Like burning paper at a grave or stoking a fire under a kang stove bed, Ji Jue's primary job was tossing the thick tomes of spiritus in his hands, one after another, into the roaring flames.
He was completely burning the numerous record tomes crafted by the Aether path—records of natural disasters across various regions that the Tong family had painstakingly transcribed using their own spiritus and matrices over the years.
Then, using his own spiritus, he inspired the records and spurred the phenomena into motion.
Amidst the chaotic shifts and terrifying high temperatures, he seized critical moments to imprint everything inscribed within those records into the flaming crucible.
He did his utmost to minimize the loss of phenomena and prevent distortion of the records.
After that, the Heavenly Circuit feeding the records and phenomena would once again manifest everything of the past from within the furnace, thereby tempering the blade's edge and carving its runes...
The sword resonance rose anew; a cold flash of light cleaved straight through every trace of chaos!
As if obeying the operation of heaven and earth, it severed all desolate defiance, establishing a brand-new framework and order. Such terrifying presence and edge were nonetheless housed within ironclad rules.
With Tianyuan as the foundation to constrain the multitude; with Aether as the main axis to contain everything; with Mirror as the pivot to invert void and reality; with Desolate Ruins as the vessel to affect the material realm...
Between countless runic insignias and spiritus circuits, four blessings constituted an integrated whole.
If it could truly be forged, Tong Shan likely would never need another weapon all the way until he reached Celestial-Human. Even if it became useless to him in the future, it would be more than enough to pass down to descendants, founding an entirely new lineage within the Tong family's heirlooms!
Rather than calling it a weapon, it was more apt to call it a ritual instrument!
Truly, just as Zhou Chong had said...
*This is better!*
"Feed the materials."
To Ji Jue's surprise, Zhou Chong's voice rang out again.
The furnace fire illuminated Ji Jue's eyes.
He reached out once more.
At this point, there was no time to dwell on anything else. For him, this was an unprecedented opportunity: an artisan master demonstrating creation with undivided focus, the core essence and intricate shifts occurring within arm's reach, even insights born of analogy and connection.
He was already completely immersed.
Without needing Zhou Chong's orders or reminders, he naturally blended into the rhythm.
Smooth and unhindered.
Tome after tome of records in his hands was hurled into the blazing fire. Seizing every critical moment, he used Non-Offensive to inspire and catalyze them in an unbroken stream.
And without him uttering a word, those record tomes—which normally required an Aether Celestial Chosen to spend vast amounts of time detailing, repeatedly verifying, and retracing to complete—were being carried in by the Tong family crate by crate, as though endless.
Not a word wasted, a relentless supply.
The whole process flowed like water, flawless and seamless.
Under Zhou Chong's direction, this massive undertaking composed of so many people encountered no hitches or problems whatsoever. Even if any arose, he resolved them with a casual flick of his wrist.
He eliminated even more potential hazards before they could even manifest.
A master through and through.
While marveling inwardly, Ji Jue also felt an increasing weight and pressure falling upon his shoulders.
If the collaborative framework of Convergence of All Sources was an immense system, Ji Jue's role had imperceptibly shifted from the outermost periphery right toward the core.
Even though the core essence flowing through it was still like viewing flowers through fog—difficult to make out clearly—the shifts he could observe and touch were far more numerous than before.
Who would have thought that a man as petty-minded as Master Zhou Chong could display such broad-minded generosity?
Before the crucible, Zhou Chong's face was as dark and still as water, devoid of expression.
Only someone close and familiar with him could distinguish the fleeting flash of displeasure and gloom in his eyes.
It wasn't that he wanted this!
The damn problem was, Ji Jue was just too fucking handy to use...
In such an immense project, all forces had to be integrated. If someone had one part strength to offer, they had to give one; if ten parts, they gave all ten. There was zero tolerance for slacking off.
Zhou Chong had initially planned to kick him out and mock him the moment he failed to keep up.
He never expected the kid to be so absurdly smooth.
Even though they had never collaborated before, after merely feeding materials a few times, Ji Jue had relied purely on intuition to harmonize with the operation of Convergence of All Sources, subsequently judging the timing for material feeding and catalysis on his own.
He had even assessed the furnace heat and the Transmutation of the blessings to readjust his own position, accommodating and assisting the other nodes in their operation and control.
He had even absorbed pressure on behalf of other sections.
Before anyone realized it, more and more responsibility had been shifted onto him.
