Chosen: Beyond Fate

Chapter 31: Move It, Give Me Something Impressive!

On the long, rectangular base, complex structures resembling circuitry spread across its surface, extending from the indentations where both hands would rest all the way into the spherical crystal itself. It was an unfamiliar design and structure, strange and hard to make sense of.

“Professor, this isn’t one of those things that lights up the moment you put your hands on it, like in those novels, right?”

It was just like the talent tests in those old magic academy novels, where a crystal ball would glow like a tiny light bulb when touched. Without any hesitation, Ji Jue placed both hands on it, and just as he had expected, a faint glow appeared from the orb.

Unfortunately, the brightness was no match for even a two-watt bulb. You could stick a potato on each electrode and get about the same effect. That little bit of disappointment made him feel slightly deflated.

Then, he felt something within him stir. His own spirit matter seemed to respond, like it had sensed some kind of attraction. There was a faint urge for it to flow outward.

“You don’t need to resist the flow of your spirit matter. Just guide it in gradually, layer by layer. Take your time,” Professor Ye said slowly. “The base is called a simplified spirit probe. It helps a Chosen One’s spirit matter maintain a stable structure and state within matter. Using probes to create a constant flow of spirit energy within matter, along with runes and imprints, forms the foundation of modern alchemy. Go ahead. Stabilize your spirit matter. Keep it in a fixed form, maintain its convergence, and ensure its stability.”

Strands of light rose within the crystal ball, like flowing copper rays. Carrying a restrained brilliance, they entered through the spirit pathways of his ten fingers. Ten fine threads of spirit matter flowed smoothly within the crystal, moving like strands of silk. Guided by his control, they converged and formed a stable circular loop.

“Now, you can let go,” Professor Ye instructed.

Ji Jue slowly lifted his hands. Neither of them spoke; they simply watched.

Inside the crystal ball, the circular structure formed by Ji Jue’s spirit matter slowly rotated. The faint glow gradually dimmed until it finally collapsed from the center and dissipated ten minutes later.

Professor Ye said, “Next, use your spirit matter to spread it out and fill the entire sphere. Keep it evenly distributed. Can you feel anything?”

“It feels like... inside the crystal...” Ji Jue paused. “The material inside seems to be shifting between liquid and solid states.”

“That’s normal,” she replied. “What’s inside is a high-reactivity spirit crystal. When infused with spirit matter, it liquefies. Your next task is to control the ratio between liquid and solid. Guide it and direct it. Make it move.”

Professor Ye spoke slowly and deliberately, her words landing with weight as they echoed in Ji Jue’s ears. When Ji Jue removed his hands again, a golden vortex had formed inside the sphere. His spirit matter was guiding the liquefied crystal into motion and rotation.

Professor Ye kept her stopwatch running. Thirteen minutes and sixteen seconds later, the spirit matter dissipated, and the rotation stopped.

Next, following her instructions, Ji Jue controlled the crystal to partially liquefy while keeping the rest in a solid state. He shaped the solid parts into standard structures like cubes, dodecahedrons, prisms, or mosaic structures.

After several tries, Ji Jue was getting more and more excited. With the probe extended, he shaped all kinds of forms with his spirit matter, as if it was a sculpting tool. At one point, he had even intuitively attempted processes like turning, milling, planing, and grinding, and ended up carving a tiny sheep inside the crystal.

Ji Jue became more and more amazed.

What the hell... I didn’t know something this amazing existed! This is way easier and more convenient than CNC machines! There’s no programming needed at all. I can control it with just my mind!

“So this is alchemy?” he muttered. “Feels like... it’s actually...”

Pretty simple.

He meant to say that, and he genuinely felt that way too. It wasn’t as troublesome or difficult as he had imagined. It was easy, simple, and straightforward to get started.

No. I can’t let my guard down. Everything starts off easy and gets harder later. What I’m doing now is basically kindergarten level, so who knows, it may get brutally tough later on.

It was entirely possible Professor Ye would say something like, This is how you run, this is how you roll, and this is how you attack. Alright, now let’s go slaughter the Soul of Cinder[1], the Orphan of Kos[2], and Malenia[3]. How would that be any different from entering a game where dying meant a real game over, only to find out the director was Hidetaka Miyazaki[4]?!

