Luo Island was running out of everything.
Under the scourge of the baneful winds, the specter of the Sea Locusts returned. In barely a single day, massive swarms had already begun congregating across the adjacent waters, drawing in even more colossal beasts.
A full resurgence was only a matter of time.
With huge swarms of Sea Locusts running rampant, all transit with the outside world was severed. Shipping lanes were rendered utterly useless, and beneath the sea's surface gathered vast, grotesque, menacing shadows.
From time to time, dark clouds formed by countless calamity beasts streaked across the vault of heaven, casting down a bone-chilling drone.
Another round of probing attacks had already begun.
Only this time, the human island did not respond as it had before—enduring a savage beating before coughing up small iron containers brimming with food.
Every now and then, a scattering of ravenous Sea Locusts plunged from the sky, diving straight for Luo Island.
Then they slammed into an invisible barrier.
The obstruction flickered briefly like a glass curtain wall. Beneath the Veil, violet lightning and blazing flames burst forth, incinerating every Sea Locust that dared draw near.
Such a dramatic spectacle gave the inhabitants a sense of security unlike anything they had felt before.
Unfortunately, anyone familiar with the inside story knew this was merely a fleeting facade, a false peace.
Luo Island looked secure, but it was hanging by a thread.
Such a vast perimeter of defense and such brilliant destruction came at the cost of immense spiritus consumption. The toll of maintaining round-the-clock protection was enough to break the heart of any city-state. And the consumption demanded by a display as extravagant as the Veil had shown over the past two days was enough to push even a minor city-state to the brink of bankruptcy.
Did Luo Island truly possess such vast wealth?
It was nothing more than borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today.
If not for the food and medicine stockpiled in advance, Luo Island would have already descended into a living hell.
The well-informed had already received the latest intelligence through the Wild Gathering: the fleet dispatched by the Lou family had been stalled on the high seas for nearly two days, unable to advance an inch.
Beneath the raging baneful winds, the hunting grounds of giant calamity beasts were constantly expanding. A fast ship sent out on a gamble had already sunk in the waters near Luo Island.
A two-tailed rust whale had breached from the depths and crushed it to pieces in a single bite, leaving not even a scrap intact.
They had been so close—just an inch away from resupplying Luo Island!
Now, all anyone could do was watch helplessly as precious spiritus crystals and supplies plunged into the depths...
The light produced by the exploding spiritus crystals flickered across the seabed for a full seven or eight hours, wrenching the hearts of all who saw it.
After lingering for a long while, the Lou fleet ultimately chose to turn back.
Time to call it a wrap and grab a boxed lunch.
Putting on a decent show was enough.
After all, the only spiritus the entire fleet carried was whatever had been on that fast ship. The remaining crystals were an order bound for Huanyu Heavy Industries. Once the act was over, they had to rush the shipment back, or the late penalties alone would give Lou Guan a terrible headache.
Meanwhile, what Ji Jue truly needed had long since arrived at Coast's Xinquan factory site and into the hands of Yu Shu.
Three crates, each stamped with the seal of the Federal Security Bureau.
Arranged through an old friend in Midtown contacted by Lou Suwen, vetted and signed off by Pang Pei, they had been requisitioned directly from the bureau's storehouse—Tianyuan Blessings.
At the same time, the Haizhou Security Bureau had to serve as Ji Jue's guarantor, ensuring that these three Blessings would not enter the open market and would never appear in any setting or channel restricted by treaty.
It was fair to say that these three Blessings alone made it well worth Ji Jue joining forces with the Lou family to wage another life-and-death battle against the Xu family.
In the present world, there had only ever been two places where high-tier Tianyuan Blessings could be obtained:
The Federation and the Empire!
More precisely, the Security Bureau and the Secrecy Bureau.
Leveraging their sheer scale and dominance, the twin poles of Tianyuan had joined hands to completely monopolize and lock down the acquisition routes for high-tier Tianyuan Blessings.
