Once, an opportunity had presented itself before Ye Xian, but she had failed to cherish it. Only after she let it slip did she realize she was full of regret!
Recalling that dog of a teacher now, Ye Xian couldn't help clenching her fists. *Why was I so focused on leaving the sect back then that I didn't think to slap you across the face first?!*
This sort of thing was like some obnoxious geezer with nothing better to do squatting along a kid's walk to school, messing with a naive youngster just for kicks.
"Let me tell you a little secret, kiddo. Babies don't come from storks, and they don't come from recharging phone credit. Mommies and daddies make love, and that's where babies come from!"
And by the time the excited kid rushed home to ask Mom and Dad what "making love" meant, the wicked old bastard was already cackling. Sure enough, a peerless bastard like that was only wasting good grain by staying alive.
All these years, why hadn't he dropped dead yet?!
If he died, he might at least scam a couple of teardrops out of people, instead of being this insufferable while breathing. It was one thing for him to spend his life patching up this dogshit world, unclogging sewers, and laying bricks, but now he even wanted to drag his disciple's disciple into the mire!
Shameless to the core!
At this moment, Ye Xian stared coldly at her student before her. Only after finding not a single trace of manipulation or incitement did she issue a stern warning:
"From now on, stay far away from that old thing Tianlu!"
"Ah? Yes, right, absolutely!"
Ji Jue nodded frantically, his head bobbing like a garlic pestle.
This time, it came straight from the heart!
Regret.
Who on earth could have predicted it? Despite all his defenses, after such a long time, he had still been quietly screwed over by Tianlu, who had nearly arranged his whole fate without making a peep—you bastard, may you die a miserable death!
Serves you right to end up an old, lonely bachelor forsaken by everyone!
"And another thing. Don't go blabbing outside about anything concerning the Lock, and don't take it upon yourself to pry into it," Ye Xian warned. "It's not time for you to understand these things yet. If you have any grand ideas, save them until you're a Master!"
"Understood, completely!"
Ji Jue didn't hesitate in the slightest.
It wasn't as if every question in life had to be answered, and besides, anyone could tell with half a brain that this was a lethal topic.
The waters were so deep. If he didn't know what was good for him and accidentally touched upon something he shouldn't, he might end up dragged off and turned into a sex slave!
At his current stage, keeping a low profile and building strength was the way to go.
"...The crystals of silence—forget it, this isn't your fault."
Ye Xian sighed and glanced at the hourglass that had accompanied her for so many years. Seeing that it was on the verge of being ruined, she had to make the most of what time remained.
"As for Sin Fiends, just think of them as corrupted beings that pose an exceptional threat to the mundane world.
"Unlike those idiots whose brains fried and went to worship the Great Sin on their own, in a sense, they are the vanguard of the Great Sin—abominations capable of moving within the world.
"If you ask me..."
She paused, her expression turning slightly mocking. "...they're actually quite a lot like you."
Ji Jue was dumbfounded, his entire world spinning.
How on earth are they like me?!
Yet, recalling the characteristics Chen Haiqiu had described to him, his heart clenched—the scent of sulfur and ash all over...
Oh crap!
"Relax. At best, you merely have a sliver of potential; you're nowhere near that level yet."
Having enjoyed the sight of him finally knowing fear, Ye Xian spoke slowly, "Just as this world has Celestial Conscriptions through the advent of Sovereign Virtue like yourself, how can you be so sure... that the Great Sin wouldn't single people out?"
Everyone wanted prime talent.
Who said villainous organizations didn't value ability?
Sovereign Virtue did not shy away from personal descent and selection, and even from far beneath the Vortex, the Great Sin would never pass up an opportunity either.
Just like the experiment Kanemoto had once wanted to conduct on Ji Jue.
Had Ji Jue failed to escape back then, he would inevitably have been tossed beneath the Vortex for a tour, attending the Great Sin's mass recruitment drive at the Vortex talent market.
Only, if he had stood out among countless consumables and received the essence of the Great Sin, who knew what form he would have taken?
A so-called Sin Fiend was a being naturally compatible with the Great Sin, who had undergone a ritual of the Great Sin's advent and was granted the divine marrow of Vile Folly.
If the Celestial Chosen were emissaries of Sovereign Virtue, then Sin Fiends were the extensions of the Great Sin in the mortal realm.
Like ant holes in a great dam, their mere existence was enough to burden, erode, and destroy the Lock—they were the [Holes].
As for the counterpart to that, Ye Xian did not speak it aloud. She merely cast a glance at the dog of a student before her.
A silent sigh.
Those Celestial Chosen beloved and favored by Sovereign Virtue, capable of maintaining the Lock between the Vortex and the mortal world, were called [Wedges].
