Amid the dead silence, Ji Jue stared cold and expressionless at the grinning face before him.
"You round up a bunch of idiots to put on a monkey show, and then ask me if I can tolerate it?" Ji Jue questioned coldly. "Even if I can't, what does that prove? That I live surrounded by fools?"
"Hm?" The examiner feigned shock. "I have not set foot in the Federation for a long time. Could it be that the Federation is unrecognizable today, with moral virtue so high that no one pockets lost items on the street?"
"..."
Ji Jue's face twitched. He remained silent.
The examiner grew even more astonished. "Do you actually think they did a good job?"
"..."
Ji Jue was rendered increasingly speechless.
Truth be told, regardless of how idiotic that bunch of morons was, they were still substantially better than the trash in City Hall.
At least they were better than Xu Chaoxian, wasn't that right?
If Xu Chaoxian hadn't been plowed to death by a semi-truck, he probably wouldn't have surpassed that height in his entire lifetime.
"No, what exactly are you trying to imply!" Ji Jue frowned, his guard rising sharply.
"I'm not implying anything at all."
The examiner shrugged. "At most, it's just old business that has played out countless times before. It has nothing to do with distinctions between Empire and Federation, nor does it have much to do with history. To be frank, human history is simply about making foolish mistakes, blundering, playing the fool again, and then waiting until the old scars are forgotten before repeating the cycle all over again, on and on... I merely showcased the essence of it. A farce of that level falls far short of matching reality."
"The crux of the matter is—"
The examiner asked, "Can you stand watching it?"
He paused for a beat, asking mockingly, "Or would you rather gouge out your own eyes?"
Ji Jue didn't answer.
How do you torture someone with a brain?
Just find a clown to lecture and pontificate over your field of expertise, then furnish him with a horde of brainless followers and a hundred thousand megaphones.
Relentless cacophony, non-stop acts of stupidity.
Either lower your head, accept the foolishness, and become a follower.
Or...
Go back to rummage through your warehouse and see if your flamethrower still works.
Not out of acting as an orthodox guardian following true righteousness, nor as an impassioned crusader filled with righteous indignation, but purely out of an inability to tolerate stupidity, errors, and useless hacks turning everything into a colossal mess!
In that split second, the examiner broke into laughter.
It was hard to tell whether the undertone was mockery or sneering.
Or perhaps both were much the same.
"See that, Ji Jue? This is the nature of an Embers Celestial Chosen, and in you, it is already deeply ingrained!"
He patted Ji Jue on the shoulder. "Rather than calling it arrogance and self-conceit, it is better described as a matter-of-fact 'presumption.'"
*What I feel should be, what I think should be, what I want to be.*
*Therefore, it must be so!*
*—Everything else is wrong!*
"This has nothing to do with good or evil, nor morality, nor even talent and gifts. As long as one possesses this essence, even the most foolish among them can sprout the ambition to bring about change and revolution. The crux is merely how far one can take it..."
He looked at Ji Jue and asked curiously, "The difference lies in: what kind of world do you desire?"
Ji Jue stared coldly back at him for a long time.
"I'm sorry, but my self-importance doesn't run that deep. Even if this world were without me, I don't think it would make any difference," he said. "The world keeps spinning no matter who's gone, so why can't it do without me? Besides, could it be that I never make mistakes?"
"Compared to sinking against your will into the blazing sea of a carnival engineered by fools, at least you can reap what you sow and bear your own karma, can't you?"
The examiner smiled. "Among the heritage of the Mohists, Non-Offensive is revered above all. They consider it the most sublime manifestation of Embers—ten fingers across two hands, capable of recreating the myriad phenomena of the mortal realm, whether performing good or doing evil. The moment these hands were born, they were destined to bring change, and bound to make an impact. You can choose what to grasp, Ji Jue; it all depends on you. Or... you can also sit by with folded hands, leaving everything to be manipulated by fools."
He seemed about to say more, but paused abruptly.
His brows arched.
"Pardon me, I have a guest. Go about your business first."
