As Long as You Have Hands

What the hell was that racket? Lou Feng was thoroughly unnerved, his instinct screaming at him to turn on his heel and run. After all, when you storm down to a basement full of righteous indignation to demand an explanation, only for the bastard opposite you to burst into wild laughter before you can even open your mouth, grab you in an iron grip, drag you inside, and casually slam the door shut and lock it— All that was missing was him grabbing his hair, twisting his mouth into a smirk, and declaring, "Fell for it at last!" It was downright terrifying! Yet before Lou Feng could react, Ji Jue had already tossed his failed product into the mountain of scrap beside him, snatched an unworked sword blank from the workbench, and flung it straight into the crucible. Flames roared up in a blaze. Transmutation, begin! Amid the silence, Lou Feng stared wide-eyed. And then—his eyes began to dry out. *Uh, am I allowed to blink yet?* No matter how intently he looked left and right, up and down, it was just ordinary Three-Phase Alchemy casting. Even the form and design were merely those of a run-of-the-mill blessed creation. *What the fuck am I supposed to be watching?* Lou Feng was exasperated to the point of laughing. Sure, I admit you’re slick with your Battle-Tempered Edge blessing, and Three-Phase Alchemy is profound and vast, but what on earth are you thinking with these amateur moves? True, it was ordinary, safe, and made no mistakes. But being ordinary was a cardinal sin in itself; paired with his current stature, this level of work was embarrassingly brain-dead! What was the point? To waste his time? For the sake of what little trust existed between them—which was virtually none—Lou Feng crouched there for half an hour until he couldn't take it anymore. He felt like an absolute idiot. "What the fuck did you call me down here to look at?" Lou Feng rolled his eyes and snapped, "Quit playing the silent grandmaster! Speak!" "Almost ready. Just a bit longer, just a bit—" Ji Jue's hands never paused. He had already reached the stage of spiritus shaping. His speed was blistering. It truly was fast—ridiculously fast. This display of accelerated alchemy caught Lou Feng slightly off guard. Being able to forge at such speed was, after all, a fundamental skill in its own right. While the technique itself seemed ordinary, his mastery over the heat and timing was exceptional. *Snap!* With a crisp pop, Ji Jue's hands came together and spread wide. Intricate, crisscrossing spiritus circuits surfaced from the metal. Spirit and matter fused into a single whole like a towering tree bursting forth from nothingness, making Lou Feng frown. It was too complicated, too exaggerated, too absurd. It was like trying to force a full computer operating system onto a microwave's motherboard. Was this guy just flexing for the sake of it? Even if you managed to cram it all in, it was useless—you wouldn't even be able to boot it up! The materials of the sword blank were far too ordinary. No matter how much you packed inside, its ceiling was predetermined. Even if he managed to stuff it all in, given his level of craftsmanship, it would top out at Grade C+ at best. And then, Lou Feng was dumbfounded. *Boom!* The crucible shuddered violently. Spiritus erupted, triggering Matter-Spirit Excitation. Cracks spiderwebbed across the entire blade, and the bloated spiritus matrix began to collapse and disintegrate rapidly. In that instant, the intricate tree of spiritus blazed with blinding radiance, colliding violently against the blade with a relentless chorus of shattering sounds— Like a chain reaction, the blade fractured and cracked, while the spiritus matrix collapsed—no, exploded! From the outside inward, spirit and matter annihilated each other! A failure? No, that wasn't it— Amid that fierce, head-on clash, streaks of scorching crimson flame burst from the blade. Immense volumes of impurities and shattered fragments sprayed outward, while the layers of stripped and fractured spiritus circuits rapidly transformed from a bloated mess into something concise, direct, and crystal clear. The instant their mutual consumption reached a critical point, it ground to an abrupt halt. The two fused seamlessly, perfectly blended as though wrought by nature itself. All that remained in the crucible was a broken sword whistling with a mournful hum, flowing with a blood-red sheen that stung Lou Feng's eyes. The blade dropped into Ji Jue's hand. With an experienced swipe of his palm, he dispersed the lingering heat. As the scorching red faded, it turned pitch-black, but under the grinding friction of spiritus, brilliant streaks of silver light quickly surfaced through the darkness. Without even bothering to fashion a hilt or fittings, Ji Jue held out the snapped, incomplete blade right before Lou Feng's face. Even the silver luster had faded away; it looked entirely plain. The moment Lou