Yet such a realm and station were far too distant from the present Ji Jue.
Nor did it need to have anything to do with him.
As long as she drew breath, she would never allow her student to tread the path Tianlu had envisioned. Hadn't an entire lifetime of patching and mending been enough?
Did he really have to drag future generations down with him, cursing his 'descendants'?
Even shamelessness ought to have its limits.
He should just drop dead already!
Tick.
Inside the Hourglass of Silence, the last grain of sand vanished without a trace. As the hourglass returned to stillness, the invisible power that had enveloped the entire study dissolved at once.
From outside the window came the faint sound of ocean tides and calling birds.
The [Silence] had ended.
Ye Xian looked down at the hourglass on the desk, a flicker of regret passing through her eyes.
After using it for so many years, she hadn't expected it to be ruined today.
"Oh well, at least it served its purpose."
With a sigh, she picked it up and tossed it to Ji Jue.
Consumables like this couldn't be reforged. Once the internal blessing was exhausted, it lost all effect; she might as well let him put the scrap to use one last time.
Ji Jue wasn't shy either. Catching the hourglass, he struck it with the Dissociation Art and fed it into Deus Ex Machina.
His eyes lit up, and he let out an appreciative gasp.
As expected of an item from his teacher's collection—so pure!
Ninety-nine percent purity, a true rarity!
Unfortunately, the number on his wristwatch barely budged, merely ticking forward by a negligible fraction of a percent as if tossing him a bone. A drop in the bucket.
Ever since the Unquenched Fuel had been fully completed, the progress had slowed to a pitiful crawl. After so much forging and experimentation over this period, there had hardly been any real improvement.
Instead, it was the wasteland cleanup in Haizhou that had unexpectedly granted Ji Jue a whole five percent boost—leaving him scratching his head raw, unable to make heads or tails of it.
Only after a thorough examination did his gaze finally land on the Sovereign Axis blessing.
Incomprehensible.
*Was it you who lured Embers over here?*
All along, as a passive ability, Sovereign Axis had quietly done its job, providing effects during large-scale deployments and collective integration, connecting all creations into a unified whole.
Yet for some reason, in its assessment, Haian Industries and the Xinquan settlement had somehow been counted as its subordinates and part of its creations...
They were all integrated into a whole with Ji Jue as the axis.
What made even less sense was that in the eyes of the Embers, this actually counted as a Heavenly Work!
*Hey, big guy, are you out of your mind?!*
"The Path of Revolution is also part of Embers, though very few people bother trying to pursue that route anymore," Ye Xian explained calmly. "In this era, with factions checking and entangling one another, grinding against each other, doing something practical and solid is the hardest path of all.
"Furthermore, given how demanding Embers is, to earn its recognition, you would at least have to expand Haian Industries to rival Haichao Armaments, turning it into the industrial core of Haizhou—or build Xinquan into a city on par with Jiangcheng or Chuancheng.
"Do you think you can pull that off in your lifetime?"
A few brief sentences snuffed out the tiny ember of eagerness sparking in Ji Jue's heart.
The birth of Haichao Armaments had pooled the collective efforts of every city across Haizhou, everyone carving off a piece of their own flesh and uniting to scheme for the future.
First, Lord Tao had run himself ragged rallying support, and then Lyu Yingyue had exhausted every calculation to barely push it across the finish line. Even now, its footing was far from secure; it had merely made a beginning. If they truly wanted to stabilize the situation, there would be no telling how many cutthroat battles lay ahead.
As for Xinquan, transforming from a settlement to a town sounded simple, but thinking it through revealed how unrealistic it was.
The track was too narrow, the pond too shallow—no great leviathans could ever grow there. Even if he helped Xinquan dominate the entire Haizhou wasteland, its scale would still be limited.
If there was any real meat on the bone, when would it ever be his turn to grab it?
By contrast, he might as well return to his roots as an artisan and think carefully about how to produce a bona fide Heavenly Work!
A Heavenly Work!
That was a Heavenly Work!
Just as artisan status was precious to an apprentice, forging a Heavenly Work carried self-evident meaning for an artisan.
In terms of academic standing, an apprentice without an artisan license was no better than an undocumented scavenger in the wasteland—outside the realm of human rights, the kind who didn't even have the right to yelp if kicked.
Only by becoming an artisan did one earn a seat at the dinner table.
And once one possessed the experience, track record, and successful precedent of forging a Heavenly Work, the value was on an entirely different level.
Not even a top graduate who swept his entire cohort like Ji Jue could compare.
If he could build a record and portfolio of Heavenly Works before reaching the Regeneration rank, combined with the weight of the Embers three-piece set, from then on Ji Jue would be a ruthless figure in the Association—invincible beneath Masters, and able to trade blow for blow with those above!
