Aside from the Essence of the Five Metals, the most critical item was what rested upon the tray at the other end of the table—a radiant, crystalline structure branching outward like a snowflake, dazzling, lucent, and amber-like.
It was a wondrous substance born over immense spans of time under twenty-four hours of natural sunlight: crystalized sunlight.
Its distinguishing trait was absolute purity, completely devoid of any foreign matter. No matter how many decimal places one calculated to, there was not a trace of impurity—it was pure light.
Neither volatile nor fierce, but gentle and pure, exactly like sunlight bathing the earth to nurture all living things.
Namely, the Essence of the Sun!
Looking at the two primary materials in front of him, Ji Jue could not help sighing with emotion.
Through countless hardships, it had truly been hard-won.
When he had handed Dugu Ming that materials list, both items had been on it. He had figured he might as well take a shot in the dark—what if Dugu Ming actually had them?
As it turned out, he really didn't.
While the Essence of the Five Metals wasn't exceptionally rare, it was an expendable material that had to be used immediately upon refinement. Even sealed in an absolute vacuum, it could maintain its activity for barely a few days at most, making long-term preservation impossible.
If you wanted it, you had to place an order timed to the exact second, and the price was exorbitant enough to make anyone bleed.
After wrangling with Dugu Ming for ages, the man had only been willing to provide raw materials—five varieties of base metals purified to their absolute extremes. And even then, he had only sourced them through Huanyu Heavy Industries' channels.
That alone had cost a heavy sum.
Silver, copper, iron, and tin were manageable, but gold was another story. Gold was universally hard currency anywhere in the world.
Behind that single wisp of the Essence of Gold lay Ji Jue's long-accumulated reserves alongside Brother Dugu's generous contribution. It was the concentrated quintessence extracted after purifying and refining a full ton of gold to its absolute limit.
This was precisely why alchemy burned through money.
If you truly wanted to invest in it, it wasn't a matter of small change—one careless slip, and you'd be bled completely dry.
Fortunately, the Essence of Gold was merely drawn from the metal itself. While losing its quintessence lessened its alchemical purity, that did not diminish its utility as a precious metal. If anything, the Essence of Gold was just a byproduct.
Once the process was complete, the bulk material's intrinsic properties remained intact. Having undergone alchemical treatment, it was actually a prime material, unable only to yield a second extraction of essence.
Ji Jue turned right around and pledged it to the Association. Leveraging the Golden Ribbon he carried, he took delivery first and deferred payment, borrowing an intact Essence of the Sun on credit from the Ring of Taiyi.
Afterward, he threw himself into endless, grueling toil. For over half a month, he worked around the clock purifying and extracting. Even with Three-Phase Alchemy, the ordeal nearly cost Ji Jue half his life.
It was pure, unadulterated manual labor.
There was no helping it; this wasn't something he could delegate to someone else, nor could he simply order it premade off the shelf.
Ye Xian's warning had been entirely accurate—if Ji Jue genuinely intended to incorporate the finished work into his Regeneration form, the primary material had to be himself, and every step of the process had to be crafted by his own two hands. Only then could he minimize the immense pressure exerted by his Blessing sequence.
To make matters worse, if he wanted to gather the Essence of the Five Metals together, they could not be crafted in isolation. The five processes for gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin had to begin simultaneously. Throughout the entire process, he had to use the secret techniques of Hanxiang to harmonize them, triggering resonance, empathy, and sympathetic vibration among the five.
Now, though separated in five locations, they were faintly interconnected. Appearing as five metals, they were in truth one single whole.
Linked by their spiritual cadence, the moment Ji Jue released his hold, they would instantly converge into one. If he could maintain control over that convergence and fusion, encompass it within the Essence of the Sun, and subsequently catalyze its metamorphosis, the resulting creation would be the blade core of one of the Nine Forms.
—Zhanlu!
The creations of the Nine Forms each possessed unique strengths.
Among them, Zhanlu pointed toward the Entropy that represented energy within Supreme Goodness. Its function was also closest to the primal essence of a sword as a weapon.
Preserving life and safeguarding the self? Completely impossible. Evading danger and averting disaster? Totally out of the question.
It possessed only one single function: destruction.
Or put more simply—explosion!
