Disaster and Tribulation

The Twelve Supreme Virtues each possessed their own capabilities. They also differed from one another. For a trade like Embers, where internal barriers to entry were brutally steep and internecine competition was cutthroat to the extreme, the most vital factors were undeniably experience, theory, and accumulation. Or, to sum it up in a single word: inheritance. While master-disciple inheritance certainly had its virtues, it was equally incapable of avoiding its most fatal pitfall—teach the apprentice, and starve the master! Crucial secret transmissions, ancestral records accumulated through generations of a school, and countless minutiae and key techniques—these had all been hammered out by uncounted generations of artisans, each risking life and limb and spending their entire lives honing them. On what grounds should someone teach you just because you kowtowed? Are you even worthy? Whether constrained by a disciple's dullness, rooted in a mentor's selfishness, or caused by a myriad of intricate reasons, the end result inevitably gave rise to the phenomenon that disgusted Ye Xian the most. Everyone had taken a liking to holding something back. Teach half, keep half. Some would even clutch trivial keys and mnemonics to perpetually exploit their disciples—milking them for a lifetime wasn't enough, so they passed the grift on to their children and students to keep milking! An absolute disgrace. Even the Ye clan's Nine Forms inheritance was no exception. When the Ye family that Ye Xian so despised had crumbled under its own desires and ambitions, it had long since bloated into a corpse reeking of rot, devoid of a single redeeming quality. Even the Nine Forms—their core inheritance—distinguished between inner and outer circles. Members with outside surnames and collateral branches could devote their entire lives to studying, only to circle endlessly outside the authentic teachings, stumbling throughout their days and never accomplishing anything of note. Just like the Zhanlu currently in Ji Jue's hands. Was it Zhanlu? Yes, it was, but it completely lacked the true essence. At most, it was merely an exceptionally useful Entropy-aligned alchemical creation. It was indeed wonderfully subtle, and certainly worth dedicating oneself to studying, but without grasping its true essence, one could never master it in a lifetime. The eight-character secret teaching—*Bind the Barren Peril, contain the Thunder Pool within*—had thwarted uncounted brilliant artisans throughout their entire lives. The moment an artisan learned of this threshold, they would realize that their current Zhanlu was nothing more than a half-finished vessel. The true Zhanlu was actually that wisp of spirit essence constantly undulating and circulating within Ji Jue's heart. *This* was the true foundation of Zhanlu! Everything Ji Jue had done before had flowed as smooth as drifting clouds and flowing water, accomplished with ease, because the true difficulty did not lie there at all. Even though he had treasonously modified its entire structure and made massive adjustments to adapt it to his own heart, those were merely superficial alterations. The tempering the true Zhanlu required lay in *Nurturing Disaster, Molting Form*. Using the Essence of the Five Metals and the Essence of the Sun to lay Zhanlu's foundation as a vessel, and utilizing the fluctuations of genesis and extinction, one forged that wisp of spirit essence born of energetic change. Next, what the artisan needed to do was use Zhanlu to capture and devour a natural disaster from the outside world, bind its essence within Zhanlu, and forge it anew. To turn this vessel of spirit essence into a Thunder Pool that contained calamity. Capturing natural disasters time and again, feeding the spirit essence on calamities, gradually tempering and transmuting it alongside them, transforming its substance and shape until, in the end, that currently negligible wisp of spirit essence became a true natural disaster! When unleashed, thunderous might would shake heaven and earth! When recalled, the clouds would disperse, the rain would cease, and vibrant light would illuminate the world! And precisely because this process required constantly seeking out natural disasters and capturing their true essence, subtly eliminating the perils of the Barren Ruins, it had earned the reputation and title of the Sword of Benevolence. Used properly, it truly could bring blessings to the world! Compared to such an esoteric transmission, the Blessing chains embedded within were hardly the focus. They were merely auxiliary; as long