Virtue and Sin

Try another approach? Ji Jue had sat there feeling like a total idiot for an entire day. No matter how much he racked his brain, it remained completely empty. All he wanted was to swap out his brain—or swap out the examiner. That bastard was targeting him! Ten thousand percent! Yet with no other choice, he once again threw himself into research. *If "quantity" can't solve it, why not switch to quality?* *If you aren't interested in my mechanical engineering, Brother Worm, then I happen to have a Sage remnant or two here for a friendly exchange.* Sages and Dragons were equals—one the beginning, the other the end. So using a Sage's remnant to fight a mere unformed dragon wouldn't be going too far, would it? With Creative Mode active, whatever he wanted was his for the taking—an infinite supply of materials and blessings. The time acceleration even spared him endless waiting; if he made a mistake somewhere, a single press of the rewind button took him straight back to before the failure. Ji Jue felt like he was practically becoming addicted. It was simply too convenient! He would probably suffer withdrawal symptoms for a while once he left the simulation. Even as he threw himself into creating a Sage's shadow, Ji Jue did not forget to keep freeloading off the simulation. Through reconstructing, researching, and deconstructing the Sage's shadow, he plunged once more into the study of Fluid Alchemy. With an infinite supply of resources, he did not even need to worry too much about theory; rough, brute-force trial and error was enough. There was bound to be a path that worked. If an effect couldn't be achieved directly, he settled for second best, using identical blessing sequences or other material properties to knock it off or compensate. It felt utterly omnipotent! By the time he came to his senses, more than two months had passed in subjective time, while ninety years had elapsed inside the simulation. Towering before Ji Jue was a crystalline mountain rooted on the seabed, its height piercing through the atmosphere! From top to bottom, every dimension was identical—an absolutely precise cube. Within it, tens of millions of vein-like conduits unfurled like grasping hands, radiating a brilliant, dazzling radiance of immense splendor. Amid the interweaving of countless conduits, an unprecedented shadow of a Sage emerged from an ocean formed of infinite congregating spiritus. He had spared no expense, employing hundreds of blessings. From Ascension to Desolate Ruins, all Twelve Virtues were fully accounted for, and the internal blessing sequences exceeded ninety-one. Hardened chassis, external interference, self-preservation, enemy suppression, soul assault, flesh destruction, event alteration, phantom creation, turning illusions to reality, lightning speed, rapid regeneration, resurrection, zeal, vampirism, armor-shredding... Everything Ji Jue could think of had been crammed inside. Unprecedented overkill! Never mind a mere Sage remnant—even if a true Sage personally came, they probably wouldn't possess so many blessings! Quicksilver had never fought with such a lavish budget in his entire life! Even if that bunch of Mohists killed themselves to the last man, they couldn't scrape together so many precious materials. This wasn't just overwhelming superiority; this was practically a hair's breadth from a Sovereign Virtue descending in the flesh. Tell me, how could I lose? *How could I possibly lose?!* "Come on, simulation, let me see your limit!" Ji Jue cackled wildly and activated the sequence. Countless spiritus crucibles overloaded and erupted. Amid a terrifying, earth-shaking roar, the colossal crystalline mountain instantly disintegrated into a boundless tide of spiritus. Within that wild tempest, radiant light shone everywhere. Countless arms unfurled, dazzling to the point of being blinding. Innumerable wings blotted out the firmament, while eyes set into palms looked down upon all existence. Destroy everything! A mere wave of its hand whipped up a tempest. A mere flap of its wings... broke it apart. *Boom!* Before Ji Jue's dumbfounded gaze, even before the Nether Sea Worm could manifest, the Sage remnant he had placed such high hopes on shattered into a ground full of debris. Internal discord, mutual contradiction—a clash between two blessing sequences had triggered a chain reaction, causing massive amounts of transmuted, differing spiritus to annihilate each other like fire and water. It blew up. "What the fu—" Ji Jue frantically rewound time, checked the system, weeded out the hazards, and ran it again. This time, it blew up even faster. Rewind again, inspect again, and blow up again. Gritting his teeth, Ji Jue was forced to ruthlessly prune away numerous conflicting sequences and modules, producing a streamlined, fully functional