"Truly, fine timber and precious jade."
Fernand murmured softly as he gazed at the face that had shattered and reassembled once more. He made no effort to hide his admiration, nor did he rein in his contempt and disdain.
He knew Ji Jue was engaged in trial and error.
Ji Jue was using him, his enemy—and even using Ji Jue himself—to test and retest, endlessly attempting to scale the towering peak before him.
No matter how many times he fell and smashed to pieces.
Yet right before Fernand's eyes, Ji Jue, who had initially been powerless to fight back, was breaking through his fixed limits again and again, holding out longer and longer each time.
The height he scaled was gradually surpassing the theoretical ceiling.
This no longer had anything to do with talent.
It was a deeper, more secretive, and more unyielding obsession. A single resolute thought, hard as iron and stone—was that not the very essence of Embers?
Even when driven to a dead end, he still could not cast aside his presumptuous arrogance.
Yet what of it?
Was anyone any different?
Just as Fernand had never refused Ji Jue's repeated, futile challenges, Ji Jue had likewise refrained from completely shattering the last thread of Fernand's Celestial-Human Foundation.
This was not mercy, but a duel that wagered life, soul, and the dignity of craftsmen.
In an endless struggle, victory and defeat turned the score back around step by step, exhausting every stroke of luck across infinite trials, errors, and possibilities.
Amidst countless exchanges of victory and defeat, only the true victor, the true winner, the truly stronger craftsman could stand to the very end.
The capable shall prevail!
Craftsmen were precisely such eccentrics. They prided themselves on being rational, yet reason had never mattered. They valued talent beyond measure, yet at times they did not give a damn about talent at all.
They would even deliberately plunge themselves into the mire.
Even if reduced to crude, stubborn stone, they would still struggle and resist beyond their strength!
"Cease your delusions, Ji Jue!"
The rattle of grains echoed again. Fernand waved his hand coldly, and the dissolution of the One-Foot Rod reduced the mangled form before him to fragments for the umpteenth time.
"The limits of talent are not something mere obsession and resolve can shatter. If your foundation was built on this, how can you negate yourself?"
Pure Lie negated the three-phase cycle. The transmutation from Fernand seeped through in an instant, methodically picking it apart and dissolving the newly reassembled body once more.
Deflecting and striking in one breath.
Causing Ji Jue's ascent to plunge once again.
Futile after all.
"Indeed."
Ji Jue sighed softly with regret, lowering his head to look at his regenerated form, which was already bordering on its absolute limit.
Chunjun sent out warning after warning. His soul was stretched to the brink. If this went on, unstoppable reification would erode his soul in reverse, homogenizing Ji Jue's selfhood, joys, angers, and sorrows into a cold, flat intellect without ripples.
Ninety li was only half of a hundred-li journey.
A mountain nine fathoms high, unfinished by a single basket.
Even though he had repeatedly wrought countless incredible miracles, progress was now hard to come by. No matter how he tried and explored, the feedback brought by Heaven Moves Vigorous grew weaker and weaker against all resistance, until now it could be entirely ignored.
Fernand could sense it, and Ji Jue could sense it just as clearly.
At this moment, Ji Jue had reached the limit of what crude stone could achieve. At best, he had attained three-fifths of his former capacity.
The existence of natural gift and talent cruelly dictated the floor and the ceiling.
Relying solely on obsession and determination, he could no longer sustain it.
What was needed was deeper accumulation, vast oceans of time, and round after round of futile attempts.
Just like Master Duan Mu of old, enduring his own unrefined talent, suffering day after day in pursuit of that illusory gleam of late blooming.
Until he genuinely broke through his own limits, or... before that, was burned to ash, reduced to cinders in the furnace.
How cruel was the gift of Embers!
Ji Jue let out a rueful sigh and did not draw his sword to issue another challenge.
Let it end here.
"Is playtime over, Ji Jue?"
Fernand asked indifferently, "You can go again. I'll give you a chance. As long as you still have courage, feel free to challenge me as many times as you like."
