Where the Hell Did You Send Me?

Sometimes, an increase in difficulty only fueled people's desire to take on the challenge. Especially given the pride of the Embers—anyone who harbored fear or hesitated in the face of a challenge was destined not to walk far on this path. Gustav's harshness and iron fist were instead viewed as a rare and invaluable trial. Even though he had previously ignored criticism and pressure from all sides to hand down a zero-percent pass rate, nothing changed. Among the eleven hundred candidates, how many were counting on luck, and how many considered themselves children of destiny, facing hardships head-on? "People are already treating you like a mountain to climb, my friend," Jiang Tongguang remarked with a sigh. "Now the rising tide is surging in, each fighting to charge at you first." Yet, with so many apprentices gathered together, each carrying their own lineage and status, arriving from all corners, quite a few held bitter grudges and irreconcilable blood feuds against one another... Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Hey, I've got an idea!" Jiang Tongguang clapped his hands and raised a finger. "What if we adjust their placements and lump them together?" Gustav looked over with a blank expression. All he saw was the man's excited, undisguised anticipation—*How boring. I want to see rivers of blood!* Never mind. One could never expect much from this guy anyway. He drew back his gaze and responded coldly. "Whether they are a gathering of heroes or a bunch of chopped radishes, we'll only know once they've truly passed through the fire." After pondering for a moment, he suddenly said, "A thousand is still too many. Let's filter out eight hundred in the first trial." At that moment, the spire beneath their feet suddenly gave a slight tremor. Spiritus surged, manifesting over the broken silhouette. It rose and intertwined, outlining a majestic spire soaring straight toward the vault of the heavens. From its pinnacle, a resonant toll of a bell rang out. Countless souls converged like flashes of light. They plunged into it. Vanishing without a trace... The exam began right at that moment. The exam scene was completely different from what had been expected. The first round, a written test, was held inside a large building, resembling a lecture hall at Tianmen University—even the exam room was a massive tiered lecture hall. Or rather, this place was probably originally used by the association to host masterclasses for participants during large conferences. Everyone followed their numbers into their respective exam rooms and took their seats. Test papers were already placed on the desks. However, they were turned face down, with no concern that examinees might peek beforehand. The contents of the exam, along with the entire classroom, were bound and sealed together. Unless a master arrived in person, no one could turn them over even if they wanted to—and even if they did, it would only be a blank sheet of paper. Amid the dead silence, no one dared whisper. Everyone sat upright in their seats, ready for action. The invigilator held a pocket watch and waited in silence until the second hand ticked into place. A crisp bell rang through the building. "The exam begins." After the middle-aged proctor made the announcement, he shut the door, sat down beside the podium with folded arms, and looked indifferently away. He didn't even bother mentioning that cheating was forbidden. Only when Ji Jue flipped over the test paper did he realize... there was no need at all. It was a single A4 sheet with large print and widely spaced lines that barely covered a tenth of the surface. Name, age, sex, candidate number... And then? And then that was it? Holding his pen, Ji Jue stared blankly for a long while before looking up at the proctor. The proctor couldn't even be bothered with the low murmurs, wearing an expression that said: *Take it or don't, and get the hell out if you won't.* After a moment of thought, Ji Jue finally began filling in the fields one by one. Yet, as he was writing, distant chimes seemed to echo in his ears, carrying from far away. He couldn't help but yawn and rub the corner of his eye. He felt drowsy. Something wasn't right... Ji Jue was instantly on guard. His eyes widened as he looked around, only to see one candidate after another already slumping over their desks, some even slipping down to the floor. Thud after thud sounded relentlessly. Then, his vision went black... *BANG!* A loud crash echoed right beside him. Snapping awake as if from a brief trance, Ji Jue jolted upright. He saw a crate tossed down next to him, filled with a mountain of parts in utter disarray. "Stop standing around like an idiot. The island's condition hasn't been right lately, and the erosion rate is frighteningly fast. Everyone needs these urgently. Fix them." A figure with blurred facial features gave the instruction, turned around, and walked away. For a long time, a stunned Ji Jue looked around. An old furnace, a heap of battered instruments, and two machine tools covered under dust sheets that seemed to have gathered dust for who knew how long. A workshop drafty in every corner—no, it barely even qualified as a workshop. A workspace where even the basic spiritus shielding was on the verge of failing. Deep underground. His memory was still stuck on the scene in the exam hall and the sight before he passed out. *Where the hell did you send me?* *Is this still Tianshu?