"Fuck the workshop!"
"Fuck the artisan examination!"
"Fuck the Association, fuck the corruption..."
Amidst the ruins of the observation station, a grime-caked Lou Feng reached out with difficulty. Clutched in his grip was a sack of scavenged canned food as he hauled himself out from a narrow crevice, gasping violently for breath.
He raised a hand to yank out an insect that had burrowed into his collar, casually crushing it to death between his fingers.
He couldn't even muster the will to scream anymore.
He was long since thoroughly numb.
Tired. Let it all burn.
In all his life, he had never spewed so many mother-laden curses.
"Why the hell did I have to compete with that bastard Ji... If I'd known, I wouldn't have come this year..."
After an agonizing night, facing such a gruesome plight and unwilling to suffer the humiliation of being eliminated, Young Master Lou could only thrash about desperately like a salted fish tossed into a pickle vat.
After all, he had made grand declarations before coming. If he failed even the preliminary round and got sent home packing...
Master Kong, a few days ago: *"I won't force you if you want to try, but if you fail and humiliate me, you know what will happen when you return, don't you?"*
Clear, oh so clear—he knew all too well.
Besides, even without his teacher's 'incentive,' he desperately needed an artisan license to wash away the delinquent, street-punk image he had gradually acquired in his family's eyes.
Before leaving, when he bade farewell to Agong, a slip of the tongue with a modal particle had turned the atmosphere profoundly awkward. To that, Young Master Lou could only say: It's all that prick Ji Jue's fucking fault for teaching me so much filthy slang!
Yet in a way, he couldn't help but feel grateful to Ji Jue.
If not for his experiences in the Reclamation Department and Quancheng, he had no idea how much more battered and pathetic he would be right now.
*Boom!*
The ruins suddenly shuddered. Collapsing rubble and stone flew in every direction as a frenzied aberrant crashed through the wall, its patched-together, broken limbs flailing wildly.
Crimson eyes glared fixedly at Lou Feng, ravenous and menacing.
"You haven't left yet?"
Lou Feng propped himself up and glanced at it, barely possessing the strength to curse.
From last night until now, there hadn't been a single moment of peace.
Did this thing really have to fixate on eating *him* of all people?
The aberrant hissed, charging forward in a mad dash. Only then did it see the brilliant, crystalline gem Lou Feng produced from his pocket—from last night to this moment, by relentlessly wringing out his overly thin reserves of spiritus and relying on the Lou clan's spiritus manipulation techniques, he had painstakingly amassed this tiny bit of seed capital.
Intricate spiritus circuits flashed across it for an instant.
*Snap!*
With a crisp sound, the spiritus crystal vanished from Lou Feng's palm.
Immediately after, amidst the spreading, rushing flash of light, translucent chains erupted from thin air. Crisscrossing, they instantly coiled around the aberrant, binding its joints, suppressing its soul, and freezing its vitality and blood.
Every movement was completely locked in place.
Amidst violent struggling, harsh grinding sounds rang out incessantly, yet it was unable to break free from the translucent chains. Even without the ability of spiritus shaping, relying solely on the secret techniques and alchemy passed down through the Lou clan, one could achieve an effect akin to creating matter from nothingness!
Accompanied by heavy footsteps, the aberrant's eyes widened, staring at the human who, rather than fleeing, was walking toward it step by step.
He was right before it.
It could have snapped his wrist with a single bite and sucked his flesh and blood dry to its heart's content.
Yet that hand pressed down atop one of its heads. Then, a regretful voice sounded: "Sorry, I didn't want to learn from that dog bastard either."
But this move was just... ridiculously useful!
In that instant, an unprecedentedly agonized shriek burst from the aberrant's many mouths. Eyes shattered like bursting lightbulbs one after another.
From its eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and open wounds, wisps of grayish-black light emerged, surging forth.
They converged.
They settled into Lou Feng's hand.