"No, there's little point in that anymore."
Ji Jue gave a soft sigh and smiled faintly. Full of gratitude, he nodded in respect to the senior before him. "Thanks to you, I think I roughly understand..."
He said:
"—The so-called All Things Self-Transform!"
Fernand's pupils contracted sharply.
Heaven and earth shook violently.
In the night sky, the magnificent blazing sun woven from boundless firefly light suddenly swelled to its limit and broke apart...
Chixiao was no more.
Taking its place were countless stars, surging upward like a grand conflagration of kindling.
The Heavenly Furnace tipped over, crafting the common and mundane.
The faint, stagnant firefly glow swiftly faded. Embers of Supreme Goodness descended here as sovereign!
Beams of burning light gathered from the celestial dome, pouring toward the mortal realm and showering over Ji Jue like an infinite waterfall.
Right before Fernand's eyes, the radiant glow of a blessing circulated, manifesting from Ji Jue's soul to complete the final link of the Regeneration tier. This was the acknowledgment and bestowal from the Embers.
All Things Self-Transform!
Beneath the reflection of that wisp of light, the stain of sinking vanished into smoke. The crude stone cracked open, and a brilliant, pure radiance manifested anew from the fissures.
Everything Ji Jue had lost returned in full—and shone even brighter than before!
The world before his eyes was so clear, the transformations of all things so distinct, and the circulation of everything so wondrous... It was as though he had changed his eyes, changed his body, or even entered a completely different world.
Yet Ji Jue felt that all he had done was raise his eyes from the sealed well of the past, naturally taking in the firmament, the sun, and the moon.
The loftiness of heaven, the brilliance of the sun and moon—they had never shifted, waxed, or waned because of mere mortals. They had always been right there; you simply had never noticed them.
"Just as you said, Fernand. Playtime is over."
Ji Jue sighed softly and withdrew his gaze from the sky, looking at his opponent. He told him, "Next, it's your turn to challenge me—"
Fernand remained silent, expressionless.
Only a network of cracks snaked across his face, sketching the contours of rage.
"Come, I'll give you a chance!"
Just as Fernand had once done, Ji Jue spread his hands wide and made a generous pledge: "As many times as you want!"
A new game had begun.
It did not matter how many times you wished to restart; I will accompany you to the very end, until you give up, until you choose to admit defeat!
Fernand remained silent and speechless. He merely raised his hand once more.
The short rod in his grip abruptly cracked.
The One-Foot Rod swelled rapidly. Two conflicting phantom lights collided incessantly, running at full power to trigger unprecedented paradox and distortion, locking onto Ji Jue!
In the snap of a finger, sixty-four times!
Sixty-four parallel instances of infinite dissolution landed on Ji Jue in an instant. In that same instant, Ji Jue fell to pieces and knit back together, completely intact.
One could even say it had had no effect whatsoever!
The initial strikes of all sixty-four infinite dissolutions missed entirely. At the very instant of lock-on, just before dissolution could commence, Ji Jue had dismantled himself one step ahead.
The first blow struck empty air, and all subsequent infinite chains acted upon sheer nothingness, neutralized and rendered entirely moot by Ji Jue.
Then, right before Fernand's eyes, Ji Jue reached out his hand toward him, deliberate and unhurried.
Dissociation Art: Jingzhen!
*Snap!*
The little pouch rattling with grain sounds trembled in vain, yet Ji Jue's body merely gave a slight shudder, without any trauma being triggered...
Because no injuries existed in the first place.
Just before the Sound of Grains could take effect, Ji Jue had completely replaced every single component of his mechanical body from head to toe.
Just like the paradox Fernand had once explained to Brisman—the Ship of Theseus.
When a ship has had every single part replaced from start to finish, is it still the original ship?
When Ji Jue's own body had undergone a thorough renewal, what trauma remained to accumulate until now for you to detonate?
