Ambush (Thank you, Running Beast, for the Alliance Leader)
Among the many bits of common knowledge passed around among Chosen Ones, everyone acknowledged that the Embers Lineage really could not fight—but at the same time, they also had to acknowledge something else: an Artisan's dominance within their Workshop was absolute.
Never mind opponents of the same level and rank as the Workshop's host; sometimes, even Celestial beings could suffer at the hands of the bizarre things stored in certain Workshops.
It was like facing an entire heavily fortified castle empty-handed. Ballistae, arrow carts, falling stones, and rolling logs were one thing, but some especially disgusting bastards would simply boil shit atop the walls, waiting to splash it in the intruders' faces.
Ji Jue firmly believed that even if heaven and earth shattered outside, even if all of Haizhou vanished beneath an earthquake or was swallowed by floodwaters, Professor Ye could still go on living as usual as long as he remained inside his Workshop.
Its defensive and suppressive power was just that terrifyingly overpowered.
Unfortunately, a qualified Workshop could not consist of merely putting a furnace in a room and calling it done. Just as installing electric curtains did not mean you had Full House Intelligence, a Workshop was not something as useless as Full House Intelligence.
A qualified Workshop required three or more generations of Artisans, spending over a century in total, to complete.
It needed a complete set of tools covering every aspect of alchemical application, even specialized and modified according to the techniques inherited by its particular school. And that was only the most basic foundation.
It needed a power source capable of supplying all Spirit Essence consumption—through official Taiyi Ring channels, the cheapest portable miniature "Spirit Essence Sun" cost 242,009,411 credits. Do not ask why the