Swordsmanship was just damn explosions.
Blow it up, blow it up, blow it all to hell!
Blast heaven, blast earth, blast yourself. Throughout history, among the Ye clan artisans who had perished while crafting the Nine Forms, a full third had died by its hand. And among the casualties outside the Ye clan who had fallen to the Nine Forms, Zhanlu accounted for half the body count!
A single strike brought thunder across ten thousand miles. One careless move, and casualties were beyond counting.
In the annotations of the Mirror of Contained Forms, it had even been lauded by an artisan of an earlier generation as the Sword of Benevolence—because anyone who encountered it would neither be subjected to a fatal blood sacrifice nor have their soul reaped and bound into the blade, let alone suffer lifelong, unforgettable trauma and scars. Usually, everyone died peacefully and departed cleanly.
A single strike settled everything.
Generally speaking, they were reduced to pale white ash.
To an artisan, that was an immense waste of materials, but to those who met a swift and clean end beneath the blade, it was limitless mercy.
While squandering materials was somewhat regrettable, for the current Ji Jue, there was no better choice.
As his rank advanced, the destructive capability of firearms and artillery was gradually falling behind his needs.
Thus, just as his teacher had instructed him in the past, he would forge stronger guns and mightier cannons!
For fierce combat, he had Pan Ying; for protecting his soul and guarding against sneak attacks, he had Chunjun; for defense, he had the Dragon Mountain armor. What his blank-slate Regeneration form lacked most right now was an explosive, decisive measure capable of settling a battle in an instant.
Particularly in a place like Mid-Continent, if you didn't have a massive bomb clutched in your fist, you couldn't even stand tall when you spoke!
And so, after weighing his options, Ji Jue made up his mind to bring his talents to Mid-Continent—the Mid-Continent deserved its very own fusion bomb!
As for who held the detonator, no one needed to worry about that.
Once he settled on Zhanlu, however, problems continued to arise.
First and foremost, blindly copying the legacy and established theory was unfeasible.
Ji Jue had no intention of studding his Regeneration form with sword hilts and turning himself into a porcupine. His only option was to find a way to merge it into his body.
Using himself as the primary material, he would contain the violent power of Zhanlu.
And the material he chose...
Inside the workshop of the Doomsday Express, Ji Jue took a deep breath. Transforming into his mechanized Regeneration form, he reached behind his back, pulled out a thick cable, and plugged it directly into the back of his head.
Immediately after, the layered mechanisms across his chest unfolded. Beneath the framework of iron bones, a ceaselessly pulsating metallic heart appeared before his eyes.
*Snap!* With a crisp sound reminiscent of a ripe melon dropping from its vine, Ji Jue casually plucked it out and held it in his palm.
A chill instantly gripped his heart.
Yes, literally.
"Guess if things go sideways, I'll have to grow a few extra hearts later," he mocked himself with a laugh, tossing the heart he had reinforced multiple times over recent days into the crucible once more. The preheating process began, preparing for fusion.
For the nth time, he found himself missing Isis.
If she were here assisting him, even if she couldn't intervene directly, he wouldn't be in such a frantic scramble, right?
He had no idea how her metamorphosis was progressing. Once the process had begun, he couldn't just repeatedly peel open the ley lines and disrupt the ritual to check on her. He could only infer promising progress from the recurring earthquakes and volcanic eruptions rocking Punabantu on the outside.
Ji Jue could only comfort himself with patience and hope.
Now, he had to focus on the present.
Just like his previous simulation of Chunjun, he had already conducted hundreds, thousands of dry runs and evaluations using substitute materials.
He had been cautious to an extreme, even more prudent than when forging Chunjun.
Because he was out of money again. To scrape together such an immense sum of gold, he had almost drained all the liquid capital from Haian, and had even drawn an advance on a portion of the dividends from Haichao Armaments.
If he botched this attempt and wanted to try again, he'd probably have to sell off his pots and pans and mortgage every single asset he owned.
Moreover, alchemy always involved a touch of metaphysics.
Generally speaking, if the first attempt failed, the second attempt was often even harder to pull off, and one might easily end up needing eight, nine, or ten tries.
From a practical perspective, having analyzed and simulated the process so many times, no matter how clumsy his hands were or what unforeseen accidents occurred, the worst-case scenario was merely producing an inferior finished product.
