Chapter 73

The twelve stages of the Awakened's raw stone, the four realms of Invocation, Metamorphosis, Rebirth, and Transcendence.

The Invocation stage is the growth and evolution of ability, the Metamorphosis stage will turn to the fusion of soul and body, gradually removing the defects of the mortal fetus, and the Rebirth rank, the Awakened after the complete combination of soul, ability, and body, can already be called a fantasy creature that exceeds mortals.

According to different matrices and Supreme Virtues, some people can bathe in flames and soak in magma without changing their faces, some people can arbitrarily shrink and enlarge themselves to hide, some people are like elves in legends, affinity with plants and trees, arbitrarily borrowing the vitality of plants and trees, and some can simply turn into monsters.

And the rebirth transformation of the invisible is spiritualization!

According to the influence of the matrix, it even has the characteristics of Styx-ization. The soul and spiritual quality complete a thorough transformation, and any wisp of spiritual quality can be regarded as himself.

Relying on such transformation, he got the name of invisible, parasitic everywhere, everywhere.

Unfortunately, the techniques that were always effective in the past, after entering the Rift Realm, suddenly ate a loss... just like a certain Mr. Ji, who was taught a lesson by the local herring can.

There is shit!

It's all shit!

Originally, this kind of soulless and mindless puppet was the best to parasitize and operate, but... now he hits one crazy one, and even he was almost infected, falling into madness!

Filled with so many chaotic and crazy spiritual qualities, if he really didn't know what was good for him and swallowed them all, even the invisible would probably have to undergo sin-tainted transformation on the spot.

The Dragon Sacrifice Society just worships the power of the dragon, approaches the essence of the dragon, and tries to use this power of the end of the world that is opposite to the origin of the sage, which does not mean that everyone wants to undergo sin-tainted transformation.

Well, there are such lunatics, but at least the invisible is not!

I can't understand at all how a dignified sage could make her Rift Realm like a septic tank... Even the invisible, who treats spiritual quality and soul as delicacies, can only express that he can't swallow it at all!

But the traces left by many sages undoubtedly confirmed his original guess.

This is the final burial place of Mercury!

The news from that guy Guangwen is indeed no problem...

In the deep underground, the invisible greedily looked at the huge Rift Realm before him—this time, maybe he can really find a sage's body!

Just thinking of this, he was already hungry and thirsty.

Never before had there been such a deep temptation.

Ji Jue felt that he was starving crazy.

In the temporary workshop safe house deployed by the Ghostly Work Sphere, Ji Jue was struggling to recover his state, ensuring that his ability, body, and soul were all in the best state.

Drooling crazily.

It wasn't because of Little An and Little Niu Ma next to him, but in his soul, the little essence that was almost close to his ability...

The ability was restless crazily.

It was like a mad dog tied by the neck. No, to be precise, it was Ji Jue who felt that a part of him had gone crazy, wanting to roll on the ground, feeling ants crawling all over his body, constantly begging himself: "Take a bite, brother, just take a bite!"

Ji Jue could only use all his energy to restrain himself.

Tell himself to endure, endure, endure.

But when he was outside before, he could still say that the location was not safe enough and there might be danger. But now, after hiding in Brother Sphere's workshop, the willpower that was already fragile had gradually reached the point where it couldn't hold back the hunger filling his lungs.

Until the hunger reached its peak, Ji Jue could no longer resist.

Screw endurance, I can't endure it anymore!

The ability in the shackles was liberated in an instant, the light on the mechanical descent emblem erupted, rushed toward the scattered essence remaining in his body, wow, one bite!

Cleaned it up.

And then, there was no then.

Ji Jue, dark before his eyes.

It was as if, suddenly, someone had hit his forehead with a big hammer, and while it was buzzing, his soul was floating.

It seemed that some sound rang in his ears, but it couldn't be heard clearly, until finally he reacted, oh, it turned out to be the sound of my brain boiling.

He completely lost consciousness.

Endless feelings, memories, and realizations poured into his soul like a waterfall, instantly crashing Ji Jue's thinking ability, filling it up, but it hadn't stopped yet.

Still pouring in roughly!

Endless!

It was clearly just a flick of a finger, but it seemed to have experienced thousands of years of time. There were too many chaotic scenes and memories, but more, it was smelting and forging!

Those records and history engraved in the furnace appeared before his eyes!

No, that was so real that it seemed like something that happened in his own body, now just remembered, so it was so clear.

Sometimes he burned for nine days and nights to melt unknown materials, suppressing the resistance like a living thing with flames again and again. Sometimes he seemed to be on an assembly line, processing a large amount of steel and blood in batches, creating one mechanical heart after another that turned into flesh and blood.

And most of the time, he was participating in a part of a massive project, exhausting all his efforts to purify the iron light in the furnace again and again, expecting to infinitely approach the limit of material properties.

That seemed to be a broken sword blade.

No matter how he called or touched it, the only response was silence.

Occasionally, the moment the sword blade seemed to wake up from a long sleep, it shook slightly, and a clangorous sword sound that resounded through the entire Rift Realm would emerge.

Its name is 【Change】.

