Inside the cramped basement, a deafening boom resounded.
In the span of a heartbeat, the generator overloaded, the handmade engine pressurized, power transmitted, and the hydraulics charged. Intense heat leaked from that crudely cobbled exoskeleton, and violent force surged through a shrieking grind of metal. The reinforcing rebar around the shoulders groaned, hairline cracks splitting across the steel as it strained under the intolerable load.
With a single swing of Ji Jue's arm, that absurdly oversized, wailing iron hammer came crashing down from above!
A shockwave blasted outward in all directions, spraying thick, viscous gore.
It was like smashing a ripe tomato to pieces.
The aberrant that had just broken through the doorway literally saw black—and then blacked out again. Before it could even register the full brunt of the hammer's devastating strike, Ji Jue swept the weapon sideways, swatting the creature into the air. It slammed into the wall with another resounding boom, spiderweb fractures bursting across the masonry.
Howling in agonizing pain, the aberrant—a grotesque fusion of countless limbs—thrashed wildly, its appendages flailing about as it awkwardly propped itself back up and rapidly regenerated.
It had already been a mangled mess of flesh and blood; Ji Jue's two hammer blows could practically be considered cosmetic surgery.
Now, across its 'shoulders,' its 'waist,' and its 'six legs,' eyes opened one after another, fixing upon Ji Jue with murderous glares. Without the slightest tell or telegraphing windup, it finished charging its power and launched itself forward!
Its speed was mind-boggling.
Blurring like a phantom, it lunged straight for his face in the blink of an eye.
Ji Jue didn't even have time to hoist his cumbersome hammer before his exposed neck and head were laid bare right beneath a gaping maw that suddenly split open from the creature's chest.
And then...
*Splat!*
The aberrant slammed headfirst into an enormous shield that seemed to have materialized in Ji Jue's other hand out of thin air. The jagged spikes welded across its face gouged deep into the creature's flesh, punching straight out its back.
It was as if it had willingly thrown itself onto a bed of nails.
Only now did it use whatever reasoning faculties it probably didn't possess to realize that the exaggerated greatshield in Ji Jue's hand... was the fucking door that had just been sealed to the wall moments ago!
Thanks to the pre-rigged linkages, all it took was a gentle yank, and the deliberately compromised bolts popped completely loose.
Then, pulled by cables braided from layers of steel wire, the massive iron door dropped right into Ji Jue's grip, becoming a massive tower shield large enough to cover his entire body.
And the sharp scrap metal Ji Jue had welded to the back of the door became the best welcoming gift the aberrant could have asked for.
In that split-second collision, before the creature could even react, it found itself impaled and stuck fast. Immediately following that... the iron hammer charged its stroke. The monster welded to the hammer's head let out a piercing shriek, howling in what sounded like perverse ecstasy as it pulled its 'fellow countryman' pinned to the shield into a catastrophic, meteoric embrace!
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
The iron door shook violently, shuddering as countless flecks of gore and shredded tissue bounced off its surface.
The violently thrashing abomination still wildly sprayed venom and bone spikes like bullets, but unfortunately, it couldn't aim at anything. Even when a stray bone shard struck Ji Jue, it was deflected by the sheet metal strapped over his hazmat suit.
Yes, that metal had also been scavenged from one of the chemical drums in the room.
A heavy-duty drum designed to store hazardous compounds, featuring intact plating and exceptional durability, had no trouble turning aside a few puny bone spurs.
With every full-force blow, large chunks of flesh were torn from the aberrant by the weeping iron hammer. Coiling tentacles even sprouted from the gaping maw on the hammer's head, wrapping tight around the creature, greedily sucking its blood and gnawing on its marrow, refusing to let it break free and flee!
No one wished death on a practitioner more than a fellow peer in the same trade; corrupted entities were no different.
Mournful wails rang out continuously.
Mouth after mouth opened and closed as agonizing screams erupted once more.
The bulky aberrant was nearly snapped in half at the waist.
Through desperate thrashing, it finally tore free from the rusted pipes and metal scraps piercing its body. With one violent wrench, a sickening sound of ripping flesh echoed through the room...
Forcibly tearing itself from the grip of the hammer and shield, the heavily maimed aberrant escaped its shackles. Yet it no longer had the courage to attack Ji Jue, who stood mere inches away.
Instead, it began scurrying across the floor in terror.
Unprecedented dread and panic welled up within its consciousness. In a battle where every single element was steeped in eerie madness, it even began to wonder which one of them was the real creature of corruption...
The moment it realized it couldn't win, it abandoned its entire lower half, dragging a messy trail of proliferating, mutilated meat as it spun around and bolted for the exit of the basement.
It was running!
Ji Jue was incensed.
