He felt as if the world were turning upside down.
It was like suddenly turning into a piece of red-hot iron thrust beneath a stamping hammer.
Thunder erupted.
A deafening roar shook the earth. Thunderclaps echoed without cease, and the alternating strikes from her left and right hands flowed like water. The moment it began, the end was already foreordained.
Under the interference of the Dissociation Art, every bit of spiritus reinforcement crumbled completely, leaving his defenses entirely useless.
With overwhelming momentum, pure, unbridled destruction unfolded beneath her hands—
Only after this long-overdue warm-up finally concluded did Professor Ye show mercy, shattering the Tianyuan insignia in the center of his chest.
Ji Jue collapsed backward.
He coughed violently, gasping for breath, devoid of any strength to counterattack.
Bruises and welts covered his entire body, as if he had forgotten to vote for Big D, been stuffed into a crate, and sent rolling down a hill for two hours of the Invincible Hot Wheels.
He lacked even the strength to twitch a muscle.
Only now did the spasms and cramps of his internal organs reach his brain, bringing unbearable agony and torment.
Through blurred vision, he seemed to see Professor Ye looking down at him with lowered eyes.
"What kind of move was that supposed to be?"
Ji Jue gave a bitter smile. "Just something I... blindly cooked up myself."
"Mhm." Professor Ye nodded in approval. "Blind indeed."
She bent down, clenched her fist, aimed at Ji Jue's heart, and delivered a heavy hammer blow.
Ji Jue's entire body bounced with a muffled thud, his limbs twitching.
Yet after that punch, the spasms in his organs and the frantic trembling of his heart miraculously subsided. At the very least, he felt far better than the previous state of overloaded collapse and dying gasps.
In that brief strike, Professor Ye had directly unified his completely haywire organs, performing an alchemical Harmony within his body.
She pieced everything back into a single whole.
A miraculous feat.
"My pharmaceutics skills are mediocre at best. Go find a pharmacist to check you over later."
Professor Ye casually produced a medicine bottle out of thin air, tipped out something like a tablet, tossed it into his mouth, and instructed him to hold it under his tongue without swallowing. A faint coolness slid from his mouth down into his chest, quenching the burning agony.
At last, he was brought back to a semblance of normal.
Over his chest, the Mouth of the Ancient glowed with a hazy light, beginning to mend his body little by little.
"Ah Chun told me you suddenly started reading books on anatomy and surgery a few days ago... I suppose you've been pondering this ever since the day you learned spiritus offense and defense?"
Ye Xian saw right through his trick at a glance and shook her head with a sigh. "Turning your own body into a machine? Heh, you really are something."
That was the secret hidden within his trick.
In a sense, the internal organs, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and bones—the human body composed of this series of organs—was a machine in itself.
A complex, precision-engineered survival machine.
What Ji Jue had done was use Fluid Alchemy to forcibly raise his body's upper limits. After bridging it to his soul, he supplemented it with Non-Offensive to perform alchemical operations on himself. Finally, through the executive force of Deus Ex Machina, he thoroughly converted his physical flesh into a weapon!
Unlocking limits and breaking shackles, he redlined like an engine. In an instant, he had attained strength and speed that absolutely did not belong to his current stage, even crossing a major boundary into the realm of Metamorphosis.
The effect was nothing short of astonishing.
The consequences, equally, were nothing short of disastrous...
Because a body was not, after all, a machine.
Or rather, the tolerance of human flesh was far too fragile compared to machinery.
The price of this power was Ji Jue's own life.
If Professor Ye had not been supervising from start to finish and interrupted him in time, he would already have Mother Lu and Ye Chun sitting down at his funeral feast.
"Heart, brain, aorta... hormonal chaos, severe muscle tears, hairline fractures, and neurological disorders..." Professor Ye's fingers swept over Ji Jue through the air, pointing out each issue. "Even reckless experimentation has its limits. Doing this has no benefit other than speeding up your death."
"There has to be a process of refinement."