After all, the simplest and most effective way to win the favor of Tianyuan was to rely on organizational discipline and sheer volume.
Wild Tianyuan practitioners had no way forward—they had even fewer options than Embers.
With Embers, an artisan could rely on sheer, unreasonable talent to solve the vast majority of problems. But Tianyuan was different. When Tianyuan said no, it truly meant no.
And when Tianyuan said it was 'permissible in principle,' that meant it was still a flat-out no!
Just as an Embers practitioner looking to advance needed to get certified, a Tianyuan practitioner looking to advance had to secure an official bureaucratic post!
Otherwise, how could one rise step-by-step from among the masses to take command of the overall situation?
How many people could lay down a brand-new order from scratch?
Someone like Ji Jue, who could rely on Deus Ex Machina and the omni-domain circulation and management of the Celestial Rail to forcibly carve a Sovereign Axis out of Quancheng, was an anomaly among anomalies.
Even if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't have much confidence in pulling off the same result.
Within the Security Bureau, however, as long as one played a unifying role and served as a linchpin across all sides during critical events and at key posts, there was a chance of success.
Beyond that, many regional assignments were created specifically to grant Blessings. Such special 'dispatches' and temporary postings could even be handed out as rewards and commendations.
To earn them, people broke heads, scrambled, and fought tooth and nail.
No wonder Jin Wuyan had been so envious of Tong Shan back in the Mid-Continent. Jin Wuyan had toiled in the mire for so many years, always falling just short, yet with Ji Jue lending a hand, Brother Plant had effortlessly secured the opportunity for a crucial Blessing.
Even without Ji Jue, Tong Shan would have been among the top tier considered; it never would have fallen to Jin Wuyan.
He had backed the wrong side, handled tasks dirty, and ruined his own reputation.
Jin Wuyan was guilty of all three. What right did he have to compete? Yet up until the moment he died, he had never understood where he fell short.
That was Tianyuan.
The constraints and insularity of Tianyuan, along with the suffocation and hardship within its ranks, surpassed even the other Supreme Goods. Take a single misstep, and even if your life was spared, the lingering political death was enough to drive any ambitious Ascendant out of their mind.
In a way, Ji Jue's decision not to join the Security Bureau had been the optimal choice.
No matter how generously the bureau treated artisans, a glass ceiling remained. The divide between technical roles and administrative posts was vast as the heavens and the abyss.
In contrast, someone like him, who demonstrated genuine value and competence from outside the system, could secure the greatest possible favor while largely avoiding the internal fetters of Tianyuan.
Of course, the most critical prerequisite to all of this was having someone in high places...
That afternoon, the three Blessings were delivered into the Doomsday Express and placed directly into Ji Jue's hands.
Receiving the Chart and Register, Golden Precepts, and Centennial Handle.
Every single one was a heavyweight component of Tianyuan Blessings, an upgrade tantamount to a cheat code, the unattainable ideal and secret dream of every Tianyuan practitioner.
Receiving the Chart and Register represented divinely ordained authority, the favor of Tianyuan.
It holistically enhanced an Ascendant's control over their domain, raised the priority of their edicts, and suppressed or stripped priority from external interference.
Golden Precepts transformed control into edicts within the practitioner's domain, turning that control into an inviolable iron rule capable of elevating followers or deposing rebels at will. It could even be targeted at specific powers and domains. Under the edict of 'Manifest the Supreme Good, Dispel the Great Sin,' it hit corrupted ones dead-on every time. By cutting off the transmutations of Embers, it was an absolute nightmare for artisans like Ji Jue who favored spontaneous hand-crafting on the fly!
Centennial Handle spoke for itself through its name alone: it drastically reduced the stamina and resource consumption of the Tianyuan lineage, substantially boosting the efficacy, duration, and stability of one's edicts.
Claiming that a single word could establish laws for ten thousand generations might be an exaggeration, but investing a sliver of spiritus to ensure a barren harvest with zero rainfall across an entire region for a year was child's play.
