Chapter 263.2: Lightless Calamity Part 2

Meanwhile, inside the workshop, the frantic bustle of work continued at full speed.

After reinforcing the workshop again, Ji Jue trudged around in the exoskeleton that was already on the verge of falling apart. With great effort, he repeatedly folded the dying aberrant, kneaded it into a compact mass, and forcibly stuffed it into the furnace.

Under the scorching flames and the dissociation and reconstruction of spirit matter, the overloaded furnace shook violently. Cracks kept appearing across it, only for Ji Jue to patch them up with whatever materials he had on hand. His philosophy was simple: as long as it had not exploded yet, it could still be used. Besides, wasn’t it running perfectly fine right now?

Before long, those familiar wails rang out from inside the furnace once more. In the corner, the flesh-and-metal hammer that had only recently emerged from the furnace trembled uncontrollably, not daring to make a single sound.

Cracks and pops filled the room as large amounts of redundant tissue and structure burned into ash. A thick, bloody fluid slowly seeped from the cracks in the furnace, dripping onto the floor and spreading into a pool.

What a waste, Ji Jue thought with a sigh. Refusing to let perfectly usable material go to waste, he hurriedly fetched a basin to catch it.

Judging by its quality, this aberrant was stronger than the one that had crawled out of the furnace earlier, but not by much. It was still basically leftover material, nothing more than an aberrant formed from several Chosen Ones’ corpses after they had undergone corruption and fused together.

Well, he would make do with what he had. Resources were limited, so neither side was in any position to be picky. Times were hard. This was exactly when everyone needed to work together in good faith, put their differences aside, and move forward hand in hand.

What did you call that? Setting personal grudges aside for the greater good!

Ji Jue patted the furnace reassuringly. “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon. Once you’re done counting all the scratches inside the furnace, you’ll get to turn into a handy little Mouseketool[1] for me to use next!”

As the heat rose, the agonized screams climbed to a higher pitch. Ji Jue stepped through the pool of blood, dragged over a chair, and settled down comfortably by the furnace.

Outside the workshop, lightning rolled through the pouring rain while all manner of eerie noises echoed through the darkness. Ji Jue warmed himself by the fire, whistling cheerfully.

***

For every examinee, the night had been unbearably long and grueling, but at last, it came to an end amid unprecedented fear and anxiety. It had felt almost like a nightmare.

After nightfall, the workshop was invaded by aberration contamination, while a monster prowled endlessly outside the door. An aberrant crawled out of the furnace, and something unknown crept through the pipes in the middle of the night. Then, at dawn, a violent earthquake struck, causing parts of the building to collapse.

Each ordeal had drained the candidates further, leaving them terrified, exhausted, and nearly at the end of their limit.

When the night finally ended, the sun did not rise. When the first examinee finally worked up the courage, made every possible preparation, and stepped beyond the invisible barrier that had disappeared at some unknown point, they discovered a scene of utter devastation amid the ruins.

The aging but still mostly intact building was now on the verge of collapse. Beyond the basement, corpses lay scattered throughout the buildings and courtyard. Bodies rotting in the damp had already attracted swarms of strange insects that gnawed at the flesh. Flies buzzed and settled everywhere as the stench spread through the air.

Then the examinee saw the emblem hanging on the wall, along with the words “Leafway Frontier Observation Center,” and their heart sank. Only now did they understand that the historical incident this examination scenario had been based on was the Lightless Calamity.

One hundred and forty-one years earlier, a horrific disaster known as the Lightless Calamity had ravaged the far western reaches of the Endless Sea, at the very edge of civilization. Because of inadequate funding and years of neglect, the person in charge of the Leafway Frontier Observation Center had abandoned their post. As a result, numerous warning signs went unnoticed.

Ultimately, within the heavily contaminated waters of that region, a terrifying beast of doom completed its gestation and emerged. In the assessment conducted afterward, it was classified as End-Class.