“Good. Maintain that state,” Professor Ye said expressionlessly.

From a box beside her, she took out a thick, massive book. Every page was made of sharp, heavy copper sheets. She opened the cover and pointed to the first rune written in obscure script. It was intricate and strange, like a blurred mass of flame rising upward.

“Use your spirit matter to replicate this rune inside the crystal as precisely as possible. Start from the left. The first stroke goes from top to bottom. Don’t worry about sticking to a flat plane, as it’s three-dimensional. Follow your instincts, and your spirit matter will fill in the structure on its own. What you need to ensure is absolute stability. Right...”

Snap!

Ji Jue felt a sudden jolt, and he instinctively let go of the ball.

His spirit matter had lost stability for just a moment. The partially completed rune inside the crystal, only one-third finished, exploded without a sound and vanished without a trace.

He felt like giving himself a huge slap. Why did I have to say that it was simple? Of course the difficulty would spike immediately after that!

Professor Ye stayed calm, her face betraying nothing. “It’s normal to fail. Just keep going. Don’t doubt yourself. You’ve got to merge your senses and will into the spirit matter. Don’t let it control you, it’s part of you. That’s it... exactly like that.”

Snap!

Soon, another failure.

“Try again.”

And yet another slip. Ji Jue was drenched in sweat, but Professor Ye didn’t flinch. She just said, “Keep going.” freeweɓnovel.cøm

“Again.”

“The last bit you did was off. Your spirit matter density changed. Think back to how it felt before.”

“Spirit matter isn’t just a blade, it’s also the very substance forming the imprint. They’re one whole. Keep going.”

“Again. Hold it steady... now shrink it a bit more.”

***

He tried again and again. Only the ticking sound of a clock echoed in the room as Ji Jue’s face gradually turned pale. His breathing grew heavy, and he began to feel dizzy. Yet in that dazed state, his control over his spirit matter steadily improved. Guided by the probe, it began to transform, circulating bit by bit within the crystal.

Soon, a dreamlike light bloomed beneath his hands. After Ji Jue’s spirit matter dissipated, the rune left inside the crystal seemed to come alive, moving as if it had its own will. It released a soft, flowing light, so stunning as it shimmered that it lit up Ji Jue’s eyes, and he forgot to breathe.

In that instant, it was as if his spirit matter had become a bridge, linking him directly to the moving rune.

He gained a strange new insight. His soul blazed like fire, burning and rising endlessly. Thoughts, sensations, and understanding, as well as every philosophy and truth of the world seemed to pour forth from this miraculous source, spreading across everything.

The rune’s name was Ascension, and it was the emblem and totem of the Twelve Supreme Benevolences!

Ji Jue’s vision went dark as a drop of blood appeared on the crystal ball, then a second, then a third...

Scarlet dripped from Ji Jue’s nose, falling onto the workbench. He stumbled back and tried to grab something, but ended up sinking onto a chair and cushion while gasping for air. After a long while, he finally came to his senses and stared at the faintly fading rune inside the crystal.

“Professor... Did I succeed?”

Professor Ye didn’t answer. She stood there looking down at the crystal, lost in thought.

She gently wiped away the blood on it, and extended a finger to touch the crystal. In an instant, the nearly dissipated rune stabilized and shone even brighter than when Ji Jue had just completed it.

It blazed with dazzling brilliance, like a spotlight switching on right in front of his eyes. Countless intricate magnificent branches extended from the rune, and it was ten times, no, a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand times more radiant than before.

That was the absolute gap in their understanding and mastery of the Ascension Path. The difference was huge, like night and day.

“Not bad,” she finally said.

Not only had he been able to use the spirit probe on his very first attempt, his control over spirit matter was astonishingly high.

In terms of stability, persistence, precision, it was full of flaws and still far too immature to a master, but for an apprentice, it was already near perfection.

What if this apprentice was encountering all of this for the very first time? What if he had zero prior knowledge of alchemy? What if he had completed the creation of a Supreme Benevolence rune imprint in just half an hour?!

If someone had told Professor Ye this yesterday, she would have dismissed it outright. Even now, having witnessed it with her own eyes, it still felt like something out of a fantasy. The proficient use of the probe, the control over spirit matter, the expansion and maintenance of alchemical circuits, the application and mastery of rune imprints...

