A Chorus of Barking Dogs

The whole affair turned into a game of pouring water into a glass to see who would make it overflow first. A peculiar sort of contest broke out between the two. Ji Jue added a bit, Hu Jian added a bit, Ji Jue added another bit, Hu Jian added yet another... You submit a suite of Ascension techniques from the Transmutation branch, I throw in an application of Solid Alchemy. When Lou Feng happened to walk past, Ji Jue hauled him over and had him contribute an application he had pieced together from his family heritage to the spiritus refinement section. As a result, the content piled up higher and higher. Back and forth it went, through seven or eight drafts, until it was finally submitted to the review panel... where, as luck would have it, they ran into someone who loved nothing more than stirring the pot. Aignu, the chief reviewer, took one glance at the manuscript and immediately burst out laughing. *Look at how lively this is. Well then, I'm chipping in too!* So he tacked a bit of biology onto the Transmutation section... With that, the pressure landed squarely in the hands of the next panel member. Staring at the manuscript, he lapsed into a long silence. He really didn't want to get involved, but he couldn't very well let people say he had nothing of value to offer. And so, the people down the line started adding their own contributions as well. Just like that, it grew by leaps and bounds. What had started as a simple revision turned into an internal, master-level crowdfunding spree that spiraled completely out of control during the review phase. You add a trick, I add a method. Even Yellowbeard was dragged in by Aignu to append a Northern Realm runic application to the Purification section. To put it plainly, they were passing around a live bomb. One after another, each person tossed in something of their own... Until it finally detonated in Jiang Tongguang's hands. "Hey, you motherfucker..." During the director approval phase, Jiang Tongguang looked at the compendium, which had swollen to a quarter thicker than its original draft, and couldn't help laughing out loud. Glancing at Ji Jue's name on the cover, he marveled, "This kid sure knows how to stir up trouble!" Kicking open the door to the president's office, he tossed the manuscript straight at Gustav. "Come on, take a look at this, Mr. President." Jiang Tongguang gave a wry sigh. "That oddball you took under your wing has pulled off another massive stunt at this exact juncture..." Gustav remained as expressionless as ever. Flipping through it casually from beginning to end, he merely asked in return, "Is this a bad thing?" "Good or bad aside, have you considered the backlash once it's published?" "What kind of backlash could there possibly be?" Gustav gave a cold, aloof chuckle. "It's nothing more than teaching a little extra. Can the sky fall because of that?" Could the sky fall? Hardly. No matter how many applications and techniques had been added, none of it touched the core secrets. At most, it was merely letting a few scraps slip through the cracks of their fingers. Even if it touched upon the taboos and deep-seated ailments of master-apprentice traditions that had persisted for centuries, what of it? What harm was there in teaching a little more genuine knowledge? If you refused to teach it yourself, could you really stop others from teaching it? Could you stop every apprentice slaving away in the workshops from spending a few coins to buy a book and study on their own? Even if this merely jarred the shackles, even if it only pried open the narrowest of cracks in the chains binding those apprentices, how could anyone stop prisoners from yearning for the scenery beyond that sliver of light? Hu Jian had staked a lifetime of face and reputation, casting them aside just to impart more knowledge. As president, was Gustav supposed to drag his feet and sabotage him? "Pay no mind to the rest. If anyone on the Board of Directors has an objection, tell them to take it up directly with me." Gustav signed his name on the document with a casual stroke of his pen. "If he wants to teach, let him teach!" And so, amidst the eerie silence of the Board of Directors, the expanded and heavily augmented eighth edition of the *Compendium of Historical Discussions on the Four Fundamentals of Alchemy* officially passed review. Printed and published! *** "I'm sorry, Master. An urgent matter came up at home recently, and I truly can't step away." In the quiet office under the afternoon sunlight, the air felt almost frozen. The helpless young man offered his resignation with both hands, lowering his head in regretful apology. "When I was young, how could there have been so many distractions?" The master's brow furrowed. "Can't you overcome it? The workshop is at a critical juncture right now. If you leave, there's no one else to hand your duties over to. "Can't you hold on a bit longer? "I was planning to raise your rank and pay soon, too." Scatena remained silent, his head still bowed. After a long pause, he gave a wistful sigh. "I've failed your expectations. I am truly sorry." "..." The craftsman's gaze gradually cooled. Looking down at the resignation letter, he signed his name, then offered a faint smile. "Go on, then. It must be nice to be young. The workshop will always be your home. Once you're done dealing with things, remember to come back." "I definitely will." Scatena nodded gratefully, rose slowly, and took his leave. Only after a long while did the craftsman finally step out of the dead-silent office into the workshop. Watching the