Embers?
Are you seriously of the Embers?
In the dead silence beyond the floating projections, Jiang Tongguang instinctively glanced back toward the Association. Yes, the white crest of three intertwined mysteries was still hanging high.
This was definitely still Tianshu!
And definitely not the Well of the Profound!
For a moment, he thought that with a blink of an eye, Ji Jue had somehow transported himself into a Stagnant Rot Masters Tournament...
No matter how much anyone tried to spin it, this style could never be passed off as belonging to an orthodox, respectable faction, could it?
Could the Association even release footage of this exam later? The public relations department would probably curse their mothers trying to wash this clean.
The iron hammer crashed down again and again, and the corners of both men's eyes twitched in time with each blow—as if that hammer were swinging straight at their own foreheads.
And so, in stunned silence, they dazedly witnessed Ji Jue unleash a slaughter with proficiency worthy of the White Stag, hammering every lured aberrant into paste.
Yet by some design, a few particularly massive ones still had a breath left in them.
And then... as if terrified they might die on the spot, he pulled out surgical tools and began performing emergency field triage. Wait, buddy, are you sure this surgical procedure isn't from the Vortex lineage?
The two watched numbly as Ji Jue sutured and stopped the bleeding of the living, hacked the dead to pieces, and extracted all their organs to neatly sort and store them by type. They were suddenly half-afraid he was going to pull out a phone in the next second and say to a contact on the other end: "Found the organs. Fresh. But we need to renegotiate the price."
"He..."
Gustav was silent for a long while, pinching the bridge of his nose, before finally unable to hold back any longer: "What in the world is he doing?"
Jiang Tongguang didn't answer.
Squinting, he leaned in closer and enlarged the feed.
He watched as Ji Jue took those barely-breathing aberrants one by one, using Solid Alchemy to lock their flesh into physical shackles, and then applying Fluid Alchemy within to forcibly purify their innards and souls. Over and over he repeated the process, until every shred of consciousness within the aberrant beasts was scrubbed clean by purification, leaving behind only the bare instincts to eat, drink, and excrete. Then, with utmost efficiency, he performed surgery.
Severing limbs and irrelevant organs, he retained only the brain, spinal column, and digestive system.
Submerging them like pickled vegetables into massive containers filled with foul, rank blood, spiritus circuits were inscribed and traced, extending outward...
Before long, refined spiritus slowly flowed forth, draining into a parallel array of spiritus cages fashioned on the spot from the skulls of numerous aberrants.
"Woohoo!"
After inspecting the output efficiency, Ji Jue whistled in high spirits. "Green energy—clean, fresh, and hygienic!"
Right, case closed.
Jiang Tongguang rubbed the continuously twitching corner of his eye and sighed with admiration. "He's making spiritus batteries."
A man who clearly knew how to run a household.
Tapping new sources, cutting back waste, pinching every penny.
With just a dozen-odd aberrants, he had solved the early-stage shortage of spiritus resources. Even if it was tainted and difficult to utilize, filtering it just a little could resolve more than ninety percent of his spiritus needs.
Jiang Tongguang could only suppress the urge to applaud, quietly giving this Association "treasure" a mental thumbs-up.
They'd really stumbled upon an absolute monster this year!
"Courting death!"
Gustav's scowl deepened.
It was like a content moderator watching an adult streamer dance right on the borderline in scraps of cloth—at this point of shamelessness, you might as well just expose yourself completely so I can bring down the hammer and crush you for good.
He was practically hopping back and forth across the Association's red line.
One step back was bold skill born of talent; one step forward was a one-way ticket straight to the absolute penitentiary.
Yet this bastard loved nothing more than repeatedly testing the boundaries of the rules...
To be sure, abomination alchemy was an exceptionally dangerous and intensely difficult field, not exclusive to the Profound. In fact, the Association's public and covert research into it had never ceased.
But wasn't that something only Masters began dabbling with?
And were the casualties and corruptions resulting from it few?
How could an apprentice who didn't even have an artisan license yet spend all day thinking about playing with nuclear waste?!
And play with it so... effortlessly?
For a fleeting moment, rigid as Gustav was, he couldn't help but wonder: had the times truly changed?
