Chosen: Beyond Fate

He did not care about the consequences, nor did he intend to preserve any parts for recycling. All he needed now was the purest, most thorough destruction.

After spending so many days dismantling similar equipment, he already knew their structures and weak points by heart. Everything was laid bare to him.

Now, as his five fingers swept forward, his spirit matter became like a blade, slipping into every opening. Light and swift, it sliced across the connection points on every level. Then a chain reaction triggered, one of collapse and disintegration. With nothing more than a casual push forward, a soul-shaking scream tore through the air.

The aberrant shook frantically. Cracks spread across its body, and massive amounts of blood-like aberrant spirit matter burst out. The moment the core of the containment equipment was destroyed, the aberrant that had parasitized and fused with it lost its heart.

Only a twisted soul, formed from who knew how much hatred and madness, contracted under its final resentment and curse, as if trying to break free from its shell. It sprung from the seal in one last dying counterattack straight toward Ji Jue, who was right in front of it.

Lou Feng widened his eyes in shock. “Hey! Caref—”

The moment the abnormality appeared, he was the first to notice it. Ever since becoming a Chosen One, he had spent countless hours training Spirit Morph, so he was naturally sensitive to such things.

Ji Jue, who was right in front of it, could also sense that the raging torrent was about to explode like a bomb, but he seemed not to care at all. He even looked up and gave Lou Feng a smile of gratitude for his concern.

In the very last moment, the finger he had extended lifted slightly. Immediately, a thin, silver-glimmering barrier rose from the mercury to block the incoming attack.

Idiot!

Furious, Lou Feng almost cursed out loud again. Even if the mercury’s material properties were enhanced to the limit with blessings, how could it possibly be of any use against this kind of spirit matter impact and aberrant erosion?!

Lou Feng felt like something was wrong with his eyes. Holy shit?! What the hell? What the fuck did I just see?!

The scarlet torrent of spirit matter gushing from the seal slammed head-on into the thin mercury barrier. Then it vanished, as if it had fallen into a bottomless pit. The moment it sensed that something was wrong, the writhing aberrant spirit matter seemed to struggle and try to break free, but it was already too late.

Like a mouse that had stepped onto a glue trap, it thrashed wildly and rolled around, but only sank deeper and deeper. No matter what it did, it could not escape that thin curtain of mercury. Under Ji Jue’s control, the mercury scattered across the ground quickly rose and closed in from all sides, forming a perfectly measured cube. Then, it rapidly shrank.

Inside the cube, something still seemed to be struggling and crashing around like mad. Writhing outlines bulged out from the surface, but they could never break free from the mercury’s restraint.

In the end, the shrinking cube became only the size of a fist. It had become entirely pitch black, with scarlet lines crawling and wriggling across its surface. Detaching from the supporting pillar of mercury, it dropped into Ji Jue’s hand. Just like that, he’d obtained new material!

Ji Jue grinned. By using physical properties to reverse the flow of spirit matter, and an ordinary vessel to confine what was trying to transcend it, Ji Jue forced the spirit to submit to form.

This was Solid Alchemy, a discipline whose concept and foundation directly opposed Fluid Alchemy. This was his first time using this technique outside the workshop, and to his surprise, the results were even better than expected.

The more his mastery of Fluid Alchemy improved, the more outstanding the effect became when he applied its core principles in reverse to perform Solid Alchemy. The two were clearly exact opposites, yet they could complement each other. In the end, both were built on the relationship between matter and spirit, as well as form and essence.

In that brief moment of thought, Ji Jue gained another flash of insight.

When he turned back and saw Lou Feng land, panting for breath, he reached out and patted him on the shoulder.

“Thanks for the help.You fought pretty well!” Ji Jue said.

As Lou Feng watched Ji Jue walk away as if nothing had happened, he remained frozen in place and fell into deep thought. Before he knew it, he was drenched in sweat. His heart and backside clenched at the same time. Oh shit! Was that move just now aimed at my Spirit Morph?! That damn bastard still isn’t planning to let me off the hook!

Young Master Lou went cold all over. He had just realized he was dealing with a true workaholic demon.

***

When Ji Jue walked out through the drifting dust, what he saw was a crowd of anxious faces waiting outside the workshop. They were full of hope, yet no one dared to speak. No one even knew what they should ask.

