The Call of the Grind

Having crossed through the countless tribulations he had anticipated with such ease, Ji Jue scrutinized his handiwork. He could no longer hold back a beaming smile. Yet along with the excitement came a pang of regret and sorrow. Even by Ji Jue's standards, such a creation was nothing short of miraculous and unimaginable. But compared to what he had just experienced of Professor Ye's technique, his work was riddled with flaws—a pathetic imitation. They weren't in the same league at all; he was left so far behind he couldn't even see her exhaust fumes. But so what? Even if it was ugly, it was still endearing; even if it was tiny, it was still impressive! During the absorption of spiritus following the fragment's self-destruction, not only had his soul and perception grasped the process and reasons behind the fifty-one previous failures, but he had also experienced firsthand Professor Ye's terrifying, godlike craftsmanship! It was as though she had become a true Creator. Every transformation surged forth from the furnace... All one had to do was reach out to pluck them at will, or flip one's palm to reshape heaven and earth. This sudden realization was utterly intoxicating. More importantly, it was a precious experience far more thorough than any hands-on instruction. That single, fleeting instant was like a lighthouse suddenly rising in the long night, illuminating the path and direction for Ji Jue, who had been spinning his wheels in place. All he had to do was sprint forward with everything he had while that memory of light remained fresh in his mind! Once more, he picked up a fragment. Without a shred of pity for the piece he had just finished, Ji Jue drew upon the reserve spiritus stored in his wristwatch and began engraving once again! With his other hand, he flipped the massive bronze tome beside the workbench to a later page. Before the insight faded and while his memory was still sharp, this time he would attempt to engrave the insignia and totem of another of the Twelve Virtues. The Virtue governing the birth and annihilation of all energy, quiescence and eruption, elements and tempests. —Entropy! And so it continued until half past midnight. Ye Chun came for the sixth time to urge him to clock off and go home. Amid earnest advice such as "Time to rest," "Slack off a bit, will you?", "That's enough already, you're doing great, you're better than a lot of big shots now," and "Fuck off and stop grinding already!", Ji Jue, still craving more, looked back with every three steps before finally mounting Little Niuma and leaving the workshop. After more than five hours of overtime, he felt he had gained far more than during all those hours of practice before—dozens, perhaps hundreds of times more. Before that vivid wisp of insight slipped away completely, Ji Jue had strained with every ounce of effort to retain a modest bit of understanding and a great deal more experience from failure. In the end, he hadn't managed to finish drawing the full totem of Entropy. Halfway through, there were several moments when he felt as though he were just one step away from breaking through. But toward the end, the harder he tried, the further off-course he seemed to drift, giving him the clumsy sensation of trying to draw a tiger and ending up with a dog. He knew that grinding any longer likely wouldn't yield much more. Having thoroughly digested the package of experience from Professor Ye, he hummed and whistled, bought a bowl of fried noodles from a roadside stall, and without hesitation... set off on the road home. Hurry and wash up for bed, so tomorrow he could get right back to the grind! "Fuck!" Meanwhile, in the shadows in the distance, from a van discreetly trailing him through traffic, the middle-aged Qi Qin held up a video camera and froze in disbelief, watching Ji Jue return home. Unbelievable. What the fuck are you doing? You went to the professor's factory to tighten screws until the middle of the night—any normal human would be unwinding and having fun by now! Damn it, fine if you're a college student who doesn't hit the bars, flirt with girls, or grind ranked games, but can't you at least hurry up and call that older woman backing you and ask her out for some fun?! I've got the camera ready, and all you give me to shoot is some damn work-study program?! Is this what people came to see?! The man who had suffered through a whole day following Ji Jue felt on the verge of a breakdown. This made no goddamn sense—the girl selling fried noodles had such huge tits, and he hadn't spared her a single glance! Even when she jiggled in hopes of squeezing two more yuan out of him, he wouldn't even add an egg! Are you even fucking human? Don't panic, don't rush. Patience yields results; staking out is how you catch the big scoops. Qi Qin took a deep breath, soothing his irritable temper. Only after waiting until the light in Ji Jue's room finally went out did he step out of the van to take a leak, hit the restroom, and buy a bowl of instant noodles. Alright, peace and quiet at last. At least I can get a good night's sleep. He closed his eyes. *** On the same late night, someone else tossed and turned sleeplessly. "Holy shit..." In the quiet factory grounds, Ye Chun, having washed up, originally had her hair wrapped up to dry as she yawned and tidied the workshop. But when she reached out and picked up the fragment on the table, she froze on the spot. As if struck by lightning. Ye Chun could swear she had never widened her eyes so far in her entire life! Under Ji Jue's ravages, a faint hairline crack had already formed across the irregular fragment. Yet now, an almost imperceptible layer of pure white phantasmal light rippled over it, glowing hazily in the moonlight once the lights were off. What baffled her even more was what lay across it... On