Shadow

"Assuming all phenomena in the world were like books collected and cataloged in a library, a 'Name' is a pointer, a special tag—a method that lets you locate the phenomenon you need with the utmost speed." Tong Ting said, "Looking at it from this angle—what is the difference between an absolutely pure, blank phenomenon and something that doesn't exist? It would be even more ethereal, even more indescribable than so-called fate. How could it ever be summarized or described? And if it cannot be summarized or described, how could it be pointed to? How could it be observed by the eyes and condensed into a record? Aether views all things as intelligence and information, yet within this existence, how could something exist that contains no information at all?" Ji Jue fell silent, eyes wide. As if stunned, he stood dumbfounded like a wooden rooster, finally realizing the fallacy in his thinking. "'Name'? Designation..." In a flash of inspiration, the opening line of Chunjun from the Xiangjian Nine Types surfaced in his mind. It seemed quoted from some ancient classic or fragment, devoid of any commentary: "...'The name that can be named is not the enduring Name'?" What mattered was not blankness or existence; what mattered was the 'Name' inscribed by the swordsmith, the direction provided... He had stepped into a misconception right from the start! Designation! Orientation was what mattered most! "So that's it! I understand!" As if struck by an epiphany in an instant, a spark flashed through Ji Jue's mind. In a split second, countless contradictory records seemed to link together completely. Why the description of each sword was completely different, why every Chunjun displayed completely different final effects aside from the foundation... Which meant, the designation of Aether—no, the swordsmith's designation, the 'Name' given by the swordsmith! Yet Ji Jue had remained stuck in the mindset of Fluid Alchemy, stubbornly going down a dead end of purification, yielding zero results. He had never imagined... At a time like this, subtraction wasn't what was needed—he had to add ingredients! He shot to his feet. "Sorry to bother you," Ji Jue said, bypassing all pleasantries. "I have urgent business!" "Go on, go on." Accustomed to oddities, Tong Ting waved with a smile. He watched Ji Jue dash off like smoke, and then... three minutes later, he dashed right back. Even faster than when he left! Tong Ting froze again, bewildered. Ji Jue's smile grew increasingly earnest and humble. "I just remembered I've run out of record tomes at home. Could you spare a few?" With that, Tong Ting could no longer hold his composure. Helpless, he looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh. "You really didn't bring those chickens for nothing..." Two chickens, and look how many questions he got answered, not to mention eating and taking things home to boot?! Just who invented such bastards as craftsmen? He waved his hand in resignation. Ten minutes later, loaded down with bags large and small, carrying several trunks filled with freely sponged materials that even overflowed Little Niuma's trunk, Ji Jue finally waved goodbye reluctantly, looking back with every three steps at Tong Ting, who had walked him to the doorway. And so, he finally took off. Long after, Tong Ting was still standing by the door, keeping a vigilant watch, worried that the bastard might make a sudden U-turn. Once certain he was truly gone this time, he couldn't help sighing heavily toward the sky. Now Tong Ting finally understood why the old man had suddenly decided to go out for a stroll today... Good thing he left early, or his blood pressure probably couldn't have taken it! The good news: Ji Jue genuinely didn't treat the Tong family like outsiders. The bad news: he didn't intend to act like a decent human being either... "Jie-jie-jie! Isis, I'm throwing away my humanity!" Inside the workshop of the Doomsday Express, in front of the colossal furnace, Ji Jue danced with joy as he sensed the surging transformations within the flames. To this, Isis remained completely unfazed. She had never considered Ji Jue human to begin with... What normal person acted like this? Causing trouble on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; going berserk on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; assassinating Xu Chaoxian on Sunday. Causing explosions wherever he went, slapping his forehead with world-shattering brainstorms, and dropping secret weapons and mysterious surprises the second your back was turned... Stuck with a master like this, if Isis had a physical body, she would have suffered a cerebral hemorrhage long ago. "Yes, yes, so that's how it is! I get it! I understand everything!" Ji Jue laughed wildly. Non-Offensive extended, manipulating the radiant light in the furnace to soar, morph, and catalyze even further... It was practically like a cascading disaster. Once the first domino fell, Ji Jue's long-stymied train of thought burst wide open. What followed was a blitz of sparks and lightning: solving one problem, two problems, three problems, until all the subsequent misconceptions and unknowns clicked into place. Chunjun, renowned among the Xiangjian Nine Types as foremost in spirituality and boundless in utility, had never possessed a fixed form in the first place. Just like an identical seed cultivated into different forms by different artisans, the end results differed by worlds, varying from person to person. While differences in mastery and methods played a part, it was far more about the transformations the craftsman imparted to Chunjun through the synthesized qualitative mutation of Aether and Ascension. No wonder his teacher had told him to attempt Chunjun first; once Chunjun was complete, he would have achieved the threshold of spiritus refinement. The embryo of Chunjun hung between existence and nonexistence, capable of transforming at will. Yet a perfected Chunjun, through gradual honing and nurturing, could even break entirely free of material bonds to exist in a state of pure spiritus! Its miraculous applications varied by the individual: shielding its master from disaster, traversing seas and scaling peaks, or standing guard