lifting the ragged note with a resigned look.

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. "You're trying to get how much?"

"Exactly that much," Aaryan said.

The man leaned over the counter, lowering his voice. "Kid, I don't even have that much in stock. No one out here does. Maybe if you were buying ten or twenty of each. But hundreds?"

Aaryan sighed. "I suppose I'll have to go to the shops near the Ember Spire."

The shopkeeper nodded. "That's where the real materials are. But it'll cost you."

Aaryan muttered, "It always does."

He tucked the ragged list into his sleeve and stepped back onto the street, adjusting his coat against the wind. Vedik fluttered to his shoulder and let out a soft chirp.

"Come on," Aaryan said. "Let's go see if we find what we need."

And with that, he turned toward the heart of Steel City.

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