"It's torture! Pure, unadulterated torture!"
Several afternoons later, Ji Jue finally couldn't hold it in any longer and wailed once more.
By the time he crawled out of the archives, covered in dust and grime, he was already barely breathing.
He was like an ungrateful schoolchild who, right before the end of summer vacation, eagerly longed for school to start—only for the initial excitement to vanish into thin air as he was promptly pinned to the ground and mercilessly crushed by schoolwork.
Before this, he had thought he had at least grasped the basics of modern alchemy.
Then Professor Ye demonstrated through cold, hard facts, relentless interrogation, and suffocating pressure: *No, you haven't. You're nowhere close.*
After running him through a series of tests, she tossed him an exam generously graded at fifty-nine points, followed by a reading list massive enough to bury him alive. She informed him that his assignment for the next few months was to read every single one of them, write comprehension reports based on his understanding, and submit to irregular pop quizzes and grilling sessions.
*A Brief Treatise on the Four Elements of Alchemy*, *Heterodox Explorations of the Path of Ascension*, *Fundamentals of Modern Alchemy I, II, III, & IV*, *Analysis of Registered Artisan Examination Papers: Years 300–400*, *Observations on Waste Reclamation via Water Quenching*...
At first, Ji Jue had worried about how he was supposed to locate all these books in such an enormous archive. That was until Ye Chun led him to a corner, pointed at shelves one through six, and told him not to bother searching—he just needed to read everything on those shelves, because they were all right there.
Once she realized Ji Jue's comprehension was sharp enough for independent study, Professor Ye's teaching style turned thoroughly brutal. It was pure force-feeding: cram him to the brim, interrogate him on his weakest points of understanding, and make him turn right back around to reread everything. It got to the point where Ji Jue even found himself doing practice problems and reciting textbooks in his nightmares.
Now, just smelling the air of the archives was enough to trigger his PTSD.
Who in the world had invented such a sadistic art as alchemy...?
His daily routine had become utterly packed with beatings.
First came the beatings from Professor Ye during spiritus offense and defense at eight in the morning, followed by interrogations and testing from Professor Ye at ten. From noon through the afternoon, he suffered beatings from various theories in the archives, and whenever a spare moment surfaced, he slipped into the storehouse to endure beatings from the Dissociation Art.
Nothing but beatings, from dawn to dusk.
Beaten to the point of dazed delirium, Ji Jue lay slumped on the floor like a maggot, writhing and groaning. "Is life always this full of beatings, or is it only while you're an apprentice?"
"Young man, don't get disheartened just because you're getting beaten at the start," Ye Chun consoled him, patting his head like a dog's. "Because down the line, you'll slowly get used to it."
"I don't want to! My best years are ahead of me...!"
Ji Jue covered his face and shrieked, "Save me, Senior Sister!"
"Senior Sister has already been grinded to death by you!"
Ye Chun, whose hair was a tangled mess after pulling all-nighters to rush her thesis, gave a cold laugh. "You chose this yourself, superstar!
"When you were out-grinding everyone else back then, why didn't you consider today? This is the fate of a try-hard dog! A death so tragic, so horrific, that it defies all human decency!"
Growing furious at the thought, she grabbed Ji Jue by the neck and shook him violently. "One of these days, I'm going to scatter your ashes into Tianmen Lake! Aaaagh!"
From the living room came the sound of the television. Little Niuma poked its hood out inquisitively, carrying the little mechanical bird on top of its cab, and watched the scene of the two torturing each other.
Before long, it lost interest, turned back toward the television, and resumed intently watching the culinary show on screen.
"That looks so tasty..."
Gloria began swallowing her saliva as she watched the roasted chicken emerge from the oven.
Hearing that, Little Niuma rolled its eyes upward, looking at the alchemical creation perched on its roof that seemed to belong to the avian family just like the bird on TV. It nodded in eager agreement, ready to give it a try.
The two little critters then took advantage of Ji Jue's distraction, creeping on tiptoe toward his backpack in an attempt to steal his phone and order some takeout to sample.
Ji Jue caught them in the act, but merely sighed and didn't stop them.
At the very least, it was better than their bright idea from before—driving a plastic mannequin around in the dead of night with Gloria hiding inside its head to order food, which ended up scaring the server unconscious. Thanks to them, the ghost stories of Beishan District had gained a new legend about a terrifying late-night diner demanding souls...
Besides, he was hungry too!
Once the takeout arrived, he could just snatch it right out of their mouths. It would probably taste even sweeter that way.
Ji Jue was under a lot of stress; Ji Jue gets first dibs!