Burdens that other apprentices or even artisans would usually struggle to bear felt completely like a gentle breeze to him. From beginning to end, his ten fingers never faltered, his spiritus flowed with precise balance—neither lacking nor excessive—steady as a rock.
By nature, the collaboration of Convergence of All Sources prioritized merit. The more pressure one could bear and the steadier one remained, the more critical a position one occupied.
By the time anyone took notice, he had already become one of the linchpins of the entire endeavor.
*Dammit...*
Even though Zhou Chong prided himself on being a master of profound refinement, in the midst of all this frantic work, he couldn't help feeling a surge of irritation and... a jealousy he wouldn't admit even if beaten to death.
All the good fortune went to someone else!
Why couldn't he pick up an apprentice this good? If this boy were under his wing, why would he ever have to worry about the workshop declining or having no successor to inherit his mantle?
Pity, tragedy, vexation.
Then again, on second thought... he wasn't his own apprentice anyway, so why hold back out of tender care? It was someone else's bicycle anyway—what was wrong with him standing up on the pedals to pump it?!
*He'll still have to thank me!*
Maintaining an impassive expression, Zhou Chong casually shifted Ji Jue into the central axis of the First Department of Purification. The scales tilted imperceptibly; a deluge of pressure fell toward Ji Jue along with the cycling of the Heavenly Circuit.
*Let's give you a little more pressure!*
The flames in the furnace flared up vigorously.
Sovereign Virtue circulated, blessings shifted, and spiritus surged forth.
Time slipped past in silence. A process of tempering and creation filled with endless wonders to an artisan was thoroughly dull to a bystander. By seven or eight in the evening, Tong Hua had finally drained her phone's battery. Unable to bear staying any longer, she left a note and slipped away.
Meanwhile, the resounding sword resonance grew progressively clearer and more soaring.
Reverberating endlessly.
Within the woven threads of that resonance, everyone's scalp tingled with numbness, as though a razor-sharp iron law were already pressed against their throats.
At that instant, the Heavenly Circuit abruptly shifted.
The crucible jolted.
A fissure split open amid the resonant ringing, like a ferocious beast constrained by iron laws making its dying counterattack. Behind the crack, spiritus erupted violently.
A shrill shriek rang out.
A searing jet shot past right by Ji Jue and struck an apprentice, bursting instantly into raging flames and charring large patches of skin into cinder.
Amid agonizing screams, the hub maintained by the apprentice snapped abruptly; spiritus circuits collapsed and dissipated one after another.
Yet immediately afterward, they reconnected in the void, linking back together.
Gouges split open across Zhou Chong's outstretched palm, thick blood dripping from his fingertips—only to completely evaporate into nothingness before it could touch the ground.
"Hold it steady!"
Zhou Chong barked. But beneath his raised voice and the mounting crescendo of the sword resonance, cracking sounds rang out incessantly. Jets of scalding spiritus spewed forth, filling the vast workshop with rising steam.
The Heavenly Circuit shook violently.
Even the ninefold structure of three upper and six lower tiers struggled to suppress the flames erupting from the furnace and the power transmuting from the blessings!
Impossible to integrate...
After enduring the Ascension and Purification of countless materials, and the Transmutation and soaring rise of massive volumes of recorded phenomena, everything was finally meant to unify. But if the iron law of Tianyuan could not suppress the erupting backlash, then whatever evolved within the crucible would treat the Tong family to a fireworks show rarely seen in history.
Sent up in smoke alongside Tong the Vegetable's commissioned piece would be Zhou Chong's hard work of recent days and his lifetime of reputation!
The furnace was going to blow!
Unless Zhou Chong was prepared to hang himself weeping at the Association's front gate tomorrow and proudly claim the Coward of the Year Award, he couldn't let the furnace die before he did, even if it killed him...
"Hold it steady for me!!!"
Zhou Chong roared.
A vast, violent torrent of spiritus surged from his body, forcibly taking over numerous spiritus circuits that were steadily collapsing and running amok, sustaining the framework of the Heavenly Circuit by his own strength alone.
Yet in the high-density spiritus environment, illusions of boundless flames spreading, ocean tides surging, or lightning and thunder crashing had already begun to manifest. Under the backlash of the creation, the slightest lapse would cause these illusions to turn from virtual into reality...
Things would never have reached this point under normal circumstances, but the damn problem was, they had fed it too much heavy material!
Plus, they had an obedient tool like Ji Jue assisting.
The more material they fed, the smoother it went; the more they fed, the more exhilarating it felt, and the progress was unbelievably fast. Consequently, it had far exceeded earlier estimates, incorporating far too many phenomenal variations into the blaze.