If he still managed to fail under these conditions, it could only mean there was an irreconcilable contradiction and flaw in his overarching methodology and theory, or perhaps some critical oversight he had failed to notice.
In that case, he would have no choice but to tear down the entire concept and start from scratch.
"Past emperors of the Eternal Empire, successive Mohist Juzis, ancestors of the Ye clan, bless me!"
Standing before the crucible, Ji Jue rubbed his hands and muttered ceaselessly under his breath, utterly oblivious to the fact that among those he was invoking, not a single one had met a good end!
Even if they really did manifest, they would probably either strike down this traitor with a bolt of lightning or end up brawling among themselves first. Yet whether it was because Ji Jue's fundamentals were truly rock solid or because something had actually answered his prayer, the fusion of the Essence of the Five Metals and the Essence of the Sun went off without a hitch, utterly smooth and untroubled!
Effortless and flowing like water.
Five-colored gleams of gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin wove through the crucible. Under the guidance of Non-Offensive, they fused into a single whole at the core of the Essence of the Sun.
Instantly, the amber-like Essence of the Sun radiated wave after wave of gentle light, becoming remarkably vibrant and dynamic, as if it had been endowed with a soul.
Amidst the collision and fusion of spirituality and materiality, it completed its Ascension!
The original snowflake-like crystal structure shifted in an instant into a wisp of faint light hovering between existence and nonexistence, leaping and darting ceaselessly as it drifted through the crucible.
Generally speaking, reaching this stage meant the work was already ninety-nine percent complete!
All that remained was to select a fine blade core with matching attributes to serve as the vessel and complete the final soul-matter fusion, and the craft would be accomplished.
The problem, however, was that Ji Jue had no intention of using a sword.
Mechanized, Ji Jue sat cross-legged before the crucible, his eyes locked onto that extraordinarily ethereal wisp of faint light within the flames. Cold sweat trickled down his back; he felt a nervous tension unlike anything he had experienced before.
Success or failure hinged entirely on this single move!
He decisively thrust out his hand, pointing straight at the metallic heart resting in the crucible, followed immediately by—Deus Ex Machina!
*Snap!*
Within the blazing flames, the metallic heart forged from the mutation of Ji Jue's soul and flesh abruptly burst open.
Left ventricle, left atrium, right ventricle, right atrium, myocardium, valves, blood vessels—everything present unfolded and expanded in an instant like a lotus bursting into bloom.
Like a gaping maw opening wide, it took a single bite—
Swallowing the Zhanlu spirit essence formed from the Essence of the Five Metals and the Essence of the Sun whole into its 'belly'!
*BOOM!*
The cavernous workshop shook violently.
Countless phantom hands manifested within the radiant shadows of the crucible, clamping firmly onto the heart, mediating the conflict and contradiction between the spirit essence and the heart, guiding and diverting the forces.
They redirected all internal explosive energy outward, away from the crucible.
It was virtually identical to using countless hands to clamp down on an exploding bomb. With every fraction of a second, the operational workload demanded of Masterwork Nature surged exponentially.
Ji Jue felt as though motor oil and coolant were about to spout from his head.
He felt like a complete sucker, wedging himself forcibly between two warring factions while trying to convince both sides to call a truce and embrace each other in harmony. As a result, he had to passively absorb blows from both ends, unable to strike back, all while having to gently plead with them not to beat him too hard so they wouldn't hurt their fists.
It was the definition of asking for punishment.
Yet he had no choice—if he didn't endure this torment, he'd go bankrupt!
Crucible Blood, Unquenched Fuel, Heaven-Endowed Spirit—all three passive Blessings were pushed to their absolute limits, doing everything possible to reduce the risk of a crucible explosion. At the same time, spiritus was continuously poured into the Zhanlu spirit essence, while Earth Bears and Sea Embraces turned around to reinforce the heart.
Maintaining the balance between the two, he gritted his teeth, endured, endured, and endured even further.
Until, at a fleeting moment, the violent surges of both sides fell onto the exact same beat.
Ji Jue's eyes lit up.
*Clap!*
In a flash, his hands slammed together. In that critical split second, the fluctuations and eruptions of both sides overlapped, producing an ephemeral resonance that momentarily bound them into a single whole.