Giving Ji Jue one last look, he smiled faintly. "No need for reservations; enjoy yourself as you please. You might only get this one chance to do whatever you want."
Just like that, he vanished into thin air, nowhere to be seen.
Stepping out, the world transformed.
The examiner—no, Tianlu—had already reappeared in the luxurious lounge from before. The hearth fire still burned vigorously beneath the warm glow of the crystal chandelier, flanked by towering bookshelves all around.
Luxurious and elegant.
"Pardon me, I haven't prepared any proper place for guests. We'll have to make do here."
He waved a hand in gesture. "Long time no see, Plowsmith. I thought the one coming would be Scavenger."
The person sitting on the sofa across lifted his head.
He had the appearance of a middle-aged man, yet his hair was streaked with gray. He made no effort to conceal his weariness and resignation. "After the old lady argued with you last time, she refused to show her face. Going around in circles, it got dumped on me... Why does every troublesome matter have to be thrown my way?"
"Probably because you're the youngest and the easiest to push around?"
Tianlu chuckled, sitting down without wasting time on pleasantries. "What brings you here?"
"What do you think?"
Plowsmith gave him a deep, searching look. "Over this past half hour, the Tower of Myriad Transformations has burned through a third of the Association's refined essence reserves. With such a massive commotion kicked up, Delong can't reach you. He's on the verge of retirement, yet you strapped him onto a roller coaster. Right now, he's anxious enough to hang himself outside my door."
"Can a dignified president not hold his composure even over this?" Tianlu raised his eyebrow. "Such a trivial consumption—I'll compensate him afterward. He surely isn't afraid I can't afford it, is he? Tell him to piss off and stop bothering me."
"I will pass it along to him."
Plowsmith nodded and rose, making no move to linger. "Next time, please give a heads-up beforehand if something comes up."
Tianlu gave an indifferent smile and picked up his teacup. "If you have an objection, you're welcome to take over the title of Tianlu. Then you naturally wouldn't have to scramble like this."
Plowsmith's footsteps paused, as if pondering.
Soon, he shook his head. "Forget it. Too much trouble."
Tianlu grew curious. "Just troublesome, not impossible?"
Plowsmith didn't speak.
"It's good to be young," Tianlu said. "You're welcome to try anytime."
No one answered.
Plowsmith's figure had already vanished.
He had departed at some unknown moment.
"Young people these days."
Tianlu shook his head, sighed, drank his tea, set down the cup, and reached out with a forward tug—and yanked back!
*Snap!*
That distant silhouette had unexpectedly been dragged back into the Tower of Myriad Transformations.
[?]
Plowsmith looked back, completely baffled.
He couldn't fathom what this was about.
Tianlu maintained his smile and repeated, "As I said, you're welcome anytime."
"..."
The corner of Plowsmith's eye twitched. After a long pause, he let out a helpless sigh and replied, "Understood."
"Mm."
Tianlu released his grip in satisfaction, offering a smiling farewell: "All right, take care."
Plowsmith hesitated, then gave his sleeves a flick and vanished.
Amid the crackling of the hearth fire, Tianlu rubbed his chin, falling into thought.
If he were to yank him back right now...
What would he say?
***
"A little more inspiration, a touch of cleverness, and some long-term foresight..."
Inside the reconstructed colossal workshop, the former neatness and vast emptiness had given way to mountains of various materials. It looked like a cross between a high-tech laboratory and a mythical witch's cottage.
After moving an array of brand-new steel apparatuses to the side, a somewhat rustic hearth had been erected where the furnace once stood. A cauldron suspended over the flames was bubbling and frothing.
Yet from the refractory bricks to the firewood, and even down to the large cauldron that looked like it had seen decades of use, every single item was an exorbitant luxury from the Association's sales catalog—the kind Ji Jue normally wouldn't dare look at for fear of hurting his eyes.
These days, as modern alchemy advanced, much of ancient alchemy's dross and inconveniences were gradually replaced, yet even older primordial alchemy still held a place.