"Where do you think you're going?! Stop right there!"
*I poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into this, wasted so much material, and finally whittled you down to low health, and you try to run after dropping barely any loot?!*
*What happened to an honorable duel?!*
Yet he couldn't give chase.
The hastily cobbled transmission assembly was crude from top to bottom; getting it to swing that massive hammer was already a miracle. As for the legs, barely managing to bear the hundred-plus jin of dead weight had pushed them to their absolute limit. Asking them to pull off nonexistent locomotion was simply out of the question.
Faced with this, Ji Jue could only let out a helpless sigh.
Then, he stepped on a nearby floor pedal.
In that instant, a taut wire snapped, followed immediately by a crisp pop...
Right before the doorway, which didn't even have a door anymore.
Above the doorframe, a pressurized canister suspended in the air abruptly ruptured, punctured by a sharp, rusted nail.
A thick foam erupted and burst outward.
It splashed right across the aberrant's face.
The moment the greyish-black foamy substance leaked from the canister and met the air, it reacted instantly, curing and sticking fast. In less than a second, it solidified into lightweight, rock-hard blocks.
More than half of the corrupted entity was enveloped within it, glued firmly to the floor.
"..."
The creature froze, dazed. Instinctively, it squirmed, writhing and struggling with all its might.
Finally, a few tiny hairline cracks broke open in the hardened foam.
Freedom was in sight.
Unfortunately, it was already too late...
In those brief few seconds, Ji Jue had already dragged the cumbersome exoskeleton forward, shuffling step by step until he stood right in front of it.
He looked down, casting a dark shadow over that twisted, spasming face.
Suddenly, he smiled.
"Running? Why aren't you running anymore?"
Ji Jue pointed a finger and asked, "I said 'hello' earlier, but now that you're leaving, you won't even say 'goodbye'? Isn't that a little rude? Are you looking down on me?"
The corrupted entity stared blankly, the fractured faces exposed on its surface squirming as though trying to speak.
Immediately following that, beneath the rapidly expanding shadow, an explosive boom detonated!
The iron hammer smashed down!
"You're the one who knocked on my door, aren't you?!"
*Boom!*
"You're the one with the big fucking mouth, aren't you?!"
*Boom!*
"You're the one with no fucking manners, aren't you?!"
*Boom!*
Amidst continuous detonations and the sickening crunches of fracturing bone and deformed flesh, a torrential rain of blood sprayed outward, speckling that handsome face.
It dyed his smile crimson.
He was laughing.
Amidst the shrill wails and shrieks of agony, he could no longer hold it in and burst into wild, uproarious laughter.
***
Meanwhile, before the shimmering projections within the Tower of Myriad Transformations, the proctors had fallen into a prolonged silence. It lasted for a very, very long time...
For a moment, Jiang Tongguang desperately wanted to force a smile and say, "Isn't this going pretty well?" But looking at the scene, no matter how one sliced it, it didn't look well at all!
More importantly...
"What... is that?"
Gustav raised a hand, pointing at the canister above the doorframe that had sprayed out the foam.
Now even Jiang Tongguang wasn't entirely sure. Squinting for a while, he murmured, "Uh, looks like... the half-can of compressed gaseous gel originally stocked in the workshop?"
Just like the grey tiles and numerous spare parts, it was supposed to be consumable material provided for candidates to patch up their workshops and maintain equipment.
An exam was still an exam, after all. Even Gustav wasn't ruthless enough to toss candidates into a bare wasteland for raw wilderness survival; he still had to provide basic tools.
*But this doesn't add up...*
Gustav grew increasingly bewildered. "If he used the compressed gaseous gel there, what did he use to seal the cracks in the workshop?"
"He used, uh... remarkably exquisite masonry skills."
Jiang Tongguang pulled up the recorded retrospective projection, but seeing the footage inside, he nearly lost his composure, rubbing his eyes repeatedly. "No, seriously, his technique is genuinely impressive. He even leveled the walls while he was at it!"
"..."
The projection faithfully reproduced Ji Jue's handiwork.
He had taken fragments of the grey tiles, the ash remaining in the crucible furnace, and the pulverized dust of scrapped components, subjected them to Ascension and Purification, and blended them with grease to produce a massive vat of endless sealant paste.
To be fair, it was convenient, and it worked, but its potency was nowhere near enough! A quick calculation showed it could only hold out temporarily... Oh, he only ever planned to hold out temporarily? Well, never mind then.
Gustav remained silent for a long time before finally asking, "And the corruption leaking in from outside?"
"..."
Jiang Tongguang's expression twitched. He pointed toward several cables routed along the wall in the footage. "He channeled all of it straight into the furnace, using it as a catalyst to nurture that aberrant. Mm, the results were stellar."
