Chapter 296.1: A Craftsman’s Mouth Is Full of Lies Part 1

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Well... probably.

It wasn’t that Ji Jue underestimated Jian Yuan’s methods or abilities. But expecting that old geezer Jian Yuan to lower himself and deal with him the way this Examiner did? Now that would be a pipe dream!

That old bastard only knew how to force a cow’s head down when it refused to drink, force-feed a duck until it was fat, and hammer any promising talent into shape without mercy. When had he ever bothered with all this nonsense?

But if the Examiner really had nothing to do with the Depths, then just how many damn secrets was this Association hiding? And why was he telling an innocent little kitten like Ji Jue about such deadly secrets?

Ji Jue suppressed his instinctive reaction and pretended not to care, as though he hadn’t understood a thing. He lowered his head and focused intently on examining his sample.

This rock... Mm. It sure looks like a rock.

The Examiner didn’t seem to care.

“In short, Benevolence-Abomination conversion may sound outrageous, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s simply that very few people are capable of doing it. Those who are capable are unwilling to do it, and those who are willing aren’t allowed to.”

“Why?” Ji Jue asked before he could stop himself.

“Who doesn’t install a check valve in their sewer? What happens if the sewage suddenly starts flowing backward?” Amusement crept into the Examiner’s voice. “Imagine if, one day, the Great Abomination beneath the vortex suddenly rose into the world. No, I suppose you don’t even need to imagine it. Didn’t you almost witness something like that yourself?”

Ji Jue said nothing. The last guy who had tried to open a direct passage through a weak point in the world, Changsheng, was dead beyond any doubt. Not even death had stopped him from haunting everyone. He had left behind several enormous messes, and they still hadn’t finished cleaning everything up.

Ji Jue’s question still hadn’t been answered. If anything, he now had even more questions.

“Is this another kind of lock?” Ji Jue frowned. “What exactly is a lock?”

“Now that’s a good question!” The Examiner seemed to chuckle approvingly.

A long, drawn-out silence followed. Ji Jue could only sit there with his neck craned expectantly like some idiot dog, waiting for an answer that never came.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. “And?!”

“And what?” the Examiner asked blankly. “I said it was a good question.”

Ji Jue’s blood pressure was about to go through the roof. “Then answer it!”

“Heh.” The Examiner picked up his gaiwan[1]. After skimming away the foam, he blew lightly across the surface and took a small sip before finally saying at an unhurried pace, “I’m not your teacher. Why should I answer you?”

The veins on Ji Jue’s forehead throbbed, and he nearly ground his teeth to dust.

You motherfucker! Riddler, get the hell out of Gotham!

Ji Jue glared furiously into empty space for a long while, but in the end, he said nothing. He’d save the swearing for when he got out!

Suppressing his rising blood pressure, he lowered his head and immersed himself in the simulated world once more. Then his blood pressure really did shoot through the roof.

From east to west and south to north, Ji Jue relied on accelerated time to sweep back and forth across the sea. His figure flickered from place to place. In just a few short days, he had traveled through every region contaminated by the Nethersea Worm.

Only then did he realize just how horrifyingly vast the problem before him truly was. Even after excluding the lightly and moderately contaminated areas where the pollution had leaked, the most conservative estimate still put the heavily contaminated region within the Nethersea Worm’s aberration cycle at more than five million square kilometers.

Calculating the area was simple enough. He just had to multiply the length by the width and round to the nearest whole number. It was elementary arithmetic, yet the answer was enough to drive him to despair, so much so that he wanted to hang himself right there inside the simulation of the Myriad Transformations Tower.

An expanse of sea half the size of the Federation had been transformed into the Nethersea. It could practically be considered part of the Worm’s body by now. The contamination within had taken root far too deeply to be easily purged. Within the Nethersea, the Worm could practically regenerate as quickly as it was destroyed.

To eradicate the Nethersea Worm completely, he would have to destroy all five million-plus square kilometers of contaminated sea, then thoroughly purify and evaporate the entire region. But if Ji Jue had that kind of ability, why the hell would he need to participate in some measly craftsman examination? Forget the exam, he would drag out the Examiner himself and slap him across the face a few times.

That’s what you get for acting all mysterious and smug, you bastard!

At first, no one paid any attention to this disaster. It was merely a contamination incident, a single aberration[2].

Nevermind, we’ll skip the rest of the line[3].

Ji Jue was launching Project Wandering Nethersea[4]! Simply put, he was going to use brute physical force to cut off this entire stretch of ocean from the world and launch it straight into the void of space! It was basically just like snapping off a piece of a biscuit.

Pinch off a corner and there you go. Easy!

