For a moment, the entire world seemed to come to a standstill.
Very quickly, everyone realized... it did not merely seem that way.
It was reality.
The instant the five fingers of that raised hand spread open, all phenomena froze!
The surging, glowing molten steel, the dazzling sparks glittering like stars, even the Burning wind rushing towards them—everything beneath that palm's shadow came to a complete halt.
As he ran, Yellow Beard felt a chill rise from his marrow, and darkness filled his vision... It truly was darkness. The moment Ji Jue raised his hand, a horrifying void appeared in the workshop's perceptions and observations. Within the world illuminated by light, there was now a patch of blackness.
It was as though something brutal, cold, and impossible to refuse had completely pried that area out of the entire workshop! It had seized that domain from the workshop itself!
He had taken it into his palm, kneading it as he pleased, ravaging it at will, casually applying and testing the insights he had just gained. And so, before everyone's eyes, the halted molten iron instantly solidified, becoming sharply faceted crystals piled into a bizarre postmodern sculpture.
Restoration.
The materials on the verge of erupting had been twisted back into their original state.
Yet in the very next instant, the mass formed of metal crystals collapsed once more, dissolved, reconnected with the unfinished reaction, and underwent Metamorphosis at a dizzying speed.
Dissolution, annealing, construction, Extraction-Transformation, layering, reforging—repeated again and again. While the apprentices were still staring blankly at the spectacle, not knowing what had happened, every Artisan present had already frozen in place, unable to believe their eyes.
A process that required the coordination of an entire workshop, more than sixty specialized pieces of equipment, sixteen different production lines, and the close