The main reason he had become so 'generous' lately, daring to order takeout on a whim, was largely because the financial state of his accounts was finally no longer teetering on the edge of bankrupt debt.
Going out hadn't been a wasted trip, after all.
Considering his finances, Professor Ye had helped him sell off some of the spare materials he had brought back that he wouldn't need anytime soon and weren't particularly precious.
The payment had cleared yesterday morning.
After deducting his and Lu Ling's student loans, he still had over seven hundred thousand Federation currency left on his ledger.
If he lived frugally, that was enough for Ji Jue to lie flat and slack off for over a decade.
Having such a monstrous sum sitting in his account for the first time in his life, an uncharacteristically lavish Ji Jue hadn't just bought gifts for everyone in the family; he had even dropped by Lao Zhang's massage clinic to buy a membership card that the whole family could use.
He had originally intended to deduct the money he owed Sister Layla as well, but she stubbornly refused to issue a bill, insisting it was just friends helping friends. Since it was a favor between friends, Ji Jue hadn't pressed the matter, accepting the kindness cleanly. If she needed anything down the road, he would just pitch in more to make up for it.
Amid this bitter, force-fed existence, sweet cash had become Ji Jue's spiritual pillar. Every time he finished being beaten to a pulp and sank into utter despair, he would whip out his phone to admire the account balance.
The joy never stopped.
"Well, there he goes again."
Ye Chun rolled her eyes, shaking her head helplessly as she watched Ji Jue clutching his phone with a goofy, ecstatic grin.
Forget it, forget it. Even if you cured someone like this, they'd still drool.
Sweet dreams were hard to come by; let him sleep a little longer.
Sooner or later, harsh reality would come by and slap him twice across the face.
*
After lunch that afternoon, Ye Chun received a call and sent Ji Jue out with a handcart to receive a delivery.
Outside the workshop entrance, a sharply dressed man in a suit stepped out of a black van. He was beaming with friendly warmth as he shook Ji Jue's hand, handed him a business card, and offered him a cigarette. His attitude was extraordinarily enthusiastic. After loading the small sealed canister onto the cart, he even stood in place waving, waiting until Ji Jue was inside before getting back into his vehicle and driving off.
"Is sales competition really this cutthroat nowadays?"
Ji Jue toyed curiously with the canister, which was only about the size of a human head yet impossibly heavy. "What's inside?"
"Weren't you looking to practice Fluid Alchemy?"
Ye Chun glanced over. "That's purified transmuted mercury Auntie ordered from the Balance Chamber of Commerce. It's hard to track down; it only arrived today."
It had to be said that mercury that had undergone spiritus fusion and transmutation was far easier to manipulate than the crude converted mercury Ji Jue had whipped up on his own.
With just a simple gesture, Ji Jue found it responded as naturally as an extension of his own arm.
Like a snake charmer casually waving a hand, he made the mercury rise slowly from the canister, rippling and undulating through midair in rhythm with his movements.
One moment it formed the likeness of Ji Jue's face; the next, it shifted into Ye Chun's features.
It was remarkably fluid and responsive.
"This is so convenient!"
Ji Jue's eyes lit up. "I'm going to get some for home later! This little bit isn't nearly enough."
"That's going to be tricky. The Balance Chamber doesn't bother with small orders," Ye Chun warned without looking up, chewing on her pen. "The minimum order is roughly half a kilogram."
"You're joking! Who are you looking down on?"
Ji Jue scoffed and waved a grand hand. "Get me ten jin!"
"Oh, sure. If you use Auntie's gold membership card, that's seven thousand per gram." Ye Chun held up her phone, pointing the screen right at him with a gentle smile. "Scan the payment code, please."
"*How much?!*"
"Hm?" Ye Chun paused in confusion, then seemed to realize something. She looked down and scrolled through the PDF order invoice on her phone. "My bad, I got it wrong—it's seven thousand six hundred and thirty-six. But there's a discount for orders over a kilogram, which averages out to roughly seventy-two hundred per gram."
Ji Jue's hands holding the canister trembled, then trembled again.
If his math was right... his entire account balance was only enough to buy sixty-nine grams?!
*Fuck! No wonder that bastard delivery guy was smiling so warmly!*
If it were Ji Jue, he would have smiled even brighter than that.
What kind of bloodsucking profiteers were they?!
He gingerly set the canister—which weighed at least seven or eight jin—down onto the floor, carefully securing the lid to prevent any evaporation, before wiping away cold sweat and asking in a trembling voice, "Is it really that expensive?"
"Of course. What did you think?"