The quality had climbed another tier!
To the point that the core of the crucible was the first to give way.
Under a disastrous chain reaction, the four divisions and eight pillars scattered, and the Heavenly Circuit violently convulsed.
Yet amid the thunderous crash and chaos, complex matrix light instantly arose from Zhou Chong, rolling outward and searing into the void.
Using himself as the crucial main axis, he once again forced the chaotic turmoil back to stability.
Yet unexpectedly, amid that turmoil and confusion, besides the contingency plans and backups prepared in advance, there was another critical node right nearby.
Right next to the crucible, within arm's reach.
Unyieldingly supporting over a third of the crushing weight, refusing to let go.
Ji Jue!
The moment was too brief for consideration or hesitation. Zhou Chong made a split-second decision, reestablishing stability using Ji Jue and three critical surrounding hub nodes as the base.
In an instant, following that fleeting turmoil, order was fully restored.
The Heavenly Circuit operated without pause.
Countless flashes of light circulated like rushing stars, converging into the cracked, exposed crucible amid the ringing. Sounds of crashing tides, thunder, seismic rumbles, and the roar of collapsing mountains rose in chaotic succession.
Visions of water, flames, smoke, tides, and falling stars rushed at them, only to vanish into thin air.
At last, inch by inch, iron light emerged from the ashes.
Like a swimming dragon, it soared into the air.
The ninefold Heavenly Circuit of three upper and six lower tiers contracted in an instant. The shifting colors settled into silence, forming layered seals that acted like a scabbard, into which it sank.
A heavy longsword descended from the air.
It landed in Zhou Chong's hands.
Smooth and natural as water carving a channel.
Only, the hands cradling the longsword trembled faintly. Only now did he have the time and chance to break into a cold sweat.
Around them, coughing and ragged gasps sounded continuously.
After days of grueling torment, the grime-faced apprentices were utterly exhausted, lying on the ground without an ounce of strength left to move.
Only in front of the crucible did Ji Jue raise his wrist to wipe the ash off his face.
He exhaled a long breath.
*Thank god it didn't blow.*
*Otherwise, my flesh would've been launched into space this time...*
Turning his head, he saw Zhou Chong watching him with a cold expression.
"Why didn't you stop?"
In that split second just now, Ji Jue clearly had the opportunity to pull his hands away in time; otherwise, he certainly wouldn't have ended up in such a sorry state.
At this moment, as his hands hung limp, the palms were charred to a pulp, and all ten fingers dripped with blood.
Cracks ran deep enough to expose bone.
"Couldn't be helped. If it were anyone else, I probably would have,"
Ji Jue shrugged helplessly. "But Tong the Vegetable treats me with plenty of loyalty. If I'd let go, how could I shift the blame and hustle money out of him later, right?"
Zhou Chong said nothing, merely staring at him.
He waved his hand.
A bottle flew through the air and landed in Ji Jue's hand.
"Apply the medicine yourself."
The fist-sized bottle was mostly of a crystal-like texture, sealed tight by layers of spiritus circuits without leaking a trace. Once uncorked, a wisp of jade-green substance fell upon Ji Jue's hands. The cracks shrank instantly; blood and scars vanished without a trace.
Not a single scar remained.
Not just on the surface—even the hairline fissures within knit closed in an instant. Along with it, Ji Jue's body, slightly weakened by the growth of his soul, was instantly invigorated.
A hint of natural rosiness surfaced on his somewhat pale face.
Crucially, there were no signs of his weakened body being overwhelmed by excessive nourishment; everything integrated naturally.
Good stuff—absolutely top-tier stuff!
As expected of an artisan master's private collection.
Clicking his tongue in admiration, Ji Jue carefully screwed the stopper back on, then casually shoved the rest of it straight into his pocket...
"..."
Zhou Chong stared at him blankly for a long time.
Until Ji Jue seemed to finally remember, slapping his own forehead with an "Oh dear!"
He sluggishly pulled the bottle back out of his pocket and reluctantly handed it over.
Only for it to be snatched out of his hand.
And stowed away.
*Every time I start to appreciate you, you always pull something like this!*
*With Ye Xian's temper, how on earth did she teach a student this shameless?!*
Yet right in front of the master, after failing to pocket the treasure, this fellow brazenly leaned in anyway, blinking his eyes as he stared at the object in Zhou Chong's hands.
That heavy longsword.
*Let me see, let me see!*
Chapter 256