Chapter 31: Come, do a show for her!

The long base is covered with complex structures like circuits, extending from the indentations on the hand position to the inside of the spherical crystal.

Unseen shapes and structures, inexplicably strange.

"Professor, this won't be the kind that will shine after being pressed in novels, right?"

It’s like the kind of thing said in very early novels, magic academy testing qualifications, like installing a light bulb, shining brightly.

Ji Jue didn't hesitate, put both hands directly on it, and just as he expected, a faint light suddenly lit up inside the sphere.

Unfortunately, the brightness is not enough for two watts. It’s about the same if you plug a potato on both sides of the electrode, which makes him show a slight frustration.

Then, he felt that the ectoplasm in his body actually jumped up, just like noticing some kind of attraction, and had an urge to flow out.

"Don't resist the operation of ectoplasm, input it, step by step, layer by layer inward, you can be slower, take your time.

Its base is called a simple ectoplasm probe, which can help the Heaven-Chosen’s own ectoplasm maintain a stable structure and state inside the material. Constant ectoplasm pathways, runes, and imprints in the material with the probe, this is the foundation of modern alchemy."

Professor Ye said slowly: "Yes, stabilize your own ectoplasm, make it in a fixed form, maintain a restrained state, and maintain stability."

Just in her words, strands of light appeared inside the crystal ball, just like flowing copper light, with restrained brilliant radiance, input from the ectoplasm pathways in the ten fingers. Ten thin ectoplasm lines swam smoothly in the crystal, following the guidance, gathered in one place, and outlined and woven into a stable ring.

"Now, you can let go."

With Professor Ye’s words, Ji Jue’s hands slowly lifted.

In the silence, the two didn't speak, just stared. The ring woven by Ji Jue’s ectoplasm in the crystal ball rotated slowly, the faint light gradually dimmed, until ten minutes later, it finally collapsed from the center and dissipated.

"Next, use your ectoplasm, spread, fill the entire sphere, keep it uniform." Professor Ye suddenly asked: "Can you feel anything?"

"Seems like, inside here..." Ji Jue hesitated: "The material inside the crystal ball seems to be converting between liquid and solid?"

"Normal, what is injected inside is high ectoplasm reaction crystal. After injecting ectoplasm, it will liquefy. Next, you have to control the proportion between liquid and solid—mobilize it, lead it, move it."

Professor Ye’s voice was slow and solemn, word by word, echoing in his ears.

Soon, when Ji Jue let go again, a golden vortex had appeared inside the sphere, which was Ji Jue’s ectoplasm leading the liquefied crystal to start operation and rotation.

Professor Ye pressed the stopwatch, which lasted for thirteen minutes and sixteen seconds, the ectoplasm dissipated, and the rotation stopped.

Next, according to Professor Ye’s instructions, after the crystal part inside the sphere was liquefied, part of it was kept in a solid shape, and standard hexahedron, dodecahedron, prototype, or nested structures were formed.

After a try, Ji Jue became excited, feeling that his ectoplasm was like a carving knife under the extension of the probe, shaping various outlines.

Even, he tried to succeed in turning, milling, planing, grinding, etc., and carved a pattern of a little sheep in the crystal.

Mom, is there such a

Ji Jue felt increasingly fascinated.

Isn't this much simpler and more convenient than a CNC machine tool?!

You don't even need to program; you just have to move a thought.

"Is this alchemy?" he murmured subconsciously, "It feels like it's even..."

Quite simple.

That was what he wanted to say, and in reality, that was how it felt—not as troublesome or difficult as he had imagined; it was easy, simple, and intuitive.

No, don't get careless!

Everything is easy at first and difficult later. Getting started now is just kindergarten level; it might get so hard later that he'll cough up blood.

He was just afraid that Professor Ye would tell him: "This is running, this is rolling, this is attacking. Good, now let's go slaughter these ridiculous enemies called Soul of Cinder, Orphan of Kos, and Malenia..." How is this any different from entering an online game where you die if your character dies, only to discover the supervisor is Hidetaka Miyazaki?!

