There's Something Wrong with You!

"Something isn't right." Ten minutes later, Professor Ye took off her glasses, wiped them meticulously with a flannel cloth, and delivered her decisive verdict: "Something is very wrong." To be precise, from the time she had first become an apprentice right up until this very moment, she had never felt something to be quite this off! Right in front of the two of them, Little Niuma—currently in post-feast zen mode after scarfing down over a hundred jin of poached chicken the previous day—was swaggering about, spinning its tires in reckless abandon while coquettishly wiggling its rear and mudguards. It drifted around corners, hopped obstacles, and cruised upright on its rear wheel. After running through a whole repertoire of stunts, it even put on a grand performance of "Niuma Mechamorphosis"! It shifted from a motorcycle into a mechanical monstrosity that could hardly be called human—or anything else recognizable, for that matter. Five legs, two tails, one head, and five eyes—three facing front, while the two rear turn signals sat squarely on its butt... The word "abstract" barely began to cover it. As for deeper observations and scans, the workshop equipment had already run them countless times. "Why don't we dismantle it and take a look?" She offered the earnest suggestion with grave sincerity, a dangerous gleam creeping into her eyes. "Who knows, we might stumble onto some massive breakthrough. If we figure this out, it could trigger a monumental leap forward for modern alchemy!" "No, no, Professor, please don't!" Ji Jue threw himself in front of it, pleading with tearful desperation. "It's one of us... No, it's our own beast of burden! If not for it, I would've been a dead man long ago." He had actually wanted to say, *If you want to dissect something, take me instead and let it go.* Then he paused and realized with sorrow that his own research value was probably not an ounce lower than Little Niuma's—and was likely infinitely higher. If the professor threw her head back in roaring laughter and declared she had been waiting for him to say those exact words, wouldn't he be utterly done for? Little Niuma, meanwhile, continued its carefree stunt show, executing fancy pirouettes to catch the chicken drumsticks Ye Chun was tossing its way. After going through a whole bag, she still hadn't had enough, ordering several more batches on her phone so she could keep throwing them! She looked fully determined to join the Pantheon of Poached Chicken and vie for the throne of the Second Deity of Drumsticks. Alas, her following consisted of just one believer. And a brain-damaged fool of a dog at that... "No matter how I look at it, it just isn't right," Professor Ye murmured, adjusting her glasses with a soft sigh. It wasn't that she couldn't identify what it was. In fact, she knew all too well. One glance was enough to confirm it: an abomination remnant. After listening to Ji Jue recount how it had been formed, the whole picture had become clear to her. This was entirely a mutated abomination born from a torrent of lingering malice and agonizing spiritus. In essence, it had used Ji Jue's ability as a catalyst, fused with an alchemical operation Ji Jue hadn't even been consciously aware of performing at the time, and ultimately stewed together into one chaotic hodgepodge! Of the four great pillars of alchemy—Ascension, Transmutation, and Purification—every single one was an absolute mess. The essence of Ascension was the sublimation of spiritus; the purpose of Transmutation was the refinement of blessings; as for Purification, there was no point in even mentioning it, given the sheer, ungodly heap of impurities... The only exception was Harmony! The sole element that integrated everything into a unified whole, "Harmony," was completed to an earth-shattering, utterly inexplicable degree! It had almost freed the thing from the constraints of Ji Jue's ability, turning it into an independent living entity! It was as absurd as a scholar researching soilless hydroponics walking out into the freezing dead of winter and seeing fresh cabbage sprouts bursting out of an old woman's pickling vat! *I understand the theory, but how on earth did you pull off something so unhinged in actual practice?* *What happened? How was it made? How did you manage it?