version... Now only two hundred blessings remained, less than half the original amount. When the Sage remnant finally materialized and took shape, tears nearly welled in Ji Jue's eyes. He felt just like a programmer seeing their code finally compile and run. All that was missing was buying an incense burner to worship it and kowtowing a few times. Then, amid world-shaking upheavals, the Nether Sea Worm manifested. Amid shrill screeching, fissures abruptly surfaced across the brilliantly shining Sage remnant... Flowing with vast torrents of spiritus, its blessings operating in overload, gloomy shadows emerged across its body. It looked like porcelain covered in cracks. It didn't even require any special techniques—the horrific tide of corruption spewed from that terrifying mass was the most devastating form of attack. The worm's screeching was like the dreadful, high pressure of the deep sea. Under that horrific, permeating corruption, every flaw was instantly laid bare. Even before the opponent made a move, the towering projection spanning heaven and earth had already begun to turn sluggish. Corruption seeped into its body along the fissures, spreading and expanding rampantly. *Boom!* A blessing chain forged from Ascension and Tianyuan activated, purifying the interior and forcefully suppressing the taint. Then, the numerous blessing sequences Ji Jue had meticulously configured flared up, launching a fierce assault! It held out for a total of one hour and forty-one seconds. Most of that time was a war of attrition where neither side could overcome the other. Until the worm's colossal body tore open from within, unfurling bizarre giant wings that hovered between the tangible and the ethereal. Like a butterfly breaking from its cocoon, its pollution tier surged again! In response to this sudden assault, it had completed an evolution! Countless scales drifted down from the colossal wings like seeds, landing upon the Sage remnant. Then, each scale rooted deeply like a seed, entangling the core. The massive Sage remnant dissolved and shattered rapidly, ceasing to respond. Until Ji Jue, left with no alternative, hit the self-destruct mechanism. Blinding light soared into the sky. Within a hundred li, all seawater evaporated entirely. A dazzling blaze spewed past the atmosphere, swaying like a long comet's tail. The ocean boiled away, the seabed fractured, and destruction lingered, expanding, cycling wave after wave without end. Having learned from his earlier failure where countless fusion bombs amounted to nothing more than flashy light effects, Ji Jue had deliberately rigged this self-destruction chain to convert every ounce of the Sage remnant's power into searing heat. Throughout an entire day of incineration and ruin, the mortal realm was reduced to an inferno. Vast plumes of smoke and dust blanketed more than half the mortal realm's sky. Innumerable dead fish and shrimp floating in the boiling ocean gave off a terrifying stench; pestilence sprouted from decay, and fissures spread across the world. Yet the moment the searing heat gradually waned, darkness churned within the scorched hell. The newly molted Nether Sea Worm actually condensed and reformed once more. An absolute defeat! "You died." After time reversed, the examiner's voice rang out. "I imagine I don't need to remind you of the cause of death—lack of oxygen. Though I must say, you did discover a fine way to destroy the mortal realm. Congratulations, congratulations. "At any rate, the only commendable part of your performance was the self-destruction." He made no attempt to conceal his gloating. "The Mohist lineage has indeed grasped the sublime heights of Embers, but its essence lies in control and manipulation. Its ceiling is extraordinarily high, yet the moment control is lost, its floor is frighteningly low. "Without the circulation of spirituality, a shadow of Quicksilver is nothing more than an empty shell. Even with you at the controls, just how much of its true power could you possibly unleash? "You're on the wrong path." The examiner calmly evaluated: "[10] points." Ji Jue gasped for breath for a good while before finally recovering from the suffocation of oxygen deprivation. He scrambled up, only to collapse limply onto the ground, devoid of strength. "What's the maximum score?" "100." "It shouldn't be that low, should it?!" Ji Jue snapped indignantly. "Nine points are out of respect for the ancient Sage, and one point is your performance score for the final self-destruct effect." The examiner sneered. "Alchemy isn't engineering, and crafting masterworks isn't building super-giant robots. Even the Empire's Atlas doesn't carry this many blessings. "Without coordination and a stable architecture, the more blessings you stack, the more cumbersome it becomes. They will only