Yet when he turned his gaze to the other candidates, who were far more reassuring, he breathed an involuntary sigh of relief.
Fortunately, the times hadn't changed.
The only freak was Ji Jue.
Otherwise, if a few more monstrosities like this showed up, he feared the banner of the Profound would be flying over the Association before he even lived long enough to retire...
Gustav's face darkened further.
"What in the world are the examinees thinking these days!"
"What are they thinking?"
Jiang Tongguang chuckled, glancing at his colleague beside him. "Isn't he doing exactly what you hoped for—attempting to challenge himself in the face of hardship and hopeless odds?"
No consequences, no price to pay.
Freed from all worries, venturing to mount a challenge, ascending peaks that would never appear in ordinary days—
To recreate everything from nothingness, to rebuild towers from the ruins.
One could reshape all of it to one's heart's content.
Jiang Tongguang watched the screen quietly, standing by without moving a muscle. "After all, no matter how dire the consequences become, they can't be worse than reality, can they?"
Gustav said nothing more.
He lowered his gaze to watch.
On the screen, after clearing away the pile of troubles, Ji Jue hauled his spoils and ambled toward the workshop, but his steps suddenly froze.
He stood rooted to the spot.
Looking down, he stared at the soil churned up by the explosions and tremors in the corner of the courtyard. He leaned close, bending down to scrutinize it thoroughly.
Then, abandoning that messy pile of loot without another thought,
he jumped down, grabbed an oversized iron shovel, and began frantically digging.
Soon, from behind a fissure in the rock, he pulled out a lump of vermilion ore.
His eyes went wide as he stared.
After a long pause, he couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into loud laughter.
At this moment, even though nothing had happened yet, both proctors felt their hearts jump into their throats.
Every time Ji Jue laughed like that, it meant he was brewing some earth-shattering stunt that would make everyone black out.
Yet no matter how they looked at it, the rock in Ji Jue's hand appeared to be nothing more than ordinary ore.
When the Association built the observation station, they certainly would have surveyed the site. If any precious mineral deposits had been found, they would have chosen a different spot; it made no sense for someone to suddenly dig up treasure from the ground after all these years.
The pulled records showed that during the construction of Luye Observation Station, geological surveys had indeed found something, but it was just sporadic pyrite, siderite, and various worthless minerals in the mafic bedrock...
The masters who dealt with materials year-round didn't even need to consult reference books to identify it at a glance.
Yet to be safe, they took a second, third, and fourth look.
"Isn't that just mercury sulfide?" Gustav frowned.
"Yeah, indeed."
Jiang Tongguang took a sip of liquor to steady his nerves, speaking slowly: "In the Federation, we call that stuff cinnabar. Aside from being used as a pigment, it's mainly used to... uh..."
He paused, his expression stiffening:
"...extract mercury?"
Remembering the heavy-hitting items on this bastard's résumé...
He couldn't help but draw in a sharp, frantic breath of cold air.
"Fuck!"
***
After a vast multitude of candidates perished on the first night, starting from dawn on the second day, the number and frequency of deaths plummeted, stabilizing surprisingly within double digits each day.
Over an entire week, fewer than two hundred were eliminated.
The adaptability of the Embers was on full display here. Once prepared, the pressure brought by corrupted creatures began to drop precipitously.
At the same time, too many candidates were unwilling to just huddle pathetically in their shelters. In fact, after lengthy preparations, some actively ventured into the world beyond their workshops. Others had not only maintained their workshops but fully restored the entire observation station, even erecting brand-new defensive structures and equipment.
Adaptation, production, transformation...
The essence of the Embers shone through. Not only did the grumbling Association onlookers fall silent, but even the apprentice candidates could feel their own capabilities growing through the torment and ordeal.
"With this, it's finally complete."
Inside his freshly renovated workshop, Lou Feng carefully set down the final component, wiped the sweat from his forehead, took a step back, and proudly admired the crystalline giant before him.
A crystalline giant forged of spiritus through the recreation of alchemy.
Four arms and three legs.
Across its face, etched with crisscrossing crests and totems, six points of light ignited in alternating azure and crimson.
At Lou Feng's command, it slowly rose, then gripped a massive weapon tailored to its mass and scale, radiating ferocious lethality.
"With this, the workshop's safety won't be an issue for now."
