Imagine this: your back itches terribly, but you can't reach the spot. You rummage through boxes and chests until you finally dig up a backscratcher, only to find that no matter how you scratch, it feels off. The more you scratch, the more agonizing it gets; the more agonizing it gets, the more you scratch.
A minor itch turns into a major itch, until in the end, it becomes a veritable seven-year itch.
Tied to grim reality, you writhe in torment, unable to find release.
Finally, you collapse on the floor, clutching the backscratcher in tears and snot, consumed by regret.
Its lethality could hardly be called small, and its intent could hardly be called anything but venomous.
Yet its practical effect could hardly be called anything but useless...
So much so that at this very moment, Kanemoto had only one question:
Just how did you manage this?
The procedure was entirely correct, the steps entirely correct, the logic entirely correct—yet the final answer was entirely wrong!
He had clearly used materials teeming with malevolence and applied so many techniques to spur aberration... So why was the degree of corruption so shallow and crude?
It was supposed to be a vicious weapon capable of claiming lives with mere scratches, yet it had turned into such a farcical joke!
It was like melting down an old necklace on a whim to make a bracelet: before going into the furnace, it was full-weight twenty-four-karat solid gold, but when it came out, how was only the outer plating left?!
Where was the rest?
Did you eat it?!
"Where's the corruption?"
"I dunno!" Ji Jue stared wide-eyed. "Didn't I just craft it normally? The theories you taught, the books you gave me, the materials you provided—and it turned out like this! I was about to ask you!"
"When things go wrong, don't blame others. Shouldn't you reflect on your own issues?"
Ji Jue's smile gradually faded, until he no longer hid his cold detachment. "Or could you have the mercy to tell me... just what on earth are you teaching me?!"
Kanemoto didn't answer. He merely weighed the backscratcher in his hand and sighed in contemplation.
—Calculatedly controlling the direction of corruption, meticulously tuning the effect and potency, and ultimately, with pinpoint precision, turning the creation into a useless piece of junk.
It was truly a marvel to behold.
He had already gotten a taste of this earlier.
After all, this was hardly the first one...
Before this, there was armor that looked formidable and terrifying yet provided zero defense and gave the wearer full-body eczema; a little red clown nose that caused uncontrollable, manic laughter once clipped on; and a letter opener that inexplicably made the user poke themselves with ease, inflicting a guaranteed hundred percent chance of tetanus.
And now, this backscratcher that only made itches worse...
Every single one was a complete farce.
As the saying went, a worthy rival makes a good match, and a general rejoices in capable soldiers.
Encountering such fine, unpolished jade, being a teacher should have been an easy task.
*What a thoroughly exhilarating lesson—*he had initially harbored such naive thoughts: taking in a student of such incredible talent for the first time, watching someone advance so rapidly on the path of corrupted alchemy for the first time, two sources of happiness stacked together... and so forth.
It was enough to make Kanemoto suddenly want to pry open the boy's skull and look closely to see whether a rebellious bone had been jammed backward straight into his brain—*why the hell won't you just walk the proper path!*
As the adage went, the master leads you to the door, but the practice is up to the individual.
Needless to say, genuine teachings were priceless.
As a grandmaster, Kanemoto's caliber had naturally been verified by both the Association and the Profound. Yet now, right as they arrived at the threshold, Ji Jue began hopping back and forth across the doorway, deliberately making a little spectacle.
*Aiya, I stepped in~ Aiya, I stepped out~ Aiya, I stepped back in again~ If you don't like it, come hit me~*
Squandering talent so recklessly.
A true pity.
But no matter...
There was always a way.
"Very good. Well done."
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed Ji Jue's creation into the Annihilation Furnace, not bothering to spare it another glance.
In an examination, if a student scored a hundred, their ability might only reach a hundred.
But when a student managed to hit precisely sixty points every single time, it meant the test held no challenge for them whatsoever—it was nothing more than a plaything.
Theory, practical execution, concept, creativity, ideology... Not a single flaw!
How could such prime material be left to waste?
"The basics can stop here," he said. "It is time for the next lesson."
"Fine, fine, I got it."
Ji Jue held out a hand indifferently. "Where's the book?"
"Regrettably, this lesson cannot be taught through books."
Kanemoto smiled, brimming with anticipation. "You must experience it in person."
With a mere wave of his hand, an unseen force seemed to seize hold of everything, tearing aside all within view.
Ji Jue's vision blurred, and in an instant, he felt as though he had traversed countless doors and corridors to arrive in a dim, desolate expanse.