"Very good, maintain the state."

Professor Ye was expressionless. She took a thick, massive book from the box beside her. Every page was actually made of sharp, heavy copper foil. She flipped open the cover and pointed to the first intaglio symbol at the top.

It was complex and strange, like a blur of flame rising upward.

"Use your Ectoplasm to reproduce this symbol within the crystal as precisely as possible. Start from the left, the first stroke from top to bottom. Don't be constrained by a flat plane; it is three-dimensional. Follow your own intuition, and the Ectoplasm will complete its structure on its own. What you must ensure is absolute stability, yes..."

Snap!

Ji Jue felt like he had been shocked and subconsciously let go. Because he had been careless, his Ectoplasm lost stability, and as a result, the symbol that had just been one-third completed inside the sphere burst silently and dissipated completely.

He couldn't help but want to slap himself twice!

Why the hell did you go and remark that it was simple! The difficulty spiked immediately!

"Failure is normal, continue."

Professor Ye's expression remained calm, without any change: "Do not doubt yourself. What you need is to integrate your own perception and will into the Ectoplasm. Do not let the Ectoplasm lead you; it is a part of you. Yes, that's it..."

Snap!

Soon, another mistake.

"Again."

And so, soon, another mistake. Ji Jue was drenched in sweat, but Professor Ye still didn't react, only saying: "Continue."

"Continue again."

"The final finishing point just now was wrong. Your Ectoplasm density changed. Recall the feeling you had before."

"Ectoplasm is not a blade, or rather, it is not just a blade; it is also the very thing that constitutes the imprint. They are a whole. Continue."

"Again, maintain it, contract it a little more."

Time and again, he started over, with only the crisp sound of ticking time. Ji Jue's face gradually turned pale, his breathing grew heavy, and he felt dizzy. Yet, in his trance, the stability of his Ectoplasm improved once more. Guided by the probe, it gradually changed, circulating bit by bit within the crystal.

Until, light like a dream bloomed beneath Ji Jue's hands.

When Ji Jue's Ectoplasm dissipated, the rune left inside the crystal began to operate as if it were a living thing, releasing soft colors. As it flowed, it was so magnificent that it lit up Ji Jue's eyes.

He forgot to breathe.

It was as if, in an instant, the Ectoplasm had turned into a bridge, connecting him to that operating rune. A certain inexplicable realization welled up in his heart.

The soul is like a flame, burning ceaselessly, rising endlessly. Thinking, feeling, and realizing—all the philosophy and essence of the world flowed out from this source of miracles, reaching everything.

Therefore, its name is...

—[Ascension]!

This is the emblem and totem of the Twelve Supreme Goods!

And then, everything went black before his eyes.

A drop of blood suddenly appeared on the crystal ball, then a second drop, a third drop...

Crimson dripped from the tip of Ji Jue's nose, splashing onto the console.

He staggered back a step, wanting to steady himself on something, but landed on the chair and cushion, breathing heavily. It was a long time before he came to his senses, staring at the gradually blurring rune inside the crystal.

"Professor, can I consider that a success?"

Professor Ye did not speak.

She stood where she was, looking down at the crystal, wondering what she was thinking.

She simply wiped away the bloodstain, then reached out and tapped a finger on the crystal, causing the rune that was on the verge of dissipating to suddenly stabilize, becoming even more dazzling than when Ji Jue had just finished writing it.

It shone with ten thousand rays of light!

It was as if a searchlight had suddenly been turned on right in front of his eyelids. Countless tiny branches extended from the rune, solemn and glorious, a hundred times, no, a thousand, ten thousand times greater than before!

That was the absolute gap in their understanding and realization of the Path of Ascension.

It was like the distance between heaven and the abyss.

"Not bad."

She suddenly said.

Not only was it his first contact, but he was able to use the Ectoplasm probe right away—this was a shockingly high level of Ectoplasm control.

Stability, persistence, precision... for a master, it was riddled with holes and far too immature, but for an apprentice, it could already be called perfect.

