"Something's not right."
Ten minutes later, Professor Ye took off her glasses and carefully wiped them with a flannel cloth before delivering her verdict: "Something is very wrong."
More precisely, from the moment she became an apprentice until now, this was the first time she had ever felt that something was this wrong!
Right in front of the two of them, Little Cow and Horse, which had entered its post-feast sage time after wolfing down over a hundred pounds of boiled chicken yesterday, was spinning its tires with complete disregard for the six bonds and coquettishly twisting its butt and mudguards.
It rounded corners, cleared hurdles, and paraded around on two legs. After finishing eighteen different stunts, it even performed a [Cow-and-Horse Transformation]! It changed from a motorcycle into a mechanical monstrosity that could not quite be called human, yet no one knew what else to call it.
Five legs, two tails, one head, five eyes, three of them growing out front, and the other two turn signals mounted on its rear... It was the very embodiment of abstraction.
As for deeper observation and scanning, the workshop's equipment had already been used on it countless times.
"Why don't we take it apart and have a look?"
She offered the suggestion sincerely, her tone earnest and her gaze gradually turning dangerous. "We might discover some major project. If we can figure this out, perhaps alchemy in the modern world could make a major breakthrough!"
"No, no, Professor, don't!"
Ji Jue desperately blocked her path, tears and snot streaming down his face. "It's one of our own... No, it's our own cow and horse! Without it, I'd have been dead long ago."
What he really wanted to say was, Come at me if you've got a problem. Just let it go.
But then he thought it over and discovered, to his great sorrow, that the value of his own research seemed... no lower than Little Cow and Horse's. It might even exceed it by who knew how many times.
What if the professor threw back her head and laughed, saying, I've been waiting forever for you to say that, and Ji Jue truly ended up completely screwed?
Little Cow and Horse alone continued performing its stunts carefree, spinning in circles in all sorts of fancy ways to catch the little chicken legs Ye Chun tossed into its mouth... After throwing out one bag, she still wanted more, so she ordered several more and continued throwing! It clearly intended to join the Boiled Chicken God System and claim the throne of the second Chicken Leg God!
Unfortunately, it had only one believer.
And that believer was a brain-damaged idiot of a dog...
"No matter how I look at it, something's wrong."
Professor Ye sighed softly and adjusted her glasses.
It was not that she could not understand what it was. In fact, she understood all too well what sort of thing this was.
At a glance, she had identified it as the remains of an Abomination.
After listening to Ji Jue describe how it had come into being, she had completely understood—it was an abnormal Abomination born from the infusion of countless resentments and painful Spiritual Substance. At its core, it had used Ji Jue's ability as a catalyst, combined with the alchemical operations he had carried out without even realizing it at the time, and finally boiled itself into a great hodgepodge!
Of alchemy's four Great Elements, Elevation, Extraction-Transformation, and Purification had all been done in an utterly chaotic fashion.
The essence of Elevation was the sublimation of Spiritual Substance. The purpose of Extraction-Transformation was to refine Blessing. Purification went without saying—the impurities were piled sky-high... The only exception was Harmonization!
Only the Harmonization that unified everything and turned it into one whole had been completed with a level of perfection that was utterly earth-shaking and inexplicable!
It had almost broken free of the limits of Ji Jue's ability and become an independent living entity!
It was as absurd as a professor or scholar researching soilless cultivation spotting a tender cabbage sprout poking out of Dongcheng Dama's pickle jar in the dead of winter!
I understand the theory, but how did you manage to carry out such an abstract operation in practice?
What happened? How did you do it? How were you able to accomplish this?
She knew there was no point asking those questions, so she went straight for the core. Her sharp gaze fixed directly on Ji Jue. "Tell me. What exactly were you thinking at the time?"
"Uh..."
Ji Jue was stunned and rendered speechless.
After thinking for a long while, he finally seemed to recall. His pupils shook violently, and he stammered, "The situation was extremely dangerous, an absolute emergency! Wen Jie was clearly at a disadvantage. How could a righteous man like me stand by and do nothing? So I charged forward..."
