Chapter 226: A Glimpse

In the modern world, every illustrious house and great clan worthy of being called an aristocratic lineage held power and influence across every sphere. They had immense wealth, authority, prestige, and even military force.

Take the Tong family, for example. No matter how low-profile they appeared, they remained a colossal power capable of shaking Cliff City and stirring waves throughout Haizhou with the slightest move.

The Lou family was no different, and certainly no less formidable. Generation after generation had fought, schemed, and seized without regard for the cost to themselves. Over countless years, they had built unimaginable fortunes, unshakable authority, unparalleled prestige, and a legacy stretching back through the ages. It was something a self-made Chosen One like Ji Jue could neither imagine nor rival.

The Lou family alone had devised countless ingenious applications for Spirit Morph. They drew inspiration from the various paths of Supreme Benevolence, incorporating the purity of the Ascension Path, the destructive power of the Entropy Path, the transformations of the Ember Path, and the suppressive force of the Origin Path, among others.

What Ji Jue was sensing now was the resonance of spirit matter shared between successors of the Lou bloodline, the “locator” that Lou Feng had spent an entire day carefully crafting specifically to find his aunt.

The second Ji Jue stepped onto the third floor with the fragment of spirit matter he had just taken from the toolbox, he felt it tremble faintly. Had he taken it out, he would have seen the specks of light on its surface shifting and gathering toward the precious materials storage room.

Ji Jue breathed a sigh of relief, only for his heart to sink. Damn it. She really did end up inside the precious materials storage room. Is she still alive? Even if she is, she’s probably enduring a fate worse than death.

He wasn’t afraid of hard work or exhaustion. What he feared was going through hell, racking his brains, and finally forcing that door open, only to find some hairy monstrosity squatting on the floor staring back at him. Hearing that thing call Lou Feng “Nephew” would be downright terrifying!

And when Lou Feng collapsed to the floor and burst into tears, was Ji Jue supposed to cry along with him? In any case, he’d better have a camera ready first.

***

As Ji Jue clumsily hauled the crates and organized the shelves, he heard heavy footsteps approaching outside the storage room. The bald woman beside him went pale. Without a word, she grabbed Ji Jue by the arm, dragged him to the warehouse entrance, and hurriedly lowered her head, waiting there with utmost deference.

Ji Jue didn’t dare try anything. He followed her example and lowered his head as the succession of footsteps approached.

Several black-robed figures led the way, followed by a dense crowd of people marching straight ahead without pausing. It seemed they were transporting something.

Ji Jue didn’t dare raise his head to look. Instead, he secretly peeked through the miniature camera hidden inside his handcart.

The pinhole camera peered out through an opening in the handle, using the reflection from a small internal mirror to capture the scene outside. The setup was crude, yet exceptionally discreet.

At the head of the procession was an elderly man with neither hair nor beard, his face deeply lined with wrinkles. His eyes were an eerie emerald green, with a dim flame smoldering deep within. A mere sweep of his gaze was enough to send a chill down one’s spine.

It was Jian Yuan!

Attending Jian Yuan at every step were, naturally, his many apprentices. Several others carried an enormous crate on their shoulders, following close behind. One particularly attentive apprentice hurried ahead, disabling the seals and authentication locks before pulling open the massive door.

The entire group disappeared through it. Unfortunately, whatever lay beyond the door was outside the camera’s field of view.

Ji Jue kept his head bowed, not daring to look. He even pressed down on the spirit matter fragment in his pocket, suppressing its resonance and cutting off its signal entirely.

It wasn’t long before the group emerged again. Unlike their hurried arrival, they departed at a leisurely pace. The bald woman edged forward a step, forcing a servile smile onto her face as she hurried to hold the door open for them. The craftsman at the front gave her a slight nod but said nothing.

Everything seemed perfectly routine.

Jian Yuan, however, paused midstep. His gaze shifted to Ji Jue, who stood behind the woman with his head lowered, scrutinizing him. Ji Jue’s heart leapt into his throat, tensing up. His pulse raced, and cold sweat poured down his back.

Still, that was exactly how an insignificant underling would react in the presence of a powerful figure, so there was nothing unusual about it.

By now, Ji Jue had figured out why Jian Yuan noticed him. It probably wasn’t because he’d made any mistake. It was more likely that his appearance was simply too conspicuous. With the crutch as well, he stood out far too much in a crowd.

“Who is that?” Jian Yuan asked.

Cun Ling’s eyes lit up. He stepped forward and replied, “He’s just a nobod—an apprentice from the Recycling and Processing Department. He’s fairly perceptive. Has a promising future.”

“Future?” Jian Yuan snorted dismissively, shooting his apprentice a sidelong glance. “Someone like you has the nerve to speak to me about the future?”

Cun Ling’s expression twitched. He lowered his head. “I spoke out of turn, Master.”

There was no dramatic twist where the Grandmaster suddenly took an interest in him and decided to put him to the test. Jian Yuan’s time was far too valuable to waste on an insignificant nobody. With an impatient wave of his hand, he walked away, and the others hurried after him.

The storage room fell silent once more. The bald woman wiped the cold sweat from her brow and let out a long breath.

“The Master Craftsman’s presence has grown even more imposing,” she remarked, turning to Ji Jue. “What did you think?”

“I couldn’t really tell how imposing his aura was,” Ji Jue replied with a wry smile, playing the part of an insignificant nobody to perfection. “All I knew was that my legs were shaking, I was drenched in sweat, and I was scared out of my mind.”

The woman nodded. “It’s good to know fear. The Master Craftsman noticed you today, at least. Should another opportunity come along, make sure you perform well.”

She waved him away, urging him to finish his work before dismissing him.

