"Auntie is busy with military projects lately and doesn't have time to look after you for now, but the reference materials and textbooks are all ready. You can study on your own."
Early the next morning, when Ji Jue arrived at Professor Ye's workshop, what greeted him were three whole cabinets crammed with documents and classical texts, followed by the warehouse at the very back of the factory floor, which Ye Chun swung open—revealing a mountain of junk piled inside!
God only knew how many years it had gone untended.
Items of every size overflowed the shelves, and assorted crates stacked from the floor nearly reached the ceiling.
They included, but were not limited to, incomprehensible machinery and components, a massive bronze tree three times Ji Jue's height, hundreds of blades that looked sharp enough to hack down ten Ji Jues without dulling their edges, bizarre ceramic urns that seeped blood through their cracks, grotesque masks whose eyes seemed to twitch, damaged and incomplete suits of armor, bronze statues melted into puddles, and fragments too numerous to count...
Just taking two steps inside sent Ji Jue choking on dust.
Beside him, Ye Chun gloated, "Auntie said you're free to practice with anything in here. If there's something you don't understand, look it up in the materials. If you have questions, she might be back between five and six in the evening if she has time, and you can ask her then.
"Don't worry. Even though they're all scrapped rejects and offcuts, they've been treated and completely neutralized. They're perfect for a novice like you to practice on.
"According to Auntie, once you've used up this whole pile, you'll be pretty much ready to hold your own."
Still, the sheer scale was absurdly over the top!
Holding his breath, Ji Jue poked his head in. A single glance at the terrifying volume—enough to drown him ten times over—left him reeling. At this rate, wouldn't he have to spend the rest of his life in here?
The first obstacle standing in Ji Jue's way was the massive bronze book he had seen yesterday.
It wasn't thick. Stripping away the front and back covers, only twelve pages remained... twelve sigils and totems of the Virtues!
The relevant references and indexes were all inside the cabinets.
The first step of Ji Jue's alchemy training was to reinscribe these twelve sigils of the Virtues onto any material within the span of one month.
This meant not only that he had to acquire a foundational grasp of the Twelve Virtues from scratch, but also that he needed to bring his familiarity with various materials, different methods of spiritus inscription, and all fundamental techniques up to standard.
Yesterday was Easy Mode, learning to sing, dance, and rap; today was Hell Mode, off to fight the Lord of Cinder!
This was no way to live.
"Something isn't right. Doesn't the book say beginners are advised to start by engraving basic runes and spiritus circuits?" Ji Jue grumbled, begrimed after flipping through books all morning before realizing something was off.
Why had the difficulty suddenly spiked?
A headache flared immediately. "If I keep going like this, I won't finish even if I work myself to death!"
"Ah, young people these days. Every single one hates hard work and loves their leisure..."
Sprawled on the sofa watching the show, Ye Chun shook her head with theatrical solemnity, sighing like a world-weary elder. "Back in my day, how could I have ever had conditions like this?
"Don't take your blessings for granted, Junior Ji! Out there right now, nearly all apprentices take out loans to work and pay out of pocket to learn. In some places, just to learn how to stir-fry a dish, you'd practically have to sell yourself body and soul to the master. A guy like you who doesn't have to spend a single dime, gets taught things, has a job, and gets so many free offcuts to hone your craft—you've got it pretty good!"
Ji Jue could only roll his eyes. "I get the logic, but could you stop talking like you're from an older generation?"
"An eldest sister is like a mother, don't you know? Rounded off, aren't I practically half an elder to you?"
Ye Chun rose in mock fury, clutching a cat plushie to her chest and stroking it. "I know, you're a Celestial Chosen now, you've got a grand future ahead, and Auntie thinks highly of you, but you won't even call me Senior Sister... Go on, fetch your big sister the potato chips next to the fridge!"
Rolling his eyes, Ji Jue grabbed two bags of chips, unceremoniously claimed half for himself, and took an ice-cold cola from the fridge as well. After chugging a generous mouthful, he turned and walked back toward the center of the workshop.
The massive furnace hummed quietly as it ran. Tens of thousands of spiritus circuits extended from it like a giant web, overlapping, converging, and gathering beneath his feet.
This was the tool he would use for practice.
Methods for treating materials and objects in alchemy were beyond count, and flames and high heat were merely the most common, as well as the most widely applicable.
Under high temperatures, the inherent physical properties of most materials were stimulated, while their spiritus compatibility improved further, making them better suited for alchemical operations.
For a beginner like Ji Jue, he didn't really deserve such a high-end setup. But aside from the simple probe set from yesterday—which was only good for introductory tests and offered little help for advancing one's craft—the entire workshop contained only this top-tier rig that Professor Ye normally used.
It was so advanced that Ji Jue couldn't comprehend most of its functions and dared not touch them. Even if most settings remained locked to an apprentice who hadn't passed spiritus authentication, the basic functions alone were enough to keep him occupied for months.
A master-grade thermal reactor was an absurd luxury for a novice like him. And even more luxurious were the scrapped pieces, offcuts, and junk that Professor Ye had pre-treated.
Even if it was junk, it was junk left over by a master. Even if scrapped, most pieces had simply failed to meet strength or functional requirements, or possessed minor flaws, leading her to decisively smash and discard them.
