Lock

Imagine if one day you turned on Creative Mode, where you could even rewind and fast-forward time without paying any price whatsoever... And as long as you pressed a button on the system panel and clapped your hands together, whatever you wanted would appear! So, what would your choice be? A: Waste no time and save the world. B: Race against the clock and work diligently. C: Cook up something wild and have some damn fun first! Ji Jue's choice was [C], [C], [C], [C]... Mash [C] until the button broke first! It was just that, as an Embers artisan, Ji Jue had already moved past ordinary, lowbrow pursuits like top-of-the-line graphics cards, fishing rods, supercars, and carbon-fiber bicycles. He wanted to play with something more high-end. For example, the super-giant leyline spiritus transmission disks, of which only eleven were said to exist in the entire world, capable of turning leylines directly into spiritus conduits to achieve ultra-long-distance lossless transmission... from the Federation to the Empire, routed through the Mid-Continent, taking less than half a second! Or, for example, the Federation's Kuafu-class aerospace hub, dubbed a city soaring above the stratosphere, capable of carrying over a thousand fighter jets and dozens of giant airships, equipped with more than six rapid-response power armor legions, able to deploy a full heavy legion to the battlefield within fifteen minutes; the Empire's Centipede Fortress Atlas, a mechanical miracle that advanced across the land like a moving mountain range... and so on and so forth! There were too many targets he wanted to realize, and too many parts requiring manual crafting. Compared to all those costly workshop facilities, Ji Jue chose to start with something simple and unpretentious as an appetizer. For example... The strategic deterrent weapon simultaneously unveiled by both the Empire and the Federation over a decade ago—the mortal realm's finest manifestation of the Entropy lineage's violent devastation: the fusion bomb! BOOM!!!! When the mushroom cloud connecting heaven and earth tore out of the ground in the distance, light spreading outward like an ocean tide, Ji Jue was moved almost to tears. No, they were already falling. And then, before his eyes went completely blind, he was incinerated into character fragments by the expanding storm and searing radiance. *Snap~* Destruction reversed, time rewound. Leaving only Ji Jue collapsed on the ground, screaming and rolling, clawing at himself all over, unable to extricate himself from the phantom agony of being burned alive. "Ah, I forgot to mention. Even though everything is a simulated fiction and time can be rewound at any moment, Myriad Transformations' simulations are grounded in reality—and ninety-nine point nine nine percent authentic." The examiner's voice drawled leisurely, "So even if you won't die, when it's supposed to hurt, it still hurts." "Why didn't you mention something so important earlier?!" "I was supposed to say it earlier." The examiner sighed helplessly. "But since you started out like 'a man and a dog,' you surely had no need for such inconsequential reminders." "Don't, bro, please, my bad!" Ji Jue threw up both hands in surrender. "Is there anything else important? Would you mind telling me all at once?" "That's all of it... I think? Probably, roughly." The examiner smiled noncommittally. "Don't worry. If I remember anything, I'll let you know anytime." Ji Jue raised a trembling hand, but in the end clenched it into a fist without making any gesture. He slapped it against the sand, punching out a futile little crater. . Having learned his lesson, Ji Jue was much more cautious this time. By which he meant vindictively detonating several more fusion bombs from beyond the safe distance as fireworks! Paired with long-range missiles he hand-crafted himself, he completely leveled the already sparse cluster of islands in the southern reaches of the Endless Sea. Once he had had his fill of fun with that, he moved on to other thrills. Along the way, he toyed with materials and blessings he had never even heard of, let alone seen. Only after spending several days thoroughly indulging himself did Ji Jue leisurely turn his attention to the 'main quest.' The Nether Sea Worm? I've got fucking Creative Mode on—how could I possibly lose? A mere calamity beast? I'll make sure it never returns alive! Supposedly, in reality, there was a very popular genre of games simulating production and management—whether featuring magic, sci-fi, or corporate industry—that dropped the player into a randomly generated sandbox world right at the start. Players would mine resources, set up production lines, climb the tech tree, and eventually integrate countless production lines into an intricate, colossal structure. At Tianmen University, games of this sort had quite a wide audience and sparked plenty of discussion; quite a few of his classmates had played them. Ji Jue, however, never had the chance. On one hand, back then he was secretly out-studying his classmates while they played games. On the other hand... the epic Frankenstein monster of a PC at Mother Lu's place was pretty much out of the gaming question. Just booting up counted as a win. Its only function remotely related to entertainment was serving as a disc player hooked up to the TV to play Lu Feng's favorite ghost films, or hooked up to loudspeakers blasting boisterous DJ dance tracks that had nothing to do with sophistication. Ghost films aside, when fixing cars to those thumping beats, Ji Jue and Lu Feng could wiggle like snakes beneath the chassis while bobbing their heads—rounded off, it practically counted as a productivity buff. Now that he finally had the chance to enjoy a real-life simulation experience, if Ji Jue didn't play his heart out, he feared that upon returning he would regret it so much he'd hang himself outside the workshop door in atonement. He chose to stay grounded. Flashy novelties were fun for a lark and nothing more. What mattered was experience he could actually use once he returned to reality. Spending several months experimenting with various equipment and methods to build workshops from scratch, and successfully replicating every structure he had ever seen, he then conducted countless trials using the various blessings and materials he had access to in reality before plunging into research on the Dissociation Art. Only when he had practiced the processing of all basic blessings and materials to absolute mastery in this manner did he casually embark on the main quest. Squeeze all the profit