Chapter 176:
Ji Jue held the bone blade in his hand. Not only did he feel no disgust toward it, he practically wanted to kiss it.
It can’t kill anything? Oh wow, who knew you’re such a thoughtful little sweetheart! Can’t kill people? Perfect! What era is this, anyway? Who still uses knives to kill?
If one had a gun, one would use a gun. If one had a cannon, one would use a cannon. How many people could someone possibly kill with a knife?
Besides, if people died from a single stab on the spot, that would be far worse. The scattered spirit matter, collapsing matrices, and the blessings returning to the Supreme Benevolences—all of it would be a chaotic mess to handle. You’d be lucky if you could salvage even one-tenth of it. If it couldn’t kill, then there was no need to worry about damaging the material at all.
Moreover, with its dual interference on both flesh and spirit matter, it had countless uses in Ji Jue’s hands. He could use it with Pacifier to destroy inanimate objects, or use Dissociation Technique to disrupt the operation of the matrix inside the opponent’s body, or simply stab it in and cut off the connection and resonance between a person’s blessing and soul. And then, he could conveniently extract everything at his own pace.
Just thinking about it made him almost drool. Stroking the continuously humming bone knife, he sighed in admiration. “What a merciful blade. It suits someone with a compassionate Bodhisattva heart like me perfectly! Our fated connection was truly destined by heaven!”
Ye Xian watched coldly from the side. She didn’t need to think too hard to know what nonsense Ji Jue was cooking up in his head, because she was thinking the exact same thing. In fact, she was taking it even further. Ji Jue was limited by his abilities and experience. There were plenty of high-end applications he simply couldn’t pull off. What a tragic waste of a treasure!
She coughed lightly, gathering her thoughts. “Have you come up with a name yet?”
Ji Jue didn’t even hesitate as he lifted the bone blade. “How about Mercy? It wounds but does not kill, delivering salvation to all living beings. This is a blade of mercy in every sense of the word.”
Ye Xian nodded in approval. Ye Chun couldn’t help rolling her eyes, letting out a silent sigh.
Mercy? Since when has anything that ends up in your grubby hands ever shown even the slightest bit of mercy?! Showing mercy to a workaholic like you is nothing short of persecution of the masses of struggling students! That’s it, you innately evil Ember brat. I'm going to destroy your thesis!
While Professor Ye and Ji Jue were busy playing out their touching teacher-and-apprentice act, Ye Chun’s intentions were anything but good as she quietly reached toward the documents placed by the table. She slowly picked them up.
Someone coughed casually from behind her. When she turned around, she saw half of a USB drive that had accidentally been pulled out of Ji Jue's pocket when he’d taken something out earlier.
Tsk... I’ll definitely name you as the second author this time! And next time too!
***
In the darkness, the floor rose, the ceiling lowered, and rows of lights flared into bloom one after another. The usual spirit matter combat training class, where Ji Jue was routinely beaten up, began once again.
Professor Ye walked down the steps, glanced at Ji Jue, and immediately noticed his impatient expression. She understood what he was thinking at once.
“Alright, go on. Show off. Let's see what new trick you’ve come up with.”
Ji Jue sighed. “Professor, that’s a rather hurtful way to put it.”
With his left hand, he held the broken pocket watch. With his right, he reached out and pulled forth a strand of spirit light. It emerged completely intact, swaying in his hand like the last flicker of a candle in the wind.
He pushed it back in, then pulled it out again. Under his ten fingers, that faint spark of spirit intelligence bounced and danced with effortless ease. At last, as the physical matter closed back together, it vanished without a trace, returning to Ji Jue’s soul. Like an illusion, the sound of a ticking second hand echoed faintly beside his ears, keeping an unwavering rhythm.
The smile on his face grew brighter. “This is the masterpiece I came up with after racking my brains over it.”
In just a few short seconds, he extracted and transplanted spirit intelligence dozens of times in succession. Every movement was smooth and effortless, without the slightest hitch. Compared to the clumsy and stiff execution from just a few days ago, the difference was beyond reason.
It was as if he had become a completely different person. Even his use of Dissociation Technique had reached a new level. This was not just his spirit matter manipulation; his blessings had likely undergone a qualitative change as well.