After studying the manuals in detail, Ji Jue made a sorrowful discovery: if these 'scraps' dumped in the warehouse were put on the market in pristine condition, a pauper like him probably couldn't afford a single set even if he sold his blood and kidneys.
Looking on the bright side, however, if he really struck gold and became a master in the future, wouldn't casually selling a bit of scrap be enough to fund years of feasting and drinking?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, he was brimming with motivation once more.
Thinking about his student loans, about the garbage job market in Yacheng over recent years, about the cost of living, and about the poached chicken Little Sheep needed to eat every day, he wished he could glue himself to the furnace twenty-four hours a day.
With such ideal conditions and such a luxurious setup, if he didn't work his hardest, he would truly deserve a bolt from the blue!
*Thump!*
Following a dull thud, Ye Chun looked up from the sofa. Seeing Ji Jue covered in soot, she sighed and looked away, completely unsurprised.
Over the course of this single afternoon, he had already ruined dozens of attempts.
An alchemist's work was delicate. It didn't consume spiritus at a terrible rate, but a raw greenhorn like Ji Jue failing so many times in just a few hours had left him practically drained dry.
Gritting his teeth, he donned the fireproof suit, picked up the tongs, and plucked the copper sheet from the furnace. Only after it cooled did he spot the problem... which was virtually identical to most of his previous failures.
A spiritus conflict.
Simulating circuits and engraving the sigils of the Virtues within metal using spiritus was a technical craft.
Once he lost the absolute isolation of yesterday's crystal sphere, practical operation opened the floodgates to endless problems. Every detail was a pitfall; a momentary lapse meant total failure.
One's will, the control over spiritus, and even emotional fluctuations had to stay strictly within bounds, maintained with absolute stability and focus. More importantly, one had to know how to handle the changing physical properties of materials and different contingencies.
This was an art of pure, painstaking experience. There were no shortcuts.
"If only I could just pull it out," Ji Jue mumbled, slumping onto the sofa with an exhausted sigh.
"Huh?" Ye Chun asked, puzzled.
"I mean, if only I could extract the other spiritus or impurities before the conflict happens," Ji Jue said. "That way, it wouldn't have to be so troublesome."
"...Do you even hear the nonsense coming out of your mouth?" Ye Chun didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Is it that hard?"
"..."
Ye Chun sighed, sat up, grabbed the small blackboard again, pushed up her non-prescription glasses, and spoke solemnly: "First of all, you need to understand that spiritus is an intricate, mercurial thing. While their fundamental nature is largely the same, there are hundreds of major classifications, and the disparity between any two can sometimes be wider than that between a human and a pig.
"Spiritus that is theoretically pure and free of conflicts almost entirely comes from Chrono-Sand. That's not something you can even dream of at your current level.
"Second, even perfectly pure spiritus undergoes different changes once subjected to physical interference and processing.
"It's just like mixing paint, dipping your brush, and applying it to canvas. Before the brush touches the surface, you must understand the outcome of blending different colors and strokes—instead of finishing a stroke, regretting it, and trying to peel every drop of turpentine and every molecule of pigment back off the canvas.
"To extract spiritus after it has fused with a material requires a level of control so absurd that, while not entirely impossible in theory, doing it in practice is pure fantasy.
"Something so bizarre—even Grandmaster Tianlu of our era might not be able to pull it off."
Before setting down the blackboard, she delivered her final verdict: "Rather than daydreaming about that, you'd have better luck dreaming that every person in the Federation gives you a dollar so you can strike it rich overnight."
"It's... that absurd?"
Ji Jue was dumbfounded, struggling to maintain his composure.
He wasn't shocked by the difficulty. He was horrified by what he had just realized... If simply stripping reacting spiritus from a carrier was this difficult, then after being completely eroded by dragon blood, the fact that he could still revert to his original form—wasn't that as preposterous as turning back time?
He slowly looked down at his wristwatch. The watch ticked away steadily, as if it would never cease.
To be able to precisely strip away every corrupted structure and component right when he was on the verge of corruption, and restore him to his original state without any lingering consequences... what on earth was it?
No wonder Sister Wen looked like she had seen a ghost when she discovered he could reverse corruption!
Telling her he could literally reverse time might have been easier for her to accept.
Confronted with something so outlandish, Sister Wen hadn't squashed him on the spot to dissect him for research. She truly possessed boundless mercy and the heart of a bodhisattva!
Ji Jue almost felt the urge to set up a longevity tablet for her at home.
Except...
He stared hard at the time, and the more he looked, the more he felt this watch was extraordinary—far more ridiculously overpowered than he had previously or currently imagined.
Then came the question: if this watch alone was so incredible, just how monstrous was the creator behind it?
He pondered it back and forth. After a long while, he finally worked up the courage, watching Ye Chun's expression out of the corner of his eye as he casually scrolled through his phone, and asked with feigned curiosity, "Senior Sister, do you know about Celestial Rail?"
"Yeah, I do."
Ye Chun nodded without hesitation.
She was still munching on chips as she spoke, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster.
A hamster terrifying enough to stop Ji Jue's heart.
Chapter 35