few apprentices quietly exchanging glances, his expression darkened uncontrollably. "What are you staring at? Are all of you that idle?" he barked in fury. "Get back to work!" At once, the floor erupted into bustling noise once more. Yet among the workstations, one figure was now missing. In the cramped dormitory, Scatena gathered his luggage and backpack. Taking one last look at the crack in the wall, he thought for a moment and decided to leave his bedding behind. It was too heavy and cumbersome to carry. "It's yours," he said with a relieved breath, turning to his roommate. "Don't you always complain about how cold the winters are?" His disheveled roommate froze. Forgetting to shovel food into his mouth, he set his bowl down in disbelief. "Wait... you're really leaving?" "Is there any point in staying?" Scatena asked in return. "I've worked in this workshop for eight years. Eight whole years. Aside from menial chores and trivial scraps, what have I learned?" "..." The roommate fell silent. "I admit my talent is limited. I won't hold the master back anymore," Scatena said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "From now on, I'll carve out my own living." The roommate hesitated. "Where... do you plan to go? Are you really going to become a wandering apprentice, drifting from odd job to odd job?" "I don't know." Scatena lowered his head in silence, looking at the box in his arms—the heavy, full set of the compendium. After a long while, he let out a soft sigh. "I just want to go out and see the world. Even if I don't learn a thing, just seeing more of it will be enough." The roommate said nothing. He patted Scatena on the shoulder, took the heavy box from his arms, and walked him out of the workshop. Beneath the blazing sun, the early winter already carried a subtle bite of chill. At last, he placed the box back into Scatena's arms. "Wait for me... wait for me in the city for two days," his roommate whispered in his ear during their parting embrace. "I'm coming with you." Scatena blinked, staring at him. The roommate flashed a grin, turned around, and walked back into the workshop. Two days later, in a cramped, budget inn in a seaside town, a knock sounded at the door, and Scatena found the exhausted young man standing outside. The two looked at each other in silence, needing no words. Setting his bags on the floor, the young man downed two bottles of water in a single breath and let out a long sigh. "This time, I've thoroughly offended the master... There's no staying there anymore. Have you thought about where we should go?" Scatena pondered for a moment, his fingers brushing the thick cover of the compendium. "I heard Master Hu plans to revive the Haze lineage soon... How about we head to Tianshu?" "The ferry tickets are pretty steep, though." "Word is they're hiring over along the coast lately, and the pay is quite good. Celestial Chosen even get extra allowances and bonuses," Scatena suggested. "Earn some coin first?" "Then what are we waiting for?" The young apprentice broke into a broad grin, hoisted his luggage onto his shoulder, and chuckled. "Let's get moving!" Amidst the shimmering ripples of water, the port echoed with the horn of departing ships. They vanished into the crowd, gone from sight. The workshop, having lost two apprentices, remained as bustling as ever. Before long, two fresh, tender faces took their place, their eyes wide with naive wonder and longing—just like every newcomer before them. Whether coming or going, all were filled with hope. Gazing toward the future. *** There was no widespread outrage, nor was there any chorus of complaints. The release of the eighth edition of the compendium was met with explosive popularity, drawing swarms of eager buyers. Even the steep price tag of more than a dozen credits could not dampen their fervor. Ten credits might have been trivial to a craftsman, but a registered apprentice might toil for an entire year without saving that much... Yet as word spread from one person to ten, and ten to a hundred, even the most skeptical pooled their credits with peers to buy a shared set, or passed copies around to borrow and study. Unfortunately, buying it was not the same as studying it. And studying it did not guarantee one could master it. While the mediocre gnawed furiously at the foundational chapters with bloodshot eyes, genuinely gifted apprentices felt their eyes light up at the supplementary material at the back, which read like sacred scripture, even if they could only grasp a fraction of it. In fact, it wasn't just apprentices. Even craftsmen found themselves burning the midnight oil and scratching their heads in bewilderment over article after article of supplementary material so intricate they had no idea where to even begin. *Wait, what the hell... is this really considered 'foundational'?!* Good news: the old fossils were finally teaching the Flame Mantra. Bad news: nobody could understand it! And the vast majority of buyers, upon glancing at the author credits and preface on the front page, wore the expression of an old man squinting at a smartphone. *Wait, what the hell is this?* Listed right after Hu Jian among the editorial board was the second author... *Wait, who the hell is Ji Jue?!* *Is it the Ji Jue I'm thinking of?* *Holy shit, it really is him!* Inside the Association, the bystanders who had been waiting to enjoy a good drama were completely thrown for a loop. They flipped through the entire compendium over and over, utterly unable to comprehend what they were seeing. *No, brother, have you lost your mind?