Free Web NovelChapter 35: The Life of a Trash Picker
“Auntie’s been busy with military projects lately, so she won’t have time to look after you for now. But the materials and textbooks are all prepared, you can study on your own.”
Early the next morning, when Ji Jue arrived at Professor Ye’s workshop, what he saw were three cabinets packed full of all kinds of materials and classic texts. At the very back of the workshop, there was a warehouse full of scrap that Ye Chun had opened up. God knows how many years it had been left untouched. All sorts of objects, big and small, filled the room. Not even the shelves could hold them anymore. Boxes were stacked so high they nearly touched the ceiling.
Their content included, but was not limited to: various incomprehensible mechanical devices and parts, bronze trees as tall as three Ji Jues, hundreds of blades and swords sharp enough to cut ten Ji Jues without dulling, strange clay jars from which blood seeped through cracks, eerie masks whose eyes seemed to move, broken armor, melted bronze statues turned into puddles, and countless pieces of scrap...
After taking two steps inside, Ji Jue was already choking on dust. He coughed his way back out.
Enjoying the spectacle from nearby, Ye Chun claimed, “Auntie said you can use anything in there for practice. If you don’t understand how something works, look it up yourself. If you have questions, she’ll be back between 5 and 6 PM, you can ask her then.
“Don’t worry, even though these are all scrap and leftovers, they’ve been fully processed and are completely harmless. Perfect for a beginner like you to train with. According to Auntie, when you finish using up all the stuff in here, that’s when you’ll be about ready to stand on your own.”
But the scale of it... was too insane.
Ji Jue held his breath and peeked inside, only to be shocked by the terrifying amount of material, enough to drown him dozens of times over. At this rate, he could spend his entire life here and still not be done.
The first hurdle blocking his way was the bronze book he had seen yesterday. It was not thick at all. Excluding the cover and back, it only had twelve pages, containing twelve emblems of the Supreme Benevolences. All the relevant materials and references were in the cabinet.
Ji Jue’s first step in learning alchemy was to, within one month, re-engrave these twelve Supreme Benevolence emblems onto any material of his choosing. This didn’t just mean he had to build a basic understanding of all twelve Supreme Benevolences from scratch, he was also required to master various materials, engraving techniques, and all fundamental skills to a professional standard.
Yesterday’s task had been a piece of cake, as easy as learning how to sing, dance, and rap. Today it had jumped to hell difficulty, like he’d been thrown into a boss fight with the Lord of Cinder, whom he couldn’t possibly beat!
It was utterly impossible.
Ji Jue flipped through books the whole morning, only to finally realize something was off. “Something’s not right. The books say beginners should start with basic runes and spirit circuit engraving, right?”
Why did the difficulty suddenly spike like this?
“I won’t be able to finish even if I work till I drop...”
He groaned, feeling a headache coming on.
Lying on the sofa and watching the show, Ye Chun shook her head in an exaggerated old-fashioned manner and sighed. freeweɓnovel.cøm
“Ah, kids these days... They’re all so lazy, and they’re always looking for the easy way out... When I was your age, I didn’t have such great opportunities. You don’t know how lucky you are, Jue! These days, almost every apprentice out there is working their butts off and taking loans just to pay for training. In some places, you have to earn the master’s favor just to learn how to cook a dish. For someone like you, who doesn’t have to spend a dime, has lessons to attend, and even gets all this free stuff to practice with, you’re doing pretty damn well!”
Ji Jue could only roll his eyes at that. “I get the logic, but can you stop lecturing me as if you’re my elder?”
“An elder sister is like a mother, you know? If you round it up, I’m practically your elder, aren’t I?” Ye Chun flew into a rage and jumped from the sofa, hugging her cat-shaped pillow as ++she stroked it. “I know, I know! You became a Chosen One, you’ve got a bright future ahead of you, and my aunt thinks highly of you too, but you don’t even want to call me ‘senior’... Go, bring me the chips from next to the fridge, bro!”
Ji Jue rolled his eyes and grabbed two bags of chips. He didn’t hold back at all as he split half of the chips with her, then took a can of chilled soda from the fridge and chugged it down hard before he headed back toward the center of the workshop.
There stood the massive furnace, still operating in silence. Tens of thousands of spirit circuits extended from it and overlapped like a vast net, converging and gathering beneath his feet.
This was the tool he used for practice. In alchemy, there were countless ways to process materials. Flames and temperature were just the most common, and also the most widely applicable. Most materials, when exposed to high temperatures, would have their physical properties stimulated. Their compatibility with spirit matter would also improve, making them more suitable for alchemical work.
For a beginner like Ji Jue, this kind of high-end equipment was honestly overkill. Aside from the simple probe set from yesterday, which was only good for getting started and didn’t help much with improving technique, this was the only setup in the entire workshop that Professor Ye used.
And it was so advanced that most of its functions were completely beyond Ji Jue’s understanding. He didn’t even dare touch them. Even the basic settings alone were enough to keep him busy for months, especially since most functions were locked unless the user passed a spirit verification.