The aberrant's soul, already fragmented and chaotic, was suddenly crushed as if tossed beneath a ten-thousand-ton hydraulic press. In an instant, every scrap of spiritus was squeezed out, reducing the creature to an empty husk.
It fell to the ground, rotting rapidly into foul-smelling pus.
Only a fist-sized, dark-purple crystal landed in Lou Feng's palm. Translucent and clear, it reflected his pupils, along with the irrepressible smile spreading across his lips.
Not a small reserve at all.
Although the corruption was slightly high, after a bit of purification, it would be enough to forge a spiritus armament!
"A mere aberrant is nothing to write home about!"
Heroic pride welled within Lou Feng, and he threw his head back in laughter. "Just you wait and be envious, Ji! I am definitely passing this artisan exam!"
When it came to spiritus manipulation, the Lou clan were the true experts!
Even without spiritus shaping or the Deft Craft matrix, they still possessed numerous secret arts and techniques preserved over a millennium.
In contrast, what did that universally reviled bastard have left without Non-Offensive and Deus Ex Machina?
Wouldn't he be left with only Master Ye's true teachings and the Dissociation Art, the Fluid Alchemy handed down from the Sage, a massive heap of secret techniques looted or nicked from God knew where, and corrupted alchemy more proficient than that of a Profound artisan...
As he laughed, his laughter trailed off.
"Fuck—"
In the end, he couldn't hold it back and cursed aloud.
Life was simply impossible.
*
Within the Tower of Myriad Transformations, before countless floating lights, the scenes displayed across innumerable projections shifted.
Accompanied by the accelerated passage of time inside the simulated realm, after the initial panic and chaos, the vast majority of candidates had begun to struggle desperately for survival.
Just as Gustav had said, sometimes even the most flawless examination paper could hardly evaluate an artisan's true capability. Reality, on the other hand, was the best possible test.
At the same time, reality provided the most undeniable answer and ironclad proof.
Capable was capable; incapable was incapable.
No amount of excuses could change that. After at least half the candidates were screened out in the opening phase, the remaining examinees recognized the grim reality and cast aside any notions of holding back or making excuses.
Each displayed their prowess.
In one ruined scene, a wary aberrant was gnawing on the corpses and flesh beneath it, the eyes on its back still scanning its surroundings alertly.
Yet from a dark crevice, a tiny cylinder was quietly poked out.
A dark-skinned candidate took a deep breath and blew with all his might.
Silently, a wisp of jade-green light shot from the tube, sinking into the aberrant's flesh in an instant. Then, without warning, the creature began to shudder violently, struggling frantically without being able to utter a sound.
Spikes of grayish-black solid matter pierced outward from within its carapace. Soon, its blood hardened, its flesh swelling and turning rigid.
It transformed entirely into a grayish-black stone, silent forevermore.
In another projection, a burly candidate with intricate braids was already swinging a freshly forged axe and shortsword, locked in brutal combat with the monsters roaming the ruins.
A head-on clash of raw strength.
Upon his crude iron armor and his weapons, bizarre totems traced in layers of blood blazed with an increasingly brilliant light.
Consuming blood to grow stronger once more.
In yet another display, the ruins of an observation station were devoid of any aberrants or contaminants.
Only mutilated corpses rose from the ground, one after another.
Guided by the wailing notes of a flute, these walking dead dragged their spilled organs and viscera behind them, stumbling as they hauled stone blocks and bricks.
Inside a dim workshop, atop a makeshift operating table, another stitched-together corpse slowly climbed to its feet.
It stumbled out to join the bustling labor.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. This batch of examinees really does have a few tricks up their sleeves," Jiang Tongguang remarked, rubbing his chin in admiration. "The Lou clan's spiritus transmutation, the Gorgon clan's petrification sigils, the Mid-Continent's Berserk Incantation, and oho, even the Northern Wasteland's Bone Alchemy...
"Seeing so many signature arts truly opens one's eyes."