Ye Chun gave him a look as if he were an ignorant bumpkin. "Once anything gets associated with alchemy, the price shoots straight into the stratosphere, okay?
"Most artisans buy raw materials and process them themselves. This mercury is only because the processing equipment is too niche for our workshop to have, and buying a dedicated setup just for this wouldn't be cost-effective. That's the only reason Auntie tacked it onto another order. Otherwise, where would you get the materials to practice with?"
With that, she pointed at the robot vacuum in the corner.
"Now you know why you have to wear protective suits whenever entering or leaving the storehouse, right?
"Just the residual ash left behind after your practice scrap undergoes material property overload has a market value of over four thousand Federation currency per hundred grams.
"On the open market, it's sold in batches of at least a hundred jin, and it sells out the second it's listed. The demand is terrifyingly high. If you were in any other workshop, an apprentice like you with no background and no connections wouldn't even dream of landing scrap reclamation duty, even if you served as the supervisor's bedwarmer, understood?"
One had to understand that after an alchemical product suffered material overload and collapsed, the ash left behind was actually useful.
Because it had undergone alchemical processing beyond its limits before collapsing, the ash had turned into an inert spiritus non-reactor that rarely reacted with any other spiritus. As a result, once gathered, it was often fired into special bricks. These bricks were used for cellars where certain materials needed aging, for constructing tombs for certain Celestial Chosen who had a habit of turning into undead corpses after death but couldn't easily be cremated, or for erecting structures with specialized functions.
For example... prison cells.
In every major city across the Federation, there was at least one entire building constructed from such materials. Not only were the raw materials expensive, but once you factored in the internal binding rituals and various equipment... the total cost became an astronomical figure that a pauper who had only just crawled out of poverty like Ji Jue couldn't even fathom in his dreams.
The Path of Embers was just like that: while it raked in money, it burned through cash at ten or a hundred times the rate of any other path.
Compared to other paths, progressing along the Path of Ascension required inspiration and enlightenment; advancement on the Path of Tianyuan demanded personal dominion and control; the Path of the White Stag required overcoming the strong as the weak or the strong devouring the weak; the Path of the Desolate Ruins required communing with the essence of the world; the Heart Pivot required understanding one's true nature...
Embers was far more straightforward and rugged—you just forked over cash.
Throwing money at it might not guarantee you got stronger, but if you didn't throw money at it, you definitely wouldn't!
Over ninety percent of the Celestial Chosen on the Path of Embers were self-taught wild practitioners. It wasn't that they lacked the chance to pursue formal, orthodox training; they simply couldn't afford the exorbitant cost.
Nurturing a single registered artisan required an immense initial investment. And to make matters worse, pouring that much in didn't guarantee any results.
Compared to other penniless novices, Ji Jue had practically gotten a dream start.
He had an open-minded mentor who didn't bind him with strict rules, a senior sister available to guide him and tell him what to do at every turn, and an entire storehouse of scrap he could mess around with as much as he pleased.
Yet if he wanted to make progress—or even accelerate his pace—he would inevitably face a bottomless pit of demand.
Once you entered a workshop, it was like stepping into a telemarketing scam.
A mature apprentice had to learn to self-examine three times a day: *Is my account balance enough? Can my credit card still be swiped? Are there any micro-loans left that I haven't tapped?*
And even: *Can my relatives and friends still cough up any cash?*
*Do my sugar daddies or mommies need another companion?*
Faced with this current predicament, it wasn't that Ji Jue had no alternatives. After all, he had just dismantled Quicksilver's workshop and brought back a mountain of materials. Even if they were high-grade, he could still downgrade and make do with them.
It was just... were you really sure you wanted to take a piece of Lithic Gold, specifically hoarded by a Sage to upgrade legendary weapons to +12, and forge it into a beat-up starter sword?
"So, you need to recognize your place, Ji Jue."
Ye Chun patted his shoulder, speaking with deep earnestness. "In the past, I didn't hold it against you, but you have to understand the chasm between us—a lowly concubine-born apprentice like you, daring to challenge me, the eldest daughter of the first wife?"
With that, she tilted her chin and pointed toward the refrigerator, giving imperious orders: "Go on, bring me a Cola! Sugar-free."
Ji Jue scurried over obsequiously and returned with the can held in both hands. "Here you are, here you are, Your Ladyship."
Ye Chun clicked her tongue and waved her other empty hand. "Potato chips. Wasabi flavor."
Ji Jue followed orders readily, bustling back with an armful of snacks and a sycophantic grin. "We have three brands of wasabi flavor. Which one would you prefer?"
"Hmm, let's go with barbecue today."