Ji Jue smiled and waved. “Don’t worry, everyone. It’s been dealt with. The damage isn’t too bad. If we move quickly, work should be able to resume in a little while.”

Cheers and shouts erupted without end. Every apprentice looked excited, relieved to survive the disaster. No one cared about appearances anymore. One by one, they rushed to hug Ji Jue and even Lou Feng, who was dragging along behind him. They poured out their praise and gratitude without holding anything back. These two young men were genuinely their saviours! They had saved everyone’s bacon.

If the Recycling Department had really been destroyed because of this, then none of the workers would have escaped accountability. Even the supervisor, who had been doing nothing but raging helplessly earlier, grabbed Ji Jue’s hand, almost unable to stop himself from shedding a couple of tears out of gratitude.

“Please rest assured, Mr. Ji. This is a major achievement.”

“That’s not necessary, is it?” Ji Jue asked.

The supervisor was stunned. “Huh?”

“No, what I mean is, no real damage was done, and there weren’t any irreversible consequences. At most, we lost a batch of storage equipment. We can actually just pretend as if this never happened, right?”

“Well...”

To be fair, for everyone involved, that would be the best possible outcome. They could just keep quiet about this and move on. The serious aberration leak could be written off as a small contamination error that triggered the alarm. In this type of working environment, small contamination leaks were basically unavoidable. Since there had been no serious consequences, at most they would get scolded a little. It wouldn’t be a big deal.

At worst, their wages would be deducted. So what? Who cared about that measly monthly wage of one or two thousand?

The only ones who would actually lose out were Ji Jue and Lou Feng, who could have earned real credit for this. Lou Feng only glanced at Ji Jue and said nothing.

As for Ji Jue, he did not care about this bit of credit at all. With Professor Ye looking out for him, he wasn’t exactly worried about his future.

For a moment, the supervisor, as well as the apprentice standing nearby, forced a smile to hide his grief.

“W-why would you...” the injured apprentice stammered, utterly shaken. He looked as if he could hardly stay on his feet.

Ji Jue looked over in confusion. “When I got here, weren’t you the one who taught me what I needed to do? You explained everything to me, from safety precautions to the actual procedure. You were afraid I wouldn’t understand, so you spent quite a bit of time on me, didn’t you? If this were a factory assembly line, I’d have to offer you a cigarette and call you my mentor.”

He offered a casual smile and patted the apprentice on the shoulder. “This is just a small favor. Don’t take it to heart.”

The Recycling and Processing Department was a place where people traded years of their lives for a future. Apprentices with no talent, no money, or no favor from their teachers came here just to scrape together the tiniest bit of credit, to practice and improve skills that others had already mastered long ago, or because they couldn’t refuse their workshop’s assignment or direct order. They had no choice but to come here as labourers, keep their heads down, and grind away for a shot at tomorrow.

That was why labourers looked out for other labourers.

Even with someone like Ji Jue, a “rich young master” who had been dropped into the department out of nowhere, they still patiently reminded him again and again about safety precautions. Even if they were impatient, they still carefully guided him through every step to make sure he would not get hurt.

Things were different now. Ji Jue had escaped that sea of suffering. Compared to those young masters and young ladies in the lounge who did nothing but boast, he still preferred people who could lower their heads and work hard beside him in the workshop. Even if he missed out on this little bit of credit, he would have other chances. But for the people on the other side of the scale, this could be the one chance they had been desperately waiting for.

Besides, he had nothing to lose. So why not?

“I... I...” The apprentice was dazed. He wanted to speak, but he could not stop his voice from cracking. Tears welled in his eyes.

Ji Jue did not wait for him to speak. “Hey! Everyone hear that? Mr. Zhao says dinner’s on him! One dish per person. Pick whatever you want from the cafeteria.”

“Holy crap? For real?”

“How generous! Count me in!”

“Can we get takeout?”

Now that the danger had passed and everyone could relax again, quite a few apprentices joined in on the excitement. Zhao Yan choked for a moment, then flashed a grateful smile. He wiped his face and loudly proclaimed, “Everyone, let’s go! Dinner’s on me!”

With the mood lightened, repairs and cleanup inside the workshop also sped up. At this rate, they would probably be able to resume work in a few hours. The only thing they had to wait for was the arrival of a new batch of storage containers.

