The Essence of Ability

May I ask what it feels like to mess around on your first day as an apprentice and have your wages and subsidies for the next four years all docked?

Before disappearing, the unlucky bastard Ji Jue could only say: Those who understand, understand.

Professor Ye's workshop was fairly humane, to be fair. Even apprentices received official wages and subsidies, not to mention workers' compensation insurance and the like.

Unfortunately, humane treatment was not very useful when dealing with something as humanlike as Ji Jue.

Besides, he had never planned on making money under the professor anyway. When all was said and done, he had merely lost something he had never known he possessed.

At most, he would go home and shed a couple of Little Pearls in his dreams.

And so, at Professor Ye's insistence, he once again used a scrapped workpiece to demonstrate his ability.

Ever since the Mandate of Heaven Summoning, after becoming an official Chosen One, his ability had advanced by leaps and bounds. It had broken through its original shackles: he no longer needed to touch machinery with his hands to issue commands and communicate with it.

Any target within ten meters could be connected to him instantaneously, without the slightest gap.

Faster, stronger—and far more mana-hungry.

It was a pity. When golden wind meets sweet dew, it surpasses countless things in the mortal world... Now that Ji Jue had broken through, he no longer had Teacher Lawrence's unlimited mana supply.

The Vortex Implantation Technique really was a wonderful thing!

Thinking back, he should have stopped Wen Wen from killing Lawrence so cleanly. If she had left behind a little more flesh and planted two more Teacher Lawrences in the ground, then with his regenerative ability, they could grow one and harvest one. Wouldn't that have allowed them to mass-produce Spirit Essence Batteries?

No, just thinking about it was a shame... When would another opponent covered in treasures like that show up?!

Just as Ji Jue's thoughts were sliding further and further downhill, Professor Ye, who had watched the entire process again, adjusted her glasses and sighed in understanding. "I see."

Through those glasses, which were enough to see straight through the flow of Spiritual Substance, she had observed the entire process.

On the surface, it seemed to be a control-type ability leaning toward the Celestial Origin category.

But its essence was completely different.

If it were merely controlling machinery, then the flow of Spiritual Substance was far too frequent—and far too massive.

If he were simply issuing commands, then as long as the target possessed its own energy source, it should not consume so much. A proficient control-type Chosen One could use their ability dozens or even hundreds of times a day. Even a Heart Pivot Chosen One only needed to say a word when controlling an ordinary person.

But Ji Jue... one-fifth of his Spiritual Substance flowed out, and less than half returned. Most of it was lost.

For an ordinary useless Chosen One, that might have been normal.

But was that all the Chosen Conscription amounted to?

Her brows furrowed.

Something was wrong.

Somewhere, something was very wrong...

Spiritual Substance could not appear from thin air, nor vanish into thin air, unless it had already been transformed by "doing work." Then—

Professor Ye suddenly turned around. "You just said you could talk to them, right?"

"Right. Though most of the time, they don't have much to say." Ji Jue replied, "So far, the ones I've encountered have been pretty easy to talk to."

"..."

After a moment of silence, Professor Ye suddenly asked, "Is it possible that the ones speaking aren't them?"

"Huh?"

"Ordinary matter doesn't possess thoughts. Ji Jue, without Spiritual Substance, there is no prerequisite for thought, nor can there be personality, preferences, likes, or dislikes."

She reached out and tapped the casing of the Work Center. In an instant, the machinery broke free of Ji Jue's control and fell silent once more.

"For example, I assembled this Work Center myself. Unless I've become so senile that I can barely see, I shouldn't have overlooked this kind of interference and possibility.

"But if it has never existed in the first place..."

She turned back and asked, "Then in the instant you communicated with it, who exactly was speaking to you?"

Ji Jue was completely dumbfounded.

If it wasn't the machine speaking, who else could it be? Could it possibly be... Holy crap, wait. Could it have been me?

Oh no. Did I develop a Split Personality?!

I already got discharged. Do I have to go back?

That can't be right. The doctor said I was perfectly healthy!

Only then did he hear the rest of Professor Ye's words.

"If I'm not mistaken, the essence of your ability is to imbue other objects with your own Spiritual Substance, temporarily animating them." She said, "As for the conversations appearing in your mind... they were probably pseudo-personalities temporarily produced when the object's own history, experiences, and accumulated impressions combined with Spiritual Substance.

"They then spontaneously generate responses according to your commands and operate on their own."

After pondering, she said decisively, "If this ability could advance another step, it might allow the machinery itself to fully come alive. It might even alter its own structure and run errands for you."

Ji Jue stood there, eyes wide and mouth agape.

She had hit the nail on the head. After seeing it only once, she seemed to understand it even more deeply than he did. What was more, without knowing about Cousin's emergency Survival Protocol, she had already deduced the specifics of the "Dual Transformation" Ji Jue had only used once.

At that thought, she reached into her pocket, took out a spherical object, and handed it to Ji Jue.

"Try this."

The moment it landed in his hand, it made a crisp sound.

The surface of the fist-sized sphere was covered in intricate, gorgeous patterns, its craftsmanship exquisite. Nine coin-sized holes dotted it. Looking inside, one could see a smaller sphere within, identical to the outer shell, equally complex and magnificent. Yet the layers were nested one inside another—then another, and another—fully nine layers deep!

It was said that in ancient times, artisans had used ivory as their material and poured their hearts and souls into creating such a wondrous work of craftsmanship.

