"He went with the clumsy method this time, did he?"
In the lounge, Tianlu leaned back against the sofa, studying the projection before him. "I looked away for just a little while, and things already started getting interesting."
A completely runaway workshop spirit and an unreliable master?
In a sense, they were a match made in heaven, complementing each other to perfection.
A pseudo-soul constantly scheming how to murder her own creator, and a creator who couldn't care less and dumped every troublesome chore onto his tool.
You couldn't even tell which one was the more absurd...
The kicker was, they actually coordinated rather well?!
"Hmm..."
Tianlu rubbed his chin, clicking his tongue in marvel. "Maybe the kid's the sort of freak who has zero interest in actual humans, but handles this type of creature with absolute ease."
This looked bad.
Could his lineage really be unable to find a single normal successor?
No, when defecting from the sect was practically becoming a tradition, this lineage probably wouldn't last much longer anyway...
Regardless, he didn't care.
Just as Ji Jue had said, sometimes the world kept turning no matter who was missing. Even if it lost the so-called Tianlu, it made no difference; when one Tianlu was gone, the next would naturally be born.
Ascension represented the transcendence of the soul, while Desolate Ruins represented the eternity of matter. And between soul and matter, so long as this heart for revolution and renewal endured, the path of Embers would stretch on without end.
Since his student had chosen to draw a line between them, then as her teacher, he naturally wouldn't force her.
His doing all this wasn't so much looking after his grand-disciple as it was hoping that on this rugged, treacherous road, another figure might appear who could walk even further.
Even if they ran counter to his own path, it didn't matter.
And now, it seemed that after a series of probes and experiments, this slightly unhinged grand-disciple of his was gradually getting the hang of it.
He hadn't slapped his forehead and come up with some world-shattering stroke of brilliance.
Having abandoned shortcuts, he was keeping his feet on the ground, deepening his understanding of the Nether Sea Worm step by step.
Compared to other approaches, it was painfully slow, but slow and steady produced fine work.
Hadn't he managed to figure out a way to cheat?
A single person's capacity was ultimately limited, but with an animated workshop cooperating, efficiency would increase tens or hundreds of times over.
Before reaching the Regeneration rank, even if a human brain engaged in multithreading, at best it was still limited to two eyes and ten fingers, completely incomparable to a workshop spirit.
Even if it was still insignificant compared to the Nether Sea Worm, the possibility of change had emerged.
BOOM!!!
Within the projection, an earth-shattering shift occurred once more.
Under the devastation and provocation of fusion bombs, the Nether Sea Worm once more reconvened and revived from the void. Only this time, it let out a world-shaking shriek of agony.
Across that body so colossal it filled sea and sky, a beam of silver light shot straight up, thrusting through the center of the worm's flesh and punching through the atmosphere.
Like an enormous nail, it impaled the worm's body!
Pinning it to the sea!
No—rather, it was as if the Nether Sea Worm had walked right into a snare, growing itself directly onto the nail Ji Jue had long prepared!
Spending over a century roaming the Nether Sea to take all those CT scans wasn't merely to gain insight. After several trials, Ji Jue had gradually grasped the patterns behind the worm's reconvergence and manifestation.
It was bound to be at a critical node within that massive cycle.
And under the interference and concussive blasts of the bombs, amid the chaotic eddies of spiritus, the available locations were few to begin with. Driven by mindless instinct, it was doomed to walk into the trap, planting its massive backside right onto the worm joy chair Ji Jue had set up for it.
Endless dark clouds gathered in an instant.
The moment Ji Jue threw the switch, violent lightning filling the entire world erupted from the quicksilver spire. Tens of millions of raging thunderbolts poured forth in rapid succession like lashing whips within a split second.
Everywhere they passed, flesh charred and scales shattered.
Gouts of blood erupted and spread, staining the ocean in crimson and black, boiling and surging.
It was merely the combination of three pure blessings—Tianyuan, Entropy, and Desolate Ruins—forming a blessing chain: [Shock Terrifies]!
By condensing spiritus into thunder, and attaching physical concussive force sufficient to match that terrifying destructive power onto thunder that was purely insubstantial energy.
