The Ship

In just a few short months, going from a blank slate to Metamorphosis sounded exaggerated, but the prerequisite was the supply of all Haian and support from Paradise. With Ji Jue providing such generous conditions, if one still struggled to take each step, one would have to reconsider whether they were even cut out for it. What was more, Yan Chang was an autonomously awakened elite of Supreme Goodness in his own right, which gave him wings. His current pace came only after repeatedly consolidating his foundation and basics, advancing only when he could no longer hold it back. It couldn't be helped: with Heart Pivot, thoughts flowed clear and unimpeded; with Ascension, enlightenment came overnight. Their speed was simply fast—absurdly fast—something others couldn't envy even if they tried. By comparison, Embers was arguably the slowest of all the branches of Supreme Goodness, second only to the Eternal Gate. Although Tianyuan's progress was slow, so long as a benefactor promoted you, you could soar to the heights; even if one's post and rank were low, the sheer weight of authority carried by certain key positions could be terrifyingly high! White Stag demanded prey, but as long as you could constantly overcome the strong as the weak and fell quarry far beyond your level, Big Bro White Stag wouldn't even count how many zeros he keyed in when dishing out rewards. As for Embers... put it this way: in the same amount of time, Desolate Ruins might have already perfected Metamorphosis, and Ascension might have stepped into Regeneration, while an Embers practitioner from the same cohort was still grinding away at exams, fighting for an artisan license and basic human rights within the association. Some things simply couldn't be compared. Ji Jue pulled several books from his pocket. "These are some of my insights from recently, along with a few revised techniques. Remember to bring them to your brother." "And these?" Yan Chang looked at the massive book trunk behind Ji Jue, full of curiosity. "The error log." Ji Jue placed stack after stack of books before him. "Keep an eye on him later and make sure he finishes this book of practice questions. I'll give you the answer key later. For every question he gets wrong, he has to write an analysis of at least a thousand words. Collect them all before handing them to me." "Alright." Yan Chang nodded repeatedly, a gentle smile on his lips. After all, his older brother had been shouldering a rocket launcher and blowing things up every day lately, which was getting a bit out of hand. A little extra homework would do him good. "Come on, take a look." Ji Jue led Yan Chang toward the massive House God that had been waiting for a long time. In the vast, cavernous underground space, the vague silhouette of the House God materialized. It reached out and pulled open its chest, where countless flesh-like strands of entangled spiritus revealed blurred face after blurred face. As these faces coalesced, they formed the outline of Bustamante. Using numerous bloodline descendants as the foundation, gradually substituting them one by one—sacrificing the plum to save the peach—he had constructed his cornerstone out of the chaos within the House God, and then relied on the patriarch's authority to advance step by step. Through the gradual infiltration of countless souls and continuous overwriting using his own memories—a two-pronged approach of permeation and staining—by now, Bustamante could practically be called the House God itself. Even though his survival hung on a single thought from Minkler. As for the layers of spiritus circuits running from the inside out, they were the shackles and new framework imposed by Lou Feng. Even if derived from the same principles, the gulf between formal training and crude self-taught methods was immeasurable. Efficiency and effectiveness had more than doubled, while consumption had dropped to a third of what it once was. "It's very simple, not troublesome at all." After a brief inspection, Yan Chang reached out and began reading the countless memories Bustamante had preserved within the House God. What rushed toward him was the tireless, painstaking research conducted across countless days and nights, failure after failure, setback after setback, racking his brains until he finally overcame hurdles that seemed trivial to Ji Jue. Yet constrained by his own aptitudes, he could only copy down the correct answers and reap a meager pittance of results. Already well along in years, by day he rubbed shoulders with the vermin of the Seven Cities in petty scheming; in the evening, he forced himself to take drugs and host orgies; and at night, when everyone else was asleep, he dragged a body hollowed out by booze and lust, choking down supplements and stimulating tonics to burn the midnight oil, studying everything about the House God and formulating his plans... Scheming to gather materials to plug gaps in his research, while taking every conceivable pain to cover his tracks and conceal his true goals and design. Such days began at age twenty, when ambition for the patriarch's seat first took root, and persisted unbroken until his death, without a single day's pause. Day upon day, drops of water wearing through stone. Bustamante's life could truly be described as a life of forbearance, of struggle, and of unyielding persistence. Yet when Yan Chang lowered his hand, his expression turned puzzled. "No problems found, Mr. Ji." He turned back to look at Ji Jue. "Although Bustamante's memories and consciousness are incomplete, in terms of continuity, there are no gaps, nor any traces of influence exerted by Heart Pivot..." Ji Jue grew immediately doubtful. "Is an obsession this deep really normal?" "Umm..." Yan Chang's expression turned odd. "A, well, 'person' like Mr. Bustamante is different from others. His craving and thirst for power far exceed ordinary or even abnormal levels; it's almost more important to him than his own life. Rather than calling it an obsession, it's more accurate to say it's a fear of losing power." The sweeter power was, the less one could bear to let that sweetness slip from one's grasp. The higher one's station, the less one could endure falling from the pedestal. As patriarch, Bustamante was inherently a standard political creature cultivated by centuries of the