Ji Jue didn’t dare linger. Once he completed his deliveries, he returned to the Recycling and Processing Department. There, he sat down in the supervisor’s cushioned chair and fell into deep thought.

Sun Ci, whose seat had been taken, witnessed the whole scene but did not dare complain. He obediently found another chair and sat down nearby.

As a middle-aged drudge who had taken more than his fair share of beatings from life, he had long since given up on unrealistic dreams. In return, he knew exactly where he stood. Ji Jue had played him for a fool, but he had also showered him with more rewards than he could stomach. For a mere manager like him, surviving a hopeless situation and landing his current position was already beyond his wildest dreams. Being kept on a leash by Ji Jue was a trivial price to pay for that.

Unlike the small fry of the White Deer Path, whose ambitions far exceeded their abilities, the drudges of the Ember Path were keenly aware of exactly where they stood. They had no qualms about becoming a powerful figure’s loyal dog. In fact, Sun Ci was looking forward to Ji Jue rising through the ranks and eventually pulling him up along with him.

As for the possibility that his new boss could actually be an undercover agent...

Heh. Don’t be ridiculous. The aura of corruption radiating from this guy is even purer than mine. And you’re telling me he’s the infiltrator? You’d have an easier time convincing me that I’m the infiltrator.

***

“When did you get here?” Ji Jue asked Sun Ci after “coming back to his senses.”

Sun Ci sprang to his feet. “Just now! I only just arrived! The access pass and permissions you requested have been approved. From now on, as long as you’re outside the workshop’s restricted security zones, there won’t be any limits on your use of alchemical constructs. And I brought all the materials you asked for. They’re right here. Have a look through them, and let me know if anything’s missing. I’ll have someone sort it out.”

Ji Jue nodded and waved him away. “Just leave them there.”

Sun Ci promptly took the hint. He quietly got to his feet and left to patrol the perimeter.

Only then did Ji Jue lift the lid from a metal container. Inside, the pool of shimmering silver liquid reflected the light. He reached into his toolbox, grabbed a handful of hardened mercury beads, and scattered them into the liquid.

The mercury immediately churned as though it were boiling. Tiny mercury spiders crawled out, each no larger than a pinky nail. This sort of nightmarish sight could send anyone with arachnophobia or trypophobia straight to the ICU.

The spiders kept pouring out, crawling over one another until they formed a writhing mass around his legs, almost up to his knees. At Ji Jue’s command, they quickly slipped into the shadows, crawled down the floor drains, and disappeared into the ceiling vents. Accompanied by a chorus of faint skittering, they quickly vanished into every corner of the workshop.

Most of the spiders burst soundlessly as they crawled, leaving behind hair-thin threads that stretched deeper into the drains and ventilation ducts. The lingering spirits inhabiting the spiders flowed back along those threads. One by one, they returned to Ji Jue’s waiting hand, condensing once more into hardened mercury beads.

The retrieval was complete.

With the combined efforts of the many remnant spirit creations, Ji Jue’s network gradually spread throughout the underground workshop, passing through the gaps he had discovered over the past two days and extending upward. Even so, it could only reach the second floor, and only along the outer edges. Going any deeper than that would almost certainly trigger some sort of alarm.

Reaching anything above the second floor was practically impossible. Jian Yuan himself wouldn’t even need to lift a finger. His many apprentices would probably burst into triumphant laughter before teaching any intruder exactly why the Six Workshops and Six Master Craftsmen had earned their fearsome reputation.

Sabotage was best carried out quietly. Trying to take them head-on despite being hopelessly outmatched would simply be idiotic.

Once the network had been fully laid out, images from the pinhole cameras flowed steadily back to him. Within this enormous workshop, there were likely more than sixty craftsmen working around the clock without pause. Every creation and construct resembled the works Ji Jue had seen in Dalton Meyer’s workshop. They were either nodes or structural frames.

It looked as though they were preparing for some colossal esoterism, but Ji Jue couldn’t make sense of it at all. He could only imprint the scenes he saw onto a page from his record book and store it in his toolbox.

At last, he found an exit at the outermost edge of the complex.

After a moment’s thought, Ji Jue rummaged through a pile of spare components. Before long, three spider-like mechanical constructs took shape in his hands. After passing them through Deus Ex Machina, he dropped them into a ventilation duct.

A few minutes later, amid the noise and bustle of the loading bay, the three mechanical spiders pushed aside a vent cover and dropped to the ground. They climbed onto a crate and were carried aboard a truck along with it. Once the apprentices finished loading, one of them slapped the side of the cargo bed, and the battered old truck slowly rolled away.

And so, through the spiders’ eyes, the chaotic world outside finally came into view. Beneath the iridescent glow of the eternally dark sky, explosions rumbled without end along the outskirts of Spring City. Streaks of light fell from the heavens with blazing tails before slamming into the earth and unleashing violent shockwaves. Brilliant flashes lit up the sky from time to time, followed moments later by tremors rippling through the ground.

Seen from the outside, the workshop looked like a phantom, suspended between existence and nothingness. Ji Jue could even make out the ruins and buildings behind it through its hazy outline. Walls covered in intricate circuits rose from the ground, forming a sealed perimeter around the deeper interior.

Beyond them, he could faintly see the boundary membrane, riddled with holes. From time to time, colossal chains flashed into existence in midair before vanishing once more, binding something inside that struggled ceaselessly against its restraints.

With deafening roars, waves of spirit matter tides crashed against the towering walls. The engines of the Skyrail train strained desperately, but it remained hopelessly mired in place.

This was the closest Ji Jue had ever come to it. It was only a few hundred meters away, yet the distance felt like an uncrossable chasm.