231 THE MAGNET OF DESTINY

231 The Magnet of Destiny

The clearing was quiet, but not silent. A forge hissed as it cooled another round of searing metal. A dull clanging echoed across the four solid walls of the secluded workshop, each strike firm and deliberate. The Arcane Engineering Pavilion had granted Gu Jie this private facility, far from the ears of onlookers or the questions of the curious. The walls were stone, thick and charmless, yet the ceiling was open to the sky. Dust motes danced in the sun above, catching on the rise of steam and smoke. In the center of it all, laid out like the bones of a beast, was the dismantled form of Megatron, the soaring ship that could transform into a house.

Gu Jie labored without pause. Her chest was tightly wrapped with bandages, shoulders slick with sweat. She had peeled back her favorite black robes down to the waist, revealing a pale torso that bore the signs of sleepless nights and unending work. Her hair, once long and elegant, had been cut short in frustration. Even so, it stuck up at all angles, brittle and wild. She hadn’t bathed in days, hadn’t seen anyone in longer, and survived on nutrition pills she swallowed without chewing. She looked like a wreck. But her hands moved like they were guided by fate itself.

Each strike of her hammer was accompanied by a glint of light from the Heavenly Eye buried within her brow, but ever watching and judging. Misfortune, entropy, weakness... she saw it all before it happened. That was how she could build what others only imagined. That was how she'd surpassed even the Emperor, both in innovation and cultivation.

And yet…

“If it isn’t my sweet daughter,” a voice whispered into her thoughts. “I dig the new look… It suits you…”

She nearly smiled. Her lips twitched upward despite herself, but she forced the expression away, blinking hard to scatter the hallucination… or more accurately, the vision of Da Wei walking that wall and saying the same lines in an alternate future she wasn’t sure was real. Her mind conjured him far too often. It was the curse of foresight and the temptation to gaze into memories, to see not the future, but people you missed. For a cultivator, that temptation was more dangerous than any external threat. Emotions could become demons in the heart.

Gu Jie returned to her work. The slab before her was dull gray, jagged, and half-refined. Her hammer came down again. Sparks leapt. Her arms shook.

Then she felt a flicker of presence. She didn’t turn immediately. Only after the second flicker, when her instincts confirmed what her Eyes did not, did she lift her head.

A man phased through the far wall like a ghost passing into the world of the living. Sikao Biaoji. His robes were pristine, his expression as sour as vinegar left in the sun.

She groaned under her breath and didn’t stop working. “What is it this time?”

“Lady Gu,” Sikao Biaoji said stiffly. “Is it wise to coop yourself up like this?”

Gu Jie didn’t look at him. She rotated the magnet. The hammer struck again. “Where did your insufferable character go? Aren’t you just eager to get rid of me? Don’t be hard on yourself and feel too inferior when you compare yourself to me, okay?”

"Pfft... How dare an inferior-" Sikao Biaoji frowned. “What is that?”

“It’s a magnet.”

He blinked. “So why are you beating it with a hammer?”

“I’m refining it,” she said flatly. “For what I have in mind, I need a magnet that’s strong enough and light enough. Right now, my qi barely affects it. After so much refinement, it’s resisting even spiritual enhancement. I’ll need more spiritual stones. Maybe exotic beast materials with lightning attributes, so I can imbue more lightning essence into it.”

Sikao Biaoji folded his arms. “I don’t understand what the Emperor sees in you to grant you everything you need.”

Gu Jie’s lips curved. Not quite a smirk. Not quite sarcasm. “I think you understand. You just don’t like it.”

Her tone shifted, quieter. “How much do you know about the Heavenly Eye?”

“I know as much as General Zhu Shin does.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. His Majesty appointed you to lead this Pavilion. That’s no small recognition. You don't need to diminish your intellect just because of me.”

Sikao Biaoji sighed. His face softened, just slightly. “I deduced the Eye had something to do with the way the Emperor became... what he is. His character, his distance, his calm. I’d dare say possessing the power to know everything has worn him down. He lost the part that made him human. And I dared imagine that if someone of lesser will inherited that power, they’d go insane.”

Only a handful knew she now bore the Eye. Zhu Shin. Sikao Biaoji. Liang Na. And her family.

Gu Jie hammered again.

“Mistress Aili Si is worried about you,” Sikao Biaoji added.

“It’s Alice,” Gu Jie snapped. “You should be able to pronounce her name just fine, considering your cultivation base and how smart you claim to be.”

Sikao Biaoji chuckled. “Now, you’ve returned to your disparaging remarks. That’s more like it.” He turned, preparing to phase back through the wall. “I only came to tell you… she plans on leaving with the rest of your family. And that you should come.”

And then he vanished.

