Chapter 114.2: A Glimmer of Hope Part 2
Smack!
A steaming bowl of pre-made braised noodles was slapped down in front of Ji Jue. The noodles, as if dying with unresolved resentment, floated in an oily, broken broth. A small mountain of chili piled on top dyed the soup a crimson red, like Ji Jue’s blood.
Ye Chun’s eyes were pitch black, completely devoid of warmth. “Eat up. This is my flesh. Drink it. This is my blood. Today, if you so much as leave one mouthful, you won’t live to see tomorrow!”
Is that so?
Ji Jue couldn’t help but let out a habitual cold laugh. He even thought of saying, Add an egg for daddy!
But meeting that murderous gaze, he ultimately didn’t dare speak. He obediently picked up his chopsticks and started eating with his head down.
His movements paused.
Oh god, I have overestimated Ye Chun’s cooking. Despite boiling it for so long, why is it still half raw... I should’ve ordered takeout instead.
And so, he helplessly finished the entire bowl. Its spice level was a joke. At most, this was only medium spicy in Shuzhou. That said, the joke might’ve gone a bit too far. Ye Chun looked like she was about to lose it and beat him up.
But it didn’t matter. He’d do it again next time, anyway.
After being bullied and taken advantage of by Ye Chun for so many years, now that he finally had a chance to get back at her even a little, how could Ji Jue not seize it? Otherwise, in a few days when she refused to acknowledge it, all he’d have left would be cucumber-flavored chips!
Ji Jue crossed his legs, and before Ye Chun could launch her counterattack, he fully indulged in this brief moment of happiness and sweetness.
“Ah, life’s getting more and more promising.”
***
Before this, Ji Jue had once asked Professor Ye when his Dissociation Technique would truly count as “entry-level.”
The answer was: there was no need to be constrained to one-handed execution. If he could, without preparation, perform it instantly with both hands and complete the spiritual disruption of a target, then that would count as entry-level.
Ji Jue, being unable to keep his mouth shut, had asked, “Then when does it count as fully mastered?”
He’d seen Professor Ye smile, a deeply meaningful one, like the final mercy a teacher showed before assigning homework. “Once you’ve dismantled all the scrap in the warehouse, you’ll be about there...”
Ji Jue had swallowed, mentally estimating the terrifying scale of that “scrap,” and quickly decided not to think about it any further.
As he had already experienced and witnessed, aside from the arrogance, indifference, and disdain etched deep into Professor Ye’s bones, she disdained communicating with ordinary things, didn’t care how fools viewed her, and would absolutely not tolerate mistakes, whether they were made by others or herself.
And she would never allow even the slightest flaw in her creations, not even the tiniest one.
Even if, occasionally, something within the furnace underwent an unexpected but positive change, as long as it did not conform to her original design and structure, the outcome would still be the same: the blessing would be stripped away and the creation mercilessly discarded.
Extreme perfectionism and control, combined with her transcendent talent, had resulted in the youngest master in the world and a reputation in academia that was both revered and controversial.
A single work, from design to completion, had to go through at least a dozen stages, with ten or more repetitions, or even endless reworks until she was satisfied. For every finished product, there were dozens or even hundreds of prototypes and discarded failures. In the end, they all formed the terrifying scale hidden within the warehouse, just like the mountain of defeated ones beneath her feet on her path along the Ember Path.
Even though he knew all of them were “delicious food” to him in a sense, Ji Jue still couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine. With so much scrap, wouldn’t it actually kill him to dismantle it all?
Ji Jue sighed with both trouble and anticipation. “I’ve got a long road ahead...”
Then, he heard something right beside his ear.
Snap!
A faint glimmer rose from the cracked pendant; the last outer spirit matter circuit had been destroyed. Ji Jue finally let out a long breath and inhaled deeply. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Good. You’re just one final step away,” the devil’s work ball’s voice echoed in his consciousness. “Pause for a moment. Rest. Stabilize your spirit matter and your mental state.”
“Finally...”
Ji Jue sighed. His numb hands lifted, rubbing his eye sockets. This torment was finally about to end. He had never felt this exhausted before. This much work really strained his eyes.
If the earlier Dissociation Technique practice could be considered learning a master’s high-level design philosophy through destruction and deepening understanding through repeated attempts, then these past few days felt like he was revising a set of wrong answers[1] salvaged from a trash bin. Worse still, he had to pinch his nose and force himself to go through every single problem without missing a step.
During this absurd, almost disgusting process, he had fully experienced the diversity of craftsmen. To think mistakes could be made this creatively was honestly insane.
Do we really have to draw this damn circuit today? My hand is shaking really badly already. I should go to the hospital, shouldn’t I?
All these wildly mutated spirit matter constructs were mixed together. The pendant’s Purification was practically useless, and its Transformation was sloppy at best.
And what even is this Harmony? How did you manage to build six-stacked layers that each act independently, contradict each other, and interfere with one another, doubling the operational burden for no reason while making the effect this trash? Does your master’s slap not hit hard enough?! And you still had the nerve to install a backdoor?! Do you have any shame?! Where is your shame?!
“Remember, be gentle. Be more gentle. Even more gentle! Be careful, like a surgeon operating on the liver,” the devil's work ball patiently repeated its instructions for the fifth time. “Don’t hesitate. Remove all four parts at once in one clean motion. If you don’t, contamination and residue will remain and interfere with the next reconstruction.”