Vast and barren, engulfed in distant darkness.
The ground was fractured, the flagstones riddled with cracks.
The halls of the past were shattered, dilapidated ruins crumbling in disrepair, and even the colossal Crucible in the center was broken and incomplete. Its fire had been extinguished for years—so long ago that none could say when it had happened.
High above, swirling ashes drifted down like grayish-white snow in intermittent flurries, mixed with faint embers that flared and died before settling onto the ground.
The wheelchair rolled across the earth behind Kanemoto, carving two thin ruts.
Forward.
It came to a halt before the ruins of the Crucible.
The whole place looked like a ruined... workshop?
"This was my dwelling before I defected from the Association. I had a fight with that fellow back then, made a total mess of it, and simply abandoned it... Though the fires of the Crucible have long gone cold, after all these years of accumulating kindling ashes, it can barely serve for a bit of scrap repurposing."
Kanemoto strolled through the space, his black robe trailing along the ground without gathering a single speck of ash.
Ji Jue, on the other hand, was rapidly getting covered in grime.
He wiped his face and caught the scent—a familiar smell.
Ash...
This was Crucible ash!
He looked up toward the pitch-black ceiling.
Within Kanemoto's workshop, the incinerated ashes of all the artisans' Crucibles had been channeled into this place.
A wisp or a speck was ordinary enough, but when ash on this scale piled together over decades of countless smelting and crafting endeavors, the aura contained within had grown vast and majestic.
Suffocatingly so.
"Ji Jue, do you know why artisans are obsessed with flame?"
Kanemoto stood before the shattered Crucible, gesturing as unseen power cleared away the surrounding clutter and debris.
Without waiting for Ji Jue's response, he continued on his own: "Having developed to this day, artisans no longer need to rely purely on flame for creation. On the contrary, more and more mediums have been introduced into alchemy—water, air, dust, light, even the human body and bare hands... Yet the Crucible remains the definitive mainstream. An atelier without a Crucible cannot even be called a workshop. What is the meaning behind that?"
"It's suitable? Convenient?"
Ji Jue answered nonchalantly. "Predecessors got used to it, and countless standards arose from it. It's hardly surprising that later generations would keep the tradition, right?"
"Aside from that? Can you not perceive the majesty of the Crucible of Embers?"
Kanemoto gave a faint, knowing smirk. "Have you never witnessed with your own eyes the glorious blaze that took the stars as its furnace when Embers descended?"
Ji Jue fell silent.
"This is fire."
Kanemoto raised a finger and blew a gentle breath. A faint puff of dust stirred and drifted out, yet that soft exhalation echoed throughout the subterranean chamber, expanding continuously until it turned into a raging hurricane.
In the end, it swept up the countless ashes, whipping them into a frenzied, trembling dance—and within them, sparks that had been dead for who knew how long suddenly flared back to life!
Thousands of glowing threads converged at his fingertip.
The boundless sea of ashes coalesced once more into a single strand of pure flame, dancing and leaping, illuminating all darkness.
"Do you see, Ji Jue?"
In the reflection of the firelight, all expression seemed to wash away from Kanemoto's face, leaving him void of joy or sorrow, solemn as a god or buddha: "The earliest alchemy was born from this.
"From the instant the mortal realm's first flame was ignited by the fire-thief among the kings, everything was predestined. The firebringer consumed himself; the followers passed down the torch from generation to generation, taking flame as their mark to create all things, yet likewise using flame to incinerate all things.
"The Path of Embers was born from this.
"The corruption of Stagnant Rot was forged through this."
He said, "What you are meant to learn lies within—"
At that moment, an unprecedented, deafening roar surged forward from the deepest darkness. It seemed to come from all directions, yet as the sounds converged, they filled the soul, overpowering all will and spirit.
All stray thoughts and residual noise were swept away.
The instant the light on Kanemoto's fingertip soundlessly vanished, ten thousand fathoms of blinding brilliance surged from within the Crucible, pouring forth, erupting, spreading out to engulf everything.
Kindling light and ember fire manifested here.
Like a tempest.
Ji Jue had no time to react or evade.
For a fleeting second, he felt his physical form and soul drown in the raging tide, collapsing, peeling away, flying off piece by piece to an unknown realm.
Torn to shreds.
Flesh, life, self, soul—everything faded away within the tide of light.
Yet what remained behind in this place?