Feng flicked it with a finger, a crisp, chilling resonance echoed out, making his scalp tingle and plunging him into an icy abyss. Its spiritual resonance was restrained; its sharp edge, concealed. It seemed unadorned, but from the moment it left the crucible, it had acted like a vortex, siphoning the thin spiritus from the air. When it sensed the spiritus Lou Feng channeled into it, it grew even more ravenous, devouring it endlessly like a bottomless pit—and right beneath his eyes, the notches and fractures along the blade showed faint signs of mending. Lou Feng stood frozen. He leaned in close to inspect it, forgetting all about his dry eyes. Incomprehensible. No matter how he looked at it, even though it was an incomplete piece, by the Association's standards, this sword was at least Grade B+! The only reason it wasn't an A was that it suffered from possessing only a single blessing without a blessing chain. If Ji Jue had bothered to put in a little effort and stuffed a Swarm three-piece set into it, it would have started at A+! Yet the problem was that everything had happened right under Lou Feng's nose. A shoddy piece that was strictly limited by materials and basic design to a Grade C rating had, right before his eyes, instantly vaulted a full tier and three sub-grades—turning an old hen into a swan, a sparrow into a phoenix! Literally turning stone into gold! And he hadn't even relied on Non-Offensive's metamorphosis effect! It was entirely executed by Ji Jue's own hands. Lou Feng could understand every single movement in isolation, yet put together, they left him utterly baffled. He could barely wrap his head around the transformation that had occurred in that split second. By utilizing Matter-Spirit Excitation, he had deliberately induced an uncontrolled clash, catalyzing both sides against each other. Destruction, then reconstruction. To build anew, one must first tear down; shatter, and forge again! Stripping away all impurities and obstacles, erasing previous constraints and advantages, starting over from scratch. Every eruption was an absolute decomposition; every aggregation guided by Non-Offensive was like a rebirth. Repeated detonations and reconvergences surged explosively upward like the three stages of a rocket! In theory, it sounded plausible. But in theory, Lou Feng could shoot a bullet from the Federation all the way into the Profound! What were the odds of actually pulling it off in practice?! Put bluntly, this entire technique forcibly elevated the grade and ceiling of the creation by drastically consuming its material properties and lifespan. What Lou Feng now held was practically a battered, broken shell on the verge of being scrapped. In a video game, its durability would probably be down to one point. Yet how could Lou Feng not realize? The one thing Three-Phase Alchemy feared least was wear and tear! Fluid Alchemy harmonized spirit and matter—as long as the spirit endured, the matter remained, driving material elevation through spiritual leaps and laying the foundation. Solid Alchemy preserved structure and stability, ensuring the process held firm. And finally, Vapor Alchemy plundered spiritus and material properties to assimilate them, mending flaws and compensating for losses. Shove it into any spirit-rich land, and within ten days to half a month, it would recover most of its strength. Not to mention it had Battle-Tempered Edge, a blessing made in heaven for blood sacrifices. Forget humans—slaughter a cheap chicken or goat, or stab it into the corpse of a pricey calamity beast, and it would return to full health in minutes, with its sharpness and durability jumping up and up! The moment he figured it out, Lou Feng felt the world go dark before his eyes. A brilliant, kaleidoscopic dark. He could barely breathe— *Damn it all, I'm looking at actual sorcery!* "Is... is this right?" "What's wrong about it?" Ji Jue tilted his head and asked, "Isn't the result right in front of you?" "You—" Lou Feng suppressed the tremor in his voice. "How did you do it?" "Uh... as long as you've got hands?" Ji Jue rubbed his chin and pondered for a moment. "Add a bit of feeling, uh, some more experience. You've studied Three-Phase Alchemy too, haven't you? You should be able to do it as well." Lou Feng's face flushed crimson. He wanted nothing more than to spit a mouthful of blood right into this bastard's face. *Like hell I can do that!* After cross-eyedly reading through Ji Jue's notes and listening to his barking explanations of the operational techniques, Lou Feng drifted out of the basement like a wandering ghost, his mind completely saturated with all that nonsense about "experience" and "feeling." Only after walking two li did he realize he was still clutching that broken sword. Looking up at the sun, he felt his eyes grow moist. From the bottom of his heart, he wanted to ask: *What the fuck did I just learn?