Chapter 295.2: Benevolence and Abomination Part 2

“Without proper coordination or a stable structure, the more blessings you add, the more they become a burden. They’ll interfere with one another, and some may not even be able to coexist. Even a Celestial Being only has twelve blessings integrated into their soul. Relying on external tools is indeed the proper way of the Ember Path, but there’s something even more important. Never use power you can’t control.

“Remember, ‘bit off more than he could chew’ and ‘played with fire’ are exactly the kind of phrases that tend to end up in a craftsman’s obituary. At your level, you’re not even good enough to be making those mistakes.”

The Examiner continued at an unhurried pace. “Do you know why small-time workshops love cramming in as much expensive material as they can? Because they’re trying to cover up their shortcomings. Just like you. When you have little to work with, adding more is the easiest solution. But once you have resources to spare, learning what to leave out needs to become second nature. ‘Just enough.’ For a craftsman, there’s no higher praise than that.”

Ji Jue glared at him. “Easy for you to say! How am I supposed to know what counts as ‘just enough’? Why don’t you explain it, then?”

The Examiner merely offered an odd smile, seeing straight through Ji Jue’s attempt to provoke him. “Sorry. I’m just a part-timer at the Association. Nobody here even considers me a craftsman. Besides, I’m not your teacher. If you have questions, you’ll have to figure them out yourself.”

You fucking bastard...

Ji Jue clicked his tongue, but then he caught the implication hidden in those words.

Teacher?!

All the failed creations Ye Xian had made over the years surfaced in his mind. He had personally dismantled more of them than he could count, and no one understood his teacher’s work better than he did.

The Dissociation Technique began with observation, followed by understanding and analysis. Only after that could one identify weak points and contradictions within the structure of a Blessed Creation, then exploit them through spirit matter interference and shatter the whole thing with a single strike.

In fact, Ji Jue’s entire foundation in constructing spirit circuits had come from practicing the Dissociation Technique day after day and learning from Ye Xian’s creations.

Back then, he had never understood why she would discard so many creations like worthless trash simply because their physical properties were slightly uneven or their spirit circuits were not quite stable enough. Even to Ji Jue, they had seemed seamless and almost perfectly crafted.

But if he looked at it from this perspective, Professor Ye’s standard was probably simple. If a creation couldn’t withstand even a single use of her Dissociation Technique, it was trash. If he judged all the creations he had made during the exam by that same standard...

Cold sweat broke out on Ji Jue’s back.

No. Come to think of it, as far as Professor Ye was concerned, her student naming his creations things like Ex-Wife and Stepmother probably wasn’t even the embarrassing part. What was truly humiliating was her idiot student taking a pile of defective creations and proudly acting like king of the brats.

Oh, shit. He was going to end up in spirit matter combat training class! And if that happened, Ye Chun, that lazy bastard, would probably stand off to the side gleefully handing over the belt. To avoid such a fate, Ji Jue could only grit his teeth, set aside most of his unrealistic ideas for the time being, and start rebuilding the Sage’s Remnant Shadow from the ground up while sharpening his fundamentals along the way.

Only then did he realize something. Forget surviving one round of the Dissociation Technique. Even meeting the standard of “just enough” was already absurdly difficult. He had practically worn out the fast-forward and rewind buttons, yet he still hadn’t finished the basic framework of the Sage’s Remnant Shadow!

Just as he became completely absorbed in his work, everything rewound, and the world returned to its starting point.

Ji Jue looked up. “What happened?”

“Mm, let me see...” the Examiner said in a teasing tone. “You died of old age. One hundred and ten years. Not bad. You certainly lived for a long time. Your life was one of overreaching ambition, one that accomplished absolutely nothing. It would have made Ember weep. You poured your limited abilities into imitating the nearly limitless might of a sage. You did make some progress, but unfortunately, you accomplished absolutely nothing in the end. My advice is to start over.”

Ji Jue glared at him with fury. You fucking bastard, you...

Fortunately, he still had enough sense left not to curse out loud. This shitty Examiner was petty as hell and had an atrocious personality. He smiled pleasantly on the surface, but who knew what kind of torture he was secretly cooking up for Ji Jue next?

Swallowing the string of curses on the tip of his tongue, Ji Jue started his life over. This time, he learned from his previous mistake. He stopped aiming beyond his abilities and refused to waste any more time on projects that were clearly out of his reach.

Instead, he exchanged for a large collection of analytical instruments and equipment and turned his attention toward studying the Nethersea itself. As the saying went, “Know yourself and know your enemy[1].” First, he needed to figure out exactly how everything inside it worked!

