Chapter 183: It Should Thank Me! (Thanks to the Alliance Leader

Long night, unaware.

In the temporary workshop in the carriage, when the alarm clock rang, Ji Jue realized the arrival of the morning with a delay.

Thanks to the physique of the Chosen, staying up all night didn't matter, and he had rested quite a bit on the road. After a night of hard work, when the furnace was opened again, the brilliant silver light illuminated his eyes.

"Mission accomplished!"

Ji Jue grinned: "Thanks, Brother Ball!"

【We're all buddies, why be polite!】 The Ghost Work Ball answered calmly: 【After a period of time, your craftsmanship has improved. Looking at your current level, if you make up for the theory, you can go and get a license.】

"Still far away."

Ji Jue shook his head. He knew his own affairs. He hadn't expanded to the point of thinking that he had crossed the Dragon Gate that had blocked so many people for so many years in just a few months.

The bias is really too serious.

In all skills now, besides the growing "Dissociation Technique," the most proficient one is fluid alchemy. After all, leaving the workshop to cooperate with "Non-Aggression," this set is really easy to use, but it can't be used to apply for a license.

The level of modern alchemy is not low, but basically, it is all on practical operation. It can't be said that it is all due to his own efforts, but the insights brought by "Mechanical God Descent" when digesting the essence of the Supreme Good definitely account for 90%. The theory level can't go up, so he can only copy the answers, and he doesn't even know why he filled in this number here.

Among the four basic skills, the proficiency of purification and integration is high to the point of being outrageous, ascension is average, and extraction, which requires experience, theory, and practice, is still in the apprentice category. If you want to improve, you can only die hard and practice hard, there is no shortcut.

Even if he had dog shit luck and got a license, he could only do knock-offs and piracy, completely superficial... Such a funny character, let alone Ji Jue, even Professor Ye would probably be unable to help but clear the sect.

Let's take it slow.

"Come here."

Ji Jue hooked his fingers toward the furnace. Suddenly, the surging mercury flowed out. Without Ji Jue's manipulation, it threw itself into the toolbox opened at his feet.

It seemed no different from before being put into the furnace, but after a night of purification, all impurities were removed, and the bone quality was gone. Instead, the fluorescent light on the surface of the mercury emerged.

Under the illumination of the light, it seemed like countless fine crystals, refracting strands of faint colors, changing and flowing, as if the mysteries were endless.

Ji Jue waved his hand and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the silent mercury sprayed out, shrouded in front of him, and turned into an iron wall.

Different from the pure metallic silver glow of the past, the iron wall at this moment was faintly transparent, manifesting a crystal-like texture.

【What the hell? You kid didn't make a defect, right?】

The Ghost Work Ball's tone was stunned for a moment, and then it mocked: 【I knew this blessing was not as good as rotting in the vortex, what did you make?】

You know, the ability of the blessing "Quality of Gold and Iron" is the enhancement of the strength, hardness, and stiffness of all materials, depending on the user's understanding of the Wilderness Path and the amount of spiritual quality invested.

But there is no doubt that since it is called "Quality of Gold and Iron," it is naturally the closer to metal, the better! How did it become like burning glass in the hands of this kid, and after a busy night, he made such a thing?

"Try it and you'll know."

Ji Jue waved his fingers indifferently. Suddenly, a branch extended from the iron wall, a piece as thin as paper, but under the injection of spiritual quality, it became more and more transparent!

*Snap! *

In the void, an invisible force suddenly erupted, and then, on that thin mercury crystal, a negligible fine mark suddenly appeared.

Just as Ji Jue was about to smile crookedly, he saw that the crystal was actually broken at the waist!

It fell to the ground and quickly disintegrated into scattered mercury liquid.

The finished product he poured so much spiritual quality and effort into was actually broken when tested?

"What the hell?"

【What the hell!】 At this moment, the Ghost Work Sphere was actually even more shocked than he was: 【This intensity, what the hell is this?! What kind of medicine did you take, kid?】

In order to put some pressure on Ji Jue, even if it was just testing the strength, it had used the intensity and scale of Professor Ye's usual tests as a benchmark. Never mind a single piece, even an iron wall should have been smashed into powder by a single sword strike.