Ji Jue forced a difficult smile. "I think there's always a chance to make it work."
After all, what he needed to worry about least now was fine control and precision. Where others would be at a loss when faced with the human body's intricate structure, for Ji Jue—who possessed Non-Offensive, Masterwork Nature, and Fluid Alchemy—it was somewhat challenging, but far from insurmountable.
He needed to focus on reinforcing the tolerance of his cardiovascular system, pay attention to regulating his nervous and lymphatic systems, and prioritize protecting his brain.
In his mind, he had already begun listing and analyzing the problems, organizing the next steps and experiments.
"You really haven't realized what your biggest problem is, have you..."
Ye Xian grabbed him by the back of his collar and hoisted him up. Stepping up the rising stairs one by one, she returned to the living room, tossed him back onto the sofa, and only then asked languidly, "Do you know what you did wrong this time?"
"Uh..."
Ji Jue hesitated, venturing tentatively, "Court death?"
Indeed, courting death in every sense of the word. Some people simply didn't know the consequences, so they didn't invite disaster unknowingly; others knew full well the danger and charged headlong toward their doom anyway.
Like Ji Jue.
Ye Xian sneered. "You know you were wrong, but you'll dare to do it again next time, won't you?"
"Next time... cough, we'll talk about next time when it comes..."
Ji Jue obediently lowered his head, ultimately choosing to speak the truth.
Honest enough. Good.
Ye Xian nodded slowly. What she appreciated most was someone incorrigible like him.
She said, "From now on, spiritus offense and defense classes will increase by two periods every day."
Instantly, Ji Jue's eyes bulged in horror. "Is that... really necessary?"
"No, it is necessary. Absolutely necessary."
Professor Ye glanced at his hands. "At the very least, until you can fully control Non-Offensive. Did you think a sage would roll up his sleeves to reveal two full tattoo sleeves? It's an eyesore."
"Ah, well..."
Ji Jue hesitated, words caught in his throat. He sensed that what Professor Ye disliked was not just the tattoo-like markings; she seemed to harbor no fondness for Non-Offensive either.
Yet he didn't dare press on a subject guaranteed to invite doom, so he could only change the topic: "Do I need to learn martial arts as well?"
"No need," Professor Ye said, shaking her head. "It's not as if we don't have guns. Just learn a few necessary countermeasures to handle inconveniences. If you truly degenerate to the point of brawling in close quarters with someone, you might as well wait for death."
"But..."
Ji Jue thought for a moment and asked in confusion, "What if we run into a situation where guns are useless?"
After all, high-order Celestial Chosen tanking bullets with their bare bodies had practically become standard practice.
The lethality driven by gunpowder was ultimately limited.
Encountering a pay-to-win warrior like Young Master Lou, covered head to toe in defensive shields, one would inevitably hit a brick wall.
"The contest between spear and shield has no end."
Professor Ye gave him a meaningful look. "If your opponent's defense is too strong, then find a way to make an even more powerful, formidable gun yourself. Or try being an academic Celestial Chosen, learning to be kind to others and avoiding disputes... Which do you choose?"
Without hesitation, Ji Jue replied decisively, "The latter, of course!"
At this, Professor Ye nodded in satisfaction.
"A teachable student."
Truly a student she had trained herself.
On this matter, he made the exact same choice she would have... Whether he could build such a gun remained to be seen, but when it came to keeping up appearances, she certainly didn't need to worry.
"What about next? Any plans?"
she asked casually. "When do we start classes? Aside from the Dissociation Art, there's a whole pile of coursework waiting for you. Ji Jue, don't think graduate school life is going to be breezy."
"Ah, this..."
Just two days ago, he had been risking life and limb in the Border Realm, and now, back in Yacheng, he was supposed to return to the grind of attending class every single day. The contrast felt a bit too jarring.
Yet to Ji Jue, it was something he savored.
Study! His mind was consumed by study! Studying brought him joy!
