Half an hour later.
In a corner of a milk-tea shop on Tianmen University's commercial street, Ji Jue stared at the ice cubes in his cup, which had almost completely melted, as well as Wen Wen sitting across from him, looking like a ghost about to ascend to heaven.
Ever since they had left the office, she had looked utterly burned out. She drifted even while walking, her soul practically about to fly all the way to the Empire.
In her short life, she had endured far too much of the unbearable weight of embarrassment.
"Big Sis? Sister Wen? Are you all right?"
Ji Jue gathered his courage and waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Don't scare me."
It wasn't that he was mainly worried something had happened to her. Even if Tianmen University blew up, she couldn't possibly be harmed. He was mainly worried that if she decided to end it all, she might take him along with her!
"...I really want to die."
Wen Wen sprawled across the table, as though she had finally come back to herself. Her voice sounded like a wronged ghost from the underworld weeping, plaintive and full of sorrow. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say anything?
"Ahhhhhhh, I really want to die! Just let me die..."
"I didn't know either!"
Ji Jue looked innocent, his head buzzing as well. "You suddenly pointed at my professor and told me she was an alchemy Master. I was just as stunned! She's been teaching me for two years, and I've never seen her wave a hand and turn heaven and earth dark, making the sun and moon lose their light. Otherwise, why would I have kept it from you?"
Besides, you never even gave me a chance to stop you!
Of course, he didn't dare say the last sentence. If Wen Wen became embarrassed and furious and casually crushed him to death, it would all be over.
Although she definitely wouldn't do that, when someone had treated you so well, how could you go and provoke her again?
She had not sent Ji Jue, along with half of Tianmen University, flying into the sky with one punch and destroyed herself a piece of shameful history that she might recall and cringe over for the rest of her life.
After downing two liters of craft beer in one go, Wen Wen finally caught her breath. She folded her arms and scrutinized Ji Jue, who had his head ducked. After confirming that he truly hadn't been laughing at her, she ultimately decided not to cast a memory-erasure spell.
Why was it that every time she ran into this bastard, some kind of ridiculous trouble always cropped up?
Was there something wrong with him?
Damn it, she was still so angry! She wanted to pound him twice!
Knock his head clean off!
She sighed and said gloomily, "Thank goodness I didn't drag you into the Security Bureau's mud pit back then. Otherwise, you'd have become a problem instead. You've used up every bit of luck you've accumulated in this lifetime right here, haven't you?"
Ji Jue was still baffled. "Huh?"
"Ye Xian—that's Ye Xian we're talking about!
"She's the youngest Master in the Federation in decades. At twenty-four, she received a Red Rating from the Taiyi Ring. Supposedly, she's only one step away from becoming a Grandmaster now. What do you think?" She glanced over with a slant-eyed look and said irritably, "In any case, now that you've latched onto this massive thigh, you'd better secretly enjoy it."
"Even if you put it that way, I still have no concept of it." Ji Jue smiled bitterly.
"Lawrence. You remember him, right?"
Wen Wen brought out the old friend everyone knew so well. "If you converted Lawrence's attainments in medicine into attainments in alchemy... then if he puttered around for another seventy or eighty years, he might barely manage to touch the footprints Professor Ye left on this path at the age of twenty-four."
"She's that incredible?!" Ji Jue blurted out.
He had never expected Professor Ye, who was usually so quiet and unobtrusive, to secretly be a powerhouse on the same super-Lawrence level as Wen Wen!
Truly terrifying!
Wen Wen rolled her eyes. She could tell what he was thinking even with her heels. "Destructive power is another matter. The Path of Embers doesn't have much lethality, but someone like Professor Ye is respected wherever she goes far more than someone like me who does rough work."
"I respect Sister Wen too, from the bottom of my heart!" Ji Jue immediately thundered, without the slightest hesitation. He practically wished he could tie a strip of cloth around his forehead with the words [LOYAL! TY!] written on it.