“I know, I know, stop talking!” Ji Jue was already fully focused, unable to spare any attention for the ball’s nagging.
Slowly raising both hands, a familiar humming sound slowly became louder and clearer. Spirit matter alternated effortlessly between vibration and stillness between his palms, completely free of hesitation. The target was the final core of the pendant.
Four distinct spirit matter circuits were connected through the Supreme Benevolence emblem. The Ruins attribute strengthened material properties, while Ascension locked the spirit matter in place, fixing the blessing within the ironstone.
It was a textbook dual-lock structure, copied so perfectly it had absolutely no originality whatsoever. The drawback was that it had no variation at all, and was excessively rigid.
The advantage, however, was its terrifying stability and durability.
With Ji Jue’s skill, trying to simultaneously dismantle four different circuits operating at different frequencies and intensities was practically wishful thinking, but it didn’t matter. As long as he was fast enough, the fragments wouldn’t have time to contaminate the blessing.
As long as he was fast enough, then it would be perfect!
Beneath Ji Jue’s hands, the resonance let out an unprecedented, high-pitched screech. Spirit matter vibrations compressed to an extremely fine scale turned into blades, ignoring the devil’s work ball’s shocked shouts and warnings, and struck down in a single slash.
“Break!”
Beneath overlapping hands and interlaced fingers, that minuscule blade made of Dissociation Technique tore forward at a speed comparable to lightning. Like a rapidly spinning grinder blade, it churned, rotated, and collapsed inward layer by layer.
Everything it touched, every emblem and circuit, instantly shattered. Deep fissures appeared across the Supreme Benevolence emblem. At the same time, all the fragments were immediately pulled away by the Pacifier spirit matter manipulation.
Like a razor brushing across the eye, it left only a cold sensation behind, never once damaging the core. In an instant, as the pendant cracked, the final crude prison was broken.
Snap.
Shattering sounds tore through the air. A dreamlike, illusory glow rose between Ji Jue’s hands. The devil's work ball, too busy to complain about his brutal method, immediately manifested a deep blue glow. In the air, a brand-new confinement structure rapidly formed, sealing and extracting that strand of light once more.
“Success!” Ji Jue cheered in celebration, looking at the shattered pendant and the rising fragments of light. Instinctively, he reached out and scooped a handful, but the moment he realized what exactly he had just grabbed, it was already too late. Deus Ex Machina instinctively completed the capture and absorption of the Supreme Benevolence essence.
And then, for the first time ever, it erupted violently to reject and expel it with a trace of grievance.
You’ll eat anything, huh? Are you really that hungry?!
A tangible wave of disgust and rage surged in Ji Jue’s mind, overwhelming his rationality. It almost made him scream out loud in agony, There’s shit. There’s shit in it! Even worse, that shit is poisoned!!!
As the forging process within the furnace transformed into hallucinations before his eyes, and the creator proudly showed off their so-called “master technique,” Ji Jue could no longer suppress the nausea. He belched.
Forget it. Forget it.
He had to forget it immediately, or this trauma would stay with him for life. Beyond the disgust and revulsion, when he recalled the sensation just now, he couldn’t help but fall into confusion. When he reached out his hand, aside from that corrupted essence filled entirely with impurities, it felt like he had, just maybe, perhaps, also touched something else.
But that sensation was too faint, like trying to grasp flowing water in vain. Very quickly, under the devil’s work ball’s pulling force, it slipped away from his fingertips.
That was... a blessing?
For a moment, he froze, staring blankly at his own hands.
Spirit matter was the stream that flowed from the soul. Through it, one wielded the power of Supreme Benevolence, creating miracles and destruction. In theory, it was possible for human hands to interfere and manipulate it.
But a blessing was a brilliant crystallization born from the turning of all things in the world, emerging and growing out of Supreme Benevolence. So how could one possibly touch it with bare hands? Or was that just an illusion born from surprise?
He couldn’t tell.
His gaze still drifted, uncontrollably, toward the wristwatch that had been silent for many days. If the Pacifier’s creation could control spirit matter to create endlessly, even extracting aberrations with ease, then what exactly did that power represent?
The watch remained silent, as always. Its hands moved forward calmly, without pause.
***
Under the afternoon sunset, in the deepest part of the workshop’s underground space, before the massive furnace, flames flickered and faded. The fire that had burned for six years continued to rise, never extinguished.
After shedding its simulated personality, the Divine Creation reported in a calm voice, “System self-check complete. No errors detected. The temporary administrator Ji Jue independently grasped a high-level application without instruction while processing the target. This appears to be an accidental success.
“In addition, there is another more important matter. Ji Jue touched the blessing of Supreme Benevolence with his own hand. Even if only for a second.”
Ye Xian glanced up coldly.
“The path of Pacifier relies on one’s hands in the first place. It’s not strange that he could touch a blessing.”
“This does not match the records in the database. Should it be corrected?”
“No need. Execute Directive 977. Erase this record completely. No backups or recovery allowed.”
“Understood. Execution complete.”
The room returned to silence once more. After a long while, Ye Xian turned and left, and the lights went out. In the darkness, only an eternal, flickering furnace glow silently flowed on.
1. A 错题集 is a study tool students use to collect mistakes from homework, exercises, and exams. By organizing weak points, it helps make studying more targeted. It typically includes frequently wrong questions, difficult problems, and representative examples. In some cases, it is expanded into a “good question notebook” that also records high-quality problems. ☜
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