"Before that, though, I have an idea I'd like to ask your guidance on..."
After panting for a while, he feebly unzipped his bag, pulled out a notebook, and flipped through it for ages before finally finding his messy notes and hand-drawn blueprints.
Looking purely at the notes, one could only say they were distinctly characteristic of a craftsman—scribbling whenever inspiration struck, hammering here and tapping there, fragmented and disjointed, with terminology and numerical calculations in total disarray.
It was more indecipherable than a doctor's prescription; at least someone in that profession could read those.
Yet, although the mess was an assault on the eyes, Professor Ye could at least tell what he was trying to depict.
It was a schematic diagram.
Though parts had not yet been verified in practice and were mere concepts, in terms of feasibility alone, realizing it would not be particularly difficult.
"Mm?"
Her fingers tapped on her knee. She instinctively picked up her teacup, took a sip, put her glasses back on, and drew a pen from her pocket. After a brief contemplation, she began marking corrections directly on the page.
Under the revisions of her pen, a complete lightweight design combining a powered assist frame, electromagnetic muscle bundles, and shock-absorbing joints quickly materialized on the paper.
Many figures requiring calculation and testing bypassed the verification phase entirely, yielding direct results.
"No issues with stability—standard and sound. For designs with many mature precedents, the biggest taboo is impulsively piling on additions. Restraint is the right choice."
Her pen never stopped. Aside from the mechanical design, she added alchemical processing suggestions before offering her final appraisal: "After a trip to the Border Realm, I thought your head would be floating in the clouds, but it seems you're still down to earth."
"Ah, thank you, Professor!"
Ji Jue held the notebook, beaming with delight.
Professor Ye had not made drastic overhauls to his design. Instead, following his original train of thought with minor additions, she had utterly transformed the feasibility and practicality of the whole design, practically bypassing the long phase of trial and error so it could go straight into production as a finished product.
Moreover, she took it a step further, providing concepts to streamline the lightweight build even more, along with suggestions on using Ji Jue's own alchemical creations to replace the functions of certain modules.
"Overall, you have some ideas, though not many, and it's overly crude and lazy—"
The professor posed a final question: "Why did you only design the leg and not the full set?"
"Because there's no need."
Ji Jue smiled. "The friend who needs this only has trouble with his right leg. Using a crutch all the time is too inconvenient, so I thought, since I have the ability, I might as well make a more convenient tool for him first."
"..."
Professor Ye said nothing more.
In the silence, she looked at the student before her. After a long while, she let out a soundless sigh, seemingly self-mocking.
"Professor?" Ji Jue asked in confusion.
"It's nothing."
She slowly rose and said, "Let's go. The furnace happens to be free right now, so you can borrow it. Don't expect any help from me during the practical phase, though.
Have you decided what materials to use?"
"Since it's for everyday use, there's no need for expensive materials or overly complex treatments," Ji Jue answered fluently. "The base materials will be aluminum composite and tungsten alloy, with the remaining toughness and strength compensated through alchemy."
"What about the joints?"
"I'll use the planetary gear template I gave you this morning, modified and miniaturized."
"Have you considered the braking issue? That's not included in the design."
"I'd like to try substituting it with magnetic flow diversion from the Entropy branch, though I'm not sure if that's realistic."
"It is indeed a good method, but for an apprentice, the difficulty is high. If you want to try, I won't stop you." Professor Ye sighed with heartfelt emotion. "You've thought through almost everything, haven't you?"
"Yes, I've been pondering this whenever I had free time these past few days."
"Then give it a try. Go to the Storehouse and take whatever you need, but don't think you can pass off garbage as your first independently designed product to fool me," Professor Ye instructed finally. "If it truly turns out hopeless, then go back and honestly relearn the basics."
"Understood."
Ji Jue nodded, gazing at the rising radiance within the furnace before him, unable to suppress his smile any longer.
Ever since becoming a craftsman apprentice, his very first creation of genuine alchemical work...
Had finally begun!
Chapter 101