as they conveniently boosted raw numbers, heightened specialized attacks, and amplified elemental counter-effects when deployed, any would do. Great Vigour of Resounding Thunder, Shock Comes with Fear and Trembling, Earth and Fire Darkening of the Light... The Blessing chains compatible with it were practically innumerable. In fact, anything aligned with Entropy would suffice! And so, the true hurdle arrived. Belling the cat, putting a golden circlet on the monkey, capturing a natural disaster and stuffing it into a sword... How exactly could one barge into the core of a natural disaster at its most violent peak, extract its essence, gingerly preserve the stability of the spirit essence, and still ensure they didn't get struck dead on the spot by a bolt of lightning from that disaster, all while coming out in one piece? The answer: look to ability, skill, and gear. And if you had none of those, look to fate. Over thirty percent of Zhanlu artisans died at the very first step. The remaining sixty percent died later on—at step five, six, seven... Playing with fire and getting burned to ashes: it was literally that. Furthermore, with the main branch of the Ye clan hoarding it like a treasured broom, no Zhanlu had ever been fully completed following the collapse of the Eternal Empire. Even if a few half-finished pieces existed, they merely gathered dust in warehouses for ages. Aside from suicide squads and disposable tools, nobody used them. If the user wasn't its creator, the Zhanlu spirit essence wouldn't acknowledge them at all, offering not a shred of protection. Moreover, having been born of calamities, Zhanlu was violent and volatile by nature, liable to explode at the slightest provocation—a literal shortcut to dying together with heaven and earth. And in the records Ye Xian knew of, the few times it had been used, it had been deployed exclusively to commit atrocities! After all, everything was hard in the beginning, hard in the middle, and hard at the end. For Zhanlu, the difficulty of the opening step lay in choosing a calamity weak enough not to destroy Zhanlu's spirit essence, yet pure enough that the spirit essence's growth wouldn't become chaotic or impure. So, how was Ji Jue supposed to harvest a natural disaster whose nature and magnitude precisely matched his Zhanlu, fuse it into the sword, and enlighten it into a Thunder Pool that fostered the spirit essence's metamorphosis? "Hrmmmmmm..." Ji Jue began to think; Ji Jue finished thinking. Ji Jue found the answer. The answer was: do nothing at all. Because the thing was right in his pocket. —*The Barren Peril is me!* What was there to look for? He himself was a Hole in the mortal world created by a natural disaster! That pitch-black hole was still hanging right on the chest of his corrupted form... Granted, the Flame Tide that possessed the dual nature of both Abyss and Barren Ruins had already been extinguished, but what had emerged from it was none other than Ji Jue: a living sin fiend severed from the Vortex, whose ties to the Great Sin had been cut clean. The corrupted form concealed within his soul's reflection could genuinely be called a humanoid natural disaster. Its purity was shockingly high, and it was so pristine that if posted on a secondhand market, it could pass as brand-new, unopened factory stock. He only needed to stimulate it slightly... In an instant, the workshop dimmed. Tangible darkness welled up from Ji Jue's flesh and blood, surging viscously, spreading silently like water, yet leaping and burning undyingly like flame. As the Hole in his chest gaped open, sharp, pitch-black crystals converged and grew out of nothingness, forming a sinister, seven-horned crown atop Ji Jue's head. Ji Jue took a deep breath. It was as if shackles had been cast off; he felt a sense of freedom he had never known before... It felt as though with the slightest exertion, he could shatter the unsightly veils and barriers before him, reach out and touch the Vortex, open his soul, and perceive the earth-shattering reverberations echoing within the infinite darkness and void beneath it. He could even ascend to the heavens with a single step! Ji Jue did not budge. He remained completely indifferent to those distant calls and resonances. He had finally managed to make a clean divine break; only an idiot would reconnect. Who knew what shape he'd be molded into if he melded with the Great Sin again? A sin fiend was purely a tool. The Hole in his chest was proof enough: its very existence undermined the Lock and was incompatible with the mortal world. He wasn't a lunatic like Kanemoto—why