Once most of the crowd had dispersed, a familiar voice, carrying its usual stern tone, asked from behind Ji Jue, “You do know that covering up a major safety incident means taking responsibility for it, right?”

Ji Jue turned back in surprise, brow furrowing. When he saw Tong Shan’s face, he immediately smiled. “Oh, Mr. Tong. Long time no see. You’re here too?”

The corner of Tong Shan’s mouth seemed to lift slightly. “Security Bureau teams from branches all over Haizhou have arrived. I couldn’t just sit in an office enjoying the air conditioning. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have caught you red-handed covering up an incident, would I?”

Ji Jue looked puzzled. “Incident? What incident? I didn’t see anything.”

“Even if you don’t fess up, you won’t be able to hide it for long. After all, the alarm was triggered just now, and it caused a huge scene. It won’t take long to investigate.” His eyebrows lifted slightly, and his gaze seemed to drift toward the sky. “Don’t forget where we are.”

Helpless, Ji Jue let out a sigh. Heaven’s Eye was watching from above. Under the eyes of a Celestial Being, it wasn’t easy to lie through your teeth.

“However, how the report is written is another matter,” Tong Shan added. “In the face of a conspiracy attack by the Heretic Cult, everyone in the Recycling and Processing Department bravely fought against a Grade A aberrant under the leadership of apprentices Ji Jue and Lou Feng. Not only did they successfully neutralize the threat, they also defended the workshop and the department, ensuring that work could continue efficiently. What do you think? Is this report inspiring enough?”

Ji Jue sensed something was off. He stared at Tong Shan in shock, having been rendered completely speechless.

Holy shit. Was this the professional standard of a Federation civil servant? No, wait. Was this the gap between an ordinary nobody and the head of Cliff City Security Bureau’s First Division, who also served as the director’s assistant?

What the hell? He had turned an accident into good news!

At most, Ji Jue could only think of playing the whole thing down and keeping quiet. But the moment Tong Shan opened his mouth, he flung the blame somewhere so high Ji Jue couldn’t even see it anymore. By the time it came back down, somehow it had landed right on the Heretic Cult’s head! He had been at the outpost for so long, and he had not seen a single living member of the Heretic Cult yet, damn it!

“An aberrant doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. The recovery team will definitely need to be investigated. Besides, stirring things up a little is a good way to tighten the lax atmosphere around here. It’ll save those people from thinking too highly of themselves. And those lunatics hiding in Spring City won’t just sit back and do nothing. Who knows how they’ll strike back in a few days?” Tong Shan glanced at Ji Jue. “I’ll push this forward on behalf of the Cliff City Security Bureau. Don’t worry.”

That was the most important part. Sometimes, the exact same report could have a completely different effect depending on whether it had one more official seal stamped on it. Ji Jue was only an apprentice, with neither status nor influence. Even if he shouted, no one would listen. By contrast, when Tong Shan spoke as the representative of Cliff City Security Bureau, his words carried real weight.

Besides, a collective commendation worth at least second-class merit had suddenly fallen right into their laps. Would they really refuse it?

Ji Jue slapped his thigh, his face lighting up with delight. “Oh, Mr. Shan, you’re my savior! Come on, here, please take a seat. No, take the seat of honor! Hey, Mr. Lou, tea! Hurry up and pour some tea! Bring out that pack of Da Hong Pao[1] I’ve been saving!”

From beside him, Lou Feng rolled his eyes so hard he almost wanted to ignore Ji Jue.

The only things in that shabby box of yours are wrenches and screwdrivers. Da Hong Pao? Even if the tea is good, you just toss it straight into a huge pot, brew two liters at a time, and let it steep overnight. You even mooched the damn tea leaves off me!

After sitting down in the chair Ji Jue had dragged over, the stern look on Tong Shan’s face softened with the faintest hint of a smile. “Kid, can you do me a favor?”

Ji Jue’s eyes lit up. “Who are we killing?”

1. Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) is a premium, heavily roasted oolong tea originating from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian Province, China. Famous for its rocky minerality, floral notes, and long-lasting sweet aftertaste, it is often considered the "King of Oolong" and remains one of the most highly prized teas in the world. ☜