According to the first step of his plan, he needed to manufacture huge numbers of tunnel-boring machines, supplemented by an unlimited supply of fusion bombs for controlled directional blasting. Starting from the edges of the Nethersea, he would dig straight down through the world. Then he would install a propulsion system and push the whole damn thing into space.

In the end, Ji Jue died of old age. He kept at it until the day he died and still never reached the bottom of the world. Even after overcoming every imaginable difficulty and excavating more than two thousand kilometers downward, no matter how advanced his digging equipment became, he could no longer progress even a single inch. Detonating fusion bombs directly against the obstruction made no difference either.

“All physical matter in the world is formed from the Ruins. In the most literal sense of the word, the Ruins is the foundation of the world,” the Examiner said with an amused smile, as though he was trying to reach across the distance to pat Ji Jue on the head like a dog. “Trying to use physical matter to break through the Ruins... don’t you think that’s rather absurd? Still, I have to give you credit for the idea. I can award you six points, because that idea was pretty damn sick[5].”

“Heh.” Ji Jue smiled to express his “gratitude.”

Six your ■■■!

There was no point wasting any more words. Ji Jue reset the time and got back to work.

Then he died again. He died because he had bitten off far more than he could chew and actually dared to make use of the Nethersea Worm’s aberrant spirit.

It was a tragic end indeed.

This time, the Examiner gave him nine points: the usual six points, then added another three because Ji Jue had endured three whole hours of screaming agony before finally killing himself.

Ji Jue reset, then died again. This time, he died because of one careless step. He slipped off his own orbital strike satellite, screamed for half an hour as he plummeted toward the ground, and finally burned to ash in the atmosphere before he could even hit the surface.

The Examiner gave him three points for finding such a creative way to die.

Ji Jue reset the world. Then he died again.

He reset the world again. Then he died again.

He reset the world yet again. Then he died yet again.

He died again, and again, and again, and again.

After dying more times than he could count, Ji Jue finally snapped. Powerless to do anything else, he pointed at the sky and spent an entire day cursing out the Examiner. From beginning to end, the Examiner merely smiled and chuckled without offering him the slightest response.

Only after Ji Jue had finally exhausted himself from all the swearing did he slump down, too drained to continue. “You fucking knew from the very beginning that there was no way I could succeed, didn’t you?”

Inside his luxurious private suite, the Examiner sat warming himself before the fireplace. He sighed. “Hmm? You should have more confidence in yourself, young lad. The most precious qualities a person can possess are patience and hope. With unlimited resources and blessings at your disposal, all you need to do is find the right method. You could simply overwhelm the Worm through sheer force of numbers.”

Ji Jue was so furious that he actually laughed. Overwhelm it through sheer force of numbers? Easy for you to say. If you’re so damn capable, do it yourself!

“Oh, by the way.” The Examiner paused, then remarked nostalgically, “I actually did play a small supporting role in the campaign to subjugate the Nethersea Worm. Hmm... you weren’t just thinking something along the lines of, ‘If you’re so damn capable, do it yourself,’ were you?”

You motherf—

Ji Jue had enough. He was done with this. He fell backward and sprawled out across the beach. “Why don’t you just get it over with and kill me?!”

“What kind of place do you take the Association for?” The Examiner sounded shocked. “We’re an organization that oversees craftsmen. How could we possibly kill an innocent apprentice?”

“So you’ll just lock up an innocent apprentice and refuse to let him leave, is that it?!” Ji Jue sneered. “We’re both grown adults here. Can you stop beating around the bush? Just come out and say it, what the hell do you actually want from me?!”

“Hmm...” Even the Examiner seemed taken aback by the question. He fell into deep thought, and after a long while, he let out a sudden sigh of realization. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t figured that out yet either!”

1. Just to refresh your memory, a gaiwan is a traditional Chinese lidded bowl used for brewing and drinking loose-leaf tea. Here is a reference image. ☜

2. It’s referencing this famous line from The Wandering Earth, “起初，没有人在意这一场灾难，这不过是一场山火、一次旱灾......” which literally translates to “At first, no one paid attention to the disaster. It was only a wildfire, a drought...” ☜

3. Instead of continuing the whole quote, the narration basically says, “yeah, skip the rest,” and jumps straight to Ji Jue’s plan. ☜

4. Again, another reference to The Wandering Earth. ☜

5. The original line here is 你是真的6, which literally means “You’re really 6.”

Here, “6” (六, liù) is Chinese internet slang. It comes from expressions like “666”, which originally meant something like “smooth,” “skilled,” “impressive,” or “damn, that was good.” It became especially common in gaming and livestream culture. The association is partly because 六 (liù) sounds similar to 溜 (liū), meaning someone is slick or highly skilled at something.

Translating it directly like that wouldn't make much sense in Chinese, hence I did my best to come up with another localized version of the joke. (Geddit? Six - sick?) ☜