day and night like a bodyguard or death-sworn sentinel... Its spirituality was shaped by the individual—this was an innate spiritual sword forged from the craftsman's own spiritus, records, and designation! Unlike Isis, who was created from the moment of birth as a workshop spirit to manage tedious controls on the artisan's behalf, it was more like an extension and tool of the swordsmith's limbs, a shadow clinging constantly to their feet, an autonomously functioning sword spirit. A tireless, loyal hound. Beside the furnace, inside a giant nest, Little Niuma suddenly felt a chill run through its frame. It curiously raised its head and looked around—everything was plainly normal, so why did it feel like it was about to be made redundant? Boom! At that moment, the furnace doors suddenly swung open. Piercing shrieks rose from the blaze as wails and cries rolled outward. Crimson overflowed like a spring, submerging their feet. Soon, once the hallucinations dissipated, Ji Jue held a bizarre, twisted fragment of a sword: writhing with flesh and blood, countless eyes opening and closing unceasingly. Failure. Expressionless, Ji Jue flicked his wrist. Dissociation Art instantly destroyed it. With the old problems solved, new ones arose... Precisely because Chunjun was an innate spiritual sword whose every change originated from the swordsmith, it bore an extreme resemblance to its creator. Consequently... burdened with a creator like Ji Jue, the probability of corruption was sky-high! "Fourteen failures," Isis remarked, sounding almost gleeful. "This time it was corrupted by the White Manor's erosion—a novel case, actually. Sir, if I were you, I'd consider whether to welcome Stagnant Rot instead." "Take a break, then start over." Ji Jue rubbed his face, full of energy. Even repeated setbacks didn't matter; he had finally found a sliver of that feeling. Previous failures came from being trapped in dead ends, bumping around like a headless fly. Now, they were merely minor hitches and trials along the right path. As long as the direction was right, every bit of investment was worth it. Even if countless materials were poured into the furnace like flowing water, consuming tens of millions in assets in a mere two days... Still, it was undeniably exorbitant. Even Ji Jue could barely stomach the cost, feeling sharp pangs of heartache. Fortunately, there was a workaround. "The recruitment frequency needs to go up," Ji Jue mused. "Raise the employees' KPIs for this month. Let everyone endure a bit of hardship; I'll handle the sales." "Understood. Mister Lu Feng has been notified." Isis, playing the jackal to his tiger, calmly drafted another entrapment scheme, bumped the original production quotas up by a huge margin, and ordered another batch of stimulants from the Xinxiang Sanatorium—enough for the unpaid workhorses to foam at the mouth and grind the millstones until sparks flew over the coming months... And after a brief rest, Ji Jue stood before the furnace once more, glowing with vigor. Innate spirit, innate self, autonomy, freedom... With the numerous theories and techniques of the Nine Types swirling in his head, he watched the materials drop into the darkness once more. Then he drew his bone blade again and added another cut to his scarred wrist. Viscous blood gleamed with crimson radiance, winding out like a snake before plunging into the furnace. Next came Ji Jue's own spiritus. A point of faint light rose between his fingers, swelling steadily. Spiritus originating from Ji Jue underwent no purification whatsoever; instead, it carried countless imprints and auras belonging entirely to him, distributed with absolute uniformity. Cast into blood and fire, it blended into a single entity in an instant. Immediately after, Ji Jue retrieved a blank record tome crafted by the Tong family, edged in delicate gold. Crimson flowed across it, revealing Ji Jue's name. Then, as the matrix opened, myriad intricate records were imprinted onto it, serving as the source and designation. The moment the blood, fire, spirit, and iron finished transmuting, it was cast into the furnace once more. What followed was seamless, flowing execution: controlling the heat, Ascension of spiritus and matter, Purification amidst mutation, and smooth, unhindered Integration. And so, from the silent flames, a familiar faint glow rose once again. In a process repeated times beyond counting, a subtle shift seemed to emerge. Even though every perception felt identical to before and all the changes were indistinguishable, a strange calm settled in Ji Jue's heart. Like an intuition, an unprompted realization arose: this time it would work; this time it would succeed; this time there would be no problems. Until... the sound of shattering rose from the furnace once more! The previously seamless transformations abruptly snapped. Everything fell into dead silence. "It seems this attempt has failed as well, sir," Isis murmured with a sigh. Ji Jue said nothing. He waved his hand and opened the furnace. What met his eyes were shattered fragments that had disintegrated before fully coalescing—the smallest fine as sand, the largest no bigger than a finger. Those translucent shards reflected a quicksilver luster, like a mirror smashed across the floor. "No," Ji Jue said, unable to suppress a smile. "Isis, I succeeded." In that instant, countless mirror-like shards reflected Ji Jue's face, displaying visages identical to his own. Their lips parted, speaking in sync with his voice. Smiling in unison with him. From within that smile, invisible flames rose within the mirrors, engulfing those gentle faces, tearing away the disguises, and burning through the veils. Across countless shards, countless bizarre shadows burning in flame lifted their heads, grinning silently like demons from hell. At last, they bowed their heads in submission. It lasted only a moment. Soon, the iridescent light quietly faded from the countless mirrors. The mystical presence vanished, crumbling swiftly into ashes. That wisp of shifting, rising essence of Chunjun ultimately dispersed completely. Yet Ji Jue could hold back no longer and burst into hearty laughter. —Xiangjian Nine Types: Chunjun, prototype complete!