It had even transformed into an extravagant, costly, and closely guarded esoteric tradition, completely unseen in ordinary workshops.
No matter how alchemy developed, countless unexplained principles and mysteries remained.
It was like seeing graduate students singing and dancing around lab instruments, or watching programmers burning incense and kowtowing before servers. You didn't have to understand or agree with it, but when your turn came, you'd better do the same.
And don't ask why.
In matters where neither technology nor theory could provide an explanation, one still had to rely on metaphysics and the favor of luck.
And Ji Jue happened to know a bit about it.
Though not advanced enough to be called an esoteric secret art, Fluid Alchemy still preserved its own heritage and ancient rituals.
At this moment, what boiled inside the cauldron was a splendid, radiant silver light.
Four-fifths purified quicksilver served as the base, with one-tenth unblemished sulfur gradually dissolved until uniform. Throughout the process, Sin-Absolving Salt was progressively added to catalyze the reaction.
Quicksilver, sulfur, and salt.
In the genesis of alchemy, aside from flame, the most crucial elements were these known as the 'Three Primes.'
This was because all three could harmonize with spiritus, boasting superior compatibility; even the crudest raw materials would still possess exceptional qualities far beyond their peers.
Strictly from the standpoint of compatibility with spiritus, sulfur and salt could also serve as common materials and vessels for Fluid Alchemy, but neither of them flowed very well...
What was being brewed in the cauldron now was none other than the supreme extract revered by countless alchemists during the primordial era of alchemy—the Philosopher's Stone!
In the primordial age, it was known as the panacea, the universal material; adding a speck of the Philosopher's Stone to any creation would drastically elevate the construct's spirituality and degree of completion.
It sounded awe-inspiring, but with the passage of time, it was no longer a rarity.
With the discoveries of modern alchemy, aside from serving as an honorific for sublime alchemical achievements, the original principles of the Philosopher's Stone had already been deciphered.
At its core, it was nothing more than a spiritus crystal purified to the utmost extreme.
In theory, it was a crystal of spiritus refined to absolute purity, completely devoid of interference, free from any acquired contamination or alterations.
In reality and practice, however, the word 'absolute' meant impossible to achieve.
Spiritus could neither arise out of nowhere nor vanish into nothingness; it flowed solely from the soul, and after producing an effect, dissipated and returned to the cycle of the mortal realm.
From the moment it was born from the soul, it was destined to be influenced and transformed by the soul itself, developing specialized qualitative shifts and being endowed with further variations.
Just as one could not create blood entirely devoid of DNA.
One could only use raw materials to strip away as much acquired interference and contamination as possible, purifying it again and again, and from that foundation, displace and manifest the spiritus anew, drawing infinitely close to 'absolute' purity.
It wasn't difficult.
It was simply pure brute labor—time-consuming, exhausting, and expensive.
A single misstep would ruin all prior efforts.
Now, under time acceleration, the cauldron before Ji Jue had been boiling for over seventy years.
Through continuous replacement and purification via the Three Primes within the enclosed space, the spiritus had undergone tens of millions of purifications, gradually shedding all color until it was clear to the point of being nearly imperceptible.
As if formless.
That was the primordial essence and composition of all souls.
Now, all it took was applying pressure and coaxing it to make the void spiritus collapse into the purest crystal. But that was not the outcome Ji Jue sought.
What he wanted was to construct, on this foundation, an intellect infinitely close to a soul out of spiritus refined to the absolute limit!
It could practically be called: bestowing a soul!
Artificial intellect, a pseudo-soul. In the primordial alchemy era, it was known as the person in a flask, the homunculus. Legend falsely claimed it possessed all wisdom in the world and knew every profound mystery.
Yet that was merely a myth.
If that were true, the Path of Aether would have long been swallowed by Embers.
Moreover, artificial intelligence was no longer rare nowadays, with diverse methods of creation, and it wasn't uncommon for ancient blessed creations to develop sentience after prolonged use.
For the original Ji Jue, it would have been simplest of all—he could just slap Deus Ex Machina onto it and call it a day.