Chopra family—power was his very lifeblood, and he could never relax his grip for an instant. "Anything else?" Feeling a touch of disappointment, Ji Jue waved his hand, figuring he might just be paranoid, seeing ghosts around every corner. "Check once more. If there's nothing, then forget it." "No need to check again." Yan Chang shook his head decisively. "If we're talking about something strange, I've already found it." The Matrix [Avidya] possessed an essential distinction from other directions of Heart Pivot. After integrating Ascension, its control over emotions and memories was not particularly remarkable; instead, it placed far more emphasis on inner obsessions and yearnings. Seeing through delusion, severing afflictions. If one could not even see clearly the source of an obsession or the root of vexation, how could one speak of 'severing all delusion, folly, and inverted dreams'? What he excelled at most was tracing the origin of this obsession, digging to the very bottom to find the fountainhead of this ambition and fear... unearthing that initial spark of obsession rooted deep within the soul, to sever it, correct it, or soothe it. When this thread—one that even Bustamante himself had never realized—was seized in his grasp, countless fractured memories linked into a cohesive line. Tracing backward, seeking the source. Complex memories and obsessions, far more vast than an ancient tree, began to recurse backward, rewinding, tracing back to their origin—further and further back. Countless fleeting glimpses rushed past his eyes. Those blurred yet tangible memories surged forward before vanishing without a trace, leaping across fault lines one after another, until at last they unearthed the fountainhead of an obsession that even Bustamante had long forgotten. "Found it!" Yan Chang smiled faintly, turned, and reached out to Ji Jue. Without the slightest doubt, Ji Jue gripped his hand tightly, opening his perception and soul. He let the youth grasp his hand and give a sharp tug; soul, consciousness, and perception plummeted as if plunging through a tunnel. Yet in just a brief instant, an unexpected scene rushed to meet them! A quiet afternoon. The sunlight was blurred, and many details were distorted, warped, and contradictory, yet the paintings before them were remarkably clear. As if standing inside a museum. Ji Jue descended into Bustamante's memory. He looked around. Bustamante, who followed closely behind, also froze in disbelief. This was a memory from when he was sixteen! "Do you still remember this?" Ji Jue asked. "A little, it seems..." Bustamante looked around, stopping beside a handsome young man and examining his appearance. "This was me back then." Ji Jue glanced at the face and couldn't help rolling his eyes. Even if memories came with a beauty filter, this old fogey had taken self-flattery way too far! "Where is this?" Ji Jue asked. "Probably the family gallery. I remember now—a few years later, a fire broke out here, burning up many valuable collections. Father threw a furious temper for quite a while back then." Bustamante sighed softly, following the gaze of his past self toward the wall. Toward a massive oil painting. This was a neglected corner of the gallery, clearly overlooked, yet it had held the adolescent Bustamante completely spellbound: beneath a dark, gloomy sky, amid a howling tempest, a battered ship on the verge of falling apart plowed through the surging waves, forging ahead undaunted! The brushwork was decent, but lacked groundbreaking innovation; it was overly workmanlike, realistic at best. On the brass plaque below the frame, the painting's title was inscribed: [Theseus] Yan Chang snapped his fingers, and the frozen memory began to flow. "Theseus?" The young Bustamante asked in confusion, "Why is it called that?" "It's said to be the name of a hero of divine blood from before the Age of Chaos, even earlier than that. Ah, back then, the heroes of the earth were said to be the descendants left behind by the gods." The caretaker standing beside Bustamante sighed with emotion. "According to the surviving records, this hero moved a great boulder in his youth to claim the weapons left by his father. He slew villains all along the way, saw through the witch's deceit, braved countless perils, and eventually inherited the throne. "His greatest achievement was venturing deep into the labyrinth and slaying the brutal bull-headed monster..." The caretaker babbled on about myths of the past, but the details in the memory had grown hazy. What remained crystal clear was the old man's concluding remark: "However, later on, what this king became most famous for was actually a philosophical paradox. Perhaps that is where this painting gets its name?" "A paradox?" Bustamante didn't understand. "Indeed." The caretaker seemed to chuckle, sighing softly as he looked toward the massive oil painting. "Suppose a brand-new sailing ship takes to the sea. Weathering storms and passing years, it undergoes endless repairs, maintenance, and replacements of damaged equipment... As time flows, its original crew members grow old one by one and leave the ship, but new sailors constantly arrive to take their places. "When the very last plank of the original vessel is replaced, and the last of the original crew dies of old age, can this ship still be considered the original ship?" The youth looked puzzled, falling silent as if in deep thought. "...It should still count," Bustamante said decisively. "Is that so?" The caretaker looked over, seemingly curious. "Why?" "Whether the crew and equipment remain in their original state is beside the point... It doesn't matter at all." Bustamante lifted his head, looking at the sailing ship in the oil painting that still forged ahead amid the raging storm. He said firmly, "What matters is that the ship is still that ship—the ship that can keep riding the wind and cleaving the waves—" In that instant, accompanying his words, an insight arose in the boy's heart that even he had not consciously recognized, the fountainhead of an obsession he had never perceived looking back upon his whole life. Bustamante's eyes lit up. So long as the ship was still the ship, that was enough! Whether it kept its original form didn't matter at all. What mattered wasn't even the ship itself. Rather... A ship that belongs to me!