In the very last instant, Pure Lie blazed with light, attempting to erase the foundation of the alchemy Ji Jue was employing, only to discover that within Ji Jue's body, more than three sets of alchemy were running in parallel, constantly alternating.
Not just the three-phase cycle, but a continuous leaping between classical alchemy and modern alchemy, even intertwined with corrupted transmutations originating from the Profound.
Negate one part, and another remained.
When he attempted to thoroughly dismantle the foundation of multiple alchemies running simultaneously, he found that Ji Jue had mastered more than one technique for running diverse arts in parallel!
Even if one part were negated, another part would naturally compensate and replenish, functioning as a tightly integrated whole that cared nothing for the loss of any single corner.
*Dammit, All Things Self-Transform!*
Fernand gritted his teeth hard, refusing to step back, struggling in vain. Yet the only thing he could do was watch helplessly as that hand pressed down toward his face, inch by inch.
Immediately after...
Jingzhen!
Fernand detonated with a roar!
In the span of a breath, countless bits of flesh and dark light reconvened from the void. Sheltered by the Celestial-Human Foundation, Fernand returned to wholeness once more.
When he looked up, he saw Ji Jue still standing where he had been.
Ji Jue beckoned to him, warmly extending an invitation:
"Again!"
Then, once more, Jingzhen!
He did not even deploy any crafted creations, casting the Nine Forms completely aside and foregoing the convenience of the Mirror of Contained Forms. Relying purely on his own skill, he held Fernand in an iron grip of absolute suppression.
Again and again, using Jingzhen, he battered Fernand's body to ruin, then allowed him to reassemble and regenerate.
And then he issued another challenge back to him.
Now, when Ji Jue looked at Fernand once more, the Celestial-Human phantom behind Fernand—flickering like a candle in the wind—let out a final mournful wail.
Fragile as a phantom bubble.
It seemed as though a single breath from Ji Jue would be enough to erase it entirely.
Never to be seen again!
Yet he pointedly refrained from doing so. He had even, with utmost consideration, left Fernand a final gap, a last foothold.
Fernand fell silent, as though plunged into an abyss of ice.
For the first time, he felt what was called fear.
Not because he might lose, nor because he might die, but because he could not understand it, could not fathom it, could not make any sense of what had just occurred!
Clearly, the blazing sun above his head—the weight of Tianyuan manifested by the Chixiao Tally-Standard—had completely dispersed, vanishing without a trace.
So why was the pressure he felt skyrocketing to madness?!
Even after pouring out everything he had, he could no longer hold out!
While every move Ji Jue made flowed like drifting clouds and flowing water, as though heaven and earth were lending him their strength, Fernand was trapped deep inside a cage, not even knowing where this crushing weight came from.
It was as though the entire world had turned against him, making even drawing a breath feel like a transgression... He could not even preserve his dignity as a craftsman and a master.
Or rather, he was willing to cast aside such a worthless thing just to comprehend, just to understand!
Where on earth had this transformation come from?!
"Just what..."
Forcibly swallowing his humiliation, he lowered his head and, from the bottom of his heart, pleaded for instruction from a junior: "Tell me, please. Just what did you do?"
"If you ask me... probably nothing at all?"
Ji Jue pondered for a moment and gave an indifferent smile.
"I simply let go."
That was the answer.
It sounded like a joke.
Fernand's contracted pupils dilated slowly, uncontrollably.
That cracked face gradually lost all color and expression, as if frozen.
This was neither mockery nor a lie; it came straight from the heart.
Even the place those words originated from was not merely Ji Jue's mouth, but the effortless resonance and manifestation of all creation—as though everything within sight was singing aloud in harmony with Ji Jue's words.
The so-called All Things Self-Transform!
Now, Fernand finally understood where the vanished sun had gone.
The sun had been there all along. Its omnipresent radiance had never left his sight.
The only reason he had failed to see it was that it had never crossed his mind... that he had long since been engulfed within it!
Chapter 785