* Knowing full well that asking those questions was useless, she cut straight to the core. Her piercing gaze locked onto Ji Jue. "Tell me, what was going through your mind at that exact moment?" "Uh..." Ji Jue froze, struck dumb. After racking his brain for a long time, he seemed to finally recall. His pupils quivered violently as he stammered, "The situation was critical back then, a matter of life and death! Seeing Sister Wen on the back foot, how could a righteous person like me stand idly by? So I charged forward heroically..." Professor Ye cut him off. "I asked what you were thinking." "Well, at the time, I was filled with absolute resolve, forging ahead fearlessly to contribute to justice..." "I am asking you what was *actually* going through your head at that time," Professor Ye interrupted again, pronouncing each word with glacial deliberation, her patience wearing paper-thin. "..." After hemming and hawing for half a minute, Ji Jue averted his gaze and shrank back like a guilty pup. "I was scared out of my mind. My head was completely filled with the thought that I couldn't just die here. If I died, I wouldn't be able to eat Mother Lu's poached chicken anymore, and that would be such a waste." Silence fell over the workshop, so profound that a pin drop would have echoed, save for the rhythmic thuds of drumsticks landing on the floor. The corner of Professor Ye's eye twitched once, then twice, then a third time. Mystery solved. The damn case was finally cracked. She finally understood how a mutated abomination could turn into this bizarre freak of nature. Born from so much hatred and agony, it had ended up without a shred of lethality or threat! The entire starting point had been completely warped from the very beginning! This was quite possibly the most harmless abomination and the absolute trashiest Celestial Craft in recorded history. If this thing possessed a brain at all, it was likely stuffed full of poached chicken! And an egalitarian lover of chicken at that—breasts, drumsticks, parson's noses—it opened its maw and took them all! Perhaps for a single split second, through an uncanny alignment of coincidence and circumstance, everything had struck a perfect, delicate harmony. Following Lawrence's demise, the monster forged of dragon blood and suffering was on the verge of hatching. Yet, through some inexplicable twist of Ji Jue's ability, the detonator had fallen into his hands. He could have unleashed a behemoth capable of devouring Yacheng; he could have forged a boundless tide of rusted iron soldiers; he could have wielded that power to craft a true, bona fide masterpiece of Celestial Craft! Instead, on a brainless whim, he had cobbled together a beat-up motorcycle whose only aspiration in life was to eat chicken... In the heavy silence, Professor Ye took off her glasses. Her fingers trembled faintly. "Your caution wasn't misplaced, Ji Jue," she said with a sigh. "Do not let anyone know you made this thing. In fact, unless absolutely necessary, never brag to anyone about where it came from. Do you understand? Otherwise, you'll have colossal trouble waiting for you..." "It's that incredible?!" Ji Jue gasped in shock, followed immediately by sheer delight. "Could it be that it's..." "No. To anyone other than you, its creator, it is utterly worthless," Professor Ye retorted without expression. "The only thing you need to worry about is your own physical safety!" Half genuine abomination, half questionable Celestial Craft. Perfectly good dragon blood, haphazardly kneaded into an unholy mess. What should have been a prime luxury mansion in the city center had been overhauled on the spot by this punk into a trash heap. A complete and total piece of junk... And a top-tier, unprecedented piece of junk at that! A little scooter with dragon-blood motor oil coursing through its veins, capable of screaming down the road at four to five hundred kilometers per hour? What had he been thinking? Did he have any idea that a single gram of dragon blood of this purity could be traded for a supercar of comparable speed? Did he know that in alchemy, even an ounce of dragon blood could allow a creation pushed to its absolute limits to undergo a true metamorphosis into Celestial Craft—or even elevate an existing Celestial Craft to greater heights? Professor Ye spoke in a low, ominous tone: "Once the word gets out that you turned precious materials coveted by countless craftsmen into a thing like this... every artisan alive will put a bounty on your head, Ji Jue. Even Master Tianlu himself would probably want to crush you like a bug." Ji Jue stood dumbfounded, thoroughly dazed. Once he realized the professor wasn't joking, his face began to twitch. Remembering who his biggest backer was right now, he instinctively plastered on an ingratiating grin and sidled up to her. "Good thing you're not planning to crush me, Teacher. You're the best!" Ye Xian's expression froze. A sudden hesitation seized her. Maybe she *should* crush him after all. Before he brought disgrace upon their lineage... If anyone ever discovered that a menace like him