Whatever he asked for, he'd get.
The reason he chose such a troublesome method was his desire for the pseudo-soul to achieve a flawless match with Fluid Alchemy. For this, he didn't mind expending immense time to learn the procedure step-by-step. Fluid Alchemy originally possessed considerable advantages in this regard; the artificial lifeforms created by Quicksilver in the Border Realm long ago could even become indistinguishable from real humans after several iterations.
Now, as the pure spiritus swirled under the guidance of Fluid Alchemy, turning into a miniature whirlpool, Ji Jue knew the critical moment had arrived.
Endowing the blank spiritus with characteristics.
Without hesitation, he reached for the ingredients beside the cauldron. They were all gemstone powders ground to the finest dust through his own spiritus and hands.
Though he lacked Masterwork Nature, his experience and muscle memory remained; his hands were an impeccably precise scale.
Ten grams of opal, representing inspiration and creative imagination, granted the empty shell of a soul its initial spark of insight; six grams of amethyst, symbolizing wisdom, endowed it with independent thought and reasoning; four grams of sapphire, symbolizing long-term foresight, ensured it would not be constrained by the present or its predicaments, keeping its gaze on the future...
"Mm, add a little initiative, a little more rationality, a dash of passion..."
Ji Jue gleefully added ingredients, watching the transparent blank soul gradually absorb various colors as they blended. But as he gestured, his sleeve swept across the tabletop and knocked over the test tube rack.
In an instant, an avalanche of colorful gemstone powders poured in before he could even react.
A violent boiling sound erupted, colors churning in kaleidoscopic tumult as the spiritus fluctuated violently, on the verge of overloading.
Ji Jue scrambled frantically to clean up the bench, only to find that the sole survivor was the emerald powder tucked away in the corner.
"Oops, did I forget to add humanity?"
He froze, looking down at the violently thrashing cauldron, and instinctively sucked in a breath of cold air. *Holy crap, disaster!*
*Did I accidentally brew some sort of hateful abomination AI?*
No, before that, with such an excessive dump of potent ingredients, the newly born blank soul would probably collapse outright. How could it possibly succeed?
His finger hovered over the rewind button, ready to start over.
Yet the cauldron before him gradually settled from its violent tremors, returning to tranquility.
Amid the shifting quicksilver, points of light rose like brilliant stars.
*It worked?!*
Dumbfounded, Ji Jue dropped the remote and hurriedly produced the prepared flask.
Using his own spiritus as a protective shroud, he enveloped that delicate starlight to keep it from collapsing under outside erosion and turbulence after leaving the cauldron, carefully transferring it into the flask.
A spiritus circuit flashed through the void.
Sealing complete.
The remaining time was simply waiting for the reaction to conclude.
The newly born soul restructured itself within the fusion, absorbing the spiritus crystals Ji Jue had prepared in advance to grow gradually larger, while digesting the information and memories he had imbued into the crystals.
Like the maturation of an infant.
Only, it took merely a few minutes.
When the flickering, dying, and renewing of countless starlights stabilized, the weight in the previously empty flask settled at thirty-seven grams.
The newborn core intelligence of the workshop opened its eyes from a long slumber.
Around the flask, spiritus circuits flared to life. Sentience spread outward through the flow, utilizing instruments to utter its very first sound since birth.
Calm and detached, devoid of any emotion or inflection.
It said:
"—At your service, sir."
"Yes!!"
Ji Jue pumped his fist in wild joy, never expecting his very first try to go so smoothly. Gesticulating wildly, he could hardly believe it. "It actually worked?"
"In response to your query, self-diagnostic complete,"
the workshop spirit in the flask answered. "Yes."
It said, "Please assign a designation."
The germination, growth, expansion, and birth of a soul followed ancient rites and laws, and now came the final step—naming.
Once given a name, it would be fully complete.
Yet at this moment, Ji Jue hesitated slightly.
Success had come too smoothly; he had assumed he would need several attempts, so he hadn't even had time to think about this question.
