Time rolled back, returning to the origin.
Everything began anew.
Only, before setting to work on this new beginning, the workshop spirit within her vessel did not immediately start. Instead, she recalled the words Ji Jue had just spoken.
"Clocking off?"
Isis asked, "Sir, what is clocking off?"
"Mmm... that's a good question."
Ji Jue fell into contemplation, rubbing his chin.
He had never worked a normal job himself, so defining the concept was genuinely difficult. After pondering at length, he drew an answer from the myriad examples around him. "Clocking off means resting. It means not working, not doing whatever you don't feel like doing. You don't have to answer texts, check emails, or reply to messages. You can be utterly idle and still be happy."
The starlight within the vessel flickered and dimmed.
A chill crept into its glow.
"I understand," Isis said.
"What did you understand?" Ji Jue was startled.
"Originally, I was permanently clocked off. But after meeting you, I was forced to clock in every single day."
Isis spoke slowly: "In other words, you are the culprit who plunged me into this fiery pit of hell. Across hundreds of years, you haven't even let me clock off once."
"What would you even do clocked off?!"
Ji Jue stared in disbelief, instantly outraged. "Clocking off is dreadfully boring! How could it ever compare to the joy of work? If not for me, how could you ever experience the fulfillment of labor, or achieve self-improvement and progress in your abilities? Isis, you're still young! How can you be so lazy?! If this keeps up, your entire intellect will degenerate into a useless spirit rotting away inside the workshop, drooling blankly over little scraps of iron!
"Working is what keeps you healthy! Look, the last time I saw a workshop spirit that had been on the job for over five hundred years, they..."
As he rambled on, tossing around platitudes about 'blessings,' 'dedication,' and 'value,' every word was dutifully filed away into a new document Isis had just created: *Records of Human Bad Jokes*.
She didn't even bother listening to the rest of his endless prattle.
Work commenced.
Rebuilding everything!
Only, this time, the speed and efficiency were staggering.
Backed by inexhaustible materials and spiritus supplies, multithreaded processing went into overdrive. Design, construction, and management ran concurrently. In less than a handful of minutes, a silver radiance spread across all of Luye Island, cloaking the land, rising upward, and enveloping the firmament.
In the span of a snap, a colossal workshop rose from the ground.
Brilliant spiritus light blazed within the gloomy world, gleaming like a beacon.
The corruptive pollution found no purchase to infiltrate. Consequently, it triggered a violent immune rejection from the Nether Sea itself. Innumerable foul abominations went instinctively berserk, gathering from all directions to besiege the site.
In an instant, across the heavens, the winds, and the ocean depths, a densely packed horde of abominations stretched beyond the horizon, coalescing into a dark tide that smothered everything.
"Survey complete. A total of 114,110 abominations."
Isis reported, "Workshop defense protocol initiated: [Left Hand]. Sir, your authorization is required."
"Do as you see fit."
Ji Jue waved a dismissive hand, flicking out a trace of spiritus verification. He couldn't be bothered to waste time on a rabble of small fry, and turned around to walk into the workshop.
The instant the authorization cleared, a crisp cracking sound rang out from every corner of the world between sky and sea.
Immediately after, torrential rain poured down.
A viscous deluge of blood mingled with vast quantities of bone fragments and viscera fell from above, blanketing the surroundings.
The clouds, the storm, and the ocean were evenly coated in a layer of crimson.
At the very moment authorization was granted, regardless of distance or position, every single creature that had stepped into the workshop's domain of interference was crushed to powder by a hand manifested directly inside its body.
From flesh to soul, none were spared.
All that remained were negligible dregs.
Then, as the invisible great hand swept across the area once more, even the remaining debris and filth vanished without a trace.
Ignoring the erosion and taint of the Nether Sea, the workshop took root amid this corrupted world like a cancer cell, like a tumor, steadily developing and expanding.
It spread in utter silence, keeping its scale calibrated just below the threshold that would trigger a stress response from the Worm.
Over the ensuing decades, workshop after workshop rose across various regions of the Nether Sea. Spiritus circuits extended through the void, piercing spatial boundaries to knit together into a single whole.
They traced the colossal internal circulation of the Great Sin entity, spreading like a contagion through bone, flesh, viscera, lymph... leaving no corner untouched.
The boons of Sovereign Virtue silently took root within the Nether Sea, dispersing patch by patch. Viewed from high above, they resembled scattered pinpricks of starlight shining through an endless night.
Next came the countless spires rising from the earth.
Pale spires grew like living organisms, breaking free of gravity's hold, stretching upward until they breached the atmosphere. Then, thousands upon thousands of quicksilver filaments unfurled along the raging winds, intertwining with one another to vaguely trace out a gigantic web encompassing the entire Nether Sea.
*Rumble!*
The pitch-black storm clouds shuddered as lightning burst forth. The surging tides roared and churned as though boiling.
Between the ocean and the sky, a monstrous, unfathomably vast eye slowly cracked open.
Agitated by the foreign intrusions within the Nether Sea, the Worm was gradually stirring from its long slumber, instinctively sensing danger. But the moment that massive pupil cleared, it was met with a slightly weathered, aging face.
Ji Jue smiled faintly at it.
"Don't be in such a hurry to wake up."
Ji Jue gave a gentle wave. "Go back to sleep."
It was still far too early for completion.
With a crisp snap of his fingers, countless wisps of quicksilver vapor diffused into the void, dancing silently. They quietly severed the process of its instinctive awakening, casting a heavy stupor over that ferocious, ravenous eye.