In the ensuing silence, the two exchanged a glance, letting out a synchronized, speechless sigh.
*What a fucking talent!*
Ye Xian had truly picked up a demon...
"At the very least, it proves the Haizhou Association's report wasn't wrong. With this level of skill and ability..."
Jiang Tongguang nodded in approval. "He certainly has plenty of room to maneuver."
Setting aside his quick reflexes, rapid modifications, and unexpected improvisation, the sheer audacity to turn a corrupted creature spawned from his own furnace into a weapon on the spot could only be described as swift, precise, ruthless, and deadly!
Normal apprentices wouldn't even have time to cry when faced with this kind of crisis. How could they possibly grin from ear to ear like him, looking as though they had just struck it rich?
And in truth, he had.
Free materials spawned right inside his furnace.
If that wasn't striking gold, what was?
"If you tried to tell me this was his first time dealing with corrupted entities, I wouldn't believe a word of it," Jiang Tongguang remarked with a sigh as he flipped to Ji Jue's file, reading the evaluation provided by the Quancheng Reclamation Department of the Haizhou Association: *Outstanding. Possesses great perspective, looks out for colleagues, readily takes responsibility in times of crisis, and holds a degree of experience in handling corrupted entities.*
He had originally assumed it was just polite flattery—weren't gilded young masters always described like that? He never imagined that the director of the Quancheng Reclamation Department had been way too fucking modest.
*You call this 'a degree of experience'?*
*He refines corrupted materials like an old hand walking a familiar road—he's practically more practiced at it than I am!*
If not for the fact that Ji Jue bore zero traces of colluding with evil entities and possessed letters of guarantee from three masters, Jiang Tongguang would have suspected he was an undercover disciple sent by some notorious scourge from the Profound.
And look at those terrifyingly solid fundamentals, his mastery of ancient alchemy, and his effortless execution...
"Good grief, each generation truly surpasses the last," Jiang Tongguang marveled, clicking his tongue. "Hey, Old Gu! I see supermax potential in this kid!"
Gustav remained expressionless.
After watching Ji Jue beat that aberrant half to death, hang the door back in place to repair it, and then... toss the creature into the furnace to see if it could be recycled, Gustav had completely lost the desire to speak.
Fortunately, an examinee as outrageously twisted as Ji Jue was the only one of his kind.
He could still look at other projections to lower his blood pressure.
***
Meanwhile, inside the workshop, intense, feverish work continued.
After re-reinforcing the workshop, Ji Jue drove his near-scrapped exoskeleton and painstakingly folded the dying, half-dead aberrant over and over, kneading it into a mangled ball before forcibly stuffing it into the furnace.
Amidst the blazing inferno and the dissociation and restructuring of spiritus, the overloaded crucible furnace shuddered violently. Cracks repeatedly spiderwebbed across its surface, only to be patched up by Ji Jue using various scrap materials.
His philosophy was simple: as long as it hadn't blown up, it could still be used.
Besides, wasn't it running just fine right now?
From within the furnace, the familiar wails and shrieks rose once more. In the corner, the freshly forged flesh-and-blood warhammer trembled in fear, not daring to make the slightest sound.
Popping and cracking sounds echoed continuously.
A vast amount of redundant tissue and structure turned to ash in the flames. Viscous, dark blood seeped out from the cracks, pooling onto the floor into a spreading puddle.
*What a waste.*
Ji Jue clicked his tongue, quickly fetching a basin to collect it under the principle of letting nothing go to waste.
Judging by quality, though this aberrant was stronger than the one that had crawled out of the furnace earlier, the difference was minimal; it was still leftover scrap—merely an amalgamation formed from the corrupted corpses of a few Celestial Chosen.
*It'll have to do.*
*Conditions are limited; no one can afford to be picky.*
*In trying times like these, we ought to cooperate in good faith, put aside our differences, and march forward hand in hand.*
*What was this called?*
*This was called making mutual sacrifices for the common good!*
"Don't worry, it'll be over soon," Ji Jue patted the furnace comfortingly. "Once you finish counting the scratches inside, you can become a handy-dandy Mousketool for whatever comes next!"
As the heat intensified, the shrill shrieks peaked in pitch.
Stepping through the puddle of gore, Ji Jue dragged over a chair. Amidst the thunder, pouring rain, and myriad bizarre noises howling outside the workshop, he comfortably warmed himself by the fire.
Whistling a jaunty tune, he began to sing.
***
For every single examinee, that night—far too long and excruciating—finally came to an end amidst unprecedented panic and anxiety.
It had been nothing short of a nightmare.
The corruption that encroached with nightfall, the monsters pacing endlessly outside the doors, the aberrants clawing out of the furnaces, the unknown horrors slithering through the pipes in the dead of night, and the violent tremors and collapses that struck at dawn.