interfere with one another—or fail to coexist entirely. "You should know that even for a Celestial-Human, the number of blessings integrated into the soul is merely twelve. "Relying on external tools is indeed the orthodox path of Embers, but at the same time, something else is even more vital: never wield a power you cannot control. "Remember this: 'overestimating one's strength' and 'playing with fire' are two phrases that commonly appear together in an artisan's obituary. "And as of right now, you aren't even worthy of being associated with those words." The examiner said unhurriedly, "Do you know why small workshops love to pour in heavy ingredients? Because they want to conceal their weaknesses, just like you. "When you have little, addition is the easiest approach. But when you are wealthy, subtraction must be carved into your very instincts. "'Just right'—those two words are the highest praise an artisan can ever receive." "Easy for you to say!" Ji Jue glared. "What constitutes 'just right'? Why don't you explain it, then!" "My apologies, but I'm just a hired hand for the Association. Nobody treats me like an artisan anyway." The examiner merely gave a curious smile, seeing right through Ji Jue's reverse psychology. "Besides, I'm not your teacher. When you run into problems, figure them out yourself." *You bastard...* Ji Jue clicked his tongue, but immediately caught the hidden meaning. *'Teacher'?!* Instantly, the myriad scrap pieces Ye Xian had discarded surfaced in Ji Jue's mind. He had personally dismantled countless numbers of them; no one understood his teacher better than he did. The prerequisite for the Dissociation Art was insight, followed by comprehension and analysis. Only then could one locate the vulnerabilities and contradictions within the structure of a blessed creation, shattering it with a single strike through spiritus interference. One could say that Ji Jue's foundational knowledge of spiritus circuit architectures had been learned through day after day of practicing the Dissociation Art on Ye Xian's creations. In the past, he hadn't understood why so many pieces had been cast aside like trash merely because of slight discrepancies in material properties or minor instability in spiritus circuits. Even to Ji Jue's eyes, those works had seemed fluid, natural, and seamless. Yet looking at it from this perspective... Could Professor Ye's standard have been: *Any piece that can't withstand a single round of my Dissociation Art is garbage*?! If he measured the various works he had created during this exam against that standard... Cold sweat broke out on Ji Jue's back. No, perhaps to Professor Ye, her student naming creations 'Ex-Wife' and 'Stepmother' wasn't nearly as humiliating as her foolish kid lording it over a bunch of bratty children with an armful of flawed junk... Damn it, he was going to get a lesson in spiritus offense and defense! To prevent that lazy dog Ye Chun from gloating at the sidelines and handing her the belt when the time came, Ji Jue had no choice but to grit his teeth and temporarily abandon his unrealistic notions. Instead, he grounded himself, starting from scratch to build the foundation of a Sage's shadow while honing his basic skills. Only then did he realize... never mind surviving a round of the Dissociation Art, just meeting the standard of 'just right' was absurdly difficult. He nearly mashed the fast-forward and rewind buttons to dust, yet the framework for the Sage's shadow still wasn't complete! Then, just as he was deeply immersed... *Snap!* Everything rewound, resetting to the starting point. Ji Jue looked up blankly. "What happened?" "Hmm, let me see what went on..." The examiner's mocking voice rang out again. "You died of old age. "Adding up the time, one hundred and ten years—quite a long life. "Your life was one of aiming too high, of zero value, a life that would make Embers weep. "You poured your limited capabilities into mimicking the nearly infinite might of a Sage. While you made some progress, alas, there were no results." He said, "My suggestion is: restart." Ji Jue's eyes widened in fury. *You son of a bitch, you—* Yet he still possessed a shred of rationality and managed not to swear out loud. This bastard examiner was petty as hell and had zero decency. Smiling on the surface, who knew what vile ways he was plotting to torment him in the dark! Swallowing his curses, he restarted his life. This time, having learned his lesson, he stopped aiming too high and ceased wasting time on projects beyond his capabilities. Instead, he redeemed a large number of analytical instruments and equipment, throwing himself into studying the interior of the Nether Sea. Know yourself and know your enemy. He had to figure out how its internal circulation worked before doing anything else! And so, covered