Ye Chun had a nightmare.
It felt as though she were out in the pitch-black night, pursued relentlessly by a rabid dog foaming at the mouth and lolling its tongue. Halfway through, she seemed to run into her aunt, but before she could cry out, "Auntie, save me!", she heard her aunt say something to the beast. Next thing she knew... that cursed creature's eyes turned bloodshot, and it bolted forward like a maniac, howling something about wanting to eat hot dogs as it lunged after her...
No matter how she wept and begged for mercy.
It was so freaking terrifying!
Ye Chun snapped her eyes open, panting heavily.
Jolting awake from the dream, she found herself drenched in cold sweat, the rain pattering endlessly outside the window.
She climbed out of bed, carried a cup to the kitchen, and chugged down several glasses of cold water before finally clearing her head a little. She could not help but grit her teeth and stomp her foot.
*You just wait, Ji! I've been feeding you too well!*
*Don't even dream of getting a seat at the table tomorrow!*
Yet when she turned around to go back to sleep, she caught the light leaking through the crack of the door. The living room light was still on, and faint voices drifted in.
The conversation was drawing to a close.
"Very well. Since Master Ye is so forthright, the Association will certainly not be stingy with your compensation. Naturally, I know you care little for such trinkets, but it is a token of our regard nonetheless, so please do not refuse."
The late-night visitor bid a polite farewell, rose to take his leave, and walked out without once glancing toward the cracked door.
The footsteps faded into the distance.
"A'chun?" Professor Ye turned around from the sofa.
"Yeah."
Ye Chun pushed the door open, rubbing her eyes. "Are you still busy, Auntie?"
"Go back to sleep," Professor Ye said. "It was just someone from the Association."
"Oh." Ye Chun nodded in understanding, pulling her gaze back from the front door with an apparent sense of relief. "I thought it was time to leave."
"Not yet."
Professor Ye lowered her gaze, saying placidly, "Go get some rest."
"Mhm..."
Ye Chun paused to think, then turned back with a smile. "Thank you, Auntie."
Professor Ye said nothing, gazing out at the pattering rain through the window and the faint, distant sound of the tide.
The footsteps faded away.
The night passed in a flash.
The next morning, at the crack of dawn, Ji Jue showed up to clock in for work with bloodshot eyes and his toolbox in hand.
Evidently, he had spent most of the night wrestling with the pocket watch. Although his spiritus was plentiful, it was somewhat unsettled, and an uncontrollable wisp drifted outward.
He was far from peak condition.
"How is your progress?" Professor Ye asked, holding her teacup. Her tone seemed to care for her student, yet it also carried a hint of gloating.
Or perhaps a bit of both.
Why had she never realized in the past that watching a student scratch his ears and cheeks in complete bafflement over a puzzle could be so entertaining...? There was a certain aesthetic beauty in watching someone repeatedly fall into a ditch, scramble out, and fall right back in again.
Then came Ji Jue's voice.
"I think... I might have found a knack for it?"
His hesitant words caused Professor Ye's motion of lowering her head to take a sip of tea to pause slightly.
The pause was fleeting, lasting less than a fraction of an instant, and her movement quickly smoothed out again.
Maintaining her composure, she took a gentle sip before setting down her teacup, then slowly raised her eyes to look at him. "Oh?"
For some reason, that gaze piled an immense amount of pressure onto Ji Jue.
"I don't know if it's just my imagination, but take a look, Teacher."
Ji Jue raised his hand and released Deus Ex Machina into the pocket watch once more. A slender shimmer of spiritus, like a candle flickering in the wind, surfaced and lit up within the watch.
Then, taking a deep breath, he slowly reached out his hand...
At that moment, the fluctuations of Ji Jue's spiritus subsided and slowed at a visible pace. The spiritus manifesting over his fingers became as fine as a thread, frozen in complete stillness without the slightest ripple or tremor.
That was... an application of the Dissociation Art. No, more accurately, the most rudimentary foundational technique—halting the circulation of all spiritus and locking it in place.
As the creator of the Dissociation Art, no one understood this better than Ye Xian.
The inspiration for this stillness came from the loftiest, most profound application within the Path of the Desolate Ruins—the Stasis Zone!
If the soul was fleeting like fireworks, then the essence of matter pointed toward so-called eternity.