that space smaller than a palm, someone, with psychotic industriousness and an OCD level fit for immediate institutionalization, had forcefully engraved more than twenty Virtue insignias! Every single one was Ascension! When she came by to check on him this afternoon, Ji Jue had been a total greenhorn who had barely touched a furnace, knowing nothing and unable to use anything. Yet in a mere four or five hours, he had trampled right over progress that took other apprentices years of grueling day-and-night torment to achieve. What was even more terrifying... Through the wisp-like traces carved upon it, she could faintly make out her aunt's style from years ago? Especially the last few totemic insignias—the curvature at the finishing stroke was unmistakably Auntie's unique personal signature... Even if you're copying her, is there any reason to mimic that too?! What did you come here to learn? Counterfeiting?! "Auntie, come home quickly," she whispered, suppressing the urge to scream as she dialed the phone. "There's a pervert!" "...Normal." After hearing what had happened, a long silence fell on the other end of the line. But in the end, Professor Ye offered only a calm assessment, sounding not in the least surprised. "Just let him continue," Professor Ye said. "Don't worry about anything unnecessary." The call ended right there. Ye Chun was left standing in the silence, staring at the fragment. After a long time, she looked back at her small reflection in the glass. Setting the fragment down, she couldn't help letting out a soft sigh. "Damn monster." *** "What the fuck?" In the same darkness of night, inside his rundown bedroom, Ji Jue—who had only just closed his eyes—suddenly bounced upright in bed. He had finally realized something seemed off. During the day, he had been so fixated on improving his alchemy that he had nearly overlooked it... Under the moonlight, he raised his right hand, brought it before his eyes, and scrutinized it carefully, staring at the numeral "1" on the dial, which was faintly tinged with gold. He squinted, disbelieving. "Did this damn progress bar actually move?" If his memory served him right, that morning, the numeral "1" had barely shown any trace of other colors. But now, in the very top corner, an unmistakable speck of pure gold had appeared. If he had to describe it, it was like a certain blue-iconed download software crawling at snail's pace suddenly springing to life. Though it was still moving at a measly 1 or 2 KB/s, at least it was no longer displaying "Resource not responding" or "Download unavailable in accordance with relevant laws and regulations"... From 0% to 1%—once again achieving a momentous breakthrough from zero to one! Faint and minute, yet glaringly obvious. "Yeeees!" Ji Jue pumped his fists and cheered. "Hell yeah!" But why? Could it be that his progress in alchemy had driven the growth of his ability? No, that didn't make sense either; two days ago, when he first started alchemy, this damn watch hadn't budged at all. He lay back down on the bed, carefully retracing everything that had happened throughout the day. In the end, the scene that surfaced before his eyes was when he reached out to extract the residual quintessence and spiritus from the self-destructing fragment. Ultimately, all that quintessence had been devoured by his ability! "Wait, bro, are you serious?!" Sensing the insignia turning lightly within his soul, he couldn't wrap his head around it. It can only grow by absorbing quintessence from alchemical items? Why is this shitty ability just like a character in some gacha mobile game? Running dungeons and slaying monsters doesn't do jack; you have to feed it other gear and characters as fodder just to level up? Once it hits max level, will it need duplicate copies to limit-break too? Don't tell me when I try enhancing to +11 or +12, there'll be a chance the gear shatters! Ji Jue was ready to despair over a pay-to-win world. He felt an urge to bang his head against the wall. Wasn't True Legend supposed to be different? Yet strangely... what sprang to mind was that entire warehouse from earlier today that had once filled him with despair, along with that absurd pile of junk massive enough to bury a dozen of him. If he remembered correctly, Professor Ye had said those useless leftovers were all for him to practice on, right? In an instant, all trace of sleep vanished from Ji Jue. Turning his gaze toward the direction of the workshop, a raging inferno ignited in his eyes, as if he were seeing countless scantily clad maidens seductively beckoning him to come play... What junk pile?! That was freshly bathed, pristine EXP waiting to be taken! Only one word remained in his mind. —Grind! *** From that day on, the nightmare of his stalker began. The man had only closed his eyes past two in the morning after sending off his report. Yet at five-thirty the next morning, he discovered that... that little bastard Ji Jue was heading out! He hadn't even changed his clothes or washed his hair. He had merely splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth, bought a steamed bun at the door— And bee-lined straight for the factory! Looking like someone scrambling to grab free eggs before they ran out, Ji Jue left Qi Qin feeling as though his worldview was crumbling. What the hell are you doing? Bro, can't you get some goddamn sleep? Even if you don't sleep, I need to! What do you get out of rushing to a factory this early? You even bought coffee—are you really in that much of a hurry to be a corporate slave?! A distant sound drifted through the wind... Leaving the despairing middle-aged man rooted to the spot. He was cackling! Throttle pinned to the max on his little scooter, Ji Jue grinned broadly as he galloped through the dawn light. A new day, a fresh start. Time to happily tighten screws again!