* *** For the next two weeks, no matter how much noise Ji Jue made, Lou Feng never showed his face again. Cheap crucibles blew up one after another; cheap materials were consumed by the ton; and spiritus crystals acquired free of charge were burned by the crate. Haian Tech's funds were like a swimming pool, water pumping in on one side and draining out the other, bubbling away continuously. Enough wealth for an ordinary family—or even several families—to squander in lavish luxury across multiple lifetimes was poured endlessly into the crucible, vanishing without even producing a wisp of smoke, utterly evaporated. Lou Feng chose silence, but Chen Xingzhou, one of the suppliers, felt his scalp tingle just watching it. He could still clearly recall how Ji Jue had painted such a dazzling picture of future prospects. Thank god he hadn't fallen into the trap! If he had bought into it, the money he made scalping wouldn't have been close to enough to cover the pit; he probably would have had to pay out of his own pocket... Ji Jue, on the other hand, wasn't worried in the slightest. He had already grown numb to it. Besides, money spent always found its way back. High consumption came with high output! Following that initial surge of progress after his epiphany, it had become increasingly difficult for him to fail lately. Even if he closed his eyes and worked blindly, leaving everything to pure luck, his intuition and sense of possibility always guided him through the chaotic casting to find the simplest, most direct solution. No matter how crude the finished pieces turned out, their grades grew steadily higher—to the point where Inayat could no longer digest them all. Inayat even wrote a letter overnight begging the Wolf Lord to rein in his miracles. If this went on, practically everyone in the camp would be carrying a blessed creation. That wasn't how you built an army! How could they achieve universal financial freedom in a godforsaken place like the Mid-Continent before they'd even begun clearing the path to restore the White Nation? Consequently, the Haizhou market began to suffer immensely! The prices of low- to mid-tier alchemical creations—and even blessed creations—plummeted off a cliff, dropping by up to sixteen percent in a single day at their steepest! To make matters worse, what Ji Jue produced most were assorted blades, firearms, and tons upon tons of ammunition wholesale! The market was already nearing saturation, and facing such an all-out onslaught was nothing short of a nightmare. For more than two weeks, the market was thrown into utter turmoil. The wailing of fellow craftsmen was one thing, but the middlemen who had stubbornly hoarded inventory dropped dead wave after wave, to the point where there weren't enough rooftops left to jump from. Watching their pockets shrink day by day, people frantically flooded the Association with reports: *Someone is disrupting the market and dumping products in bad faith! Say something, Association!* The Association acknowledged it; the Association was investigating; yes, the Association was still investigating... Everyone knew full well who was behind it. Even though the goods were dumped through the black market and the Wilderness Market without names or markings, the traces of Fluid Alchemy weren't concealed in the slightest! Yet the crux of the matter was that after meticulous analysis and solemn review, the Association simply couldn't find anything Ji Jue had done wrong. He didn't sell counterfeits, he didn't overcharge, and he didn't plant backdoors—in fact, he stated upfront that these were flawed goods, priced accordingly, with no after-sales service. If you snagged one, go enjoy it. Was the Association supposed to penalize someone just for high output? Wouldn't that be overstepping its bounds a bit too far? In the end, Chen Xingzhou stepped forward. Through the Association, he packaged all of Ji Jue's output and funneled it through the Wilderness Market, distributing it to various states, cities, and even the Thousand Islands Empire. Consequently, after a month of burning through resources, Ji Jue tallied the books and discovered he had only suffered a minor loss of several tens of millions. Well, what was he waiting for? Keep burning! Haian had mountains of gold and silver—money that could never be exhausted! *** This blissful period lasted for a week. Until a delivery arrived at his door. Carried by a dedicated courier, it was mailed directly by the Ring of Taiyi Craftsman Association and handed straight to Ji Jue. It was the Association's quarterly journal, nominally a New Year's benefit for craftsmen. In reality, it was packed with long-winded, vapid drivel; aside from the first few pages which might contain some substance, it was essentially scrap paper used to prop up wobbly tables. Yet when Ji Jue casually flipped it open, he discovered a hollow carved into the center—just like the clever contraption from an old prison-break