would he have nothing better to do than pick a fight with the mortal world? Beyond the Great Sin's resonance, he could feel faint, electric sensations brushing across his body, like gusts of invisible wind sweeping past, searching, yet failing to detect his traces. Beneath the black flames, Ji Jue's face twitched. After all this time, why were those sneaky bastards still hunting relentlessly for Lu Changsheng?! They were even scanning non-stop twenty-four hours a day... just to ensure that the moment Lu Changsheng poked his head out, they could instantly lock onto him through walls! Pity they had the wrong account and keywords. What did the surviving remnants of the Evil Transmutation Cult have to do with him? Under the Heavenly Overseer's strike, Lu Changsheng was already dead as a doornail. This round, it was like a VTuber debuting and instantly graduating—even if people wanted to start a witch hunt, there was nowhere to direct the flames. Ji Jue, the person behind the persona, had simply loaded himself with interference sources. Mohist Non-Offensive, the Imperial Sovereign's Hand, and the Swordsmith's Contained Forms—three shells that were originally contradictory, fiercely opposed, and fundamentally incompatible—were fitted onto the very same person. It was like three boxes tangled and overlapping, defying even topological explanation. On top of that, he was sequestered within the Celestial Rail outside the mortal realm, inside the Doomsday Express, which was further encased in a workshop structure left by Sage Quicksilver... There was nothing for it; his composition was far too eclectic, a chaotic hodgepodge. As long as Ji Jue was careful not to pop up in broad daylight wearing this persona, not even the Federation or the Empire—not even the former Heavenly Tome resurrected—could pry this box open! Let them stir the pot! In the workshop, the flame shadow shrouded in black fire rose once more. Feeling this corrupted form, he realized its boundless potential yet again... A soul's reflection diametrically opposed to himself, completely different from what he was accustomed to—it was as if everything about him had been thoroughly inverted! Not a simple mirror reversal, but a radical overthrow of fundamental nature. Its source was not Non-Offensive or Blessings, but Ji Jue himself, who possessed all of them. Beneath the shroud of black flame, everything had inverted. The precise control he was accustomed to and proud of had vanished without a trace, replaced by an unravelable chaos, absolute unpredictability! Even Deus Ex Machina... Ji Jue's raised finger paused in midair. He didn't dare test it on Little Niuma, turning instead to point at another animated machine assisting with clean-up. In an instant, the beast-shaped machine froze stiff in place. Sparks erupted all over it, shrill screeches burst forth, and acrid plumes of scorched smoke billowed from its joints. It was as though... it had died. Immediately after, Ji Jue felt a wisp of spiritus flow along the black flames and merge into his body—the machine's sentience was thoroughly disintegrated, its consciousness dissolved into chaos, and its spiritus completely plundered and assimilated into Ji Jue! The effect of Deus Ex Machina was to bestow a soul upon inanimate objects; yet right now, Ji Jue could turn any enlivened creation back into dead matter. He casually picked up a scrap left on the floor. Black fire wrapped around it for a moment, and the pervasive flames seeped into the alloy ingot. Then, the extremely pure alloy ingot developed cracks in Ji Jue's hands, softening rapidly, degenerating, until finally it crumbled into a handful of disorderly, impure metallic grains that showered down onto the floor. This essence of chaos possessed terrifying corrosive and assimilating properties. Without Ji Jue actively doing anything, under its natural corrosion, the residual casting stress within the alloy and the loose fault lines between the metal bonds were naturally agitated and shattered. And when he picked up a spiritus crystal, he saw a grayish-black hue spread rapidly through the crystal. The spiritus, tightly organized in a solid material state, began to rapidly collapse and decompose, unable to sustain its original stable condition. Such effects and power... Ji Jue stood dazed, then suddenly gave a self-deprecating chuckle. This was a complete, total opposite. The control of Non-Offensive versus the inverted chaos; the creation of alchemy versus the inverted erosion and decay; the bestowal of Deus Ex Machina versus the inverted plunder and annihilation. He suddenly realized that