Even if they would thoroughly tear apart, repel, detach, and clash again in the very next instant...
A single instant was enough.
In that vital fraction of a second, Ji Jue's left hand applied Solid Alchemy to the heart, forcibly locking down the internal Zhanlu spirit essence. His right hand channeled Fluid Alchemy, seizing upon that instantaneous miracle to rigidly maintain the soul-matter connection between the Zhanlu spirit essence and the heart.
Immediately after, a spiritus hand tightly gripped the heart—Gas Alchemy, planting spirit into matter!
One was purely material, one was purely spiritual, and one bridged the two in the middle, minimizing the buffer and constructing a conduit.
Under the interplay of the three phases, the Zhanlu spirit essence and the mechanical heart—soul and matter that were previously utterly irreconcilable—were finally bound together. And immediately following that...
The eruption began anew!
Unable to accept the mechanical heart, the Zhanlu spirit essence began violently vibrating. Feeling that it could not adapt to its environment, the spirit of Zhanlu instinctively sought a way out, utilizing Gas Alchemy to turn around and siphon materiality to complete itself!
Within the raging flames, the heart pounded frantically as rust spots and fractures rapidly spread across its surface. It was nearly sucked dry in a heartbeat.
However, it didn't matter!
Bathed in sweat and seeing black spots swim before his vision, Ji Jue reached out once more, pointing at the heart—Earth Bears and Sea Embraces, reinforce it for me!
Instantly, an immense torrent of spiritus surged forward. The fuel storage vault of the Doomsday Express swung wide, releasing every scrap of spiritus metal kept inside.
Siphon it! Siphon it! Siphon it all!
There was plenty of spiritus to go around!
Not just spiritus, but an unending supply of the corresponding five metals cast continuously into the fray.
Gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin disintegrated into fine powder at a speed visible to the naked eye under the heart's voracious siphoning, merging directly into its structure. Reinforced by Earth Bears and Sea Embraces, the heart drew in spiritus and matter alike, causing its intrinsic material quality to skyrocket.
Concurrently, behind the heart, the Zhanlu spirit essence was using Gas Alchemy to furiously drain the heart.
Both sides were ceaselessly growing, metamorphosing, clashing against one another, and tempering each other through change.
Brilliant golden yellow, silver-white, antique bronze, iron gray, and translucent pale white swirled unceasingly across the heart. After absorbing materiality for an unknown duration, the intrinsic composition and physical properties of the mechanical heart finally met Zhanlu's exacting demands.
Or rather, through the process of siphoning and metamorphosis, Zhanlu had finally adapted to the heart.
Inside the crucible, silence fell.
All that remained was a metallic heart crisscrossed with spiritus circuits, beating soundlessly. As its vessel-like interfaces exhaled and inhaled spiritus, they spat forth wisps of dazzling electric arcs.
Ji Jue, meanwhile, could barely stand.
He collapsed onto the floor, panting raggedly.
At long last, the grand work was complete!
"Thank heavens, my conscience is intact after all," Ji Jue breathed, taking quite a while to catch his breath before finally closing his hand around that warm steel heart, feeling the surging thrum emanating from within.
The spirit essence rose and fell in tandem with the heartbeat, like flames churning inside an engine.
Flawless, completely integrated by nature!
Ji Jue's thousands of simulations and trials had not been in vain. To guarantee absolute success, he had even ripped off the Lou clan's secret techniques for combining spiritus shaping with the Entropy line as reference.
Having given it his all, he had not squandered all this time, effort, and money!
Yet when it came down to it, standing there holding the heart in his hands, he hesitated to install it back into his chest.
If anything actually went wrong, he might truly be finished.
Yet what was the point of hesitating?
Whether it was a mule or a thoroughbred, it had to be taken out for a run eventually. Had he wasted all this time and effort just to carve out his own heart and keep it as a paperweight?
"Intelligent Niuma?"
"Master, I am here."
The rigid voice of the temporary workshop spirit rang out.
"Preset an emergency response sequence—"
After a moment's thought, Ji Jue ordered, "If my vital signs show an anomaly and I fail to respond, immediately start up the Doomsday Express, navigate to the coordinates of Tide Sound Workshop, transmit an emergency distress signal to my contact, Teacher, grant her full administrative authority, and provide all experimental data."