out first! Whatever was left, he could just half-ass his way through. Besides, he didn't expect to be such a genius that he could resolve the Nether Sea Worm in a single try. Calamity, Harm, Ruin, Extinction, End. That was a calamity beast assessed at the 'End' grade, an unadulterated worldly scourge. Even with Creative Mode active, Ji Jue still lacked the theoretical knowledge he lacked, and his abilities were still limited. The only thing he could rely on was the Fluid Alchemy in his hands. Yet he had only learned the basics and intermediate stages; as for the final part... the Prophet hadn't even had the chance to teach him before parting, so he could only fumble along and experiment on his own. Fortunately, the acceleration of the Tower of Myriad Transformations was absurdly convenient. Not only was there pure time acceleration, but there was also a duplication function: as long as Ji Jue assembled an assembly line and ran it successfully once, subsequent production would automatically default to stable operation and sustain output. Moreover, as he explored further, various new features were discovered. In perceived time, in less than a single week, Ji Jue had already manufactured vast armored armies blanketing the hills and plains, countless cannons and warships, and had even knocked off a scuffed version of the Kuafu aerospace hub. In truth, within the simulation's recorded statistics, over thirty years had elapsed. "Gua! This is the invincible productivity of my mechanical engineering!" At this moment, seated inside the aerospace hub, gazing down at the boundless mechanical horde, Ji Jue could no longer hold back his uproarious laughter. "Come on, Worm! Let me see what you've got!" He pressed the button. In an instant, the blaze of sixteen fusion bombs soared into the sky. The violent shockwave instantly ruptured the Nether Sea Worm's immense circulation. Amid this unprecedented agony, the darkness shrouding the entire world surged and flowed, converging toward the center. In the end, between sea and sky, it coalesced into a colossal entity that filled heaven and earth. Just like an evil dragon of legend, yet across its gargantuan body were countless fissures and missing chunks, baring writhing chunks of flesh and mutated organs. Beneath its scales, flesh proliferated wildly, multiplying at a horrifying rate. In just a few seconds, it filled the entire world and even breached the bounds of the atmosphere, its bizarre head extending into outer space. Writhing, convulsing. A silent screech! Merely a screech. Grayish-black ripples radiated in all directions. Like a tide of extinction. Everywhere it passed, armor crumbled into dust under the erosion of the surge, like sandcastles struck by ocean waves. Even the Assault Niuma - Extinction Type, upon which Ji Jue had pinned high hopes, struggled forward with great difficulty amid the corruption's taint and erosion. High in the sky, inside the teetering aerospace hub, Ji Jue was dumbfounded. Everything else aside, the Extinction-type Niuma was a creation he had spared no effort to build using Kanemoto's corruption alchemy, yet merely from a roar, it was already on the verge of being scrapped. Immediately following that, the world-class behemoth slowly coiled its body. A single tentacle wriggled slightly. Lifted. Then, tapped down. With a crisp *ting*, the endless armored armies across all directions dissolved into dust. Such insignificant opponents seemed beneath its notice. Countless compound eyes looked toward the aerospace hub above, and in an instant, layers of protective blessings and defenses collapsed completely. Countless aircraft and the aerospace hub itself dissolved into a metallic downpour in the blink of an eye. When tens of thousands of giant cannons erected on the seabed fired with a roar, the ferocious artillery fire—enough to easily obliterate any island—fell upon its scales like raindrops. And then slid off just like raindrops. Not a mark or scratch was left behind, utterly ignored. When finally thousands of annihilation bombs dropped from Ji Jue's bootleg satellites, amidst the torrential rain and flood of fire, it actually bathed comfortably. At most, a few scales fell away. Nothing of consequence. Mutated flesh swiftly regenerated and restored itself. The Nether Sea Worm advanced at its own pace, calling out, dismantling all offense and defense as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Finally, one among its myriad eyes turned toward Ji Jue. In that instant, everything came to an abrupt halt. "You died." Amid rewinding time, the examiner's voice sounded, making no effort to conceal his mockery. "I believe I told you: while its 'quality' is lacking, its 'quantity' is far beyond ordinary scale. If you want to drown it in sheer quantity, you'd need to concentrate realm-wide firepower in a single instant." He said, "You're still a long way off." "Something's not right." Amid the agonizing pain of a sundering, mutating soul, it took Ji Jue a long while to come to his senses. Carefully recalling every previous detail, his eyes went wide. "You bastard, you definitely altered the stats!" "I did not," the examiner replied calmly, indifferent to Ji Jue's personal insult. "Impossible!" Ji Jue was incensed. "I did the math! With that yield of fusion bombs, forget the Nether Sea Worm—this entire Nether Sea should have been blasted straight off the mortal world! How could it have had zero effect?!" "Remember what I told you?" The examiner smiled with schadenfreude. "Myriad Transformations' simulations are grounded in reality, and ninety-nine point nine nine percent authentic. Which means whatever exists in the mortal world exists in here. The mortal world has its own carrying capacity. Like a boat, it cannot bear weight beyond its limit; anything exceeding it will either fall into the sea on its own or cause the mortal world to capsize. The destructive power of fusion bombs also has its limits. Not their theoretical limit, but the ceiling of what can actually be unleashed—otherwise, why aren't the Federation and the Empire currently stockpiling fusion bombs like mad to deter each other?" He explained slowly, "One or two is fine, but if you exceed twenty simultaneously, it triggers suppression from the 'Lock,' rendering it completely incapable of producing its intended effect." Ji Jue froze in a daze. It was utterly unheard of, and hard to believe. "Wait, what do you mean by the 'Lock'... What is that?" The examiner merely chuckled softly and gave no answer. "Time to keep going, Ji Jue." He said, "Try another way."