Countless illusions and manifestations emerged from the firelight, filling Ji Jue's vision and forcefully pouring into his soul—a shattered vault of heaven, cracked earth, shifting stars, and boundless creation itself.
The world operated here.
Revealing its true form.
In that instant, Ji Jue finally saw it: at the end of the flames, the source of all things.
It was as if an emerald eye slowly opened.
Looking toward this place, looking toward Ji Jue.
Free of sorrow or joy, fear or worry, so loftily distant yet so utterly indifferent. It gazed down upon all the chaos of the mortal world, the cycles of war and peace, the intertwining of conflict and cooperation, witnessing the recurrence of one futile cycle after another.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again.
There is nothing new under the sun; the so-called changing of all phenomena was nothing more than another cycle of strife and slaughter.
—Under the Calling of that secret rite, the Great Calamity of the Mortal World: Stagnant Decay Hearth gazed down!
At that moment, an uncontrollable cry of agony erupted from within the flames!
Ji Jue had already been set ablaze.
Dust rose and fell.
It drifted into Kanemoto's palm, so fragile.
And was crushed into nothingness without an ounce of emotion.
"Mortal things have limits, ill-suited to bear Heaven's Mandate." Kanemoto looked coldly toward the Crucible. "Let me see whether a piece of material like you... is truly fit to receive the craftsmanship of Heaven's Mandate."
*Crack!*
An illusory sound of shattering echoed, flooding his ears.
Perhaps it was the sound of a fracturing soul, or perhaps it was the world coming apart at the seams...
Ji Jue felt as if he were plummeting into a bottomless abyss.
He heard only the howling wind in his ears...
Reason told him he was still where he had been, bathed in light, yet he could feel not a trace of warmth.
His soul told him he was falling toward a boundless abyss, yet he had no way to struggle.
He could hardly even think.
His consciousness was already overwhelmed and dominated by a far more vast and violent power.
Like torrential rain defying gravity, surging from the earth into the sky.
Within his memory, countless theories surfaced like living things, breaking free of his control to shift, overlap, couple, and undergo Metamorphosis on their own.
All the theories of corrupted alchemy that Kanemoto had forcibly etched into his memory over these past days, all the techniques and practices taught without reserve, now seemed like living entities, stretching out, linking, and connecting of their own accord... as though truly granted life!
—Ascension!
For some inexplicable reason, this thought surfaced in Ji Jue's mind.
Turning stone to gold, imparting spiritus to inanimate matter, bestowing miracles upon mortal things, stripping the mundane of its former guise—this was the first step of alchemy.
Then came Transmutation: all skills and theories intertwined, overlapped, collided, and intensified, giving birth to stroke after stroke of genius inspiration, flashing, developing, spreading on their own...
Right after that was Purification—
Countless scattered, expanding theories and reveries suddenly convulsed, intersecting with one another to shear away clutter, prune fallacies, and expunge flaws.
And finally, Integration!
When those self-manifesting flashes of brilliance, inspirations, and myriad theories were linked into a single thread, a magnificent path emerged in Ji Jue's consciousness.
Twelve Great Calamity emblems, three classes and sixteen varieties of tainting arts, thirty-one spiritus configurations, seventy-seven variations and truths of slaughtering implements...
From a commanding vantage point, it expounded profound perils and exquisite subtleties, pointing out the direction in plain terms, exhaustively detailing every obstacle and perplexity. All he had to do was proceed step by step... The wonders of corruption were within easy reach; the depths of aberration could be plumbed with a mere bend of the waist!
A path ascending to the heavens lay right before his eyes!
"Go forward."
A voice spoke in his ear: "You need only go forward."
Yet Ji Jue stood motionless.
He was unwilling even to lift his head and look.
He struggled, wanting to turn back.
Yet he could not move.
When he came to his senses, he found himself already engulfed in blood. Wails washed over everything like a deluge.
A grotesque world rotated before him; distorted stars traced their orbits across the sky, illuminating fissures in the night and the fractured earth.
He felt as if he had become a deity looking down from above the heavens. Everything changed and shifted at trillions of times normal speed, yet ultimately converged into a cycle of despair.
Flourishing once, perishing once; reviving once, declining once.
Splendor departed, leaving scarred desolation; sweeping revolutions brought forth ruins; grand aspirations poisoned the realm; sweet dreams shattered, leaving only emptiness.
All the phenomena of the mortal world flooded into his consciousness like a tide, yet he had no time to record or ponder them. He could only numbly bear witness to it all, until at last, sluggishly, comprehension arrived.