Ji Jue had only ever seen such magnificent artistry in history textbooks, but this object concealed a ferocious aura that made his heart pound.

It was even more terrifying than the "Xiao'an" he had once seen in Lawrence's hands!

"This is... a Devil-Crafted Ball?"

He held it in his hand and examined it carefully. Almost unconsciously, he fed in a little Spiritual Substance, trying to sense its material. His vision immediately went black.

In that fleeting perception, his Spiritual Substance feedback suddenly revealed countless branches—complex pathways resembling integrated circuits, along with hundreds or even thousands of Rune imprints whose complexity far exceeded his understanding...

If the fist-sized Devil-Crafted Ball were unfolded and laid flat, it could probably cover the entire enormous factory complex and even extend into the sea.

But when Ji Jue's ability took effect on it, it felt like he was facing a bottomless pit. The Devil-Crafted Ball swallowed his Spiritual Substance like a whale gulping down water, devouring it ravenously. Yet aside from that... it gave him not the slightest signal!

Even after Ji Jue had completely wrung himself dry and was on the verge of collapsing on the spot, the only thing he heard was a satisfied voice: [Thanks, bro. I'm good now.]

After that, it refused to respond to anything.

Its manners were simply atrocious!

Ji Jue's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. "Don't just be good—give it back! Let me absorb it!"

Unfortunately, the Devil-Crafted Ball gave no further response.

It even broke free of Ji Jue's palm, as though pulled by invisible cables, and returned to Professor Ye's hand. It spun rapidly, slowly enlarging as it displayed its dizzyingly intricate and terrifying internal structure to Ji Jue, docile as a Faithful Hound.

"See that? Learn your lesson after taking a loss. Don't stick yourself onto anything you come across."

Ye Xian explained slowly, "Some objects possess their own inherent spirituality. They can automatically identify friend from foe and recognize permissions. In such cases, unless your ability is powerful enough to completely overwrite the other party's underlying circuits and commands, it won't respond to your demands.

"However, once you can create alchemical objects and become a formal Artisan, you should know how to modify underlying commands."

She paused slightly, then revealed a smile containing a subtle, malicious undertone. "You could even make it defect on the spot and turn on its original master. That would be child's play."

Imagine an opponent confidently taking out their ultimate treasure and activating it at any cost, only to discover that their weapon had become an enemy ally.

That would probably be a nightmare for any enemy, wouldn't it?

Especially for an Embers Chosen steeped in this path. Such an ability was the natural nemesis of alchemical objects! No matter what kind of weapons or equipment encountered Ji Jue, they would be completely useless, leaving their owners as naked as the day they were born.

And that was not all...

Even now, after one shock after another, Ye Xian once again sensed a certain revelation—

The terror of the Mandate of Heaven Summoning!

It was not a difference in talent, nor a distinction in boldness, but a difference in essence!

Any apprentice in any workshop could probably recite the essence of Alchemy in their dreams: granting souls to matter, granting miracles to ordinary objects, granting Transcendence to excellent materials through skill.

Refining gold from iron and stone, fusing Superior Virtue from Spiritual Substance, all the way to reaching the Myriad Phenomena Limitless Realm!

Yet the basic ability of a single Chosen One could encompass all four fundamental elements of Alchemy—Ascension, Extraction-Transformation, Purification, and Harmonization?

It was simply too bizarre.

Even more outrageous was that Ji Jue had somehow learned the later parts, while he lacked even the slightest grasp of the fundamentals at the beginning.

It was as though this were a castle in the air. No—a living, breathing skyborne courtyard... An ability with no foundation whatsoever, relying on Ji Jue himself, had somehow been forcibly elevated to a height that defied all reason?!

An illiterate eighty-year-old granny explaining the mysteries of nuclear fusion to you; an old farmer planting crops at the village entrance whose work happened to align with the leap parameters of a warp engine. It was the very definition of punk and rebellion.

She had never seen anything this outrageous in her entire life.

She had even suspected more than once that she had fallen into a Mirror illusion or a Heart Pivot spell.

Troublesome, bizarre, astonishing.

And yet... so fascinating!

As she pondered, her smile gradually turned dangerous and feverish.

Supreme Goodness governed creation, transformation, and innovation... Every Chosen One who truly set foot on this path was a technical maniac with research filling their minds.

If a Sin-Corrupted Creature or an Aberration crossed their path, they could not resist dissecting it a few times to figure out how it worked.

Now, such a bizarre material had delivered itself right to her doorstep?

Her hands were already itching to begin.

Purely in terms of research value, a Chosen Summoner was truly made of treasures from head to toe.

His body possessed astonishing compatibility with the corresponding Supreme Goodness. Not to mention that Ji Jue resonated with nine Supreme Goodnesses directly, giving him an extraordinarily broad range of applications.

His blood and bone marrow could be extracted to compound medicine. His bones and flesh could be crushed or processed for cultivation. His soul could be split apart and cast into Masterwork. Even his Spiritual Substance could be extracted steadily over time to promote material fusion.

Every part of him, from head to toe—even his ability—possessed nearly infinite possibilities!

Unfortunately, her specialties were engineering and Purification. If she were an Artisan devoted to living spirits, she would probably have already thrown the boy straight into the furnace.

That fixed stare made Ji Jue's skin crawl.

He suddenly felt an urge to call the police. He instinctively shuffled backward a little, trembling with fear.

"Prepare yourself, Ji Jue."

Under the pale lamplight, Professor Ye slowly revealed a "kind" smile. "Starting tomorrow, your graduate courses begin early."