"Preset completed."
Only then did Ji Jue feel at ease.
This way, he shouldn't end up playing himself to death, right?
Though he probably wouldn't escape another lecture on spiritus dynamics in the end, at least his life would be saved.
"Live or die, it all comes down to this!"
Ji Jue gritted his teeth. A trial run could be a funeral run, but here goes nothing!
*Click.* The metallic heart locked into his torso.
And immediately after, Ji Jue could no longer suppress himself, letting out a hysterical shriek.
"HOLY SHIIIIIIIT!"
Wild electrical arcs erupted from his body, bursting forth in crackling whips that lashed out in all directions.
Blinding light shot from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
In his Regeneration form, across his mechanized frame, radiant light surged through every single seam in his limbs and skeleton, accompanied by billowing white smoke.
The exact instant the conduit between spiritus and matter was blown wide open, the heart fully integrated into Ji Jue's soul and body.
With just a single pulse, an experimental wisp of spiritus was injected.
In a flash, the heart accelerated, electric light gushed, and the steel body was instantly heated to a searing crimson—terrifying heat and electricity surged through Crucible Blood, flooding his entire frame.
Like a volcanic eruption, the terrifying force nearly shattered Ji Jue to pieces.
In his desperation, he only had time to open his mouth and gag—*BLEGH!*
*BOOM!*
A searing, shrieking bolt of lightning erupted from his mouth, tearing wildly through the workshop. Everywhere it passed, it reduced everything to cinders, leaving behind streaks of glowing red and charred black.
In an instant, the area was left in ruins!
Amidst the piercing shriek of alarms, the workshop spirit began assessing Ji Jue's status. The countdown began—
Until Ji Jue feebly raised a hand.
Still alive.
And so, the emergency response sequence was aborted.
Thank heavens, he hadn't managed to kill himself; he could still draw breath.
The Torrent Matrix manifested once more as he began repairing his body. Under the reinforcement of Earth Bears and Sea Embraces, the metal fatigue and warping caused by the extreme heat were swiftly corrected.
Then, he began tinkering, adjusting, and patching things up all over again.
Identifying flaws and oversights, diagnosing problems, summarizing solutions, and executing improvements.
For the nth time, Ji Jue marveled at the sheer expandability of his Regeneration form... Whatever was lacking could simply be patched in; it was ridiculously versatile!
The earlier riot had stemmed from a calculation oversight. Although he had already upgraded the tolerances beforehand to increase his margin of error, the two main conduits and interfaces formed by the reinforced aorta and superior vena cava were still unable to withstand the raw power Zhanlu unleashed upon its initial activation.
It was several times higher than projected, leading directly to a meltdown and short circuit.
Furthermore, his soul had never experienced anything like this before. It hadn't adapted in time to this completely transformed heart, resulting in excessive output.
Fortunately, he had acted fast on his feet and proactively vented the pressure.
Opening his mouth, he had spat it all out.
Otherwise, even if it didn't kill him, half his body would have melted away.
Knowing where the problem lay meant knowing how to solve it. Ji Jue immediately drew on his materials, patching and reinforcing the conduits related to the aorta and superior vena cava once more to bolster their tolerance.
Then, in terms of the soul's control over the Zhanlu Heart, he updated the driver directly to a new version while simultaneously lowering the baseline output under standard conditions.
Another attempt.
*Crack!*
A wisp of electrical light abruptly leaped from Ji Jue's raised right hand, dancing wildly. As the output increased, it gradually grew turbulent and ferocious.
By the end, it nearly engulfed Ji Jue's entire figure.
Yet Ji Jue remained entirely unharmed.
In an instant, all the electric light dispersed. Ji Jue slowly raised a single finger, pointing it toward an armored target that rose from the floor.
As Crucible Blood circulated, that burning crimson finger shone with an increasingly dazzling glow until, finally, its charge was fully primed.
It fired!
Another deafening roar.
The four stacked layers of armored targets were effortlessly pierced through by the 'finger bullet.' Immediately after, the pent-up thermal energy within erupted, instantly reducing the targets into molten iron, completely destroyed.