was her student, she would never be able to hold her head high in the worlds of alchemy and academia again! Yet, at the same time, she could not help but sense the bizarre whimsy of fate. In alchemy, the pinnacle of creation—the absolute greatest achievement—was known as Heaven's Mandate. Because compared to the resulting creation, the craftsman was merely the spark that catalyzed the transformation, a vessel for the hand of destiny... The ultimate outcome had already been decreed by the heavens. Long before its birth, long before the raw materials ever fell into the craftsman's crucible, it had been chosen by the unseen mandate of heaven. It was a work accomplished by heaven's hand through your own. What every craftsman pursued their entire life was that very experience and outcome, as though bestowed by heaven itself. They were never acting alone; they were the confluence of all karma and phenomena in this world. The flame within the crucible was wrought by the flowing tides of the Sovereign Virtues, and the creation within the cauldron was forged by Celestial Craft! It was for this very reason that the greatest alchemical works were named Celestial Craft. Alas, over hundreds of years, as countless craftsmen passed the torch and the fire in the crucible spread from one to many across the realm, celebrated works of Celestial Craft were legion, yet those truly worthy of being called creations of Heaven's Mandate were exceedingly few. If the mortal world was a forge of fate to the Sovereign Virtue of Embers, was her own work right now also a link within this grand Celestial Craft? Without a doubt, this was a genuine Celestial Conscription. The Celestial Chosen beloved by Embers stood right before her eyes! Craftsmen often said: *Embers is bountiful, its creations boundless.* Among the Twelve Virtues, Embers was indeed the most generous, sparing no expense and asking for nothing in return when it came to its favored Chosen. Regrettably, there was a second half to that saying. *—Embers is cruel, unsparing to the mediocre.* The more beloved a Chosen was, the greater the tribulations they would endure. The moment a Chosen's capabilities and deeds fell short of the boons they received, the favor of Embers would recede and dissipate without mercy. When that happened, even what they had already attained would become far more prone to losing control and mutating into an abomination. Just like the defective pieces Ye Xian had discarded with her own hands in the warehouse. Even if they had been showered with boundless favor at the start, a single misstep, a single blunder, would send them plunging into the abyss. Covered in dust for ages, enduring and waiting in silence, yet nobody cared to look. Until, lost in oblivion, they crumbled entirely into ash. The Path of Embers was just that ruthless. From the very first day one set foot upon it, the forging of your own Celestial Craft had already begun... Bound to be fraught with endless storms and tribulations. Yet after braving so many twists and trials, how many could truly walk to the very end of Heaven's Mandate? Wiping her glasses, Professor Ye could not suppress a quiet sigh. "Your life might prove far more difficult than you imagine, Ji Jue." "Huh?" Ji Jue looked utterly baffled. He held down Little Niuma, who was frantically smearing drool all over him, completely at a loss. In the ensuing silence, Ye Xian started to speak several times, only to hold back. Whenever she met those calm, cheerful eyes, she fell silent once more. She had seen that look in too many people. On far too many. For some, nothing was better than a life of smooth sailing and peaceful safety. Yet for others, that was never the case. No matter how much they claimed that scraping by was good enough or that being happy was all that mattered, when the time came to make a real choice, they would march resolutely in the exact opposite direction without the slightest hesitation. Chasing an ethereal, intangible light, they would scramble forward through the dirt and mire. No matter how rugged the road, they would find joy in it; even knowing a dead end lay ahead, they would never turn back... What need did someone like that have for anyone else pointing fingers at their life? She gave a silent sigh and merely said, "No, it's nothing. I just have a feeling that an eventful life awaits you." "Really?" Ji Jue's eyes lit up, his grin wider than he could contain. "As long as you don't run yourself into an early grave, probably." Professor Ye withdrew her gaze and walked toward the furnace ahead. "Come on. Time for class." "Oh, sweet!" Ji Jue pumped a fist in triumph and eagerly followed behind her. Without hesitation, and without looking back.