film. Inside lay a mask, a serial number, a time, and a location. Along with Jiang Tongguang's signature. Ji Jue froze on the spot, then erupted with wild joy. Work had finally arrived! Absolute Sentence squad, mobilize! *** A day later, Ji Jue traveled via the Star Core Association's leyline teleportation, emerging at a fishing port on an island in the southern Thousand Islands. Following the serial number, he waited at the docks. Beneath the overcast sky, a fishing vessel bearing the exact same number slowly chugged into view, reeking of rot and fish, before pulling up alongside the pier. The dockworkers skillfully began unloading and boxing the catch, carrying the fish away, after which the crew members hopped off the boat one by one. Finally, a burly figure with a bushy white beard stepped out of the cabin. He looked toward the guest waiting ashore, squinting to inspect him. "Ji Jue?" Ji Jue nodded. "That's me." "A bit early, but fine." The burly old man, puffing on a pipe, nodded and pointed toward the cabin behind him. "We don't set out until nightfall. Head aboard and rest. I don't need to remind you about phones and confidentiality, do I?" "How should I address you?" Ji Jue greeted him. "I've been retired for decades; giving my name would only embarrass me. Just call me Captain." The old craftsman who called himself Captain let out a soft sigh and shook his hand. "You'd better pick a codename for yourself. The seminar forbids inquiring into others' identities, keeping records, or getting entangled. Even if you recognize someone, act as though you don't. It's best to pretend nothing ever happened. That's safer for everyone. If you're not used to it, put on the mask." "Understood." Ji Jue nodded, asking no further questions. No digging into past lives, no minding the future—didn't this immediately create the perfect atmosphere of a makeshift crew? As expected of the Association: consistently pragmatic, adhering to the principle that once the lights were out, everyone was the same! Stepping into the cabin, the pervasive stench of fish abruptly vanished. The interior of the small fishing vessel was as spacious as a grand hotel, complete with a lobby boasting a ceiling dozens of meters high. He had stepped into someone else's workshop, yet felt not the slightest sense of pressure. Guided by phantom lights, he picked a room at random to rest. Surprisingly, he felt no tension whatsoever; closing his eyes, he fell straight asleep. Just like coming home. The Captain watched him, somewhat dumbfounded. *Wait, are the new generation in the Association really this carefree nowadays? Doesn't he care at all about whether someone might tamper with him? Does he genuinely trust the Association that much, or does he simply not view this as trouble at all?* In any case, at least he wasn't an arrogant troublemaker who thought he owned the world. The Absolute Sentence squad was in the business of killing and burning, not running a nursery. As for that faint prickling sensation lingering like needles at his back, it didn't matter. The Captain looked away, paying it no further mind. *** Ji Jue slept until evening, when a chime sounded. On the display cabinet in the room, a lifelike wooden carving of a bird suddenly began to chirp, emitting a voice: "All members have assembled. Before the operation commences, please proceed to the dining hall for the briefing. Do not initiate any disputes or conflicts. If your identity is inconvenient to reveal, please wear your mask." A mask? Wear a mask for what? Ji Jue glanced at the mask in his hand, casually hooked it onto his satchel, washed his face, and swaggered toward the dining hall following the guidance lights, taking a seat at random. Soon, footsteps approached, and figures filed into the dining hall one after another. One, two, three, four— Counting himself, five? The number gave Ji Jue a slight pause. Five members of the Absolute Sentence squad deployed at once? Moreover, the Embers aura radiating from each of them was only higher than his own, their ranks undisguised—virtually starting at Exaltation. He was the only one at Regeneration, making him look the shabbiest of the lot. Those chosen by Jiang Tongguang for the Absolute Sentence squad were no small fry; at the very least, they were ruthless figures well-versed in butchering their fellow craftsmen. Deploying five of them at once for a single target? With this scale, were they really hunting a giant fish? The arrivals were male and female, old and young. Yet when all was said and done, appearance and looks were utterly meaningless to craftsmen. Who knew how many had modified themselves into bizarre shapes; at best, a face was merely a default skin. Having dealt with their kind enough, one could recognize them by scent alone, to say nothing of the trademark tools they carried for work. As everyone exchanged glances, their expressions gradually turned grave, anticipating that