As a result, the test subject was actually still able to maintain its form?

And during the slashing process, it actually felt a slight resistance as if it had cut through something for a split second?!

In other words, if the invested spiritual quality and the operator's specifications were equivalent, this sword strike might have ended in failure...

【Something's not right, this composition... is it Minerva?】 After a momentary scan by the analysis module, the Ghost Work Sphere realized: 【When the hell did you learn this set of techniques?】

"That's a long story."

Ji Jue subconsciously touched his abdomen, but unfortunately, the familiar emblem was no longer there, and he let out a soft sigh: Now that his horizons had broadened, he felt more and more that it was a huge loss to have used the Sword of Minerva to hack that lightning-wielding old geezer before; it was a waste of talent.

During the blessing smelting and forging of the Gold-Iron Quality, he had deliberately imitated the crystal structure created by Sister Wen based on his own understanding. Unfortunately, he failed to paint a tiger and ended up with a tabby cat at best. Even so, it had still raised the theoretically achievable strength of the Gold-Iron Quality by a significant margin.

"Surpassing gold and iron" was neither a lie nor a metaphor.

It looked like a sheet of mercury, but internally, it had differentiated into countless layers and components modeled after metallic crystal structures, isolating impacts and vibrations, and cutting off spiritual quality erosion and diffusion. It could be said that both physical and magical resistance had been raised to the theoretical limit, bringing the blessing into full play.

According to Ji Jue's calculations, if fully deployed, the Mercury Wall could easily withstand the impact of over ten pounds of phlogiston explosives. As for whether the person behind it would be shaken to death... that was another matter entirely.

In this way, his shortcoming in defense could be considered temporarily patched, and he wouldn't need to worry about it at the current stage.

After putting away the Ghost Work Sphere, Ji Jue spent a long time soothing Little Niu Ma, who had been neglected for a night after committing an offense, and barely managed to heal its wounded soul by feeding it the white-cut chicken from the fridge.

"Be good, baby, I did all this for our future life!"

Ji Jue sighed earnestly, stroking the dashboard and lamenting: "I just made a mistake that any ordinary engineer would make... Hey, don't be angry, look, haven't we already arrived in Quancheng?

Who knows how many materials and treasures are waiting ahead? Can't we show off as much as we want then? Of course, of course, I'll feed you everything first when the time comes!

Who do you think I'm doing this for? Isn't it for you? For this home?!"

The more he spoke, the quieter Little Niu Ma's horn became, while Ji Jue's tone became indignant and serious: "Do you think I'm the kind of person who forgets you the moment I see a good car? I'm doing all this just to earn more money and change your chassis sooner! Without me enduring humiliation to bear a heavy burden, how could we afford such good oil and lubricants?

You really should reflect on yourself, and don't do this again next time, okay! Be good and reflect here, wait for me to come back and see how you perform. If you perform well, that set of winches you had your eye on isn't out of the question..."

Saying this, he left Little Niu Ma, whose engine was humming, and strode away toward the RV.

Only the Ghost Work Sphere, having witnessed the whole thing, hesitated several times, wanting to speak but stopping.

【Brother, if you keep being such a scumbag, I have a feeling you'll be run over and killed by your own car in the future...】

"Bullshit, what kind of talk is that?"

Ji Jue glared and retorted, "This is pure love, the bond between a man and his car, understand? It's even going to say thank you to me!"

Before the words had faded, a grateful honk came from behind.

"See what I told you!"

【...】

The Ghost Work Sphere brewed a string of profanities for a long time, but in the end, it had nothing to say.

"Also, what was up with that move you just pulled?"

Ji Jue suddenly reacted at this moment and suspected: "I never saw you use it when we were in the Rift Realm. Don't tell me you're playing mind games with me when we're supposed to be brothers?"