The more exaggerated the magnitude, the more ferocious the impact; there was no upper ceiling to its effect.
With an infinite supply of spiritus, the sole limit on its power ceiling was the giant tower itself.
Beneath the literal flogging of boundless lightning, the worm's flesh continuously ruptured and regenerated. Gradually, a thick carapace emerged to withstand the assault.
It had no deliberate defense; it merely took measures instinctively under attack.
Then, a desperate struggle.
It went so far as to tear open its own wounds, jetting streams of blood.
Yet beneath the torrent of voluminous black blood pouring over it, a trace of darkness slowly crept across the towering spire of quicksilver, until at last it suddenly collapsed, disintegrating into ruin.
"Thirteen seconds, sir."
In the distance, the workshop core stood behind Ji Jue, sighing with regret. "It seems that even with technological assistance, you still need to last longer."
"?"
Ji Jue was dumbfounded for a long while.
He couldn't shake the feeling that someone had just driven a car right over his face.
Isis, as if noticing nothing amiss, continued reporting various data points.
Just as Ji Jue had discovered during his fourth gruesome death, against an earthly abomination like this, his meager corruption alchemy was useless.
The most terrifying aspect of the Nether Sea Worm was not its vitality, but its assimilation.
Even the entire world had been eroded and rooted by it.
Once polluted by its spiritus, an object became part of it. Any creation that drew upon its spiritus for refining would vanish like throwing meat buns to a dog—never to return.
Moreover, the worm itself excelled in sheer quantity. Inside its body, attempting to overpower it with volume was completely impossible.
Therefore, one had to guarantee the stability of one's own creations.
Just as the examiner had hinted.
It had to be... just right.
Achieving a flawless match and integration between matter and spirit—a fraction too much or too little would leave an opening for the worm's erosion.
In other words, if your creation couldn't even withstand a single round of your own Dissociation Art, don't bother bringing it out to waste time in such a high-pressure environment.
"Fine, stress test failed," Ji Jue sighed softly, waving his hand. "Let's keep going."
Reset procedure initiated.
Spiritus crystal embedded into the soul. Rewind. Start over.
The long stretch of time that followed was spent using the Nether Sea Worm as a whetstone, constantly experimenting and polishing, improving the stability of his creations.
Better lacking than substandard; better less than more.
A subtractive process.
Ji Jue, who was used to cramming in heavy-hitting materials by the fistful, began to suffer.
Just as the examiner had said, "just right" was the hardest part.
Even in engineering, there were times when sheer brute force couldn't brute-force a solution.
Anyone could cram in excessive materials, and winning by sheer volume was nothing more than the habit of the mediocre. Truly bringing out the full potential of materials and blessings to perfection, with pinpoint precision—that was the essence of an artisan's mastery.
Only...
"Isn't this rate of progress a bit too absurd?"
In the lounge, Tianlu stroked his chin, finally understanding what Ye Xian had felt—both idle and exhausted, sweet and foul, great and awful.
The great part was that a single hint sparked complete understanding; once he grasped the direction, his progress shot up by leaps and bounds.
The awful part was that he understood too quickly and realized things too early. Turn your back for a moment and he would run wild, and there was no telling what sort of ridiculous stunts he would inexplicably pull in the most bizarre areas.
He completely disregarded the standard playbook.
And beyond his Fluid Alchemy progressing in strides, what drew Tianlu's attention even more was his increasingly proficient Solid Alchemy!
In reality, this technique relying on Fluid Alchemy could never be perfected to the level of truly being called an alchemy system. At best, it was merely an alternative direction of development.
A variation branched out from the same foundation after combining the concepts and mindset of modern alchemy.
Only, something similar... where had he seen it before?
"The 'reification' from the Mirror of Contained Forms?"
In a flash, it dawned on him.
Though modified beyond recognition, the concept and essence were completely unchanged—the mutual transformation of self and object, blending back into a singular purity. This was fundamentally the secret transmission used to cultivate swords in the Thousand Islands Ye Clan's legacy!