Even from several hundred meters away, a wave of heat intense enough to scorch the lungs came rolling in!
A minor test of the blade, and the results were stellar!
Well then, it was time to test the big guns—
And so, under Ji Jue's expectant gaze, another platform slowly rose from beneath the workshop floor, bearing a brand-new target—Little Niuma, whose horn blared non-stop.
Regrettably, this time, it hadn't managed to run away in time.
"Good boy, don't be scared. Just close your eyes and take a nap, and it'll all be over," Ji Jue coaxed with a gentle smile. Then, he raised his hand toward Little Niuma, clenching his five fingers tight.
—This time, he intended to test the Rocket Punch!
*HONK!*
Little Niuma blasted its horn in a frenzy, only having enough time to shift into Dragon Mountain form and crouch down with its head covered before—
*BOOM!*
Boundless flames rushed forward.
The entire workshop shuddered violently.
A massive crater had appeared in the designated testing area. In the crater, Little Niuma was charred black all over, sparking continuously, its horn blaring without pause.
Then, it saw Ji Jue raise his other hand...
*BOOM!*
After a string of concussive blasts, Ji Jue finally had his fill and let out a long breath.
He threw his head back and laughed heartily.
He basked in the joy and pride of his success.
Unfortunately, when he turned around and looked at the utter mess left behind in the workshop, his laughter instantly died.
Uh-oh!
Got a little carried away!
If Isis came back and found the workshop turned into complete shambles... Cold sweat began to bead on his forehead.
Yet a moment later, he realized: Wait a minute!
This is my workshop! Why the hell should I be afraid of her? What if she gets mad? Even if she's mad, she still has to work for me and cook me a couple of dishes!
Naturally, that was the logic in theory. Putting it into practice was an entirely different story. By the time Ji Jue came back to his senses, he was already holding a mop and a broom in his hands. He froze for a second, caught sight of his pitiful state, and flew into a sudden rage.
A mere workshop spirit—am I supposed to be afraid of her?
I'm not cleaning this up!
And so, he decisively dumped the mop and broom right into... Little Niuma's arms.
Little Niuma stared blankly.
"What are you standing around for?" Ji Jue berated furiously. "Look at what you've done to the workshop! Why is it such a complete mess? Let me tell you, I won't cover for you! If you don't clean this place up before Isis gets back, you're in for it!"
"..."
Little Niuma fell silent.
It couldn't even bring itself to sound its horn anymore.
It had only spaced out for a second, and this bastard Ji Jue was already altering the surveillance footage right in front of its face!
Its four glowing red optical sensors stared unblinkingly at the creator standing before it, suddenly struck by the sheer disparity in their origins... I might not be human, but you're a genuine beast!
And so, while Little Niuma shouldered the heavy burden, a certain artisan who had been laughing up at the sky was already seated in his chair, beginning to inspect his creation once more.
Following Pan Ying and Chunjun, this was the third creation of the Nine Forms he had completed.
Zhanlu!
Even in the history of the Ye clan, artisans capable of completing three of the Nine Forms in a lifetime were few and far between, to say nothing of accomplishing it in such a brief window of time.
Regrettably, Zhanlu was not Heavenly Craft.
The reason was simple—just like Pan Ying, it was merely a half-finished product.
Its completion level couldn't even compare to Pan Ying's.
Heavenly Craft Chunjun went without saying: Named by Sword, Unity of Object and Self. Ji Jue's own self and his soul blade were fundamentally one and the same, merely two different expressions of the same entity.
Pan Ying, at the very least, was already on the correct path. As long as he gathered the legacy offerings of the Six Heavens' Ancient Ghosts to complete the Six Evils and overturn the Three Heavens, it would naturally become the orthodox Sheng Xie.
Yet the Zhanlu currently in Ji Jue's possession, though derived from the Nine Forms, would still be deemed an unorthodox path by the standards of the Ye clan—no, by the standards of any sword artisan—even if forged into the shape of a blade.
Superficial and hollow.
It hadn't grasped the true essence at all!
Each variation of the Nine Forms harbored its own secrets.
The crux of Zhanlu lay neither in Blessings nor in technique, but in—
'Bind the wilderness calamity; harbor the lightning pool within!'
Chapter 579