he had become his own nemesis, his own natural enemy. He didn't even need to consciously control or cultivate it; as long as Ji Jue grew, the power of this soul's reflection would naturally rise with the tide. Could such power be accepted by Zhanlu? He looked down at the hole in his chest. The gloomy glimmer burning within rose and expanded in wisps. With an eruption of Ji Jue's spiritus, black flames surged in rolling waves, and the calamity of disordered chaos abruptly spread outward! Gritting his teeth, he reached into the hole and plucked a wisp of flame, as if extracting a portion of his own soul, cautious and delicate, feeling the pang of tearing pain and emptiness. At his fingertip, a faint flicker of flame emerged, and was promptly cast into the mechanical heart of his Regeneration form. In an instant, a shrill heartbeat burst forth. Like thunder, piercingly loud! No—it *was* thunder! Locked beneath layers of metal and alchemical circuits, the Zhanlu Heart abruptly contracted and expanded, setting off one deafening roar after another. Thirstily sucking in this essence of calamity, it triggered an earth-shattering transformation, like some extreme chemical reaction. The Thunder Pool opened! Swallowing spiritus like a whale was still not enough. In response to Zhanlu's call, vast quantities of electrical current leaked from cables, converging around Ji Jue and plunging entirely into Zhanlu. The ravenous, instantaneous drain strained the workshop's entire electrical grid to its limits; a capacity that could easily supply all of Xinquan threatened to overload! Lights flickered erratically as blinding currents surged like a tidal bore, engulfing Ji Jue and pouring straight into his heart. Within the void of darkness inside the heart, the flame suddenly flared and dissolved, and a wisp of dark mist rose from the brilliant electric flash, expanding rapidly like a dense thundercloud. Once the fierce metamorphosis subsided, that wisp of spirit essence quietly completed its crucial first molting since birth! Now, inside the Thunder Pool, the faint phantasmal glow of before had vanished, replaced by an incessantly darting wisp of deep-purple lightning galloping without pause. All of a sudden, its swiftness vanished, transmuting into a viscous, sluggish flame as deep and murky as sludge. When Ji Jue flicked his finger again, the spirit essence leaped in an instant. A flash of purple lightning soared into the air, disappeared in the blink of an eye, and returned to Zhanlu. Right before him, on an alloy target, an infinitesimally small hole had silently appeared, piercing straight through! The hole expanded without a sound, spreading as if growing, and finally detonated abruptly. Fine steel dust drifted down, melting across the floor like water. No heat could be felt. The breeze brushing against his face still carried the cool air of the air conditioning; only the floor hissed as it rapidly dissolved. It was a long time before it finally solidified. And the affected radius had spread out across tens of meters! When a breeze blew past once more, snow-white ash rose softly into the air. Destruction restrained to the extreme had thoroughly incinerated and decayed everything within range, reducing it all to flying ash. Dead silence. In that protracted silence, there was only the shrill honk of Little Niuma turning around. Sounding like a tearful, blood-weeping indictment. *I just finished sweeping! You beast, what the hell are you doing?!* "BEEP——!!!!" And then, it saw the wisp of purple lightning wrapped around Ji Jue's fingertip flare up, illuminating the delighted grin on his face and the eager, itching eyes that were turning its way... Little Niuma felt plunged into an ice cave. Of course, Ji Jue had a conscience. Why would he harm innocent Little Niuma merely for the sake of an experiment's results? Besides, if it burned or got struck by lightning, wouldn't he have to repair it himself? Where would the money come from?! His pockets had been almost entirely bled dry from spending! Deep in thought, Ji Jue's mind raced, and he swiftly made up his mind: *No, I still need to find a chance to squeeze some more gold coins out of Brother Du...