“Seems you are really proud of it.” Professor Ye nodded slowly, sounding almost approving. To think he even dared to banter with her now... He had indeed made considerable progress, enough that he was getting a little carried away.
But that didn’t matter. Truly fine material did not need hand-holding or careful nurturing. With every passing storm and season of wind and frost, it would naturally grow until harvest.
In other words, no matter how wildly he improved, with proper guidance and correction, he would eventually learn humility and face reality. Eventually, he would be corrected into proper form.
Wasn’t that precisely what it meant to be a teacher?
Ye Xian did not take offense. Instead, for the first time in a long while, she actually felt a trace of anticipation. She waved her hand. “Come on then. Let me see it. Where’s the surprise? Show me.”
Ji Jue simply smiled and stood where he was, choosing not to step forward. He drew out the bone blade and sliced open his index finger. A thread of blood trickled from his fingertip and into the open jar at his feet, leaving a streak of crimson over the silver-white surface.
The mercury stirred like a living creature, rising, writhing, quivering. Guided by the movements of Ji Jue’s fingers, it flowed and shifted endlessly.
One of Ye Xian’s brows rose slightly. Ji Jue’s Fluid Alchemy had become increasingly refined. Using his own blood as a medium to carry spirit matter into the mercury, he was inscribing new spirit matter into the blank mercury and granting it a soul.
“Not bad at all,” Ye Xian “praised” him. “So you picked up a pretty little snake-charming trick in the Time Ruin. If being a craftsman doesn’t work out, at least you won’t have to worry about starving.”
The corner of Ji Jue’s eye twitched. He’d finally figured out why his tongue had been getting sharper and his words meaner lately.
“Be careful, teacher. This isn’t a snake,” he reminded her. “At least... it isn’t just one snake.”
The mercury coiling on the ground shot forward like lightning. The shapeless monster sprouted one sharp limb after another. They struck the ground in rapid succession, almost as if the thing were launching itself forward, changing direction unpredictably.
With a flick of Ji Jue’s fingers, it changed direction effortlessly. Then it split into two, and two became four. After looping around from the center, one sharp limb suddenly extended from behind and thrust forward.
Ye Xian casually snapped her fingers. The mercury mass shattered on the spot, exploding everywhere.
“I told you. This is nothing more than a snake-charmer’s trick.”
Ji Jue's eyes widened. He tried to analyze what had just happened. Immediately, he understood, and he felt a chilling sense of dread.
The air?
The moment the professor snapped her fingers, she infused the air at her fingertips with spirit matter and subjected it to the Ember Path’s physical state modifications—compression, shaping, hardening, and reinforcement. And then, under the repulsion of Mo Ye, the compressed mass of air shot forth at a speed that surpassed even a bullet.
In that fleeting moment, she carried out a bewildering number of operations without the slightest hitch. Every step flowed seamlessly, all of it reduced to pure instinct, producing destructive power comparable to a point-blank shotgun blast.
In other words, the moment Professor Ye stood within ten steps of Ji Jue, he had already been targeted by who knew how many invisible gun barrels.
No, it was even more outrageous than that. If she infused the air with spirit matter and endowed them with greater transformations and destructive force, then with Professor Ye’s mastery, she could turn the surrounding air into artillery-like shells at any moment. If she got even slightly serious, Ji Jue would be obliterated without a trace.
Ye Xian looked over expressionlessly. “I suppose you finally decided to take this more seriously. Show me what you’ve really got, Ji Jue. Otherwise, we’ll have to begin the class.”
Ji Jue smiled. “Professor, what are you saying? I’ve been serious this whole time.”
Only then did Ye Xian notice the gale erupting behind her right at her back. She turned around, eyes wide. Somehow, an enormous object had appeared behind her, its outline fierce and menacing.
It was a silver-white truck.
In a single second, the shattered and scattered mercury reassembled, taking on a completely new form. It roared and charged straight at her.
Ye Xian finally understood where the mechanical spirit within Ji Jue’s blood had come from. Without a doubt, he had taken it from a passing truck on the road before arriving.
For this brat, Fluid Alchemy was downright unfair. An alchemy technique that allowed forms to shift toward their essence, combined with Ji Jue’s ability to grant machines spirit intelligence at will and his skill in extracting and transplanting spirit intelligence, had produced something absurdly powerful.