Ye Chun leaned back against the sofa, sipping her Cola and munching on chips while directing Ji Jue to massage her legs and shoulders. Only after she had enjoyed herself to her heart's content did she wipe her hands, speaking with an air of immense importance: "All right, out with whatever sneaky thoughts you have in that head of yours."
Ji Jue hesitated for a moment, then probed cautiously, "Do you think... with my current skill level, if I opened a studio to make prosthetic limbs for people, wouldn't the money just roll in like water? Is it viable?"
"Unfortunately, not a chance."
Ye Chun shook her head flatly and held up three fingers again. "First off, the Ring of Taiyi strictly forbids mass-produced alchemical products without inspection licenses from being sold on the open market. Regardless of the proportion of alchemical treatment, as long as there's spiritus inside and it isn't a standardized material, it counts.
"Second, if you want to submit an inspection application and obtain a license, the maker must first be a registered artisan and have the backing of a registered workshop.
"Lastly, barely anyone could afford it."
"What the hell?" Ji Jue was stunned. "Forget about the registered artisan certification and the workshop endorsement—it's just a prosthetic. How could it possibly be so expensive that nobody could afford it?"
Instead of answering, Ye Chun pulled out her phone, brought up the calculator, and tapped rapidly on the screen before turning it around to show him the result. "Based on conservative estimates, the base cost of the type of prosthetic you make sits around three hundred and eleven thousand apiece."
"*What the fuck?!*" Ji Jue blurted out.
"'Why so expensive?!' That's what you want to say, right?" Ye Chun smirked. "The raw materials add up to less than a few hundred bucks, and the lathe and electricity costs are only seventy or eighty cents at most... right?"
"Uh, yeah, kind of."
Ye Chun nodded, then asked, "Did you factor in Auntie's technology licensing fees?"
Ji Jue froze.
"Did you factor in the cost of your own time and labor?"
Ye Chun pressed on. Seeing him about to speak, she waved a hand to cut him off. "You want to say your time isn't worth that much, and your labor doesn't take that much effort? But you're not that penniless college student anymore, Ji Jue."
She sighed. "Are you really willing to sacrifice the most precious time you have right now, wasting the hours meant for mastering your studies on throwing money down the drain?"
Ji Jue was left speechless.
No matter how one looked at it, this current period was the prime window for Ji Jue as an apprentice to absorb theory. At this stage, any apprentice with even the slightest resources wouldn't allow themselves to be distracted, let alone go off to open a studio, establish sales channels, market products, and handle customer service.
Not to mention, let alone Fluid Alchemy, he hadn't even fully mastered modern alchemy yet.
"So, regarding the things you make, the only advice I can offer as someone who grew up in a workshop is this: giving them away as gifts is totally fine, but if money is involved, you sell them at double the cost price. Lowering it by even a single cent is an insult to yourself."
Ye Chun reached out and patted Ji Jue's shoulder consolingly. "Cold and mercenary as it sounds, that's just the reality of this world and the market.
"Don't let your favors become cheap, and don't let yourself become someone seen as cheap in other people's eyes. Otherwise, the trouble and blowback will be endless."
Even without Ye Chun spelling it out, Ji Jue understood the reasoning.
No matter how bizarre and convoluted the market conditions were, one had to stay grounded in reality. Those who overestimated themselves and tried to fight the market had long since died out.
What standing did an apprentice who hadn't even passed the registered artisan exam have?
A price tag of six hundred and twenty thousand essentially meant kissing the consumer market goodbye.
After all, a limb-regeneration surgical procedure from the Vortex path cost only around 2.1 million—and some Celestial Chosen clinics even offered a 'buy two, get one free' deal.
"So stop dreaming about things that aren't going to happen."
Ye Chun finally handed him an ice-cold can of Cola, tossed the leftover potato chips into his hands, and reminded him once more of the harsh reality: "Finish eating and get to work like a good boy.
"Master Ji, it's time to get back to processing scrap."
Fifteen minutes later, with his sweet dreams shattered and little tears wiped from his eyes, Ji Jue pushed open the workshop door once more. He looked toward the warped longsword on the workbench, riddled with scratches and fissures.
In the absolute silence, even his breathing and heartbeat became distinctly audible.
Ji Jue took a deep breath and slowly raised his hands. As his spiritus circulated, the intricate circuitry of Non-Offensive grew increasingly vivid. Level your mind, channel the spiritus, maintain stability, and finally, trigger the transmutation.
"If you suck, practice more!"
In that instant, his eyes flared with sudden brilliance, and his raised hands slammed down fiercely toward the scrap sword on the bench.
—*Take my Dissociation Art!*
Chapter 104