【Nonsense! I'm here to be your safety net, not your slave!】

The Ghost Work Sphere was furious; it couldn't tolerate being PUA'd: 【The default command is to save your life, it didn't say I had to be your heavy weapon!

Besides, you have to let me be able to use it. You ended up pulling out... whatever that thing was, it was absurd to the point of being ridiculous. What else could I do besides play dead?】

This was the first time the Ghost Work Sphere had encountered such a bizarre temporary user.

It had been ambushed by a prophet right after entering, almost burning out its core. What it encountered later were even more monsters and demons—either a bunch of small fry that Ji Jue had already finished off, or super-super-super heavyweight things like Sin-Tainted Mercury.

It had been humiliated almost the entire time.

Although Ye Xian hadn't lent it to anyone else since it was forged, the Ghost Work Sphere could judge: even among the Ember Chosen, Ji Jue was in the most bizarre tier.

Besides, look at the hellish work you've been doing!

The lower limit for Embers was already very low, so why was there someone obsessed with digging a basement all day?

At this moment, after its profanity database spun wildly for a long time, the Ghost Work Sphere could only silently offer a blessing—you'd better not have a good death!

"Finished so quickly?"

Inside the RV, Professor Ye was eating breakfast. Seeing Ji Jue come up, she pointed to a seat, and someone immediately brought over a tray with cutlery, freshly baked toast, and hot tea, with ham and char siu garnished with greens, looking appetizing.

This only strengthened Ji Jue's resolve to come over for free meals in the coming days!

"Not finished, I don't have any great ideas for now, just performed some preliminary pre-processing. The effect after the blessing and mercury fused is quite good, and it can be gradually perfected later."

Ji Jue reported: "But apart from the main body, the processing flow consumed quite a few materials."

"They were just spare consumables, it doesn't matter."

Professor Ye was indifferent. The Ghost Work Sphere naturally wouldn't be stingy with those unimportant things, and as for the truly rare and precious ones, it wouldn't dare take them out without her permission.

After putting down her teacup and wiping her hands, she picked up the Ghost Work Sphere, seemed to read the records, and hung it back on the thermos.

She only gave a faint nod regarding Ji Jue's smelting and production.

"Not bad."

Ji Jue's movements paused for a moment, the corners of his mouth curled up uncontrollably, and then he lowered his head to continue eating.

After finishing, there was naturally someone to clean up; there was no need for Ji Jue to busy himself to show diligence.

"Alright, let's go."

Professor Ye picked up the thermos, "It's been so long, it's time to go through the reporting process, otherwise my peers will think I look down on them."

Although, in reality, she did look down on them.

After daybreak, the camp remained busy, with people coming and going. Many military vehicles were shuttling back and forth, and those returning from patrolling the surroundings all looked somewhat weary.

A few people who had finished breakfast walked out of the restaurant and saw the figures of Ye Xian and Ji Jue from afar; their expressions seemed to change slightly, and they lowered their heads and quickened their pace as they hurried away.

A few old geezers did pause when they saw them, but they only nodded in acknowledgment and did not approach.

This made Ji Jue unable to help but scratch his head; it seemed his lineage didn't have a very friendly reputation in the industry.

But that was normal.

If Professor Ye were to speak to someone in a gentle and pleasant tone one day, Ji Jue would instead feel like he had entered some kind of rule-based horror story.

Since he had come here, he couldn't help but poke his head out to look around.

He looked toward the outside of the camp, in the direction of the Quancheng ruins.

It was a pity that there was only a thick white fog there, so dense that nothing could be seen clearly. Vaguely, there seemed to be the outlines and traces of some buildings, but they were completely indistinguishable.

Professor Ye said without looking back: "Don't waste your effort. After so many years of applying so many engineering projects, from subconscious repellent signals to the isolation of the Tian Tian Yuan lineage and the blockade of the Embers, you can't see anything from the outside."

"Didn't they say it collapsed? I don't see any traces of earthquakes or rift valleys," Ji Jue asked curiously.

"It would be strange if there were."