* After a long spell of bewilderment, some thought, and careful analysis... well, he probably hadn't transmigrated to an alternate world. Even now, he could feel the layers of shackles imposed upon his soul. He raised his hand and waved it toward the furnace. No response. No Non-Offensive, no Deus Ex Machina, no blessings. Apart from a spiritus reserve barely a notch above a normal person's, he had practically nothing. Looking down again, he rummaged through the contents of the crate. A messy jumble of practically everything: mostly grey tiles used to reinforce the workshop's seal, two heavy hazmat suits, a few scattered, mismatched tools, and two rusted pickaxes and shovels. The main items were the core modules of two instruments, embedded with blessings. One appeared to be the production component of a water maker, while the other was the core of some large force field occult ritual. This had to be the exam's content. All practical work? He scratched his head, completely baffled. Why wasn't there even a single hint? Surely they didn't expect people to just guess everything? Though puzzled, his hands didn't stop moving. After sorting and arranging the items by difficulty, he began inspecting the crude workshop. Well, apart from a furnace, there was nothing. The spiritus reserve was better than nothing, but pitifully so. What was worse... After Ji Jue spent ages firing up the furnace, he suddenly heard a crisp crack. Then, while he stood dumbfounded, a massive amount of spiritus dissipated into thin air. The flames vanished without a trace. What the hell? This busted furnace... actually shut off?! To make matters worse, as Ji Jue took inventory of the workshop's stockroom during this process, he realized that even a rat would weep if it visited. Aside from a handful of basic metal consumables and a pathetic scattering of materials, there was nothing else. Completely empty. On the other hand, second-hand instruments and scrap materials were piled high. It was practically a junkyard. In his four months of traveling north and south, Ji Jue had never seen such a shabby state of affairs. Even Du Deng's crummy workshop had at least been in one piece. *If it's this bad, why even run a workshop? Just go work at a factory.* *Why suffer like this?* Ji Jue walked over to the basement door and pushed it open, only to see empty stairs and hear faint sounds from above. Unfortunately, he couldn't walk out, as if blocked by an invisible wall. *Right, classic game design. An invisible wall.* *Lousy developers—they didn't even put in a pop-up saying 'the area ahead will be available for exploration later.'* "Hello? Hello! Anyone there?" Ji Jue searched for a while and found a walkie-talkie. Only after shouting into it for some time did a response come through. "What is it?" "There aren't nearly enough materials in the stockroom," Ji Jue said. "Can you get some more?" "Why don't you get off your ass and fuck me instead?" The voice on the other end was rough and callous. "It's not like this is your first day! Figure it out yourself! Everyone needs this stuff urgently, so you'd better get it fixed, hear me?" *Why don't you say your mother's grave urgently needs maintenance before it gets overgrown with weeds?* Ji Jue was almost laughing from pure anger. Even if he were a nuclear-powered donkey turning the millstone without eating grain, he couldn't conjure materials out of thin air. Surely they didn't expect him to dismantle that pile of scrap to fix these things? Wait... His gaze paused on the mountainous pile of scrap, his brow slowly rising. "Then I'm doing things my way." No one answered. The other end of the walkie-talkie fell silent. Inside the basement workshop, only the torrential sound of rain outside and faint rumbles of thunder could be heard. Beyond the narrow window, everything was a blur through the curtain of rain. The workshop didn't even have air conditioning; it was cold enough to make one's hands tremble. The immediate priority was to fix the furnace and light it, or else he'd freeze to death. Ji Jue sighed, rolled up his sleeves, picked up his tools, and crawled inside the furnace. Fortunately, he was accustomed to living in poverty; otherwise, he wouldn't even have known what to do. After a rough inspection, he could only conclude there was good reason this workshop was in such a tragic state. Every component of the furnace, from top to bottom, had been scavenged from who knew how many machines and patched together. The internal spiritus circuits conflicted with one another, the four aspects were out of balance, and even the temperature control sequence was thoroughly ruined. One could say it wasn't far from being sent to the scrapyard. It suited this place quite well. As for the immediate problem, it wasn't too serious—the vents were simply clogged with ash. Gritting his teeth, Ji Jue gripped a hammer and pounded away furiously. After getting a mouthful of ash, he coughed and crawled back out. Once again, he channeled spiritus into it. This time, in the cold and bleak underground workshop, a cluster of warm flame finally flared to life. Ji Jue sat on the ground and wiped the sweat from his face. Before he could catch his breath, he snapped his head toward the window. Just now, something seemed to have flitted past—blindingly fast, like some kind of reptile. What the heck? Wasn't the atmosphere of this exam hall a bit off? Ji Jue scratched his head, frowning, instinctively feeling that something was wrong. Yet even while pondering, his hands didn't stop working. First, he tossed the battered, hole-ridden grey tiles in. He heated and melted down the broken ones to recast them, while repairing the cracks on the ones that were still relatively intact with other alloys—so long as they could passably do their job. Although called grey tiles, they were essentially metallic creations. This dark grey alloy was typically used to construct the exterior insulation layer of workshops. Inexpensive yet effective, Professor Ye's workshop had made ample use of them as well. Having done plenty of grunt work before, handling this wasn't difficult for him. Accustomed to rough and crude conditions, Ji Jue quickly hit his stride. However, just as he was working away with fiery enthusiasm, who knew how many apprentices taking the exam had fallen into utter bewilderment. Staring at the unfamiliar environment and myriad tasks before them, they had no idea where to even start. Some couldn't even get the furnace running. "It's only been four minutes, and over ninety candidates have already been eliminated," Jiang Tongguang remarked with a quiet sigh atop the spire. "Isn't the scenario you chose a bit too harsh?" "It's merely basic tool maintenance and scrap utilization. If they can't even do this, what right do they have to call themselves artisans?" Gustav gazed at the scenes within the floating lights and scoffed. "Being eliminated here is doing them a favor." The real torment hadn't even begun. At that exact moment, Ji Jue snapped his head around on high alert. Amidst an earth-shaking rumble, the entire dilapidated workshop jolted violently. And then... From outside the door, a shrill, blood-curdling scream suddenly rang out!