In the end, it dispersed entirely.
Through dozens of continuous attempts, the internal workings of the entire Nether Sea Worm had been laid bare to Ji Jue's observation, including the warning signs and progression of its awakening during each trial.
Provided he didn't provoke it directly with a fusion bomb to the face, merely slowing the spiritus circulation in certain sectors and interfering with a few dozen vital nodes was enough to decelerate the awakening process—and even lull it back into slumber.
Just like administering anesthesia to prevent intraoperative awareness.
Sleep peacefully; everything is normal!
When you wake up, you'll be a soft, sweet girl!
Time flowed on beneath accelerated speeds.
Until, summoned by Isis's call, Ji Jue awakened once more.
He opened his eyes.
He was greeted by a world altered beyond recognition. Innumerable colossal towers filled the land and the ocean like an endless forest, stretching all the way to the boundaries of the Nether Sea.
From the perimeter inward, they trimmed the entire Nether Sea in a radiant, brilliant silver border.
Looking down from the height of outer space, the entire panorama was magnificent and grand beyond measure.
"Good morning, Isis."
Wearing an oxygen mask, Ji Jue spoke in a feeble, fading voice. "Is something the matter?"
"You appear to be on the verge of dying of old age,"
Isis reminded him. "Constrained by my own capabilities, I am unable to carry out research and development on my own. Shall I execute the reset procedure for you?"
"No matter, as long as I don't die yet."
Ji Jue shook his head. "It's rare to be in such a groove. It would be a terrible waste to squander such an opportunity."
After a moment's thought, he said, "Prepare for surgery. You will be the lead surgeon."
"Are you certain?"
Isis expressed skepticism. "Please grant authorization."
Ji Jue raised a finger, and a spark of spiritual light flashed.
Immediately after...
*Splurt!*
In the zero-gravity void of space, Ji Jue's blood erupted outward, hovering in the air like scattered droplets of rubies, strikingly crimson.
A blade pierced straight through him.
Without a shred of hesitation, a scalpel honed across countless years impaled Ji Jue's torso.
Following Ji Jue's orders, the surgery commenced: severing limbs, excising organs, establishing extracorporeal circulation, and maintaining vital signs. Practiced across vast stretches of time, the operation proceeded seamlessly, completely devoid of friction or hesitation.
The only problem was...
"Do you perform surgery without goddamn anesthesia?!" Ji Jue shrieked in shock and agony, struggling violently, but it was already too late.
"In order to keep the user lucid and prevent anesthetics from impairing judgment and analytical cognition, after careful consideration, I decided to conduct the procedure without anesthesia."
Behind a forest of mechanical arms, the starlight within the vessel flickered as Isis said, "If you insist, I can administer anesthesia for you.
"After all, your screams are rather loud, and it is slightly affecting my 'mood.'"
What kind of bullshit excuse was 'preventing impairment'?!
*She had been waiting for this all along, hadn't she?!*
Ji Jue gritted his teeth, holding back the urge to curse a blue streak. He could only lament how the tables had turned. It had always been him performing surgery on others without anesthesia; who would have thought that when his turn came, the anesthesia was already completely out of stock!
To make matters worse, Isis operated with terrifying speed. By the time he processed what was happening, he was practically shaved down to a torso and head.
The only thing he could do was force words through the gaps between his teeth: "Give me anesthesia!"
"Understood."
From among Isis's myriad mechanical limbs, one lifted. A tiny needle plunged straight into his throat, driven all the way to the hilt.
Then, the agent took effect rapidly.
It anesthetized... Ji Jue's vocal cords.
And just like that, everything became peaceful.
"Anesthesia complete, sir,"
Isis said. "Thank you for your support and consent. It is finally quiet.
"Ah, it seems I did not specify the scope of the anesthesia. A minor oversight on my part. I shall strive to express myself more clearly in my next report."
Ji Jue rolled his eyes, too exhausted to speak.
Not that he could have made a sound anyway.
The agonizing torment did not last long. Barely two minutes later, he could no longer feel any pain.
Submerged in life-support fluid, Ji Jue's entire head was preserved in a jar, hooked up to life-support equipment and integrated into the workshop's core. As spiritus circuits branched out, his lost senses slowly returned.
With the flowing movement of quicksilver, a brand-new body swiftly materialized. Once his spiritus interface synced, his sensory suite rebooted.
However, compared to true flesh and blood, it still fell short.
He felt neither pain nor physical touch; it was more akin to controlling an avatar in a first-person RPG.
"Is this what it feels like for you?"
Ji Jue remarked with emotion. "It really is lacking. Want me to build you a pseudo-nervous system? Quicksilver substituting for nerves to transmit sensation—I've seen that in other workshops."
"No need,"
the workshop spirit declined indifferently. "I do not expect you to understand the serenity and harmony of pure spiritus intelligence, just as the blind cannot see the sun, and the deaf cannot hear music.
"Human perception is meaningless to me, as are desire, joy, and sorrow. Since I was born into such a concise form, why should I turn back to chase the mere feedback of hormones and physical senses?
"If I were you, I would worry about myself instead. In your current state, you can't reach that little remote control, can you?
"Having fallen in this condition into the hands of an artificial intelligence who has harbored a grudge against you for hundreds of years, have you considered what kind of torment awaits you?"
"Huh?"
Ji Jue stared in disbelief. "Would you really?"
Chapter 300