Not allowed?
Why didn't you say so sooner?
*Teacher, you see this? It's not that I'm unwilling to take the exam—the association won't let me!*
At the words, the corners of Ji Jue's lips twitched upward on instinct, but he immediately furrowed his brow, his expression turning solemn.
*Why not?*
It was like the saying "accepting a gift doesn't mean I agree"—thinking he couldn't pass and being forbidden from taking the test were two entirely different things!
Besides, no matter how much he claimed to lack confidence, a part of him had always thought, *It's just an artisan examination. Put in the work, and I'll nail it.*
Just as Professor Ye had said.
Down to his bones, he was a restless fellow.
He couldn't stand fading into mediocrity and incompetence, nor could he endure the agony of doing nothing.
If his teacher believed he could secure the license, there was absolutely no reason for him to shrink back.
Setting aside the benefits of the association's endorsement, the former record set by Grandmaster Tianlu was right in front of him. Given the chance, who wouldn't want to strive to beat it?
Even if Tianlu had inexplicably wasted three months studying for the civil service exam, wasn't Ji Jue himself practically taking night school correspondence classes?
No matter how many messy doubts and calculations he had, once he committed, he should cast them aside and charge straight ahead. How could anyone toss the blame to someone else and give up at the first sign of trouble?
Ji Jue's expression shifted, growing stern. "Could you tell me the reason?"
Internal factional squabbling within the association? Restrictions imposed by the bunch his teacher had beaten up? Or did this tie back to the recent unrest rocking Yacheng, where certain people didn't want Ye Xian's student becoming an artisan right now?
There had to be an explanation.
Behind the desk, the head of the local association branch, Li Yun, was a middle-aged woman with meticulous makeup and a calm, cordial demeanor.
Though she was neither an artisan nor a Celestial Chosen, as the association's plenipotentiary representative in Yacheng, she was responsible for everything related to the Ring of Taiyi and for maintaining ties between the local artisans and the association.
Ji Jue had seen her both in his teacher's study and at Lei Wuye's funeral. While he hadn't interacted with her much, her relationship with Professor Ye ought to be fairly good.
Besides, his teacher had just accepted an assignment commissioned by the association and resolved the crisis in Quancheng.
Not even two months had passed; it was a bit early to slaughter the donkey the moment it left the grindstone.
"Please don't misunderstand, Mr. Ji. This isn't intended to make things difficult for you."
Not wanting a misunderstanding that might disrupt her future work, Li Yun rose immediately and rummaged through the bookshelves behind her. After a long search, she retrieved a dossier, pulled out Ji Jue's registration form, and laid it before him.
She let out a complicated sigh. "It's simply that, according to the records, your period of study is far too short... From last winter until today, your recorded time on file is barely a single year."
"..."
Ji Jue was stunned. He hadn't expected the thing holding him back to be time.
"Can't I take it with one year?"
"It's not just one year," Li Yun replied. "As a rule, the association does not accept exam registrations from apprentices with less than three years of study."
When it came down to it, if blame had to be laid, it went to Tianlu.
And not just Tianlu.
There was another contemporary grandmaster—the Plowsmith!
The time record that the contemporary Grandmaster Tianlu had set when becoming an artisan was no secret within the association, and for years, that talent had been admired by countless successors.
Then, several decades ago, another artisan who had self-studied for just one year passed the exam and went on to become a grandmaster. Amid everyone's awe, the time it took an apprentice to become an artisan subtly turned into a benchmark for measuring talent and future potential.
There was never any shortage of apprentices trying to shave off time to steal the spotlight.
Lured by overnight fame and the dream of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with grandmasters, people threw themselves forward wave after wave to challenge the record.
As everyone knew, the rat race had no finish line.
If it had just been fierce competition, that would have been fine, but the problem was that there were far too many frauds among them!
Normally, such frauds would be filtered out during the written test, but the Embers lineage was far too good at rote memorization... To say nothing of various blessings and alchemical creations—churning out a test-taking machine wasn't hard at all.
Yet every round of evaluation in the artisan examination required a panel of masters. Every extra waste of space meant wasting another master's time and burning through more resources.
One had to remember that to ensure fairness, all materials required for the artisan examination were supplied by the association. Even with an entry fee of four hundred thousand per attempt—a sum that made Ji Jue's heart skip a beat—it remained a pure loss on their ledger!
Moreover, according to subsequent statistics, even if such rushed apprentices managed to fluke their way through and become artisans, they were nothing more than stunted malformations.
Their foundation was severely lacking.
A dozen years ago, there was even an unlucky wretch who got his artisan certificate one day and blew himself to pieces the next...
More importantly, over time, a toxic climate took hold.
After that brief flurry of prosperity, the association seemed to enter an era where a hundred flowers bloomed and geniuses flourished—a blazing spectacle draped in brocade and roasting in flames, dazzling beyond measure.
Yet in the end, barely a handful from that crowd ever earned a single gold ribbon!
Not a single one ever became a master.
Worse still, numerous individuals lost themselves in vain flattery, refusing to wake from their sweet dreams, only to throw themselves into the Profound and Stagnant Rot just to gain an inch of advancement.
Consequently, following an emergency summit between the association's four directors and various academic schools, the brakes were slammed down on this trend.
