I Want You to Aid My Cultivation!

Across a distance of a hundred li, silvery mist completely enveloped the fishing boat. Then came the slow, creeping permeation and transformation, like boiling a frog in lukewarm water. In just over half an hour, an immense volume of quicksilver, following its atomization, re-condensed, appearing in every nook and cranny of the fishing boat from the inside out... Countless wisps entwined with one another, turning into an invisible net that steadily and methodically eroded everything, bringing it all under control! What was more, Ji Jue was coordinating and assisting from the sidelines. Backed by Haizhou's largest supercomputing center, her core was connected to the Nine-Phases Spiritus Crossfire Integration Array in Ji Jue's workshop—a prize he had gotten for free from the Lou family not long ago. Today's Isis had long transcended the scope of an ordinary workshop spirit. Not only did her multithreading capabilities surpass Ji Jue's, but her finesse in micromanagement was nothing short of astonishing. Controlling so many quicksilver threads simultaneously was merely a small test of her skills. Besides, complex and sprawling as it was, it followed fixed patterns. Witnessing such staggering performance, a fleeting thought crossed Ji Jue's mind... Could it be that Isis had the potential to become a matrix relic?! Just like the puzzle ball, steadily expanded, maintained, and upgraded brick by brick. Possessing such potential, even a height as exalted as a Celestial-Human matrix wouldn't be out of the question, right? As for the most suitable matrix... what else could it be besides Non-Offensive? Born of the secret rite of Fluid Alchemy, Isis possessed an innate, superb adaptability to the Mohist legacy, making her an effortless match for Non-Offensive. Although recreating Non-Offensive was still a distant prospect, once he reached the Regeneration rank, he would be able to withstand the backlash of splitting a matrix and pass down an imprint like propagating a cutting. When that time came... Ji Jue's eyes lit up. Wouldn't that be equivalent to taking in a free apprentice, allowing him to skip even the last bit of hands-on crafting and dump all the troublesome chores onto her? Just imagine: working without rest 365 days a year, 12 months, 24 hours a day, with a single Isis doing the work of dozens or hundreds of beast-of-burden artisans—how much value could she create? The mere thought felt sinful, almost wickedly delightful! Who dared say the traditional master-disciple tradition was bad? It was downright wonderful! First, the grace of creation and birth, followed by the bond of mentorship and remaking—wouldn't she have to work herself to the bone for him, aiding his cultivation?! Ji Jue was already rubbing his hands together in eager anticipation. Until Isis poured a bucket of cold water over him: "Sir, why is it that whenever I'm about to start respecting you, you always wear an expression like that?" "What expression? What do you mean, an expression?!" Ji Jue retorted loudly, caressing the ship's railing and grinning from ear to ear. "I was just thinking that our best days are still ahead, and I couldn't help yearning for it, mwahaha!" "..." In the silence, apart from her habitual vertigo akin to high blood pressure, Isis experienced for the first time in her life a sensation that made her skin crawl—greasy, repulsive, and utterly embarrassing. For the peace and stability of the world, should she find a way to bump this bastard off first?! Yet looking at that face, slack with an involuntary grin that practically screamed idiot and moron, she could only feel thoroughly helpless... Meanwhile, the 'surgery' continued. According to her bastard creator, one had to learn thriftiness and carry oneself with dignity as a "proper person," ideally never wasting a single grain of rice. Even though those men were all incorrigible scoundrels, after giving them a quick rinse, slapping on collars and shackles, they could all be rehabilitated into productive workers on the assembly line. Never be like those Swarm bastards who went around killing and burning at the drop of a hat—what a waste! According to Ji Jue, he had read in pre-Cataclysm Era comic books that true heroes never killed, even when facing heinous criminals or villains who repeatedly broke out of prison! Although that comic book was rather battered, fragmented, and full of contradictions, one could easily imagine how that merciful hero had amassed such immense wealth in the city of crime. Good deeds truly brought good rewards! Although over a distance of more than forty nautical miles, no matter how immense the power, it could hardly manifest or exert force through these tens of thousands of fine quicksilver filaments—even the strongest of them could likely not even turn a single screw. Yet it was already enough. From a purely mechanical engineering perspective, the structure of a human being was simply too fragile; it would crumble from within under the slightest interference. The first to suffer were the sentries patrolling and keeping watch on the deck. The microscopic quicksilver vapor inhaled into lungs and seeping into eyes, eardrums, and nasal cavities condensed into threads. Amidst tiny pricks of pain like mosquito bites, micro-punctures had already allowed them into the blood vessels. Soon came heavy metal poisoning: grogginess, dizziness, and lethargy struck. The instant their weakened consciousness slipped into a faint, a thread of quicksilver transmitted spiritus interference from a hundred li away. The brand-new blessing tipped by the good old Heart Pivot pal who had delivered himself to their doorstep tonight—Bewitched Mind—was already acting upon their consciousness. The incomplete blessing wasn't going to last long anyway, so he might as well squeeze out its maximum residual value. At the same time, it gave Ji Jue a full taste of just how underhanded Heart Pivot's Heaven's Choice could be. With merely a tiny expenditure of spiritus reserves, the vast