"All right, stop buttering me up. I made a complete fool of myself this time. If you really respect me, just don't go telling everyone. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to kill you and flee to the Empire to make a living."
Wen Wen sighed and looked at him. "Grandmaster Ye is reliable. Don't worry."
Ji Jue nodded.
Naturally, this was only right and proper.
He had spent far more time beside Professor Ye than Wen Wen had.
To be fair, Professor Ye was not the kind of great benevolent person from the books who feared harming even an ant while sweeping the ground and cherished moths by shielding them from lamp gauze. Quite the contrary, from the very first day he had met her, he had sensed... an utterly undisguised indifference, harshness, arrogance, and even an absolute lack of empathy.
In her world, there was no air for idiots to breathe.
More regrettably, in her eyes, the vast majority of people in this world were idiots.
As for Ji Jue?
Among all those idiots, he was the one willing to work hard to become a little less idiotic.
As the only student in her elective course who had clenched his teeth and persevered until he earned a passing grade, he had experienced that rigor deeply.
To Ji Jue, however, nearly all of the above were advantages.
A teacher who would pinch her nose, revise every bit of garbage you had written, and provide comments, references, and a direction—even if she was as strict as could be, had a foul temper, looked down on people, and demanded too much—was still a teacher good enough to be sent into a temple and given a gilded statue.
As long as you could keep up with the pace, she would explain everything she knew and teach you everything she possessed without holding anything back.
As long as you had talent, she would not begrudge using it, whether it was great or small. She would put it all to use.
Otherwise, Tianmen only had a few slots for applicants taking the Level Two Engineer exam each year. How could Ji Jue possibly compete with those favored sons of heaven whose families had power, influence, status, and enough damn money to drown in?
To put it bluntly, without Professor Ye's letter of recommendation, he couldn't catch up even if he sold his ass!
And in exchange, being called a grind-addict and an overachiever, being collectively ostracized and mocked by his so-called classmates—that didn't affect Ji Jue in the slightest. He didn't even have time to care. I'm roaming through the ocean of knowledge here, all right? Go play somewhere else!
Crack!
Their brief conversation ended with a crisp sound.
In the beer glass beside Wen Wen, a translucent crystalline flower appeared, then quickly vanished.
"All right, I'm leaving first."
Wen Wen rose and waved goodbye. "Since you've latched onto a massive thigh, hold on tight. Once you become a Grandmaster, remember to look after me."
"That urgent?" Ji Jue asked in astonishment. "Where are you going?"
"The weather's been damp lately, and I'm a little overheated."
Wen Wen turned her head away, hiding the expression she could no longer keep under control. She struggled to maintain her poise and her aura. "I'm going to find a few wanted criminals who don't know their place and have a talk with them about life and ideals."
She would tell them that their great-grandmother was missing them down below, and send them to go chat with her!
With that, she departed in high spirits.
Turning embarrassment into motivation, she would add bricks and tiles to the number of nameless graves outside Yacheng.
Half an hour later, after lingering in the milk-tea shop until he had drunk the very last drop of water, Ji Jue finally trudged back to the office in tiny, reluctant steps.
He braced himself, pushed open the door, and forced out a warm, bright, innocent smile, like a Samoyed covered in lipstick marks. "Professor, I'm back."
"Mm."
Behind the desk, the professor was brewing her second cup of strong tea. She looked up at him and pointed at a chair, indicating that he should sit. Before he could organize his thoughts, she suddenly asked, "The person chosen for last month's Chosen Conscription was you?"
"...Huh?"
Ji Jue stiffened. He instinctively wanted to hide it, but after hesitating, he ultimately nodded. "If there wasn't anyone else."
Now it was the professor's turn to fall silent.
She lowered her head and stared at the tea leaves bobbing in the boiling water until the dust settled. It seemed she was pondering something, yet she might simply have been lost in thought.
After a long while, she let out a deep sigh.
"You really... gave me a huge surprise."
"Huh?" Ji Jue asked blankly.