head to toe in protective gear, he plunged deep into the pollution. Like swimming butterfly stroke through a sea of filth, he thrashed back and forth. He extracted numerous samples and analyzed them ceaselessly. Yet the more he analyzed, the more numb he became. The Nether Sea currently eroding the mortal realm was essentially the worm itself. It had taken root within the mortal realm, gradually evolving into an indelible phenomenon. It was like a part of the world itself. And what he had to resolve was this cancerous lesion that simply refused to die. He couldn't fathom how the joint fleet of the Federation and the Empire had managed to deal with such an absurd monstrosity back then! What puzzled him even more was... "Examiner, are you there?" Ji Jue suddenly looked up and asked. "Hungry?" The examiner's voice sounded. "Want something to eat? How about trying my secret-recipe burger? It tastes fantastic, wildly popular!" "Thanks, keep it for yourself." Ji Jue rolled his eyes, lifting his tongs to poke the specimen on the lab bench. A rock enveloped and permeated by blood vessels and veins. This was a sample of corruption he had dredged from beneath the seabed—a piece of basalt that was practically alive. Resolving it was actually very simple; there were countless methods. He didn't even need blessings. As long as he applied alchemy to purify it, the corruption would naturally be squeezed out and expelled. But so long as a single trace remained, that corruption would spread once more, restoring its former state. What was even more terrifying was that if Ji Jue left behind even a speck of residual spiritus, it would be contaminated and mutated, becoming part of the corruption. Corruption. "What's wrong?" the examiner asked. "Isn't this precisely the question?" Ji Jue looked up and asked. "Why can Sovereign Virtue essence fall into Vile Folly, yet the pollution of a Great Sin can hardly ever achieve Ascension?" The examiner fell silent. After a long while, just when Ji Jue thought he was playing dead again, he spoke slowly: "Falling from above to below is only natural. Ascending from below to above is a hundred times harder. "Isn't that completely normal?" "Is it normal?" Ji Jue countered. "Let's use an analogy." The examiner suddenly asked, "Do you think it's easier to raise an infant into someone like you, or harder to make them turn into an irredeemable scoundrel who drinks, gambles, and commits every evil under the sun?" Ji Jue was taken aback. "Or, to put it another way—is it easier to turn a gentle, kind, and generous person into a callous, stingy wretch who looks out only for himself and wouldn't hesitate to screw others over? "Or is it more troublesome to make a deeply wicked bastard wake up to a conscience overnight?" "..." Ji Jue pondered for a long time, then shook his head decisively. "Not the same thing. Your analogy is nonsense!" He said, "Sovereign Virtue isn't divided by human morality!" This was the very first lesson of common knowledge Ye Chun had taught him after he became a Celestial Chosen. The world's operation was never swayed by human will, nor was Sovereign Virtue bound by human morality. Otherwise, Swarm and White Stag would have been branded evil heresies in a heartbeat, Heart Pivot and Mirror would face total purges, and executing every other practitioner of the Aether path would still leave guilty survivors. Then, the examiner's sigh sounded. "Unfortunately, the same applies to Great Sin." The examiner lamented, "Sovereign Virtue is the tapestry of the mortal realm, composed of everything connected to this world's past, present, and future. "You should know: seeing something through to a good conclusion is difficult, but bringing about a disastrous consequence is far too easy. You don't even need to deliberately do anything. "No, all you have to do is nothing at all, and disastrous consequences will occur naturally." Ji Jue frowned. Instinctively wanting to sneer, he thought: *According to your logic, could Sovereign Virtue and Great Sin be...* Before the sneer could even form, it froze on his face. A chill ran through his entire body. What was the examiner implying? —*Sovereign Virtue and Great Sin are one and the same?!* An unintentional slip? Or a flawed description? No. This guy seemed frivolous, but every single phrase he uttered carried layered meaning, rife with ambiguity and hints, and not lacking in guidance and pointers. Of course, there were plenty of taunts and ridicule as well. Yet no matter what, there was very little fluff or empty talk in his words. In other words, that was exactly what he meant to convey! But what was he trying to guide him toward? *Fuck, this is bad...* *Could that old dog Kanemoto really have snuck into the Association wearing a disguise?!* *Have I actually become his point man?!*