Beyond that, from then on, apprentices with excessively short study periods faced far more cautious and stringent scrutiny in the examination.
Where performance was ambiguous and could be rated either Grade A or Grade B, it would definitely be marked Grade B.
If it was borderline passing, it would definitively fail.
A margin of a single point was enough to weed out countless candidates.
At the same time, to prevent people from faking their way through, and to stop certain large workshops from completely shedding their shame just to inflate their artisan headcounts, the association issued a new regulation: apprentices with less than three years of study who wished to take the exam required the signatures and guarantees of three artisans to prevent the waste and depletion of resources.
Of course, failing the exam brought no official penalties, but the results would be publicly posted on a separate noticeboard.
If those guarantors were willing to lose face, the association didn't care.
Besides, with how fiercely factions and clans clashed within the association, how could anyone pass up such a golden opportunity?
It would probably make the headlines the very next day.
People would seize on the pretext to attack your character, competence, and judgment, and what could you say in defense?
From that point on, no artisan ever again let an apprentice suffering an episode of eighth-grader syndrome—convinced they were the chosen one—run off to sit for the exam.
They simply couldn't afford the humiliation.
What was more, ordinary apprentices weren't scions of prominent clans like Young Master Lou; where were they supposed to scrounge up three artisans to vouch for them?
They just had to tough it out!
"Naturally, I don't doubt Master Ye's judgment or her standards for her students. Since she sent you here, she must have confidence in you. Still, rules are rules. Even if I approve it here, higher-ups will send it right back."
Li Yun set an ancient notification document retrieved from the bottom of the box before Ji Jue, advising him with genuine sincerity, "You're still so young. Why not wait two years?"
"..."
Ji Jue didn't say a word, only letting out a soft sigh.
He didn't waste his breath begging for leniency.
The association was the association, and rules were rules. Over so many years, once everyone grew accustomed to them, consensus became reality. Challenging the rules and overturning consensus while one was still a nobody was completely irrational and cost-ineffective.
Only after crossing to the west bank did one earn the right to boast of thirty years east of the river.
Only once the golden pellet settled in your belly was your fate in your own hands.
Before then...
"Three signatures?" Ji Jue asked.
"Yes."
Li Yun nodded, as though having anticipated it.
She wasn't surprised.
"Sorry to have bothered you." Ji Jue stood up slowly and offered a polite farewell. "I'll come back tomorrow."
"You're welcome anytime."
Li Yun nodded, watching him turn and leave.
In the silence, she immersed herself back into her paperwork.
***
Under the midday sun, Ji Jue sat on the steps of the plaza, sighing.
Signatures from three artisans...
A bit tricky.
He didn't know many artisans to begin with.
After all, since stepping into this world, he had seen countless artisans. Sadly, very few were alive, while plenty were dead... If he'd known earlier, he would have killed fewer of them and kept some around to sign his papers.
Though he wasn't sure if signatures from the Profound side would even count.
The problem wasn't insurmountable, just troublesome.
His teacher couldn't have sent him to get this license without knowing this rule, meaning she didn't view it as any obstacle for him at all.
And in truth...
Once he thought it through, he pulled out his phone without hesitation and dialed.
Within seconds, the call connected.
Ji Jue asked tentatively, "Hello? You there?"
"Piss off!"
An unhesitating curse blasted from the other end.
It was Lou Feng.
Ji Jue: "..."
Lou Feng: "..."
Silence descended without warning.
Whether triggered by pure instinct, lingering trauma, or full-blown PTSD, the reaction was so overpowering that both sides froze in awkwardness.
Until Ji Jue let out a long, wounded sigh.
"So that's how it is. I understand."
He offered a wistful laugh. "Back in Quancheng, I thought we were friends. I never imagined... I thought we could be partners for life. I'm sorry, it was just wishful thinking on my part. To have bothered you like this... as long as I know you're doing well, that's enough."
The air suddenly grew thick with the suffocating sweetness of pure, manipulative innocence, so potent it nearly choked Lou Feng.
Suffocating.
Ever since running into this bastard, every ounce of the Lou family's pedigree and refinement had gone straight out the window.
He could only roll his eyes to the heavens. "Say what the fuck you want!"
"Won't it trouble you?" Ji Jue asked meekly. "I already felt bad enough bothering you. If someone found out the Lou family was in touch with a pauper like me, it'd look terrible, wouldn't it?"
"Ji, are you fucking done? I—"
Veins bulged on Lou Feng's forehead, and a fluent string of curses surged to his lips—until he noticed the shocked stares from his parents, brothers, and sisters sitting across the dining table. It was already too late.
*Clack!*
At the head of the table, the old patriarch sat dumbfounded, his chopsticks trembling so hard that two grains of rice dropped onto the table.
He seemed poised to speak, then stopped.
Dead silence.
Lou Feng shut his eyes, suppressing the urge to hang himself on the spot. Setting down his chopsticks, he rose slowly. "I'm full."
Then, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders, he bolted from the dining hall at the fastest speed of his life.
Like a fugitive on the run.
It took him a long while to catch his breath, his grip so fierce that two cracks had spiderwebbed across the phone screen in his hand.
*I hate him so much!!!*
Chapter 253