Bitter hatred ascended from blood; grudges were purified from tears; once love and beautiful dreams burned away in the fire, only despair and nihilism remained to transmute into one another, while the world's clutter and decay integrated together, forming an ocean of chaos.
Destruction again and again, beginning anew again and again.
When the path of Revolution reached its end, all that remained was this futile, hideous cycle.
In the end, every single thing converged into one.
When Ji Jue lowered his head, he saw those hands, turned pitch-black from despair and curses.
Thick, bloody gore dripped from his fingertips.
Unending, inexhaustible!
All evil and calamity were wrought by this heart; all suffering was fashioned by these hands; the sins of the mortal realm were carried out by these ten fingers... Such was the guilt of Non-Offensive!
In that moment of realization, Ji Jue once again heard the wails that had replayed countless times across four hundred years of Samsara.
Non-Offensive rebelled, outraged, struggling in vain—yet ultimately sank back into silence amid the illusory glimmer of tears.
"The world is made by men, Ji Jue, and hell is the same."
An indifferent voice drifted from afar: "Yet where is your hell?"
And so, everything gradually grew clear.
Ji Jue lifted his head and once more saw the burning red vault of heaven, the pitch-black earth beneath his feet, the rain of ash swirling through the mortal realm, and the phantom-like wailing and screaming borne upon the distant wind.
So familiar.
From within flame and fire, those departed souls laughed wildly, dancing, biting, slaughtering, and ravaging one another, endlessly tormenting each other in eternal anguish.
The light of flames rose from the depths of hell, reflecting in Ji Jue's pupils and flooding every corner of his consciousness and soul.
"Isn't this everything that made you what you are, Ji Jue?" a mocking voice sounded. "Yet if this world is hell, what are you?"
Hell laughed into his ears, whispering encouragement, telling him:
*From beginning to end, you have been in hell!*
*Therefore, you must not stay silent, you must not endure, you must not remain where you stand...*
*Go hate, go burn, go destroy!*
For a fleeting instant, Ji Jue felt an urge to throw himself into it, to embrace this natural, rightful Heaven's Mandate.
Yet in his inexplicable hesitation, he could not resist looking behind him.
Even though there was only emptiness there, a stretch of nothingness...
Only from far, far away came a song.
So faint, yet unable to be drowned out by the wails and screams, persisting stubbornly as though echoing for eternity.
Like a star rising at the end of the night.
Shining with brilliance.
She was watching him.
And so, Ji Jue smiled with sudden clarity.
"Don't worry."
He raised a hand, wiped away his tears, and gave her a bright smile. "I'm fine."
Just like that, he picked himself up from the ground once more.
Turning his back on the so-called hell and the truth of the world, he strode toward that void, hesitating no longer.
Even if it was futile, even if it was meaningless.
No matter how high and distant that road to the heavens was behind him, no matter how many times this had to be repeated, it didn't matter.
—The place he was going was not here!
A furious roar seemed to resound from the heavens above. Boundless emerald flames surged forth, welling up to bar his way.
Yet immediately after, resplendent stars shone anew, revolving and converging, until at last the celestial crucible overturned, spilling myriad sparks like a waterfall across the world below.
The two collided, vanishing into nothingness.
Amid the chaotic tide, a line of silver light suddenly slashed across like a razor-sharp blade, severing everything completely!
In that instant, Ji Jue opened his eyes.
The residual light within the Crucible soundlessly faded.
Everything came to an abrupt halt.
In the dead silence, ashes drifted down like flurries of snow, dusting Ji Jue's shoulders.
His hand hovered futilely in the air.
As if he were only a hair's breadth away from grasping that hand once more... But once the dream's bubble burst, nothing remained in his palm but void.
"What a long-lost sweet dream that was."
Ji Jue sighed softly in realization. He lowered his eyes, gazing at the solitary wisp of ash left in his palm.
"Thank you, Kanemoto."
He turned his head and offered his heartfelt gratitude: "Tell me, how should I repay you?"
Though he was smiling, there was not a shred of warmth to it.
In the dead silence, those eyes held only boundless darkness, like an abyss.
"Congratulations, Ji Jue!"
Kanemoto smiled, brimming with gratification. "You have learned the first lesson in controlling corruption and mastering aberration—hatred and malice... No, rather, you finally no longer need to disguise yourself."
With that, he patted his rebellious apprentice on the shoulder and told him:
"Tomorrow, we continue."
Chapter 235