The forge crackled and hissed, but Gu Jie no longer heard it. Her hammer hovered in the air, frozen mid-strike as a sharp pulse of pain lanced through her skull. She clenched her jaw, eyes narrowing under the weight of the growing pressure behind her brow. With a hissed breath, she dropped the hammer onto the anvil, its clang echoing hollow across the secluded workshop.

She reached up and pressed her fingers between her Eyes.

Ever since the Emperor had plucked out his own and granted them to her, the gift of foresight had stopped being a singular sight and become a dual consciousness… a thing with layers, depth, and shifting facets. It was no longer the Heavenly Eye. It was the Eyes… It was plural, independent, and, at times, impossibly hard to control.

“Agh…” she muttered, massaging her temples. “This is getting more and more frequent…”

She shut her Eyes. Not merely closing her eyelids, but silencing that god-like awareness embedded within her. It needed to rest. Or rather, she needed to rest from it.

Compared to the Emperor's version, her prescience was keener, faster, and capable of generating paths and layers the old Eye never did. And still, she knew she couldn’t compare to Nongmin’s peak. When he wielded the Eye, he was a storm of inevitability that bent the world around him. She had a long way to go. Long years of cultivation, practice, and pain ahead.

But right now, there was one thing on her mind.

She opened her Eyes again, carefully, like lifting the lid of a boiling pot. She reached forward, not physically, but spiritually, and adjusted the direction of her vision. Not toward enemies, not toward breakthroughs, not toward invention or war, but toward Alice. Toward the decision that clawed at her chest with a quiet, aching dread.

She sought a path where she could convince Alice to stay.

But every time she reached for it… It shattered.

Gu Jie had succeeded in convincing her once, twenty years ago. But now, the variables had shifted. Something felt irrevocably different.

She fell into a vision, drawn by the strongest thread of possibility. Her forge and workshop blurred away, replaced by the warmth of an old tea shop nestled within a mountain alcove. The scent of oolong drifted lazily through the air. It was a quiet place.

Alice sat across from her, clad in traveling robes. Her expression was calm, but tension ran through her shoulders.

Alice spoke first. “We have to go.”

Gu Jie gripped her teacup tightly. “Not so soon. It’s only been twenty years. For cultivators, that’s a blink of an eye…”

“You don’t understand,” Alice replied. “This time, it is serious. I’ve received intelligence that there had been a secret meeting between the Seven Imperial Houses. They’ve declared their stance. A betrayal unlike anything we’ve seen is coming.”

“We only need to hold on a bit longer…” Gu Jie said, barely managing to keep the tremor from her voice. “Da Wei is coming back. I swear it. And it’s soon.”

Alice’s voice was firm. “We don’t have the time. We’ll have to reunite with him in another place.”

The teacup cracked in Gu Jie’s grip. Her hand slammed the table. The dishes rattled.

“I can see the future!” she snapped. “I know the answer to our problem. We just need to stay put a bit longer—”

Alice’s gaze softened, but her tone didn’t. “No. You don’t know that. Even with foresight, it’s never enough. That’s just how it works.”

She leaned forward, her eyes locking onto Gu Jie’s with quiet resolve.

“It’s the Empire against the world, Jie. I want you to understand the scale of that. No amount of foresight can save the Empire… not even he could do it, if he were here.”

“But—” Gu Jie began.

“I know,” Alice interrupted gently. “I know! But if we stay now, we might ruin our chance of ever seeing him again. You know this, too, don’t you?”

Gu Jie lowered her head. She did know. Da Wei had somewhere else to go, something that pulled him faster than fate could track. And she’d been working tirelessly to upgrade Megatron to keep pace. That was the real reason.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Alice said finally, her tone quiet and final. “We’re confronting forces that wield the power of gods. I’ve seen it firsthand and how unfair it is. If we don’t leave now, we may not leave at all.”

She reached across the table, not to console, but to anchor her words.

“Think, Jie. Weigh the risks in your heart and ask yourself… would you risk your family’s lives just to hold onto your feelings? Isn’t it enough that we know David is alive?”

The name stung.

“To you, he’s David,” Gu Jie whispered. “But to me… he’s Da Wei. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore…”

Alice stood.

“We’ll leave tomorrow.”

And just like that, the vision shattered.

Gu Jie gasped as her awareness snapped back into her body. The forge’s heat returned. The sound of crackling flame. The scent of metal and ash. Her shoulders slumped, her arms weak. Sweat trickled down her brow, and the lingering ache in her skull pounded like a war drum.

She staggered back and leaned against the anvil, breathing heavily. Her Eyes dimmed, flickering in the edges of her sight like dying embers.

There was no path. Not one she could walk. Not one she could bend.

She wiped her face, smeared sweat and ash into a single tired streak, and looked at the half-forged magnet resting on the table. Her lips moved, barely audible.