With its very first cry, an unprecedented tide of corruption swept across every stretch of sea within thousands of li. A vast fog followed, spreading even farther and engulfing dozens of islands, including Leafway Island. For three and a half months, the entire stretch of sea shrouded in aberration contamination never saw the sun again.

Wherever the beast of doom known as the Nethersea Worm passed, every living thing was instantly and utterly corrupted, turning the world around it into a hellscape. If the western reaches of the Endless Sea had not already been sparsely populated, with few islands and even fewer inhabitants, the disaster could have become one of the worst catastrophes in recorded history.

By the time the joint fleet formed by the Empire and the Federation finally used a numbered Divine Creation[2] to completely destroy the beast of doom, three and a half months had already passed. Even now, the contamination in those waters had yet to dissipate. According to estimates, it would take the region at least another two hundred years to recover naturally.

What no one had expected was that when the Association’s investigation team later arrived on Leafway Island to recover data, they discovered that the disaster had actually left behind an unexpected survivor.

It was an apprentice no one had ever paid much attention to. When the aberration contamination first broke out, he had happened to be stuck doing menial work inside the workshop, and by sheer chance, that had allowed him to survive the initial disaster.

For the next three months, this apprentice—who had failed the craftsman examination several times—hid inside the observation station. Relying on food in the storage rooms that was nearly expired and his own barely adequate abilities to keep things patched together, he had somehow managed to hold out until the investigation team arrived.

After surviving such a horrific disaster, the apprentice gave up on further study and abandoned his dream of becoming a craftsman. Once he had passed the Association’s examinations and quarantine procedures, he spent the rest of his life cooperating with the Association’s publicity efforts. While public interest in the incident was still high, he made a decent amount of money serving as something of a mascot before eventually growing old, living an otherwise ordinary life.

Later, the Association extracted his Aether records and used them to reconstruct and analyze what had happened. In the end, they discovered that his seemingly miraculous survival had not actually been all that difficult.

Leafway Island had not been located within the core region of the aberration contamination, and the aberrants and evil beings spawned across the island had little interest in the meager flesh and spirit matter of a single living human.

Sometimes, being too weak really did have its advantages. ℯ𝐥.𝒄ℴ𝓶

At the very least, there was so little to gain from him that most of those creatures simply could not be bothered. And the ones that were interested either could not find him or could not kill him.

As long as people survived the initial wave and kept the observation station maintained and repaired while staying cautious and keeping a low profile, there was no reason that this feat of survival from the past could not be repeated. Really, the process was simple enough. Anyone with two hands could do it!

Unfortunately, everything looked easy when viewed through the pages of history. Even if the participants had known that all they had to do was follow these easy steps for everything to supposedly go smoothly and end in success, they would have still panicked. When that brutal reality was placed directly in front of the candidates, every one of them was stunned speechless, especially when they climbed the broken observation tower and saw the entire island.

Beneath the dim, murky light, strange shadows writhed across the vast expanse of Leafway Island. Packs of aberrants roamed everywhere, their shrieks echoing without end. Enormous evil creatures that had already matured had rooted themselves into the barren land, spreading their tendrils across. High above, where thick fog blanketed the sky, gigantic rotting birds spread their wings and cried out in hunger.

The world had become a nightmarish realm, and the entirety of Leafway Island was a nightmarish hell. Within the simulation of the Myriad Transformations Tower, the three-month ordeal of survival had not even truly begun, yet countless examinees had already fallen into despair.

Except for Ji Jue, of course.

“Seriously? This was the exam?” He lowered the binoculars, rubbed his eyes, then glanced up again to have another careful look, unable to process the truth. “Why is the whole place outside packed with such premium materials?!”

1. Mouseketools are the specific handy items, objects, or animals brought by the character Toodles in the Disney television series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to help Mickey and his friends solve problems throughout each episode. ☜

2. Note: The author doesn’t really explain what a “numbered Divine Creation” is but I assume that 编号天工 is a specific class/category of extraordinary “Divine Creations” that have been assigned numbers/designations. Hopefully the author explains further in one of the future chaps. ☜