"I had originally planned to let you do two more years of hard labor, then see how things stood when you began graduate studies and consider whether to introduce you to the Embers Road. It seems there's no need for that trouble now..."
Professor Ye adjusted her glasses and said solemnly, "But before that, I have to tell you this: a Chosen One capable of summoning the Advent of the Nine Supreme Goodnesses will be fought over wherever he goes. There's no need to chain yourself to just this one tree.
"I know Miss Wen may tell you that I'm very powerful and very famous, but in truth, compared with the genuine behemoths, I'm merely a researcher on the fringes. Other than teaching you to become an Artisan, I have no other future to offer you. I can't even fully equip your Matrix.
"As long as you're willing, those old fellows from the Security Bureau, the Grandmasters of the Taiyi Ring, the Chieftains of the Wild Bazaar, and even the Chongguang Church, Cosmos Heavy Industries, and Hope Hospital would offer astronomical prices. In another four or five years, perhaps you'll become another Su BiLuo, or another Wen Wen..."
"Don't, Professor!"
Ji Jue shook his head in panic. "I haven't even passed the Level Two exam! Where are you telling me to go?"
It wasn't that he was rushing to prove his loyalty or cling to a powerful backer. Purely speaking, after learning Professor Ye's identity, Ji Jue had never considered any other option.
Leaving aside the Security Bureau, which even Sister Wen herself called a quagmire, the other places might be awesome, powerful, incredible, and explosively strong—but so what?
When he had been penniless and unknown, had any of them spared him a glance?
Wasn't the person who had been willing to reach out and pull up a poor student who had nothing going for him except the ability to grind the professor before him?
"I think things are pretty good here with you." Ji Jue scratched his head, somewhat embarrassed. "At the very least, if you wanted me to call someone else 'teacher,' I wouldn't be able to get the words out."
"..."
Professor Ye said nothing. She merely drank her tea, wholly unmoved and not looking at him any differently because of it. Yet when she exhaled, it was almost like a sigh.
"That's why it's troublesome."
"Huh?"
Ji Jue was baffled.
"A cheap wrench doesn't hurt when it breaks. Ji Jue, sometimes scrap material is easier to work with."
The somewhat elderly alchemy Master rubbed her brow and slowly said, "I originally thought you were merely mediocre material who could work hard when pushed, so arranging and handling you would naturally carry no burden. No matter how poorly you turned out, you'd still be better than before.
"But after discovering that I had actually misjudged you, I began to regret it... I haven't handled Masterwork Material in many years."
It was like an old Artisan examining raw material.
If it was something like a stubborn stone, one could carve as one pleased. If it was ruined, gouged, or smashed, so be it—throw it away. Even if it turned out well, it would at most become a trinket or ornament, bringing no achievement and leaving nothing to regret.
But if someone wrapped an Origin Stone in red silk and carefully, reverently placed it in your hands, telling you that within the stone lay a peerless jade of breathtaking beauty, and asked you to carve it—
Which Artisan would not become anxious over every gain and loss?
"Don't worry. I'm merely reflecting on myself. I haven't fallen so far as to hand my own project over to someone else."
Just as Ji Jue was feeling uneasy, Ye Xian set down her teacup and finally rose. "The Twelve Supreme Goodnesses each have their flaws. The Embers Road happens to be the most troublesome of all. You've stepped onto this path with one foot, and no one can say whether it's good or bad.
"But since the Heavenly Mandate placed you right under my nose from the very beginning, let's see—can this piece of material of yours become Masterwork?"
For an instant, Ji Jue froze. An instinctive chill spread through his entire body.
All this time, he had thought he had long since grown accustomed to Professor Ye's harshness and blows. Even the most troublesome tasks could be solved step by step. Brave Ji Jue wasn't very afraid of difficulties.
Only then did he realize that the sharp, icy gleam cast at him from behind those heavy lenses was more cutting than any axe or chisel.
It told him:
The true tempering had not even begun!
Before you continue