And these three Blessings, through specialized refinement and qualitative shifts combined with the secret ritual of the Nine Forms heritage, could form a Blessing Chain.
Its name was Heavenly Constitution!
It was the crucial core required to forge Chixiao, as well as the greatest hurdle that made Chixiao the only one among the Nine Forms that subsequent generations were unable to achieve.
The more his craft improved, the more Ji Jue understood the importance of legacy and guidance. Without a mentor, even if handed the Nine Forms, he wouldn't know how much time he might squander.
His teacher had been right to tell him to put Chixiao aside for the time being. There were too many restrictions and demands; without the foundation in place, no amount of time would allow him to grasp its essence.
The same held true for Yuchang.
In fact, a truly complete Yuchang had even more extreme requirements: 'When an ordinary man is provoked to wrath, blood spatters within five paces.' To achieve Yuchang, the sacrifice required to consecrate and sharpen the blade had to be an authentic oppressor of the people, an arch-tyrant!
It meant slaying a Tianyuan—a genuinely high-ranking Tianyuan who ruled through perverse tyranny. The vermin of the Seven Cities didn't even amount to a fart, and Tyrants didn't qualify either.
In the entire world, only four or five individuals met the mark, the simplest among them being the Federal President and the Imperial Emperor...
Who else was there?
Assassinate Pang Pei or that Tribune of the Plebs from the Empire? It was hard to say whether that was daydreaming or a death wish.
If Ji Jue truly wanted to achieve that, he would have to wait until the next Nirvana gathering to stage a team raid...
Chixiao was just the same.
To achieve Chixiao, one had to rule with arbitrary power and hold immense authority in hand. The greater the power, the broader the sphere of influence, and the firmer the control and dominion, the higher Chixiao's grade would be.
For precisely this reason, over the past four centuries, among the artisan heirs to the Ye clan's Nine Forms, countless counterfeits had been made, but not a single genuine article!
The only weapon that truly deserved to be called genuine had only ever been one!
It was the authentic Chixiao worn by the Second Emperor, the forebear of the Ye bloodline.
When the Eternal Empire collapsed, Chixiao had vanished along with it.
Gone, completely gone. It hadn't been stolen or hidden away; it had genuinely been buried with the empire. Thereafter, Tianyuan had split in two, and even with dominion over the Federation and the Empire, recreating the true brilliance of Chixiao was impossible.
Still... there was no need to go to such extremes, was there?
As long as it worked and was fit for purpose, that was good enough.
Ji Jue had already heavily modified Juque and fused Zhanlu; what was so sacred about Chixiao?
Times had changed. Clinging rigidly to the form and function of a sword was the lowest path. If he truly wanted to hack someone to pieces, was Panying not up to the task?
No wonder his teacher looked down on those useless fools of the Ye family. Clinging blindly to the ancestral ways without daring to change a thing, inventing ways to trip up their successors and pile on difficulties—what could they ever amount to?
*Old ancestor, back then your methods weren't ruthless enough, and they certainly weren't extreme enough!*
*Watch me show you how it's done!*
At that moment, in front of the Crucible, Ji Jue stood with his feet off the ground and his hands clasped behind his back.
He stared at the rising flames before him.
Just like that, well... suspended in midair.
He was engaged in a full-throttle tug-of-war between his head and the workshop. It was only because his Rebirth Form had no fear of strangulation that he didn't end up on the Embers Joke of the Year list.
*Boom!*
A vast sound like the tolling of a great bell erupted from the flames, an unbroken, rolling resonance echoing like chime bells and woodwinds in harmony.
It was as though an entire symphony orchestra had been tossed into the fire.
A solemn, stately aura surged alongside the glow of the iron. Under Ji Jue's control, through an annealing process of two advances and three retreats, the vast, magnificent spiritus circuit was compressed again and again, stamped into the creation inside the Crucible.