When true powerhouses of the Desolate Ruins, such as Wen Wen, employed this art, they did so with effortless grace, enough to completely halt all spiritus changes within the former Mercy Hospital, protecting the victims' safety to the utmost degree.
It was said that the ultimate form of the Stasis Zone could freeze even the molecular motion of matter—a terrifying phenomenon akin to stopping time itself.
What Ji Jue demonstrated now could not even compare to a drop in the ocean compared to what Wen Wen had displayed. At best, it was merely a clumsy imitation.
Yet by virtue of this crude imitation, for a brief split second, Ji Jue's fingers actually held the fragile consciousness within the pocket watch in his grasp.
He had caught it!
Even though the fragile consciousness crumbled to pieces in the next instant with his slightest movement... it was still enough to plunge Ye Xian into silence.
Fast. It was simply too fast.
Faster, even, than she had anticipated.
After just a single night...
If one approached it with the blunt logic of putting an elephant into a refrigerator, extracting the spiritual consciousness harbored within matter was merely three simple steps: first, catch hold of that tiny glimmer of spiritus; second, ensure its structural integrity; and finally, pull it out.
Each step sounded entirely feasible, but in practice, every single one was pure fantasy.
Yet against all odds, Ji Jue had already accomplished the first step.
Without destroying its inherent structure, he had used exceptionally delicate manipulation to hold the spiritus granted by Deus Ex Machina in his hand. What was more, he had figured out the key to the second step entirely on his own—how to ensure its structural integrity.
Ji Jue's method was simple: if it was too soft, too brittle, and too weak to handle, why not just "freeze" it?
Using the fundamentals from his Dissociation Art exercises, he brought his own spiritus into a state of stasis, then gradually diffused it into the structure of his target.
Once the target's structure was thoroughly fixed in place, pulling it out would be child's play, wouldn't it?
Unfortunately, his direction was completely wrong.
He was not a Celestial Chosen of the Desolate Ruins lineage, nor did he possess a Desolate Ruins blessing. If he kept going down this path, he could spend his entire life on it and still might never grasp the eternal meaning underlying the essence of "stasis"...
There was theoretical feasibility, but Ji Jue was destined to fail at it—or rather, stubbornly banging his head against this wall offered zero return on investment.
Yet at the very least, he had identified where the problem lay and had already begun attempting solutions.
That was what mattered most.
With any thorny problem, the hardest part was never how to do it, but discovering where the crux actually was. Once the key issue was identified, even the most stubborn brute-force trial and error would yield some progress sooner or later.
"Thinking to deconstruct the basics of the Dissociation Art and apply them shows you have ideas, but right now, you lack the conditions to put it into practice." Professor Ye incisively pointed out the flaw in his direction. "If I were you, I would look for a solution through Primacy of Mind."
When pointing out the issue, Professor Ye's phrasing was unusually gentle.
After all, as a student, it was remarkable enough that Ji Jue had found a direction, made a decision, and attempted it without even knowing the origins of the stasis technique.
Besides, it had only been a single night...
"Let me guess. Your current interference and control over a creation's consciousness..." She pondered for a moment, then asked, "Is it the effect of Non-Offensive?"
"That's right."
Ji Jue nodded.
More precisely, the credit belonged to the "Invisible Hand."
For the first time outside of alchemical creation, Ji Jue felt its presence once again. When he was completely engrossed in manipulating spiritus within the pocket watch, that phantom sensation of absolute control had resurfaced in his mind.
According to his prior understanding, it was supposed to be a subjective illusion.
The Invisible Hand was supposed to be a feeling that arose during alchemical creation when all transformations were clear to his mind and every development lay within his grasp.
It was a metaphor for how everything taking place within the furnace seemed to be effortlessly guided by invisible hands.
Just a figure of speech.
By ordinary logic, that was how it should have been.
Yet Ji Jue genuinely seemed to feel it.
It was a strange sensation akin to a phantom limb, far stronger than anything he had felt before.
Unlike the familiar touch of his ten physical fingers, it was a more indistinct, veiled sense of control—within the range covered by his spiritus, there existed such "hands."
Formless and intangible, yet as his spiritus circulated, they were capable of substituting for his hands to execute any precise manipulation, accomplishing all manner of incredible feats.
Including cradling that fragile consciousness into his hands as carefully as scooping up dew!
After tens of repeated attempts, he had already become well-practiced at it.
The most difficult step had been accomplished in such a straightforward manner.