* *Weren't the two of you at each other's throats just a couple of days ago? How did you suddenly turn as thick as thieves today?* *Sliding to your knees is one thing, but did you really have to get a rookie who hasn't even been a craftsman for a full year to write your preface?!* The world had simply changed too fast. People struggled to process it, feeling as though they had missed two full episodes of a show and had no one to ask for a recap. Facing such skepticism, Hu Jian remained as indifferent as ever. Offering no response whatsoever, he submitted his resignation to the Association, announced the revival of the Haze lineage, and cast aside the status he had painstakingly built over decades. He packed his bags and prepared to leave Tianshu for his hometown. As for the flurry of furious denouncements that fell like snowflakes—accusing him of 'aiming too high,' 'misleading the youth,' and 'harboring vile intentions'—he merely sneered, entirely unbothered. And as for the apprentices resigning and the grievances that followed, what did that have to do with him? Those hypocrites who knew only how to dangle carrots and exploit apprentices, now sent into a panic by a single reference book—their howling might have sounded sweet to his ears, but their ugly grimaces were an eyesore. *If you want to make fools of yourselves, keep barking. I'd lose just by sparing you a glance.* No matter how much resentment or resistance festered behind closed doors, hardly any craftsman dared to openly object in public. In fact, they even had to hold their noses and utter a few words of thanks. This was genuinely the most valuable compendium the Association had published in recent years—perhaps even in decades. Not only did it reveal genuine secret arts and techniques, but its contributor lineup was terrifyingly formidable. Even setting aside Hu Jian's previous standing, one only had to look at the authors credited in the supplementary content... Aside from Ji Jue, every single one of them was a Master! And as for Ji Jue himself, after this episode, everyone understood that the bastard was truly not far from reaching the rank of Master. Hu Jian had used his own lifetime of prestige and reputation as a stepping stone for him. On top of that came the endorsements of all the other contributors, not to mention the completely unreserved, comprehensive trade secrets—spanning from pure theory to practical execution—laid bare in the supplements. He had even made Fluid Alchemy public! And he hadn't shown the slightest reluctance or regret. One had to understand that even the most fragmented scraps of that knowledge, if cobbled together and padded out, could easily earn an A-grade evaluation on a thesis. Yet he had casually tossed it all into a reference compendium for the world to see, without filing for patents or even slipping in a backdoor! When he taught, he genuinely held nothing back! *Well, since you've laid it all out, don't mind if we help ourselves.* Just as countless craftsmen were burning the midnight oil to dissect the supplementary material in hopes of producing breakthrough results, Ji Jue turned around and tossed a brand-new paper straight to Tianshu, sparking a colossal uproar. This time, the review panel that had casually joined in the fun just days earlier went completely numb. The paper, running a mere few tens of thousands of words, felt featherlight in the hand. Yet its contents read like absolute fantasy. From inside out, top to bottom, every reviewer's face scrunched into a tight knot. *What the absolute hell...* *What do you mean by the 'Method of Sacrificing Mass to Increase Quality'?!* *You're telling me that by following this procedure, heavily consuming a creation's mass and durability can somehow, miraculously, raise its grade out of nowhere?!* *Wait, how does that make any sense?* *—And what on earth is this 'Three-Phase Alchemy' you're talking about?!* From beginning to end, he once again held nothing back. Even the underlying theory and principles were laid out with crystalline clarity, spelled out in painstaking detail as if terrified someone might fail to learn it. And yet... it was impossible to verify. Because the conditions this bastard described were so labyrinthine and the prerequisites so punishingly strict that no one else could possibly replicate them! Without the empowerment of Fluid Alchemy, one couldn't even complete the first step. And without Non-Offensive's terrifying precision, the furnace would explode long before the creation did. At the same time, it was impossible to disprove. Every principle and detail was firmly rooted in the bedrock of modern alchemy, harmonious and self-consistent without a single contradiction. Anyone reading it was instinctively compelled to believe it was sound. And so, the reviewers couldn't laugh anymore. The amusement died. They started tearing their hair out. Normally, when faced with such an outlandish submission, the panel would dismiss it as fever-dream gibberish and bounce it back with a simple stamp of 'pending verification.' Unfortunately, this dog Ji Jue was hardly an ordinary person. Not only did he have Ye Xian backing him and two Golden Ribbons to his name, but he also enjoyed Gustav's unwavering patronage. Even on the Board of Directors, he carried serious weight. In the end, the review panel expanded its ranks twice specifically for this paper, bringing in specialists from related fields. Yet the invited Masters ended up running straight into a wall in dead silence. After several alchemical furnaces blew up in succession, their final verdict was completely ambiguous. *Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.