Ji Jue managed to complete all the standard apprentice training in one go in just half an hour?

Back when she started, it had taken her an entire week to reach the basics of alchemy, and even then she had been among the fastest in her cohort. Even her teacher had been amazed. She thought it was nothing special and didn’t think much of it, no matter how fearful or jealous the looks behind her had been.

Now, over twenty years later, she was finally experiencing the same sense of defeat her peers once felt, and the same amazement her teacher had felt back then. She even had a trace of relief that she hadn’t let Ye Chun come down to observe. If she had seen this, it would have probably dealt another devastating blow to her pride.

Ye Xian finally looked at Ji Jue. “You’re very good at this, Ji Jue. Way better than I expected. Does this have something to do with your ability?”

“Uh... it’s somewhat similar, but not exactly the same.” Ji Jue scratched his head, gesturing but failing to explain clearly. In the end, he simply pointed at the distant gantry machining center. “Basically... It's like this.”

“Hey, buddy, move it! Give me something impressive!”

The moment the command was given, the massive CNC machine jolted, powering up as the program kicked in. One by one, the indicator lights flashed on, and amid the low hum, the machining center seemed to cheerfully respond.

“OK[5]!”

An ear-piercing grinding sound rang out on the workbench. A strange cutter head colored in intense shades of black and gold that Ji Jue had never seen before appeared, gleaming as it descended. The massive titanium octagonal workpiece trembled. Amid sprays of coolant and cutting fluid, countless fine metal shavings burst from beneath the blade. It was like a hot knife cutting through butter.

This ridiculously hard and extremely brittle material with terrible thermal conductivity would have been a nightmare for Ji Jue to machine in the past. He now felt like he had accidentally wandered into a barbershop, and the once-defiant ingot was completely under the barber’s control, twirling gracefully in five-axis while being cut, shaped, and styled at will. It was like a foolish lad utterly lost under the barber’s smooth talk.

It was fast, way too fast. No auxiliary tools were needed, and no preparation had been done. It just went for it, fuck it.

Amid the machine’s hallucinatory, manic laughter, the ingot was shaped and reshaped at will, shedding layer after layer of excess material. Fine strands flew everywhere, but not a single one could get caught on the cutter head, which moved so fast and wild it was practically twitching like it had a mind of its own.

In less than four minutes, a half-body sculpture of Professor Ye had emerged from the original billet. It was lifted and mirrored perfectly across the glass.

It was as if she was looking in a mirror; every strand of her hair and every wrinkle had been flawlessly sculpted.

Professor Ye froze in place and widened her eyes in shock. After a long silence, she adjusted her glasses with a slightly trembling hand, seemingly suppressing her emotions.

“Ji Jue...”

Ji Jue grinned, a smug smile on his head raised high. “Yeah. What do you think?”

“...Shit.” Professor Ye let out a long, slow breath, barely resisting the urge to punch him. “That custom ingot... I planned to use it as a prototype for a central backbone tube. The program was almost fully written.”

Ji Jue’s smile froze. “Uh...”

An awkward silence fell, and Ji Jue felt pressure bearing down on him. Several times, he tried to speak but stopped himself before finally gathering the courage to ask, “Um... was that... very expensive?”

“It’s fine. Only 260,000 Fedra,” the professor said calmly. “I’ll just deduct it from your salary.”

Ji Jue was shocked. “I... have a salary?!”

Professor Ye finally turned to look at him, studying his shocked expression for a long moment before slowly nodding. “You did, before all this happened.”

1. The Soul of Cinder is the final boss of the game Dark Souls III. ☜

2. Orphan of Kos is one of the hardest bosses in the game Bloodborne. ☜

3. Malenia, Blade of Miquella is a character/boss in the game Elden Ring. ☜

4. Hidetaka Miyazaki is a Japanese video game director, designer, writer, and president of the game developer FromSoftware. He joined the company in 2004 and was a designer for the Armored Core series before receiving wider recognition for creating the Dark Souls series. ☜

5. Here, the original RAW writes “OJBK”, which is a popular Chinese internet slang term meaning "OK," "agreed," or "no problem," often used in casual texting among young people. It’s an infixation of the word "OK" with the Mandarin slang jība (鸡吧), forming "O鸡吧K," which originated from a phrase in the show The Rap of China to mean "f*cking awesome". ☜