With the arrival of the Primacy of Mind blessing, Non-Offensive's effectiveness in spiritus manipulation had grown once more. At the same time, the matrix, which had moved a step closer to completeness compared to before, resonated with Ji Jue even more deeply.
It was as if it was also adapting to Ji Jue, shifting on its own to match his habits and usage.
So effortless and natural.
"Is this the legacy of a Sage?" Professor Ye murmured softly.
To her knowledge, in this modern era, there were at least three Non-Offensive matrices circulating in the outside world...
One was carefully preserved in the collection of the Ring of Taiyi; another had appeared decades ago at an auction in the Thousand Islands, acquired by a mysterious buyer; and a third should be in the safekeeping of the Federation's Huangzhou Security Bureau.
Yet among those three, not a single one could compare to the Non-Offensive in Ji Jue's hands.
Nothing bonded more intimately with a Celestial Chosen than a matrix; it was, by its very nature, a creation completed by relying on the Celestial Chosen's own soul.
Likewise, over years and months of use, a matrix inevitably retained the imprints and experiences of its user. Ultimately, vast and stark differences emerged between them.
To say nothing of the disparity in skill among the users themselves.
For the ancient Sage, even reversing time was theoretically feasible—what high-level manipulation had he not mastered? Having the matrix turn around and adapt to Ji Jue's operation like subverting the natural order was an absolute trifle.
Not to mention the staggering compatibility between Ji Jue and Non-Offensive in the first place.
During routine, basic usage, it was hardly noticeable, but when faced with an objective that exceeded his personal limits, even the slightest extra measure of assistance became strikingly clear and pronounced.
Amid her realization, Professor Ye could not help a soft sigh. "It seems Quicksilver really took a liking to you."
"Mama likes Big Brother very much!"
Having grown bored of playing on the living room chandelier, the metallic hummingbird hopped down, rolled around in his hair, flapped its wings, and yelled excitedly, eager to announce to the entire world:
"All the mamas like him!"
Ji Jue's face twitched, and he pinched the bird's beak shut.
Those were clearly fine words, so why did the praise suddenly sound so wrong?
He was the one who had served as a tool and been used by the Prophet, so why did it sound like he was some gigolo sweet-talking older women?
People only saw him reaping the spoils, when in truth, he had been thwarted and screwed over far more often!
This was plainly just his compensation for mental wear and tear!
"All right, since you know you have an advantage in this area, don't waste it. Go back and practice on your own."
Ye Xian could not be bothered to watch Ji Jue show off any longer. If this continued, she would not be able to resist putting him in a few lovely pairs of tight pink shoes.
"Also, I've finished examining this. Take it back."
What Professor Ye finally took out and set on the table was an antique-looking bell, brimming with covert spiritus fluctuations that felt distant and ethereal.
Just looking at it made a crisp, phantom chime seem to echo in one's ears.
It held an irresistible fascination.
This was the only intact item Ji Jue had recovered from the remains of that lightning geezer after looting the battlefield—everything else had been reduced to ash, and this alone had survived the Sword of Minerva unscathed, without so much as a nick.
Who couldn't tell it was a treasure?
However, according to an unwritten rule tacitly agreed upon by artisans of the classical era, generally the better an item was, the more likely the artisan had subconsciously stuffed it with more secretive backdoors or sinister surprises. The results for an unwitting user would be all the more disastrous, leading to the bizarre reality that the finer an alchemical item was, the nastier it turned out to be.
Without Professor Ye looking it over, Ji Jue genuinely had not dared to wave a casually scavenged trinket like this around.
Otherwise, as he used it, he might end up being used by someone else before he even realized it.
Hearing her words now, he was immediately delighted.
"You're done examining it?"
"Mhm. In a sense, this is the most sophisticated piece you've brought back in recent days."
Professor Ye pinched the bell and shook it lightly. A crisp sound instantly rang from within.
As if originating from the Netherworld.
An invisible chill spread outward in an instant, far exceeding what the old geezer had produced when he used it. It nearly froze Ji Jue, who was standing close by, stiff. Only then did he belatedly perceive that silence, heavy as death.
Involuntarily, he turned to look out the window.
Beneath the overcast skies, amid the pattering rain, outside the workshop gate and through the hazy mist, vague silhouettes surfaced one after another.
Like the lingering spirits of the departed refusing to dissipate.
Scarlet eyes turned back, gazing in their direction.
Hundreds. Thousands...
Chapter 147