After checking the internal anima sequence and reaction matrix, Lou Feng nodded with satisfaction and gave an order: "Seal the workshop. Block external interference."
The crystal giant gave a silent nod, abruptly dissolving into drifting mist that flowed out the door and vanished from sight.
In the dead silence, only Lou Feng remained, along with the vigorously burning crucible furnace behind him.
And blurry phantoms drifting like specters.
"Adjust spiritus output, maintain temperature, increase catalyst feeding frequency."
A far cry from his previous disheveled state, Lou Feng was now clad in fresh, tailor-made clothes. He sank into a chair piled with layers of pelts, crossed his legs, settled into a more comfortable posture, and let out an easy sigh.
"Now, we can proceed to the next stage."
The servants fashioned of spiritus remained silent, faithfully executing their orders.
On another floating projection outside the grounds, another feed showed a scene stripped of all light. In pitch darkness, thick, billowing black mist slowly rose from the observation station, spreading and shrouding everything within a radius of dozens of li.
Within the darkness, only mindless monsters reduced to walking corpses roamed untiringly, ravenously preying upon any living creature daring enough to step into the mist.
In feeds within other floating projections, some candidates had turned their observation stations into impregnable fortresses; others had rebuilt tall spires, aiming to construct the highest citadel of Luye.
And some... their homes were still a pile of rubble.
They had abandoned the observation station on the very second day, ditching their homes entirely!
After all, no monsters, no ores, no resources to be extracted... Did anyone really need to stay in a starter village that had nothing besides an empty shell of a workshop?
On the morning of the second day, Ji Jue had driven the dump truck he repaired overnight, hauling various workshop equipment along the mountain road to find greener pastures elsewhere.
By now, on the surface, not even the slightest trace of him could be found.
Only in the darkness deep beneath the earth, within heavy soil and bedrock, had an enormous framework quietly risen, along with an increasingly intricate subterranean complex.
The roaring hum of rushing mercury never ceased day or night, silently expanding as it chased the island's mineral veins.
In addition to extensive and rich iron ore deposits, Ji Jue had discovered plenty of chalcopyrite and malachite, as well as vast seams of coal upon digging down more than a thousand meters.
Unlike the heavily corrupted surface, separated by thick earth and distance, the deeper one went, the thinner the corruption became.
Equipped with ample mercury as his tool, he had also extracted copious amounts of phlogiston from coal and natural gas... After Ji Jue ruthlessly dismantled the water purification system to establish the process for synthesizing glycerol, he achieved total freedom with explosives.
As for drinking water, filtered seawater was perfectly drinkable. Purified of corruption via spiritus adsorption and passed through two stages of condensation, there was more than enough not just for drinking, but to build a swimming pool.
So he built one.
"Never in my life have I seen such an incredible man—spending a mere three months on a deserted island to build his very own luxury villa..."
Amidst the splashing of water, Ji Jue soaked in the swimming pool he had just excavated, providing his own voiceover commentary.
Entertaining himself.
Now, the deep underground held no gloom.
Blazing lights illuminated every corner.
There was no cramped filth, no clutter—instead, it was spotless and pristine.
Everywhere the eye could reach, the floors, ceilings, and walls were buffed to a mirror finish with hardened mercury. In certain sections, metal plates had been laid, looking like a scene straight out of a sci-fi film.
Clean, advanced, pollution-free, high-tech.
Well, if one ignored the mountain of living spiritus batteries densely piled in the lowest mine shafts, and the bloody mercury flowing through the pipes...
That was just how alchemy rolled: merciful and kind-hearted, incapable of bearing the sight of inhumane atrocities happening before one's eyes.
That was why Ji Jue always kept his eyes closed while doing it.
Besides, while the island lacked everything else right now, the one thing it didn't lack was corrupted things and bizarre wicked entities. What it needed was a compassionate artisan to deliver all living souls and guide them to ultimate bliss.
Besides, what was so bad about abominations?
They were literally treasures from head to toe!
Their blood served as consumables to replace certain materials as carriers for temporary spiritus sequences; their bones could be purified into containers and raw materials; their souls could be preserved and fed random leftovers or scraps of meat to generate power long-term; and Ji Jue was even loath to waste the corruption itself, using every drop as a magical seasoning for phlogiston explosives.