Very good. Excellent.
A good student always got a teacher’s blood pumping. The corners of Ye Xian’s lips slowly curved upward. With a casual wave of her hand, her fingertips brushed the truck’s front end. The mercury truck exploded with a thunderous blast, scattering into a rain of silver droplets.
It was just a hollow shell, nothing more than a deception. A hundred-odd kilograms of mercury could, at best, form an empty shell. Setting aside the spirit matter and concentration required to harden it to the strength of steel, wasn’t a truck’s lethality derived from its mass and speed?
Even a fool could consider such a simple question. If this little stunt was all Ji Jue had, where had all that eagerness and excitement of his come from?
The conclusion was obvious. It was a decoy meant to draw her attention.
A drum of mercury weighed around a hundred kilograms, but the amount used to form that truck was only about twenty-five kilos, and that didn’t even include the purified mercury she had specially ordered.
So where was the rest? Where was the surprise?
As the truck exploded with a thunderous crash, Ye Xian raised her other hand and spread her fingers toward Ji Jue, who was charging at her. The air hardened, faint crystalline patterns taking shape within it. Then, the hardened air fractured, cracks spreading across its surface.
With a flash of silver light, two streams of mercury burst from Ji Jue’s sleeves like whips, slicing through the air. Their tips contracted into blade-like edges and crossed, slashing downward.
As they struck the cracks, the mercury froze, then recoiled and flowed back into Ji Jue’s hands. It traced a circular arc through the air before lashing out once more, rapidly expanding, multiplying, gaining mass, and hardening!
Through a chain of transformations, the mercury at the front had hardened into a hammer. With it, Ji Jue smashed down, the impact leaving his ears ringing. The barely hardened air barrier trembled, and fissures spread through it once more.
Beside Ye Xian, the mercury that had burst from the truck and scattered like rain began to gather again under the exchange of blood threads and spirit matter. It even let out a piercing, convincing truck horn. Then it shaped itself into a gigantic wheel and came crushing down, only to be sent flying by a single punch.
Ji Jue’s eyes lit up. Finally, she’s using a proper technique.
Through the cracks in the collapsing air barrier, he caught a glimpse of the smile on Ye Xian’s face. It looked satisfied, almost approving, yet it also carried a hint of amusement, as if to say “Finally, I can turn things up a notch.”
A teacher could not always be strict. Sometimes they had to be patient and gentle. For now, she would set aside the Dissociation Technique and play with him a little. She clenched her fists and cracked her knuckles.
Wind and lightning surged anew as the ground and ceiling shook. Strengthening her physical properties, she threw a punch straight at Ji Jue’s face. The remaining air barrier shattered, and so did the mercury hammer. Everything broke upon impact.
It was just a simple punch, yet as Ji Jue faced the storm rushing toward him, he felt as if he were about to be crushed head-on by a siege battering ram. His hair flew up, his face tensed, and a deep chill ran through his body.
Without hesitation, he raised both arms and crossed them in front of him.
Boom!
The destructive fist and the silver light collided head-on. Water-like ripples spread, mercury splashed everywhere, then slowly gathered again, crawling back along Ji Jue’s pant legs and returning to him.
Ji Jue slid backward several meters. He barely managed to stop himself. But this time, he... didn’t get blasted away?
Ye Xian looked up and saw silver light surging over Ji Jue’s body. Layer upon layer of mercury flowed and hardened, forming a shell tougher than steel. A knockoff, youth-version of the Dragon Scale Armor[1] shaped using Young Master Lou’s Spirit Morph had wrapped itself around him.
The style, however, was completely different. It looked like someone had forcibly welded a crude iron shell onto a civilian construction-grade powered exoskeleton. It was rough, uneven, with obvious weld seams everywhere, and stitched together from mismatched parts, yet it radiated a certain wild, unrestrained beauty.
“Heh.”
Ji Jue looked up, showing off his mask. Within the shifting silver reflections, it displayed a preset message for his stunned teacher.
√.
1. Please note that while the word here used is 胄, which means helm/helmet, it’s described more as a full body armor here, so I’ve changed it to armor to fit the context more. ☜