And so, wrapped head to toe in protective gear, Ji Jue ventured deep into the contamination. Like someone doing the butterfly stroke through a sea of shit, he floundered back and forth through it again and again, collecting sample after sample and subjecting them to endless analysis. But the deeper he dug into the analysis, the more overwhelmed he became.

The Nethersea eroding the mortal world could essentially be considered the Worm itself. It had already taken root in the world, and it could no longer be erased. It had practically become part of it.

What Ji Jue had to eliminate was this cancerous growth that simply refused to die. He genuinely couldn’t understand how the combined fleets of the Federation and the Empire had managed to deal with something this absurd back then!

What puzzled him even more, however, was...

Ji Jue suddenly looked up and asked, “Examiner, you there?”

“Hungry? Want something to eat? How about trying my signature burger? It’s pretty good. People love it!”

“No thanks. You can keep that for yourself.” Ji Jue rolled his eyes, then raised a pair of tongs and prodded the specimen on the laboratory table.

It was a stone riddled with blood-red vessels and vein-like growths. He had extracted the contaminated sample, a piece of basalt that had almost come alive, from beneath the seabed.

Getting rid of the corruption itself was actually easy. There were endless ways to do it. He did not even need a blessing. A simple application of basic alchemy and Purification was enough to force the corruption out. But if even the slightest trace remained, the contamination would immediately spread again and restore the sample to its previous state.

More terrifyingly, if Ji Jue left behind even the tiniest residue of his spirit matter, that too would be contaminated and transformed, becoming part of the corrupted whole.

“What is it?” the Examiner asked.

“Isn’t this exactly the problem? Why can the essence of a Supreme Benevolence be corrupted into a Foolish Abomination, while the corruption of a Great Abomination can’t be transformed the other way around?”

The Examiner fell silent.

A long time passed. Just when Ji Jue thought the guy was ghosting him again, the Examiner spoke up. “It’s only natural for something to fall from a higher state to a lower one. But getting back up from a lower state is a hundred times harder. Isn’t that perfectly normal?”

“Is it?” Ji Jue shot back.

“Let me put it another way. Suppose you had a baby. Do you think it would be easier to raise that child into someone like you, or into a complete degenerate who drinks, gambles, sleeps around, and commits every vice imaginable?”

Ji Jue stared at him in astonishment.

“Or take another example. Which is easier: turning a gentle, kind, generous person into a cold, miserly bastard who cares only about himself and will even harm others for his own benefit, or making a thoroughly rotten bastard suddenly grow a conscience overnight?”

Ji Jue thought for a long time, then firmly shook his head. “That’s not the same thing. Your analogy is bullshit! Supreme Benevolences have nothing to do with whether something is morally good or evil!”

That had been one of the very first things Ye Chun taught him after he became a Chosen One. The world did not operate according to human morality, and neither were Supreme Benevolences bound by human notions of good and evil.

Otherwise, Swarm and White Deer would have been branded evil on the spot. Heart Core and Mirror would have had to be purged completely. And as for those associated with Aether, you could kill every other one and still somehow miss a few bad apples.

The Examiner sighed. “Unfortunately, the same is true of Great Abominations. The Supreme Benevolences are the tapestry of the world, woven from everything connected to this world’s past, present, and future. You should know how difficult it is for something to begin well and end well. But for things to go wrong? That’s incredibly easy. You don’t even have to do anything deliberate. No, in fact, all you have to do is nothing, and sooner or later, things will naturally take a turn for the worse.”

Ji Jue frowned. His first instinct was to scoff. By that logic, wouldn’t Supreme Benevolences and Great Abominations be—

Before the sneer could even form, it froze on his face. A chill ran through his entire body. What exactly was the Examiner implying? That Supreme Benevolences and Great Abominations were one and the same?! Had he let that slip by accident? Or had Ji Jue misunderstood what he meant?

No. This guy acted casual and unserious, but practically every sentence he spoke carried layers of meaning, often filled with hints and implications. More than once, he had even given Ji Jue a few pointers.

Of course, there was plenty of mockery and sarcasm mixed in too, but he rarely wasted words on meaningless nonsense. Which meant that was exactly what he had intended to imply! But what was he trying to lead Ji Jue toward?

Fuck. Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that old bastard Jian Yuan somehow snuck into the Association and is posing as the examiner?! Did I seriously end up helping that bastard infiltrate the Association?!

1. 知彼知己 comes from the saying 知彼知己，百战不殆 , which literally means “Know your enemy and know yourself, and you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.” It means that if you have a thorough understanding of both your enemy and yourself, you can face battle without being placed in danger. The saying comes from the “Planning Offensives” chapter of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. ☜