Ye Xian shook her head: "The term 'collapsed' is relative to the present world and space, referring to the distance from the Supreme Good—if it is close to the Supreme Good, it is a Sanctuary. If it is far from the Supreme Good, it is a Demonic Realm.

The current Quancheng, in terms of distance, is probably about to break away from the present world and approach the vortex. Although it still has some connection to the present world, it is effectively a Rift Realm, and it wouldn't be strange if it fell completely at any time."

If it just fell, that would actually be better.

It's just that the Quancheng region is so vast; once it completely falls into the vortex, it will probably tear a huge hole in the present world, and that would truly be an endless disaster.

For so many years, it hasn't been able to rise, and it hasn't been able to be made to fall completely. Hanging there in everyone's soft underbelly, neither up nor down—in a word, it's agonizing.

If it could be resolved once and for all now, that would certainly be a great thing.

But the problem is, can it really be resolved?

Everyone has a question mark in their hearts.

But the further he followed Ye Xian forward, the more settled Ji Jue felt in his heart, yet this sense of stability also made him feel somewhat incredible. It was a completely subconscious feeling.

It was as if he had walked into a sanctuary; even though the Quancheng ruins were right before his eyes, he instinctively felt he had something to rely on.

Not just his mind, even his spiritual quality had settled down, and even the spontaneous overflow and radiation had disappeared, operating tamely and confined within his body.

It was like wading through deep water, feeling the existence of resistance.

Some kind of invisible force shrouded the air, suppressing all chaos and strife, establishing rules and benchmarks, making everything seem clear, straightforward, and traceable.

It was as if an invisible eye was hanging high above the firmament, overlooking everything.

Witnessing everything.

It was undisguised, yet it made it difficult for people to feel resistance or disgust.

Within this kind of realm, all spiritual quality circulation was traceable, and all abilities and blessing fluctuations had retracted themselves. It wasn't that they couldn't be mobilized, but it was like putting a sword back into its sheath; all changes would be known and understood.

Even, suppressed!

Ji Jue didn't doubt for a second that such a high and distant power was certainly not just used for monitoring. If there were any turmoil, it would probably be suppressed by a backhand strike immediately.

And what shocked him even more was that even by exhausting his own perception, he couldn't reach the end of this realm.

It was as if it had encompassed the entire surrounding area of Quancheng!

It was simply too exaggerated...

"This is the reason for making you go out more. Staying in your own little acre of Yacheng all the time won't help you cultivate any vision. If you stay in a corner for too long, you'll become petty and short-sighted."

Ye Xian walked in front and said calmly: "This is the Encircled Realm of the Tian Tian Yuan lineage.

If a Transcendent Rank Chosen has enough matrix and blessings, once they exert their full power, they will form a vast realm capable of interfering with reality. You should have seen it already, right?"

Ji Jue nodded.

He recalled the crystal realm that had frozen the entire Mercy Hospital when Sister Wen and Lawrence had fought with all their might before.

Covering reality with will, replacing phenomena with soul, and eroding the world in reverse with the self... reaching this level was like splitting open a raw stone to reveal the light of the world.

Ji Jue asked curiously: "It's just... wouldn't it be tiring to maintain such a huge Encircled Realm every day?"

"Who knows?" Ye Xian shook her head slightly, "For a Heavenly Human, it's probably just a little bit of toil, or perhaps, he doesn't care."

Heavenly Human.

Ji Jue's breathing hitched slightly.

Suddenly, he felt that sense of stability increase again.

A Heavenly Human... an existence that has broken through the boundaries between mortals and gods and truly touched upon the Mandate of Heaven; their power and ability are already beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

If a Heavenly Human were to take action, the Quancheng matter might not be impossible!

His confidence suddenly surged.

Professor Ye, walking in front, seemed to feel something; she turned her head and looked at him inexplicably, as if in sympathy, but she didn't speak.

Ten minutes later, Ji Jue began to want to give his past self a slap in the face.

What was he thinking?

Possible my ass! It's all over, okay...

Hurry up and pack your things and go home!