What if this apprentice was coming into contact with all this for the first time?

What if he had absolutely no foundation in alchemy before this?

What if he had successfully created a Supreme Good rune imprint in just half an hour?!

If someone had told her all this yesterday, she would have scoffed at it, but even having witnessed it all with her own eyes today, she still felt it was completely...

A fantasy!

Skillful use of the probe, controllable operation of Ectoplasm, the development and maintenance of alchemical circuits, the application and mastery of rune imprints... someone had actually completed the entire content of standard apprentice training in one go within half an hour?

Back then, it had taken her a week to complete the introduction to alchemy, and her progress and efficiency were at the very forefront of all her peers, something even her teacher marveled at.

She had thought it was normal and didn't care, even despite how fearful and jealous the gazes behind her were.

And now, more than twenty years later, she finally experienced the frustration of her peers at the time, and the astonishment in her teacher's heart back then.

And even... the relief that she hadn't let Ye Chun come down to observe.

If she had seen it, it would probably have been another devastating blow, right?

"You are very good, Ji Jue."

Professor Ye finally raised her eyes and looked over: "Better than I thought... does this have anything to do with your ability?"

"Uh, it seems somewhat similar, but some parts are a bit different."

Ji Jue scratched his head, gesturing for a long time without knowing how to describe it, so he simply reached out and pointed remotely toward the Longmen machining center in the distance: "Probably, just like this."

[Buddy, move! Give me a show!]

The moment the command was issued, the massive CNC machine tool suddenly shook. The power turned on, the program started, and indicator lights flashed on one by one. Amidst a low humming sound, the machining center gladly complied: [OJBK!]

And then, on the workbench, a piercing sound of friction rang out!

A strange, black-gold cutting head that Ji Jue had never seen before emerged with dazzling light and suddenly descended, causing the massive titanium alloy ingot to shudder violently.

Amidst the spray of cutting fluid and coolant, thousands of metal filaments burst out from beneath the cutting head.

It was like a hot knife through butter, damn it!

The processing difficulty of this stuff, which was hard as hell, brittle as death, and had shitty thermal conductivity, used to be like a nightmare for Ji Jue, but now, he felt like he had accidentally stumbled into a barbershop.

At this moment, the once unruly ingot had been held down by the barber, being toyed with, cut, and styled at will, dancing lightly amidst the rotation of the five-axis linkage.

Just like a silly kid who had lost himself under the barber's sweet talk!

Fast, too fast.

No assistance needed, no prior preparation work, just do it, do it damn it. Amidst the hallucinatory, manic laughter of the machine tool, the ingot was shaped and remade at will, shedding layer after layer of cumbersome coats. Fine filaments scattered, yet not a single one could tangle around that cutting head, which was so nimble it seemed to be twitching in a frenzy.

In less than four short minutes, a bust of Professor Ye had already emerged from the original ingot. He lifted it up, corresponding remotely through the glass.

It was just like looking in a mirror; every hair, every wrinkle, was flawless.

Even Professor Ye's movements froze in place.

Her eyes widened.

After a long time, her slightly trembling hand raised to adjust her glasses, as if suppressing her emotions: "Ji Jue..."

"Yeah."

Ji Jue grinned, his smug head held high, "How does it feel, Master?"

"...Very bad."

Professor Ye slowly let out a long breath, ultimately not punching his head in: "That custom ingot, I originally intended to use it for an engineering prototype of an armored transmission spine. I had almost finished programming it."

"Ah, this..."

Ji Jue's smile stiffened on his face.

An awkward silence descended suddenly. Only Ji Jue's head was bent by an invisible force. Several times he wanted to speak but stopped, finally gathering his courage: "That, is it... expensive?"

"It's fine, only two hundred and sixty thousand," the professor comforted, "just deduct it from your salary."

Ji Jue was even more shocked: "I still have a salary?!"

Professor Ye finally turned her head back to look at him, studying his shocked expression. After a long time, she nodded slowly:

"Originally, you did."