“…Then I’ll just have to make one.”

The rhythm of Gu Jie’s hammering was steady, even in its exhaustion. She had long passed the point where most would falter. Sweat clung to her temples, trailing down her jaw and dripping from her chin into the blackened dirt of the forge floor. Every strike sent sparks spinning across the battered metal she had deemed “destiny.” Each strike was one step closer. Not just refining a tool, but toward defying a future that kept slipping through her fingers.

But even in her unrelenting focus, something tugged at her attention. Not a presence. A curiosity. It pulled gently at her consciousness like a thread teasing her from another direction.

She surrendered, just for a moment, and reoriented her Eyes, not outward, but inward.

What if Da Wei arrived here in time? She let that possibility bloom and let it paint itself across her vision like a dream made real.

But the entrance didn’t stir to reveal Da Wei like in her usual stray visions…

Instead, a young man stepped through the smoke. His hair was dark, slightly messy, and around his neck billowed a long, familiar red scarf whipping in the wind despite the still air.

Gu Jie blinked. “Hei Mao?” Except that Hei Mao was a bit older.

The young man grinned, voice light with amusement. “Yeah… I’m so happy you recognized me the first time…”

He looked around, tilting his head and squinting at the surroundings. “Uuuh… So, just asking… we’re in a vision, right?”

“You look taller…” She narrowed her eyes, surprised. “Wait… How do you know that we are in a vision?”

“I’d like to say because I’ve transcended my ghostly mortality, but nah, that’s not it,” Hei Mao said with a shrug. “Honestly? I don’t really understand it myself. Master told me to go inform Emperor Nongmin about something, but the Emperor said he doesn’t have his clairvoyance anymore. So... I came here instead.”

Gu Jie exhaled softly. Of course. Da Wei and Hei Mao were using the 'vision' as a method of communication. Like sending a letter, but across dimensions of thought and perception. If Nongmin couldn’t receive the message Da Wei intended, then naturally, he’d send it to her, the one with the Eyes.

She crossed her arms, soot streaking her forearm. “Where’s Master?”

Hei Mao tilted his head and smirked. “Don’t be shy now… Didn’t Master basically adopt you as his daughter? Call him father…”

Gu Jie blinked and immediately felt her cheeks flush. “T-That’s… that’s irrelevant.”

The truth was, she did see herself as Da Wei’s daughter. It was something she never voiced aloud so boldly, not even to him. Yet it was also… official. Even Da Wei had acknowledged it. Somehow, that only made it more embarrassing.

She quickly forced her expression back into something stern. “It seems you’ve inherited Master’s mischievous streaks. Once I get my hands on you, you’ll regret it.”

Hei Mao laughed, smug and unrepentant. “Nah. I’ll win.”

Gu Jie’s gaze narrowed, but her smirk betrayed her. “So? Where is Master? If he’s going to pass a message through a vision, why use you?”

“Paranoia, probably,” Hei Mao said, the humor fading slightly. “I’ve got stealth arts that let me stay hidden… even in a vision. Who knows? Someone might be peeping.”

That thought sent an immediate chill down Gu Jie’s spine. The Heavenly Eye… or Eyes… were supposed to grant absolute sight. But could someone really hide within her vision? If so… then there were more eyes watching than she realized.

Hei Mao’s tone shifted to something more serious. “Anyway. Here’s the message. Let’s meet back in the Deepmoor Continent. Sacred island of the Shadow Clan. Don’t tell Alice. Or the others.”

Gu Jie frowned. “By ‘others,’ you mean Lu Gao and Ren Jingyi?”

Hei Mao nodded. “Yep.” 

It was probably followed by... “And you.” But considering the circumstances, it was understandable why Hei Mao opted not to point it out.

“But why?” she asked, a twinge of frustration slipping into her voice.

“I don’t know,” Hei Mao said quickly, holding his hands up. “Don’t ask me. But it definitely has something to do with the Heavenly Temple. That’s all I know.”

She stared at him for a long moment, trying to read anything else in his face. But he was already grinning again.

“Well then… buh-bye!” Hei Mao said cheerfully.

And with a puff of smoke, he vanished like a candle blown out in the wind.

Gu Jie stood alone in the forge once more.

The hammer in her hand felt heavier now, the metal on the table colder. Her migraine still lingered, pressing like iron fingers against the back of her skull. But she didn’t shut her Eyes this time. Instead, she let them remain open, flickering with internal light.

The message was received.

Deepmoor Continent. Shadow Clan. No one else could know.

She stepped back to her workbench and picked up the half-refined magnet. 

“I’ll finish this,” she whispered to herself. “I’ll get there before he does… And then I'll give him a piece of my mind...”