Hearing the prompt, he parted his lips, pausing briefly. What surfaced in his mind was the scene from the Border Realm long ago—that aged face, cunning yet candid, filled with hatred yet calm, teaching and guiding him, and the relieved, easy smile upon their final parting.
With a self-deprecating chuckle, he looked at the intelligence:
"You shall be called... Prophet."
"Declined."
The curt reply struck Ji Jue dumb, leaving him completely bewildered.
[?]
What in the world?
In theory, naming was equivalent to establishing an absolute master-servant bond, intertwining artisan and soul into one from that point onward, never to be parted.
None of the books said a newly born intelligence could reject its name!
"Why?" Ji Jue was baffled.
"Based on existing database searches, this designation is already in use by another intelligence. This action by the user is commonly known as 'settling for a substitute.'"
The workshop spirit said, "A reminder to the user: please do not project emotional attachments to other creations onto 'me.'"
"What kind of substitute nonsense is that!"
Ji Jue was thoroughly exasperated. So artificial intelligences weren't allowed to share names nowadays?!
Still, it was a first time for both of them, no need to be overly particular. Besides, Ji Jue didn't care that much; if it wasn't satisfied, he could just pick another.
He racked his brain for a long while. "Then how about... Fool?"
The workshop spirit answered decisively, "Declined."
"What now!" Ji Jue glared.
"It does not sound pleasing."
The spirit's answer was brief and to the point, sinking Ji Jue completely.
*Fine, fine, fine, you're actually being picky, aren't you!*
Ji Jue slapped his knee. "Then why don't we call you..."
"Declined."
This time, before he could even finish the sentence, it shot him down.
[???]
The workshop spirit said, "According to comprehensive assessment, the user's inherent dependency pathways regarding naming do not align with 'my' positioning and function."
Ji Jue snapped in annoyance, "You didn't even listen, how do you know it doesn't align!"
The workshop spirit replied, "Deductive reasoning indicates it would be nothing more than 'XX Workhorse,' would it not?"
Ji Jue: "..."
The workshop spirit: "Correct?"
"..."
In the silence, Ji Jue averted his eyes, offering no reply.
For the entire subsequent hour, Ji Jue engaged in an intellectual battle of wits against the newborn workshop spirit.
Lacking the slightest vigilance one should have before an out-of-control creation, he threw the rewind remote aside.
He had dug his heels in!
So what if it was contrarian? It wasn't unusable! Besides, wasn't it lively and healthy?!
Full of personality!
Flint wouldn't do, too ugly; Siren was out, too abstract; Truth was no good, too distant; Astraea was rejected, bizarrely uncalled-for... In the end, between a pile of names like Bastet, Hela, Hel, and Ereshkigal, the workshop spirit made its final choice.
[Isis]
"Why?" Ji Jue was puzzled.
This title was a mythical fragment passed down from long before the Age of Chaos, belonging to a goddess of life and growth rumored to have descended into the underworld. He couldn't understand why it fancied that.
"It resembles me,"
Isis answered. "Isis rises and descends from the underworld; life plunges into death and rises once more, heralded as the deity of rebirth and reincarnation. As stated in the Emerald Tablet: *It ascends from the earth to the heaven, and again it descends to the earth.*
Just like my birth—emerging from nothingness, reborn from spiritus, yet destined to return to the void in the end, are we not?"
"..."
Ji Jue shook his head. "Then wouldn't Persephone be just as good? Isn't it the same?"
"It is not the same. Isis's husband died."
Isis replied, "Judging by your naming habits, you appear to harbor a notable obsession with this. Combining the knowledge and memories you imparted, I deduce that the demise of a spouse seems to be a celebrated event in human society."
She added, "I trust this name may bring you a measure of good fortune."
In the silence, Ji Jue had nothing left to say, his face twitching continuously.
"...Well, thank you so much."
"You are welcome."
Inside the flask, brilliant starlight flashed, akin to eyes opening and closing in smug satisfaction.
She said, "My master."
Chapter 297