Reality proved that once pushed into a corner, people were capable of doing anything.
They could even solve Advanced Mathematics.
Indeed, modern alchemy required an examination in Advanced Mathematics. If one knew nothing about it, they wouldn't even be able to calculate the fundamentals of Four-Phase Equilibrium.
After enjoying the spectacles and casually ejecting two candidates on the verge of death from the simulation, Jiang Tongguang turned eagerly toward the special window he had reserved for himself.
The annual live stream for best talent!
Yet inside the frame, not a single living person could be seen. There was only a large pack of grotesque aberrants gathered within the ruins of the observation station, devouring the flesh and bones on the ground as if strolling through an empty field.
The feast had already begun!
"Where is he?" Jiang Tongguang's eyes widened in bewilderment. "He couldn't have been eliminated this quickly, could he?"
Gustav remained silent for a long moment before raising a hand to point toward the very rear of the screen, at a stealthy aberrant lurking in the shadows.
"Isn't he right there?"
The projection zoomed in.
Behind the many aberrants drawn by the scent of heavily burned flesh, a massive silhouette was creeping forward like a giant, crouched low to the ground.
It seemed intimidated by the presence of the other aberrants, not daring to advance.
It could only fiddle with the few scraps of meat scattered before it, tossing them around until another aberrant monster snatched them away.
Finally, after confirming that no one was paying attention to it...
That mangled, bizarre form slowly reached out, silently pulling a shrieking iron hammer from the rubble of the ruins.
Then, it brought the hammer crashing down!
*Boom!*
Amidst a colossal roar, an octopus-like tentacled monster had its head pulverized by the hammer in an instant.
Next, after sloughing off the useless burdens clinging to its frame, broad swaths of rusted iron were revealed as the figure stretched, along with heavy armor plates resembling forged bone.
Then, accompanied by a deafening mechanical racket, plumes of dense smoke rose from a bizarre contraption of intertwined flesh and metal strapped to its back... Straining his vision to the absolute limit, Jiang Tongguang could barely make out that the monstrosity, modified beyond all recognition, seemed to be... the earlier diesel generator?!
What in the absolute hell was this!
Jiang Tongguang leaned in close, squinting as he scrutinized the screen.
That thing currently executing a flying leap-strike, dropping from the sky into the midst of the aberrants to start a brawl...
You're telling me that's Ji Jue?!
*Boom!*
A wrist woven from flesh, steel, and bone swept up, swinging the wailing hammer in a wide arc that instantly flipped over several of the foremost massive beasts.
Claws, tentacles, bone spikes, and venom slammed against his body, yet they couldn't even penetrate the outermost layer of defense.
Across the bone-white armor plates, thick vascular veins bulged and tangled. Grayish-black flesh and steel merged so completely that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
And from the hollow, dark sockets of that skull-like face, two blazing blue flames of burning spiritus flared with blistering radiance.
That was no aberrant at all. It was power armor forged using aberrants as raw material, fused with that shockingly crude exoskeleton frame from before...
An entire set of living, breathing power armor!
Power armor, my ass!
At this moment, wielding the wailing hammer, the corrupted armor tore through the aberrant monsters like some humanoid abomination out of nightmares, slaughtering them at will.
It feared neither damage nor impact.
Even when gaps or wounds appeared, with a bizarre squirming motion, they rapidly regenerated, becoming even more ravenous.
It didn't even spare its fellow aberrant monstrosities. The grotesque beast mask upon the armor parted its jaws, greedily drinking in all the blood to repair itself, growing steadily stronger...
"Jiejiejiejie!"
Amidst the piercing roar of the engine, the corrupted armor stomped down, crushing the thrashing aberrant beneath its boot. The bloodstained face of bone seemed to break into a maniacal grin:
"Today, I shall offer up the lives of your entire brood to prove the supreme art of the Embers unrivaled under heaven, waaargh!"
Chapter 264