Professor Ye cut him off. "I'm asking what you were thinking at the time."
"Well, at the time, I was filled with resolve. I pressed forward without hesitation, determined to contribute to justice..."
"I'm asking you what you were thinking at that exact moment." Professor Ye interrupted him again, asking each word separately. Her patience was nearly gone.
"..."
After grunting and stammering for half a day, Ji Jue shifted his gaze away and shrank his dog head. "Because I was scared out of my mind. My head was full of thoughts about how I absolutely couldn't die just like that. If I died, it would be such a shame to never eat Lu Ma's boiled chicken again."
In the silence, the workshop was so quiet one could hear a pin drop. The only sound was the constant thud of chicken legs hitting the floor.
The corner of Professor Ye's eye twitched once, then again, and once more.
The case was solved.
It was finally damn well solved.
She finally understood how an abnormal Abomination born from so much resentment and pain had ended up in this ghastly state, with not the slightest bit of lethality or menace!
The starting point had been completely wrong!
This might truly be the most harmless Abomination and the most useless Masterwork in history.
Because if this thing had a brain, it might be filled entirely with boiled chicken! It was even indiscriminate in its love—chicken breast, chicken legs, chicken butt; once its great mouth opened, it refused nothing!
Perhaps, for a fleeting moment, by some twist of fate, with all sorts of factors converging, everything had achieved perfect unity and balance. After Lawrence's death, the monster formed from Dragon Blood and pain was about to break out of its shell.
And somehow, because of Ji Jue's ability, this button had fallen into his hands.
He could create a giant beast that swallowed Yacheng, forge an endless Rust Army Sea, and use this power to achieve a genuine Masterwork Creation!
Yet in the end, he had smacked his forehead and made a lousy motorcycle that only wanted to eat chicken...
Amid the silence, Professor Ye removed her glasses. Her fingers trembled slightly.
"Your caution was not wrong, Ji Jue."
She sighed. "Whatever you do, don't let anyone know that you made this thing. No, unless absolutely necessary, don't show off its origins to anyone, understand?
"Otherwise, unimaginable trouble will be waiting for you..."
"It's that incredible?!" Ji Jue was aghast, then overjoyed. "Could it be that it..."
"No. To everyone except you, its creator, it has no value whatsoever." Professor Ye refuted him expressionlessly. "What you should be worried about is your own personal safety!"
Half an unadulterated Abomination, half a Masterwork of dubious authenticity. Perfectly good Dragon Blood had been kneaded into a complete mess. It should have been a luxurious detached villa in the heart of the city, but you had come along and remodeled it into a garbage heap.
It had been completely turned into trash...
And it was unprecedentedly high-grade trash at that!
A Little Lamb with Dragon Blood flowing through its engine oil, capable of reaching four or five hundred kilometers per hour? What on earth were you thinking? Do you know that one gram of Dragon Blood of this purity could buy a supercar with the same top speed?
Do you know that in alchemy, even a single ounce of Dragon Blood could make a work that had already reached its limits truly metamorphose into a Masterwork? It could even push a Masterwork another step further?
Professor Ye said gloomily, "If people find out that you turned such precious materials, materials countless artisans dream of, into this sort of thing... every artisan in the world will put a bounty on your head, Ji Jue.
"Even the Grandmaster Heavenly Furnace of the present age might want to crush you to death."
Ji Jue was stunned and bewildered. After confirming that the professor was not actually joking, his expression began to twitch. Then, remembering who his greatest backer was now, he instinctively squeezed out a fawning smile and sidled over. "Fortunately, Teacher didn't want to crush me to death. Teacher is the best!"
Ye Xian's expression froze.
She suddenly hesitated. Should I just crush him to death after all?
Before he did something that brought disgrace to his school... If people discovered that this calamity was her student, she would never be able to hold her head up in the alchemical or educational worlds again!