One trial after another, each horror draining the candidates of their sanity, pushing them to the brink of despair.
Yet when the long night finally broke, no sun rose.
When the first candidate summoned the courage, made every preparation, and stepped past the invisible barrier that had vanished at some point, all they found amidst the ruins was sheer desolation.
The aged buildings that had once been somewhat intact now teetered on the verge of total collapse.
Outside the basements, across the structures and courtyards, corpses littered the ground. Decomposing in the damp air, the putrefying remains had attracted swarms of bizarre insects to feed.
Flies buzzed as a sickening stench permeated the air.
And when they saw the emblem hanging on the wall and the words 'Luye Frontier Observation Center,' their hearts finally sank into an abyss of despair.
By now, they finally understood where the basis for this exam came from...
—The Calamity of Lightlessness!
One hundred and forty-one years ago, in the far west of the Endless Sea, on the fringes of civilization, a horrific catastrophe known as the Calamity of Lightlessness ran rampant.
Due to a lack of budget and long-standing neglect, the director of the Luye Frontier Observation Center abandoned his post, causing numerous warning signs to be overlooked. Ultimately, within that heavily contaminated stretch of sea, a terrifying calamity beast retrospectively assessed as Omega-grade finished gestating and broke free from its shell.
With its very first newborn cry, an unprecedented tide of corruption swept across thousands of li of open ocean.
A dense fog followed, spreading even farther to blanket dozens of islands, including Luye Island. For three and a half months, the sun never once shone over the waters shrouded in corruption.
Wherever this calamity beast—dubbed the 'Nether Sea Worm'—passed, every living thing was instantly corrupted, turning the world into a demonic domain. Had the western reaches of the Endless Sea not been so sparsely populated with few islands, it would have resulted in one of the deadliest catastrophes in recorded history.
By the time the joint fleet of the Empire and the Federation deployed numbered Celestial Crafts to completely eradicate the beast, three and a half months had elapsed.
Even to this day, the pollution in that maritime region had yet to dissipate. Projections estimated that natural recovery would take at least two centuries.
Yet unexpectedly, when an Association investigation team arrived on Luye Island to recover data after the disaster, they discovered... there had actually been a survivor.
An apprentice no one had ever paid attention to.
When the corruption struck, he had happened to be stuck in a workshop doing hard labor, allowing him to escape the initial disaster.
Over the subsequent three months, this apprentice, who had failed the artisan exam multiple times, hid inside the observation station. Surviving on near-expired rations from the storehouse and barely scraping by with his meager skills to make endless repairs, he miraculously held out until the investigation team arrived.
Having endured such a brutal catastrophe, the surviving apprentice gave up on pursuing further studies or becoming an artisan. After undergoing Association testing and quarantine, he spent the rest of his days cooperating with their publicity, riding the wave of public attention as a mascot to make a fortune before aging away in peaceful mediocrity.
Based on the Aether records extracted from him, along with environmental reconstructions and analyses, the Association ultimately concluded: this seemingly miraculous survival hadn't actually been that difficult.
Luye Island lay outside the core zone of the corruption, and the aberrants and evil entities spawned on the island had little interest in the meager flesh and spiritus of a living human.
It could only be said: sometimes, being exceptionally weak had its perks.
At the very least, evil entities couldn't be bothered by such paltry scraps... while those that might have cared either couldn't find him or couldn't finish him off.
As long as one weathered the initial wave of the shock, maintained and repaired the observation post, and kept a low profile, replicating that survival was entirely possible.
In truth, the process seemed quite simple—anyone with hands could pull it off!
Unfortunately, everything looked easy when written in the dusty annals of history.
Even if one knew that doing this and that would lead to smooth sailing and effortless success, when the brutal reality descended upon each examinee, everyone felt their vision go dark.
Especially when they climbed the shattered observation tower and looked down upon the entire island from above.
Under the dim, murky light, bizarre shadows slithered silently across the vast island. Packs of aberrants roamed and shrieked incessantly. Fully gestated, colossal horrors took root in the barren earth, extending their writhing tentacles.
Across the mist-choked sky, rotting giant birds spread their wings, crying out in famished hunger.
The world had devolved into a demonic realm; the entire island of Luye was a living, nightmarish hell.
Within the simulation of the Tower of Myriad Transformations, before this agonizing, three-month survival had even begun, countless candidates had already sunk into absolute despair.
Except for Ji Jue.
"Are you serious? Is this really an exam?"
He lowered his binoculars, rubbed his eyes, raised them again, and examined the view closely.
It was beyond comprehension.
"Why is the outside filled with such prime materials and uncut gems?!"
Chapter 263