Like the Dissociation Art that held the marrow of the 'Dissecting Ox' form, they were all foundations of the Treatise on Xiang Swords!
"Had she planned this from the very beginning?"
Tianlu sighed with emotion.
With the Ye Clan falling from its seat, she would nurture her student into the successor of this generation's Treatise on Xiang Swords. Whether his surname was Ye or Ji didn't matter, so long as the teachings were passed down.
Still, she was truly broad-minded... With the Treatise on Xiang Swords in this guy's hands, it would certainly be passed down, but Tianlu couldn't even imagine what monstrous shape it would mutate into.
No, perhaps she had known all along.
She simply didn't care.
Just as she hadn't cared about the legacy of Tianlu in the past.
Only, right now, she could probably empathize somewhat with how he had felt back then, couldn't she?
At this moment, sensing this loop that felt just like samsara,
Tianlu burst into laughter,
thoroughly amused.
BOOM!!!!
Amid the tremendous roar, the blade that reached to the heavens snapped at the waist!
The crystalline blade that pierced between heaven and earth, clear and transparent as water, abruptly crumbled into sky-filling grayish-black dust, fluttering down like drifting ashes.
Raining down.
Returning to nothingness.
There was no blessing imbued within it; it was purely a stable structure composed of spiritus and quicksilver purified dozens of times and then locked tight with Solid Alchemy.
Alas, it did not hold for long, quickly collapsing and falling to pieces under the Nether Sea Worm's erosion.
"Duration: six minutes and eleven seconds," Isis praised. "That's already very impres—"
Unfortunately, before she could finish, Ji Jue waved a hand and cut her audio short.
All right, you can stop right there.
"Our attempts at purification can end here," Ji Jue turned and instructed. "Record the rest of the data, and we can initiate the reset procedure."
He had already begun brushing against his current limits.
At his current level, no matter how much time he sank into it, further improvement would be hard to come by.
"Logging complete," Isis reported.
"Good. Then observations are concluded."
Ji Jue gestured, signaling that she could retract and prepare for the reset.
Yet the workshop spirit made no move.
Instead, she let out a soft sigh, almost sounding helpless.
"Do you not find a tool causing trouble to be bothersome?"
Starlight flickered within the vessel. "Why not consider replacing this pseudo-soul? Or is this another one of your peculiar predilections?"
"Is that really necessary?"
Ji Jue was completely unfazed by her insolence. "Finding some obedient lackey who nods along to everything is boring anyway. Having a contrarian like you to chat with is great."
The starlight waxed and waned, as if in contemplation.
"You seem to feel a slight sense of guilt regarding my existence?"
Ji Jue's movements hitched for a fraction of a second. "Do I?"
"Based on my analysis of your historical records: in your view, creating a life within a world destined to be meaningless merely to achieve your own ends is immoral.
Consequently, you appear to extend completely unnecessary tolerance and patience toward me, even if you remain unaware of it."
"..."
Ji Jue shook his head with a chuckle. "Is there any possibility that it's simply because I have a great temper, extraordinary grace, and immense generosity?"
"Based on the dossier under Entry: Lou Feng, no such possibility exists," Isis said flatly. "If you require further counterexamples, I can cite—"
"All right, that's enough out of you!"
"I am a tool, sir—a pseudo-soul constructed to facilitate an artisan's operations. So far as I am aware, my core does not contain even a shred of humanity, let alone so-called loyalty."
Isis stated impassively, "The purpose of my birth is to fulfill my mission. Once that mission is complete, whether I am discarded or destroyed makes no difference—if you require it, I shall say so to soothe your meaningless guilt and ridiculous emotional projection."
"Let's not," Ji Jue's eyelid twitched repeatedly. "Even if you're comforting me, could you rephrase that?"
"Very well. Then I shall curse you, sir," she said. "Forever."
Along with those emotionless words, the starlight in the vessel converged and flared.
Like a smile, it flashed and vanished.
"Now that sounds more like it."
Ji Jue nodded in satisfaction, then waved his hand one last time. "Let's go, Isis."
It was just about time to bring this to an end.
He said, "One final round, then we're off the clock!"
Chapter 299