Using the flame of the Dragon of Ending as fire, using the bone of the primordial sage as the source, it did not have its form, but the moment the blade was polished, it would turn into a glorious light that completely cut off the eternal era!

Ji Jue was immersed in it.

Forgot everything.

Devoted himself to the grinding that seemed to use his own soul as a whetstone, until that day, the blade shook again, and the first rust spot fell from the sword.

He seemed to hear the sound of the world collapsing.

And so distant.

Until after a long and long time, he seemed to wake up from his slumber and heard strange words.

Inside that bell tower, outside the window was already a ruin.

The Tower of Heavenly Origin was nowhere to be seen.

And in the broken bell tower, the conversation continued.

"Such a conception is indeed unique, but it is too exaggerated." The withered man sighed, "Moreover, the history anchored by the Supreme Virtues is already part of the tapestry. What you are doing is mostly futile."

"Who knows without doing it?"

Mercury still stood by the window, staring at the ruins outside, "Is the Giant here to stop me?"

"The Mo are all gone, so don't mention those messy names. Besides, even when I was the Giant, I never forced you to do anything, right?"

The man called the Giant sighed and waved his hand: "You must know what the consequences of doing this will be. I'm just curious... Mercury, will you regret the choice you made?"

Mercury answered decisively: "Never."

"You will in the future." The Giant said.

"We'll talk about the future in the future." Mercury finally turned back and told him: "Giant, you should go."

But the Giant still sat in place, didn't move, just looked at her for a long time.

"... I have regretted it."

He said: "I have regretted many things I did, more than once. But when I regretted it, it was already too late, and no matter how much I repented, it would be useless."

The Giant sighed and pleaded solemnly: "Don't follow in my footsteps again."

Mercury didn't speak again.

Looking at him silently.

For a long time, she retracted her gaze and finally said goodbye: "Giant, you should go."

The Giant didn't speak again, sighed silently, and got up to leave.

Since then, no one has visited.

Inside the workshop, only silence remained.

Except for occasional alchemical work, Mercury spent more and more time standing by the window, staring at everything outside.

Just watching.

As if waiting, waiting, and waiting again.

When she was alone, she would occasionally sing, and the lonely voice echoed in the silent workshop.

"Thinking of my hometown, thinking of my hometown, my hometown is so cute... the sky is clear, the wind is cool, the homesickness comes in waves... how are the people in my hometown now, I always miss them..."

In the singing, everything outside the window turned from ruins to towns, and then decayed from towns to ruins.

Repeated again and again, an endless cycle.

But neither hometown nor old friends could be seen.

Until one day, the figure who had been standing by the window from beginning to end disappeared without a trace.

Since then, in the four hundred years of time, what rang outside the window was no longer fake laughter, but real... wails and cries!

This is the ending of the long dream.

In the workshop, Ji Jue opened his eyes sweating profusely and gasped violently.

An Ran handed over water.

"How long did I sleep?" Ji Jue felt his throat was about to crack from thirst.

"Three hours, a little more." Little An answered.

Only three hours, but it seemed like hundreds of years had passed.

The records and marks left in the furnace were too deep, so much so that Ji Jue almost lost himself, but at this moment when he tried to recall, he found that everything quickly became blurred, the coherent memory became fragmented, and quickly dissipated.

Even when trying to summarize and describe, it became impossible to start.

The only thing that left an impression was the scene seen in the dream, the conversation between the man called the Giant and Mercury.

If Ji Jue's brain wasn't burned out, then the Giant he saw should be the leader of the resistance organization 【Mo】 of the Eternal Empire.

When waking up from the dream, he couldn't even recall that person's face, and even the sound characteristics had been completely forgotten.

But the only thing that couldn't be forgotten even if it was burned to ashes was the emblem he wore on his chest.

So familiar.

He raised his wrist in a daze and looked at his watch.

On the dial, the mark like a silhouette of a mechanism was shining silently.

The two were exactly the same!

"Heavenly Track?"

Ji Jue whispered in a loss.

According to the Pantheon General Knowledge, the existence of T5 appeared as early as the Eternal Empire period, and Heavenly Track should have occupied a crucial position at that time, and continued for more than a hundred years after the Era of Catastrophe opened.

But the Giant wore an emblem related to Heavenly Track. What is the relationship between the two?

He fell into deep thought.

And then... naturally, he couldn't think of anything.

There were too many missing clues, and there were too many blanks in the middle. What Ji Jue knew was just some tracing of past events in history, and even some fragments of floating light and shadows brought by the essence.

If he could deduce the mystery of the destruction of the Eternal Empire by relying on this, then what kind of Artisan would he be? Wouldn't it be more reliable to sit on the Supreme Virtue position of Aether and be a prophet?

Basically, I can't figure it out.

But there is no need to think about things that can't be figured out. More importantly, focus on the present.

For example——

Ji Jue looked down at his hands,

——The harvest brought from the essence!

Sorry, please take a day off tomorrow.

I've been out recently, and there are many things in my hometown. My wife also has a high fever due to overwork, so I really don't have time to code words.

I have to ask for leave, I'm very sorry.