* *The theory makes sense on paper, but reality is still reality.* *In short, you know how it is...* *Forget calling this alchemy—you might as well call it celestial sorcery!* Left with no other choice, the review panel threw its hands up in despair. Over the years, they had evaluated plenty of epoch-making S-grade achievements and seen no shortage of bizarre, sensationalist monstrosities. Yet they had crashed and burned before this singular creation. They couldn't even disprove it. Helpless, they could only pass the buck upward. From the shell-shocked review panel to the shell-shocked Board of Directors, and from the Board of Directors to a shell-shocked Gustav. But Gustav was just as baffled. After staring at it wide-eyed for half a day, he signed his name and tossed it further up... All the way to the Grandmasters. Among the three Grandmasters, Tianlu was still recuperating from his injuries, while Cast Plowman remained locked away in isolation, leaving messages on read while absorbed in his own work. Only the Scavenger, an elderly woman who had made rare public appearances lately, took a glance at it during a break in her convalescence. And then she burst out laughing. Word was that she hadn't laughed so heartily in years. From start to finish, she offered only two remarks. The first was an astonished lament over the young man's deranged imagination and bizarre thought process: *"Very imaginative, but please, don't do it again."* The second was a resounding affirmation of the paper's findings. She said, *"It works. Anyone with hands can do it."* Which meant: unless you were a Grandmaster, Ji Jue was the only person on earth whose hands could pull it off. Thus, under the Grandmaster's affirmation and endorsement, a spectacle unprecedented in the Association's centuries of history came to pass: a paper that literally no one aside from its author could replicate, and which anyone of lesser skill couldn't even begin to fathom, was miraculously awarded an A+! At the same time, Three-Phase Alchemy was officially registered and cataloged within the Association without even possessing a public foundational theory... And the year wasn't even over yet! Which meant... another damn Golden Ribbon was practically set in stone! Just like that, like something out of a horror story, less than a single year after becoming a craftsman, the three Golden Ribbons serving as the stepping stones to the rank of Master were already in his grasp! It was virtually an absolute certainty. What was even more terrifying was that when everyone looked back, they realized... out of the ten Golden Ribbons awarded this year, Ji Jue had practically claimed four all on his own! No one knew how many craftsmen languishing in line to build seniority were left weeping without tears. And even then, they still had to say 'thank you' to Mr. Ji... Because anyone who used their brain for a second would realize that he had genuinely shown mercy. Never mind what kind of celestial sorcery Three-Phase Alchemy was; Fluid Alchemy was still clutched firmly in that bastard's hands! Just looking at the caliber of Ji Jue's papers made it obvious: to claim he hadn't completed the modern adaptation and revision of Fluid Alchemy was an utter impossibility. And the only reason he held off on publishing it was glaringly obvious... He was holding it back until he reached the Master rank, saving it to seize the Crown of Glory for lifetime achievement! As everyone knew, just as Golden Ribbons were the threshold for becoming a Master, possessing a Crown of Glory was a hard requirement for vying for a seat on the Board of Directors... Truly, the matter didn't bear close scrutiny. The more one thought about it, the more terrifying it became, and the more unlivable life seemed! Back when Ye Xian made her debut, she had slaughtered her way straight through, relying on sheer brilliance to blast an unobstructed path to the Master rank—and that had been terrifying enough. How many years had everyone had to recover? Yet now, here came Ji Jue, who could bite just as hard and barked even louder. The people who had lived through Ye Xian's era were beginning to lose their minds all over again. *Please, big brother, can you dial back the divine powers?* *How long has it even been?!* *** "How long has it been already?" Under the afternoon sun, the 'bedridden' Tianlu slumped in a rocking chair, shaking his head and tilting the hole in his forehead. He let out a long sigh of disappointment, lamenting his apprentice's slow progress. "He's young, after all. His progress is still a bit sluggish." "..." Beside him, the old fogey Qitan, who had been knitting a yarn doll with his head down, suddenly clenched his fists tight. In the silence, he turned a dark, dead-eyed glare upon him—*why didn't White Owl's shot just finish you off?* *Seriously, if you're that bored, why don't you slit your throat or hang yourself to give everyone some entertainment instead?!* As for Tianlu, having finished his commentary on Ji Jue's paper, he leisurely picked up the telephone and expertly dialed a number. After a long dial tone, the call disconnected. It hadn't gone through. Far from discouraged, he redialed, got hung up on again, and redialed once more... Until the person on the other end was pushed past the brink of endurance! Finally, the call connected. "Hello, A-Yuan? Have you eaten?" Tianlu grinned, ignoring the dark malice radiating from the other end of the line, and asked casually, "Isn't your organization kicking up a bit too much of a fuss lately?"