the waters behind this assignment were likely absurdly deep. The Captain puffed on his pipe in silence, seated at the head of the table, still scribbling notes on the briefing documents while the others sized each other up and traded nods. Before Ji Jue could even exercise his social skills to liven up the mood, he noticed the middle-aged man seated directly across from him staring fixedly at him, eyes practically popping out of his sockets. His expression shifted with ambiguous meaning. Disgust and endurance. That familiar scent— Ji Jue arched a brow, racking his brains, but couldn't recall who it was. Puzzled, he asked, "Excuse me, do we know each other?" Hearing that, the middle-aged man's eyes widened, his face twitching for a moment. In the end, he said nothing. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Giving him the cold shoulder. *Heh, quite a temper on him!* Ji Jue was amused, entirely unfazed. He turned his head toward the person beside him—a familiar figure over two meters tall, built like a giant, packed with muscle and sporting a thick golden beard. Ji Jue gave him a wink. *Grand Craftsman Yellowbeard, long time no see!* *Did you miss me?* *Grand Craftsman, I've missed you to death!* *Even if you didn't miss me, you should at least think of that batch of alchemical bullets and firearms I smuggled to you guys last month...* Yellowbeard remained silent. Yellowbeard closed his eyes. Yellowbeard tried his best to pretend he didn't see anything. Yellowbeard felt an elbow nudging his arm, like a classmate trying to pass a note during a lecture—a hand holding a fistful of melon seeds extended toward him. *Brother, want some?* Yellowbeard didn't want any. Yellowbeard only wanted to beat him to a pulp! At this moment, Yellowbeard couldn't help opening his eyes to glare furiously at the Captain: *Why the hell did you invite this piece of work?* The old Captain puffed his pipe, shrugging helplessly. He tapped out the pipe ash, cutting through the bizarre atmosphere of covert winking and glaring. This was the prestigious Absolute Sentence squad on an assignment—why did it feel like an offline meetup for online gamers? "Alright. Since no one has the habit of wearing a mask, let's leave it at that. Pick a codename so we can consider ourselves introduced," he said. "I'm Captain." Yellowbeard clearly didn't care about this superficial charade, casually tossing out, "Carpenter." The lips of the middle-aged man who had just glared at Ji Jue parted slightly, letting out a silent sigh. "Pig Bearer." A craftsman who looked like a young girl, cradling a dachshund in her arms, smiled sweetly. "Veterinarian." "Ummm..." Ji Jue hesitated, almost slipping up and blurting out Lu Changsheng's alias. After weighing his options and hemming and hawing, he considered calling himself Plant Manager, but felt it overlapped too much with Captain. After a moment's reflection, he recalled the trade that had earned him his living back in the day— "Bricklayer." He smiled faintly. "Just call me Bricklayer." It was practically an offline mixer for blue-collar artisans; all they were missing was doing rounds of toasts. Beneath the cold lights, the Captain distributed the briefing documents to everyone. Ji Jue had barely unfolded his when he heard the harsh scrape of a chair against the floor. Right across from him, Pig Bearer's expression shifted drastically. Unable to restrain himself, he shot to his feet, about to speak, the document in his grip crumpling into a tight wad. Yet in the end, under the scrutiny of the room, no sound came out. He slumped back into his chair. His face was utterly bleak. Unable to hold back his curiosity, Ji Jue leaned sideways and whispered conspiratorially, "Grand Craftsman, who is that?" "..." Yellowbeard shot him a glance, his expression aloof, disinclined to answer. Yet noticing the genuine bewilderment in Ji Jue's eyes, he couldn't help feeling suspicious. "You really don't know?" Ji Jue nodded. At that, Yellowbeard fell into an even deeper silence. His expression grew increasingly complicated. *You nearly beat the man to death at the Association just last month, and now you're telling me Hu Jian has been sitting right across from you this whole time and you didn't even recognize him?!* *I thought you were deliberately rubbing it in his face!* *Don't be so ridiculous!* Receiving no answer, Ji Jue had no choice but to look back down, opening the briefing to examine the mission target. Instantly, he couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath of cold air. Haze Workshop? Wait, Haze? Ji Jue stared dumbfounded, rubbing his eyes—there was no mistake. It was Haze, one of the Association's prominent major workshops, the former vanguard of the Vacuum faction—the very same Haze that had produced a director over eighty years ago! They had even received a commendation at the Association just a couple of days ago! *Holy shit, this is huge!*