Forging the blank for Chixiao was surprisingly simple.
Practically child's play.
Because every part that was difficult as ascending to heaven lay outside the forging itself...
What Ji Jue was doing now was using a vast quantity of precious consumables to build a secret ritual around the three Blessings and the primary material of the Chixiao blank, sealing it to ensure the stable operation of the ritual and a firm connection to reality.
This was merely the first step of the eighty-one tribulations.
*Buzz—!*
Amid a low hum, the light of Chixiao rose from the flames—dim and faint, like a candle in the wind, devoid of any color.
At last, Chixiao fell into Ji Jue's hands.
It was... well, an angular, segmented, heavy, and unadorned... spine.
Ji Jue's spine.
To be precise, a complete central axis running from cervical vertebrae to thoracic, down to lumbar.
In his Rebirth Form, he had ripped out his entire spine to serve as the foundation of Chixiao.
After all, nowhere else in his whole body was more suitable. Connecting above and below, positioned dead center, it was the perfect main axis and support for his Rebirth Form.
With Chunjun in his head and Zhanlu in his heart, paired with the spine of Chixiao, the stability of his Rebirth Form immediately jumped to a whole new level.
As for the price...
There was always a price.
Clutching the completely transformed spine, Ji Jue took a deep breath, gathered his courage, ground his teeth, closed his eyes, and with a sharp *crack*, shoved his original hardware back into place.
Instantly, a deafening crash rang out.
Ji Jue fell backward, convulsing violently. Thick plumes of smoke and sparks billowed from his frame as he spasmed like someone in an epileptic fit.
The rope suspending his body snapped the instant his weight exploded, unable to bear the load. Even the floor cracked and began to sink.
It was as though what had crashed to the floor wasn't Ji Jue, but a mountain of steel coils weighing hundreds, thousands of tons.
His Rebirth Form and flesh body alternated wildly, partially cycling and slipping out of control.
Blood leaked continuously from his nose and mouth, his facial features detached, and his internal organs rebelled. Zhanlu's reaction was fiercer than anticipated; fortunately, Chunjun, as an identical reflection sharing the same origin as his self, suppressed and coordinated the process.
By a hair's breadth, Chixiao was integrated into the Rebirth Form.
And Ji Jue passed out cold.
When he opened his eyes again, half an hour had already slipped by.
"Isis, report... status..." His voice was halting, laced with the harsh grating of scraping metal.
"All normal, sir—and only normal remains," Isis replied calmly. "You always manage to invent clever little techniques and methods to kill yourself. I truly admire you."
"No need to be jealous. It's pure talent."
Ji Jue chuckled intermittently, his entire body smoking.
At the most dangerous moment, he had been a hair away from detonating. Had it not been for the experience he'd accumulated lately by deliberately seeking failure and damage to master the Spontaneous Transformation of All Things, he might well have blown himself into two pieces on the spot.
After wheezing for a long while, he pushed himself up with immense difficulty, leaving two indentations in the floor. He set his facial features back into place, restoring his original appearance, though blood still seeped steadily from his nose and mouth.
There was no helping it; it was simply too heavy, far too burdensome.
The scale of Chixiao was excessive, grander than he had imagined.
Even if it didn't match the scale of 'two capitals and thirteen provinces,' yet now the entirety of Coast—with its three factory sites in Xinquan, Luo Island, and the Mid-Continent—rested firmly on Ji Jue's shoulders.
Ji Jue's immense physical weight at this moment was merely a surface manifestation; what truly altered his mass was the Law of Tianyuan twisting and eroding reality.
Such was the weight of Tianyuan.
The burden Lu Changsheng had borne back in Quancheng must have been countless times more staggering than this.
As Ji Jue gradually reined in this power, its impact on the outside world faded rapidly. The price, however, was that this entire pressure fell squarely upon Ji Jue alone.