At the same time, she felt ever more deeply the strangeness of fate.
In alchemy, the most supreme and magnificent creations were called [Heavenly Mandate].
Compared with the result of such a creation, the artisan himself was merely a catalyst for the workings of creation, a stand-in for the hand of fate... because the true result had already been ordained by Heaven. Even before it was born, before the materials fell into the artisan's furnace, it had already been chosen by the unseen Heavenly Mandate.
It was work completed by Heaven through your hands.
Every artisan spent their entire life pursuing that experience and result that seemed bestowed by Heaven. The self was never merely one person, but the convergence of every cause and effect, every phenomenon in this world. The fire in this furnace was forged by the surging Superior Virtue; the creation in this cauldron had been made by Masterwork!
That was why they called the highest alchemical products Masterworks.
Unfortunately, over the centuries, countless artisans had passed the torch from one generation to the next, and the fire in the furnace had spread from one to many until it covered the entire land. There were countless creations hailed as Masterworks, yet only a scant few truly deserved to be called creations of the Heavenly Mandate.
If, to Supreme Goodness Embers, everything in the mortal world was a furnace of fate, then did this work of hers now count as one part of a "Masterwork"?
Without a doubt, this was a genuine Chosen Conscription. The Chosen One favored by Embers was standing right before her eyes!
Artisans often said, [Embers are generous, and creation is infinite.]
Among the Twelve Supreme Goodnesses, compared with the others, Embers was indeed the most generous. Toward the Chosen Ones it favored, it spared no expense and sought no repayment.
Unfortunately, that saying had a second half.
—[Embers are cruel and show no mercy to the mediocre.]
The more favored a Chosen One was, the more trials they would endure. Once a Chosen One's abilities and performance failed to measure up to the Gift they had received, Embers' favor would retreat and dissipate without mercy.
By then, even the things they had already obtained would be more likely to run wild and undergo Sin Mutation.
Just like those defective products in the warehouse that Ye Xian had personally discarded. Even if they had initially received a thousand favors, the moment they took a wrong step or made the slightest mistake, they would plunge into the abyss.
Covered in dust, waiting with Fortitude for a long time, yet receiving no attention from anyone.
Until, in oblivion, they turned completely into Dust.
The Path of Embers was simply such a cruel road. From the first day one set foot upon it, the Masterwork forging that belonged to you had already begun... and was destined to encounter countless storms and trials.
But after experiencing so many twists, turns, and ordeals, how many people could successfully reach the end of the Heavenly Mandate?
Professor Ye wiped her glasses and could not help sighing. "Your life may be far more difficult than you expect, Ji Jue."
"Huh?"
Ji Jue was utterly baffled. He reached out to hold down Little Cow and Horse, which was frantically smearing saliva all over him, completely unable to understand.
In the silence, Ye Xian tried several times to speak, but stopped herself. Yet whenever she saw those calm and cheerful eyes, she fell silent again.
She had seen that kind of gaze too many times.
On too many people.
For some people, there was nothing better than a life that went smoothly, peacefully, and safely.
But for others, that was not the case. No matter how much they said that getting by was enough and that happiness was what mattered most, when it truly came time to choose, they would walk decisively and without hesitation toward the opposite path. Chasing an illusory light, struggling and stumbling all the way, they would still find joy in it no matter how arduous the road became. Even knowing that the road ahead was a dead end, they would never turn back... For people like that, why would they need others pointing fingers at them?
She sighed soundlessly and merely said, "No, it's nothing. I just feel that a life in which you accomplish something is waiting for you."
"Really?" Ji Jue's eyes lit up, and the corners of his mouth became harder to suppress than an AK.
"As long as you don't get yourself killed first, then I suppose it probably is."
Professor Ye withdrew her gaze and walked toward the furnace ahead. "Come on. It's time for class."
"Oh, oh, yay!"
Ji Jue clenched his fist in celebration and followed along enthusiastically.
Without hesitation, and without ever looking back.
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