majority of ordinary mortals on the ship plunged into a daze and trance, oblivious to where they were. With the first came the second, spreading exponentially thereafter. All the ordinary humans turned into walking corpses under the command of the quicksilver filaments, like puppets stripped of all threat. Then, under the infusion of corrupted spiritus and various potent ingredients, several aberrants had already been catalyzed, dragging Tu Sihai down into hell... Not only here, and not only in this room. In the dead silence, nightmares swept like a tide, silently dragging one person after another into hell. In a gap between dreams, Gold Tooth Baldwin snapped his eyes open inside his cabin. Before he could react, he saw writhing, twisting tentacles of flesh and blood, along with aberrant monstrosities that had gathered in the cabin without his notice. Suddenly, they pounced en masse! Baldwin tried to scramble up, but he never anticipated that the man sleeping beside his pillow would suddenly roll his eyes back, hands clutching toward his neck like iron pincers. "Fuck off, get off me!" In an instant, Baldwin had none of their prior sweet, doting affection; he erupted, crushing the man's skull with a single squeeze. Blood geysered out, and from within the writhing crimson, specks of silver glinted as they surged toward him. A foul stench flooded his nostrils. Along with thread after thread of quicksilver. At that exact moment, a hundred li away, Ji Jue deftly raised his hand. The ring on his fingertip flashed with crimson light. Channeled through spiritus and the medium of quicksilver, a ray of scarlet shot forth like a sword, racing along the conduit as though traveling down a fiber-optic cable, piercing straight into Baldwin's skull. Instantly, the silent wails stored within the Poison Heart ring erupted and detonated inside his soul. Baldwin's entire body shuddered, freezing in place. In that mere split-second delay, his throat was torn to shreds, and he was ripped apart under ravenous gnawing. Even his agonized cries and spiritus fluctuations were sealed away by the circulating quicksilver. Then the next, and the next... Like a silent slaughter. Across the entire fishing boat, hundreds of pirates lost the ability to resist or perished outright under Isis's erosion. Of the eleven Celestial Chosen, two died in bewildered ignorance, and three were incapacitated and completely paralyzed... until the moment that White Stag called Feng Ming jolted awake from his drunken stupor, shrieking in terror! Cicada's Intuition! The most widespread and crucial early-stage blessing among the White Stag's repertoire, an essential choice for the Calling rank—even An Ran and An Ning were no exception. There was no helping it; it was simply too useful. The cicada senses the autumn wind before it blows. The passive effect was to maximize senses, intuition, and instinct to the utmost degree. As for how effective it was, that depended entirely on practice and application. Masters of it, after several qualitative leaps in their blessing, could even perceive a sliver of malice directed at them from hundreds of kilometers away. Those of transcendent talent, like An Ning, could sense the gaze of a wolf the instant it spied on her. And Xiao An—whom Ji Jue had seen before—could dodge the moment a gun was aimed at her. And no matter how trash Feng Ming was, he wouldn't die completely bewildered in his dreams... though death was not far off either. Under the influence of alcohol, having inhaled a massive amount of quicksilver vapor, his entire body was already covered in writhing threads of quicksilver, like a silkworm cocoon. The instant he jolted awake and tried to struggle, it was already too late. The moment Isis detected his resistance, countless pliable filaments pierced through his body like needles, stitching tightly, entangling. The mercury vapor in his blood vessels suddenly condensed, eroding his brain, breaking through barriers, writhing as it pierced and mashed everything to pieces! He only had time to draw the short blade kept under his pillow that never left his side. Regardless of the tearing of his flesh. He hurled it with all his might! Bang! Before his brain was completely pureed by quicksilver, the blade hurled from his hand let out a piercing shriek, tearing through the barrier of quicksilver threads and the seals upon the walls, piercing across cabins. Tossed abruptly without any aim, the dagger tumbled and spun, punching through two bulkheads before wedging crookedly into a wall. It detonated with a booming crash! The resounding boom shattered the dead silence, echoing endlessly, destroying the fragile illusion of peace. Beneath the layered seals of quicksilver, inside the captain's quarters, embraced by soft, warm bodies and still steeped in a narcotic haze, "the Colonel" abruptly snapped his eyes open, focusing his senses. Then, from astonishment... he flew into a towering rage! "What the hell is this?!" The Colonel roared, "Get the fuck out here!" Boom! In the deep night, the ship shuddered violently as a blinding crimson bloodfire suddenly erupted, geysering straight into the heavens! A tempestuous shockwave of spiritus swept across, instantly waking the other Celestial Chosen still lost in dreams. Terrified shouts and screams arose in succession, while countless quicksilver threads were incinerated within the Swarm's bloodfire. "What a pity," Ji Jue sighed softly, shaking his head. I was planning to deal with you last... Since you don't know what's good for you, I'll just send you on your way. In that instant, amid the dispersing sea mist, countless wisps of quicksilver vapor gathered out of thin air. Tens of thousands of threads reconstructed and entwined once more, turning into a quicksilver medium bridging forty nautical miles—a conduit for spiritus. Then Ji Jue reached out, ruthlessly triggering every bit of the reserves accumulated in the Poison Heart ring over the past few months. Amid the echoes of the tide, a deluge of wailing descended from the sky!