It was only because he was accustomed to splitting his focus two or several ways; anyone else would have been entirely overwhelmed just trying to hold up against this crushing weight.
"We can begin, Isis."
He wiped the blood from under his nose and took a deep breath.
He had to begin the secret ritual of Chixiao as soon as possible to distribute this pressure—and ultimately transform it into his own strength!
And so, from that very moment, notices along with brand-new management regulations and systems from Isis were issued, dispatched to the three factory sites in Haizhou, Luo Island, and the Mid-Continent!
Old Gou was baffled, but executed the orders resolutely. Yu Shu was perplexed, but after confirming with Mr. Ji, began pushing forward with all his might. Meanwhile, under the supervision of Paradise, the Luo Island factory site underwent an all-around transformation.
Or rather, it could be called getting on the right track.
That very evening, an operations manual over a hundred pages long was placed in the hands of every member of management, and even ordinary workers received a copy each.
The vast majority consisted of supplements regarding areas that had previously lacked rules, or confirmations and expansions of past management policies.
More than half was bureaucratic filler of no use to ordinary workers.
Only three points truly mattered:
First, ensuring that the factory rules—totalling only twelve and entirely fundamental—were thoroughly implemented. A new oversight department was established to guarantee factory supplies were not resold, Coast's assets were not embezzled, and employees did not feign compliance while acting in defiance.
Second, several strictly forbidden prohibitions were explicitly laid out. Past offenses would not be pursued, but from now on, violators would face zero tolerance and immediate termination upon discovery.
This included ruthlessly strict safety inspections and accident prevention measures. Anyone failing to wear helmets or gloves, or failing to operate machinery and hazardous equipment according to regulations, would face wage cuts and fines at best, and suspension or firing at worst.
Daily working hours were locked down so tightly that not a single second more or less was permitted. Chronic fatigued overtime was strictly forbidden, but so were paid bathroom breaks, slacking off, and loafing around. Paradise's system would set personalized KPI targets based on each person's capabilities and output; failing to meet them three consecutive times meant a one-year freeze on promotions.
At the same time, high-temperature and hazardous-duty allowances were strictly guaranteed to reach every employee's hands down to the last penny, with the finance department barred from any delays whatsoever. On top of existing benefits, year-end bonuses across the board were raised by a uniform twenty percent...
This unprecedentedly strict management regime slammed like a club onto the heads of all the scavengers. Just as everyone was seeing stars and losing their bearings, the boss stuffed their mouths full of sweet carrots.
Once they came to their senses, they broke into tears.
It was as though they had found a long-lost, stern father, tears streaming down their faces.
So much so that across the various factory sites, flowers, fruit offerings, and incense sticks placed beneath the factory director's portrait proved impossible to stop despite repeated bans...
Strict was certainly strict, but when it came to payouts, he truly delivered.
The director genuinely wanted everyone to make money!
*Sob, sob, sob... Director, oh my dear Director...*
Consequently, waves of dizziness began washing over Ji Jue's vision.
The essence of Chixiao lay in holding power and ruling with arbitrary authority—the stick had to strike hard enough, and the carrot had to taste sweet enough. Through this two-pronged approach, establishing or seizing command of a brand-new order from scratch served to share the burden of Tianyuan's pressure with the creator, and even act as a font of strength to prop up the framework of Chixiao.
Only, why had the visual hallucinations over the past two days been growing more and more frequent?
Whenever his head spun, who the hell were those people raising both hands, weeping profusely, and jumping up and down cheering at him?!
Ji Jue's fists clenched on instinct.
*Wait, are you workhorses so idle that you're mocking me for giving you an unsaturated workload?*
*In that case, the employees will just have to suffer a little more.*
"Isis, ramp it up directly!" Ji Jue squeezed out through gritted teeth. "The mandatory night-school training program for entry-level staff is ready to go live."
Then he noticed... the frequency of blackouts before his eyes grew even higher.
And those people were jumping around even more ecstatically!
Chapter 751