* The Evil Transmutation Cult had already been used once. So, the Dragon Sacrifice Society, or the Profound? No, neither of those would weigh enough on the scales... Surely he couldn't stage another round of Nirvana, could he? While pondering, he finished cleaning up all traces on his body, reverted to his original appearance, and walked up the stairs to the unfinished building's rooftop. He looked toward the sky. The sky above Tacheng was still just sky. Beneath the perpetual dust and sand of the Mid-Continent, clear days were rare; it was almost always blanketed by murky clouds in a dull, grayish haze, offering little to look at. Yet this time, his purpose was completely different. Zhanlu's growth required continuously feeding on calamities. To progress, he had to chase down natural disasters and take bites out of them. Now that Zhanlu's initial qualitative leap was complete, it was in its early phase of rapid development; he hadn't yet hit any bottlenecks or troubles he couldn't solve, making this the prime time to grind its level. He didn't dare touch high-end natural disasters, but finding hazardous weather like thunderstorms to serve as light snacks for Zhanlu was no problem. Conveniently, within the Mirror of Contained Forms, there was a function and technique matched to Zhanlu known as 'Divining Wind and Reading Qi.' It had nothing to do with aether, couldn't discern the rise and fall of fate or fortune, and couldn't sniff out any true dragon emperors, but combined with the mirror's own insight, it could capture traces of impending disasters. Besides, in a place like the Mid-Continent, if there was one thing they had in spades, it was damn extreme weather! Violent storms, downpours, earthquakes, mudslides, and flash floods every few days—perfect dog food for Zhanlu... Ji Jue raised the Mirror of Contained Forms, casting his eyes down to observe the sky reflected within, searching for traces of natural disasters. But a moment later, he felt as though he had gone blind. "Holy f—!!!" An unexpected, blinding glare burst from the Mirror of Contained Forms, piercing straight into Ji Jue's eyes and nearly blinding him completely. Incredible. Ji Jue began to sweat, cold sweat soaking his back. In the inheritance of the Nine Forms, a disaster sent from heaven was called a 'tribulation.' When a tribulation descended, signs always preceded it. Just like the stifling heat before a torrential rain, the earthquake light before tremors swept through, or the prickling sensation on the skin when a thunderstorm descended... before a calamitous tribulation struck, omens would manifest within the resonances between the Barren Ruins and the mortal world. The Mirror of Contained Forms operated precisely by observing such tribulation qi to track traces of impending natural disasters. It wasn't hard—not hard at all. The catch was... there was way too fucking much tribulation qi!!!! Within the perception projected by the Mirror of Contained Forms, across a thousand li surrounding Tacheng, surges of tribulation qi swelled and erupted. Countless signals clustered together, nearly blinding Ji Jue. How many natural disasters were lined up in a lottery queue, waiting to take the stage?! Worse yet, on the real-time satellite map on the phone in his other hand, eye after eye of storms wandered across the heavens, patches of cloud spreading like mold across the entirety of the Mid-Continent. Right at this very moment, uncounted disasters were roaming the Mid-Continent! With a casual glance, he could spot more than four super-large natural disasters currently manifesting, not to mention endless minor ones. And far off at the edge of the sea, a dark cloud silently crept up from the gloomy horizon. In the south of the Endless Sea, the eyes of two storms had merged, forming a new colossal typhoon slowly slithering toward the Mid-Continent! On the Mirror of Contained Forms, the surging tribulation qi practically dyed Ji Jue's face blood-red. *Here, the natural disaster you wanted!* *It's here!* *Delivered right to your doorstep, dear customer! Happy? Surprised?* Ji Jue couldn't smile anymore. Five minutes later, the Federation issued an emergency warning. Over the Endless Sea, Typhoon Coral and Typhoon Pelican had merged after their paths collided. Wind speeds were continuing to climb, currently reaching Beaufort scale force 10. Its trajectory had shifted forty-one degrees to the north, and it was projected to make landfall in Tacheng tonight. All Tacheng residents were urged to take disaster preparedness measures... Having devoured Coral and Pelican, the newly formed Typhoon 'White Stag' swept forward brazenly, carrying the tempestuous winds and torrential rains of the Endless Sea in its wake! Before the typhoon had even arrived, all of Tacheng fell into dead stillness. Ten minutes after the warning was broadcast, vast thunder echoed from the heavens amidst the thick, muggy air. Then, torrential rain poured down, engulfing everything... The disaster and tribulation were at hand.