Well, academic standing aside, it would also bring him into range of his teacher's skill-targeting reticle, earning him the privilege of being battered into the ground whenever Ye Xian felt like tossing off a research paper.
And the opportunity lay right before Ji Jue.
Chunjun!
All the materials were gathered, all the blessings were prepared, and every bit of theory and technique was mastered. All that remained was firing the furnace.
"It works. The logic is sound."
Having reviewed the manuscripts and plans Ji Jue brought, Ye Xian nodded. "Go and prepare.
"Bathe, fast, concentrate your spirit, and meditate over the coming week. Once your spiritus reserves are in order, you may begin."
"Ah?"
Ji Jue froze. "So fast?"
"If everything is ready, why delay?"
Ye Xian shot him a look, asking in bewilderment, "When I was young, if I was sixty percent prepared, I would basically dive right in. Are you planning to lie flat until you have a hundred percent certainty before lifting a finger?"
"Well..."
Ji Jue broke into a cold sweat. "Aren't I just worried something might go wrong and ruin the refinement?"
"If it's ruined, re-refine it. If you run out of materials and blessings, go find more. If you fail, wipe your tears, get back up, and start over.
"Do I really need to teach you principles like that?"
Ye Xian lifted her gaze from the paper and glanced over. "I've reviewed your drafts. Your understanding and concepts are fine. Follow the steps properly; even if you don't succeed, it won't be beyond saving. What else is there to worry about?"
"Ahem, what I mean is... Teacher, could you perhaps..."
Ji Jue rubbed his hands together, reading her expression as he probed tentatively, "...offer some guidance?"
After all, this was the first time a greenhorn like him was tackling a Heavenly Work. If it blew up, losing all previous effort was one thing, but he dreaded blowing up without even knowing why.
With a mentor watching over him, at least she could point out flaws whenever trouble arose, and lend a hand if the student fell short.
"No."
Ye Xian refused flatly, closing the manuscript in her hands and pushing it back toward Ji Jue. "Now that you've become an artisan, you must walk your own path.
"If you want to borrow the workshop, or if you lack any materials, none of that matters to me. But don't expect someone to patch up your leaks forever."
Hearing this, Ji Jue was rendered speechless.
Disappointment was inevitable, but just as Ye Xian had said, the master had already led him through the door—could she watch over him for the rest of his life?
Still, he couldn't help feeling a bit apprehensive.
Then, he heard Ye Xian's leisurely voice: "In the second year after Kanemoto entered the sect, at the age of nineteen, he forged the first Heavenly Work of his life. After that, he created countless blades. If you ever plan on crossing paths with that old thing one day, you at least can't fall too far behind his record, can you?
"Of course, if you admit defeat, then—"
*Bang!*
"No problem, Teacher!"
Before he even registered what he was doing, Ji Jue had instinctively shot up and slammed the desk, firing on all cylinders.
Apprehensive? What was there to be apprehensive about?
If Kanemoto could touch it, why couldn't he?!
"Rest assured, Teacher. A mere old dog like him? Won't I take him down with ease?"
With that, without any more wheedling or shameless begging, Ji Jue decisively rolled up his sleeves, scooped up his manuscripts, and marched straight out the door to head home to the workshop.
He strode away like a gust of wind!
In the living room, Ye Chun, who had been giggling foolishly at a variety show, was completely stunned.
Only after a good while did she snap out of it.
*He left?*
*What the hell? He didn't come to show off to me this time? I already took out my Medal of Supreme Goodness and prepared all my counterattacks, getting ready for a human-versus-dog brawl!*
Shocked, she couldn't resist poking her head toward the study. "Auntie, what kind of adrenaline did you just pump into him?"
Ye Xian didn't answer, merely lifting her teacup calmly.
Shaking her head, she let out an emotional, soft sigh.
"His history really is terrible."
Perhaps this was the downside of having a STEM background?
In the end, he was still too young and hadn't had the time to patch up his other shortcomings.
If Ji Jue had studied enough history and paid close attention, he would have realized that at nineteen, Kanemoto hadn't even entered the sect yet—he was still splashing around in the Thousand Islands!
The one who had forged a Heavenly Work in his second year after entering the sect... was none other than Kanemoto's senior brother, the mortal enemy he had envied and hated all his life...
The contemporary Grandmaster, Tianlu!
My, she remembered that right up until she stormed out of the sect all those years ago, the old bastard had secretly taken pride in it, constantly bragging about it to rub it in people's faces.
Once he received the news, what kind of look would be on his face?
Ye Xian took a sip of tea, gazing out the window at the drizzling rain.
She could hardly wait.
Chapter 435