A master-grade high-temperature reactor like this was far too extravagant for a newbie like him. Even more extravagant were the scrap materials, offcuts, and waste that Professor Ye had already prepared in advance. Even if it was trash, it was the kind of trash left behind by a master. And even as discarded pieces, most of them had been rejected either due to not meeting strength or functional requirements, or they had been flawed and deliberately destroyed.
After carefully studying the manuals, Ji Jue sadly realized that if these so-called “scraps” in the warehouse were intact and placed on the market, he wouldn’t be able to afford them even if he sold his blood and kidneys.
On the bright side, if he ever got lucky and became a master someday, just selling off a bit of scrap would be enough to let him live in comfort for years. Thinking of that imbued him with fresh energy.
Thinking about his student loans, the terrible job market in Cliff City over the years, the rising prices, and the white-cut chicken his little scooter had to eat every day, Ji Jue felt like he could lie on top of that furnace and grind twenty-four hours a day. With such amazing conditions and such luxurious equipment, if he still didn’t work hard, then he really deserved to be punished by the heavens.
Having heard a dull thud, Ye Chun looked up from the sofa at Ji Jue. Seeing that he was covered in dust and grime, she sighed, then looked away, unsurprised. Just this afternoon alone, he had already failed dozens of times.
Alchemy was a meticulous job. It didn’t consume much spirit matter, but for a complete beginner like Ji Jue, failing so many times in just a few hours meant he was already being drained dry.
Gritting his teeth, he put on a fireproof suit and used tongs to pull a piece of copper from the furnace. After it cooled, he finally found the problem—it was the same as most of his failures. There was a conflict in spirit matter.
Using spirit matter to simulate circuits and inscribe Supreme Benevolence emblems into metal was a highly technical task. Once he left the perfectly isolated conditions of that crystal sphere from yesterday, problems started popping up everywhere once he practiced for real. Every detail was a trap, and one wrong move meant total failure.
His own will, his control over spirit matter, and even his emotional state all had to stay within strict limits. Absolute stability and focus had to be maintained. More importantly, he had to understand how to handle the material’s physical changes and different conditions.
This was pure grinding work, and there were no shortcuts at all.
Exhausted, Ji Jue collapsed onto the sofa and sighed. “If only I could extract it...”
Ye Chun looked at him, puzzled.
“I mean, if I could extract the other spirit matter or impurities before a conflict happens,” Ji Jue said, “then it wouldn’t be so complicated.”
Ye Chun didn’t know whether to laugh or not. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
“How hard can that be?”
Ye Chun sighed and stood up. She picked up the small blackboard, adjusted her plain glasses, and said with a serious expression, “First, you need to understand that spirit matter is an extremely complex and ever-changing thing. Although its general nature is similar, there are hundreds of major categories, and sometimes the difference between them is greater than the difference between a human and a pig.
“In theory, absolutely pure spirit matter that has no conflict almost only comes from temporal sand. That’s something far beyond your current level. Second, even perfectly pure spirit matter will undergo different changes after being influenced and processed through material properties.
“It’s like mixing colors and using a brush to paint on a canvas. Before you make the first stroke, you must understand what will happen when different colors and brushstrokes blend together. If you don’t, you end up not finishing the painting and then regret it, and you wish you could strip every drop of turpentine and every molecule of pigment off that single stroke you just made.
“Trying to extract spirit matter after it has already fused with materials requires an absurd level of control. It’s not entirely impossible in theory, but in actual practice, it’s pure fantasy. Even someone as legendary as the grandmaster, Divine Furnace, might not be able to do something that outrageous.”
Before putting down the blackboard, she concluded, “Instead of thinking about that, you might as well dream that every person in the Federation gives you one Fedra. That way you’ll get rich overnight, and it would be more realistic.”
Ji Jue stared blankly, trying his best to stay calm. “...That... absurd?”
He wasn’t shocked by the difficulty itself, but by the realization that followed. If separating reacted spirit matter from its carrier was already this difficult, then for him to have been restored to his original state after being eroded by dragon blood... wasn’t that just as absurd as time reversal?
He slowly lowered his head and looked at his watch. It was still ticking steadily, as if it would never stop. It had precisely stripped away all the corrupted structures and parts right before he was about to fully be corrupted, leaving no aftereffects and restoring him to normal.
So what exactly was it? No wonder when Mrs. Wen saw that he could reverse the corruption, she looked like she had seen a ghost! If anything, it might even be easier to accept if he said he could literally reverse time. It was already incredibly merciful, almost saintly of her, that she didn’t immediately decide to capture and dissect him for research when faced with something this absurd.
Ji Jue couldn’t help but feel like setting up a memorial tablet for her at home. But...
He kept staring at the watch, and the more he looked, the more he felt that things weren’t as simple as he thought at all. The watch could be far more overpowered than he had originally thought.
Which led to the question: if this watch alone was already so incredible, then what about its creator?
After thinking for a long time, he finally gathered his courage to prod. After secretly observing Ye Chun’s expression as she scrolled on her phone, he casually asked, “Hey, do you know about the Skyrail?”
Ye Chun nodded without hesitation. “I do.” She was still munching on chips, and her cheeks puffed up like a hamster. Or more precisely, a hamster that was terrifying enough to make Ji Jue’s heart stop on the spot.