There was no such thing as trash in this world—only treasures placed in the wrong spot!
All Ji Jue had to do was guide them back to the right path so they could make invaluable contributions to the development of alchemy.
These were all precious jades and fine timbers!
Wasting even a sliver would make his heart ache so much he wouldn't be able to sleep.
Surely their spirits in heaven would be overjoyed if they knew.
After taking a bath, getting a rare full night's sleep, and lavishly wolfing down two cans of meat, Ji Jue hopped on a bicycle to inspect the newly established "Mushroom Cultivation Center" and "Rat Breeding Base." Having ensured everything was in order, he finally headed toward the newly completed workshop.
Right at the core enclosed by subterranean chambers.
Locked behind two heavy blast doors, flames surged and burned incessantly.
The once-riddled furnace had become entirely unrecognizable.
Once he confirmed that the original modules were aged beyond repair, Ji Jue simply tore down the furnace completely. He then spent an entire day transplanting all the spiritus circuits, gradually modifying and adding new functions.
Now, it had become the genuine pillar of the base and the heart of the workshop.
The main body alone exceeded twenty meters in length and six meters in diameter, spanning across the upper, middle, and lower levels, responsible for providing energy and centralized control for the entire subterranean complex.
Connected by countless cables and conduits, its exterior was pure white, lustrous as jade—entirely recast from the purified skeletons of abominations.
A furnace of bones, in the most literal sense.
At this point, no hisses or howls could be heard from within the furnace. In the dead silence, there was only the slow, deep breathing of a monster crawling out of hell.
When a low hum of steel rose from the flames, silver light reached down from the flowing mercury across the workshop ceiling, connecting to numerous mechanical hands that manipulated everything like living appendages.
As the furnace doors parted, a heartbeat-like thrum grew increasingly distinct.
From the billowing blast of hot air, a sitting giant's steel skeleton flared with scorching crimson heat.
When Ji Jue waved his hand, that dormant, blistering steel shuddered. Intricate spiritus circuits surfaced as it stepped across molten iron and ash, taking one step, then a second...
Step by step, it walked into a quenching pool filled with crimson mercury, as if bathing in blood. Even with the ventilation systems running on overload, it was difficult to clear such massive clouds of metal vapor in a short span.
Through the lenses of his gas mask, Ji Jue could see the scorching red of the steel skeleton fade in the boiling scarlet mercury, replaced by emerging blackness. Innumerable rivulets of abomination blood flowed, extended, and coiled across it, weaving into savage, flame-like patterns.
After a protracted Ascension, spiritus steel and abomination blood achieved Transmutation.
Welding sparks flashed, and the screech of grinding metal rang out continuously.
Under the machining of mercury hands, a metal engine thrummed like a living heart, intricate transmission linkages fell into place, and an operational pilot frame built to Ji Jue's exact measurements was assembled, overlaid with hundreds of electromagnetic tendons.
Organs implanted, flesh and blood loaded.
Finally, it was clad in crimson armor forged from the bones of abominations...
Unlike that rushed, scrap-metal exoskeleton from before, a suit of power armor truly worthy of being called a knight was assembled before Ji Jue.
With just a beckon of his hand.
Amidst resounding metallic clangs, the crimson giant standing over three meters tall marched forward and dropped to one knee before Ji Jue. The armor and structures on its chest unfolded layer by layer, revealing the pilot seat.
And so, it enveloped Ji Jue within.
Then, on the beastly metallic face, brilliant light ignited within its eyes.
Without the slightest dissonance or lag, the massive creation felt like an extension of his own body, nimble and fluid to the point where even a grain of dust settling on a finger felt vividly perceptible.
Fluid spiritus neural structure: nominal.
He reached out, drawing the absurdly large greatsword at his waist. Lifting the scarlet blade that looked as though carved from red jade, he gave an effortless horizontal slash—and unleashed a deafening sonic boom.
Kinetic assist and transmission systems: functioning flawlessly.
Finally, Ji Jue raised the blade, staring at his own ferocious reflection in the mirror-smooth spine of the blade.
The beast face seemed to pull back its lips into a ravenous grin.
"Next... time to have some fun..."
Chapter 265