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Translator: AnubisTL
In his office, Jieming shook his head inwardly at his student Anita's situation when a teasing voice suddenly drifted in from the doorway.
"Oh~ my dear junior brother! I could smell your fresh 'pain' from all the way down the hall! So, how's your first time as a mentor? How does it feel to be beaten down by reality?"
Senior Viola, like a shark sensing blood, sauntered in uninvited, her face beaming with undisguised schadenfreude.
Jieming glanced at her, his tone exasperated. "Senior Sister, does your happiness always come at the expense of my 'pain'?"
"Of course not entirely! My happiness comes from everyone's pain!" Viola waved her hand dramatically, then eagerly began sharing her own experiences.
"Speaking of which, I just remembered my two precious students! When they realized potionology wasn't the romantic fantasy they'd imaginedābut rather endless material processing, tedious calculations, and the constant risk of explosionsāthe look of despair on their faces, yet their determination to persevere... tsk tsk, it was a source of endless amusement for me!"
Her tone shifted, and she turned to Jieming with eager anticipation. "So, junior brother, next time you tutor that little Anita girl, youĀ must! YouĀ mustĀ let me know! I want to find a good spot and savor the pain and confusion radiating from her as she struggles in the sea of tedious knowledge! Just thinking about it makes me giddy!"
Without waiting for Jieming's agreement, she let out a series of "Heh heh heh heh" laughs and turned to leave the office, as if she had come solely to harvest a wave of amusement.
Jieming watched Viola's retreating figure, the trace of exasperation on his face gradually melting into a warm smile.
"That psycho..." he muttered under his breath, yet his heart felt strangely warmed.
He knew all too well that Viola was expressing her concern for him in her own twisted way, while also lightening the mood.
Her interruption had dispelled much of the gloom that had settled in his heart.
He sat back down in his chair, his thoughts clearing.
"Well, everyone has their own choices and paths," he mused. "All I can do is fulfill my duty as a mentor, presenting the knowledge clearly before her. Whether she absorbs it, which path she choosesāthat ultimately lies in her own good fortune."
With his current knowledge and realm, guiding an apprentice who wasn't even a formal wizard was effortless.
As for her progress, that depended entirely on her own capabilities.
Having come to this realization, Jieming's mind settled into complete tranquility.
Over the next few years, his life remained largely unchanged despite taking on a student.
Aside from the weekly alchemy fundamentals class he taught Anita at the academy, he continued to dedicate most of his energy to his own research.
Anita's performance aligned perfectly with Jieming's initial expectations.
The early stages of alchemy, with their vast theoretical knowledge to memorize, meticulous material identification, and painstaking, detail-oriented procedures, quickly bored her.
Her enthusiasm visibly waned as she shifted her focus and hard-earned points toward learning flashy, immediately effective offensive or functional spells.
Jieming often saw her at the academy, excitedly practicing newly learned spells with her peers or exchanging points for pre-made witchcraft models, then burying herself in diligent practice to master the casting techniques.
In class, he had repeatedly warned them directly: "Relying on ready-made witchcraft models without understanding their underlying principles is like walking with someone else's crutches. It might seem easy at first, but you'll never truly grasp the essence of power, and you'll struggle to advance to higher realms."
Unfortunately, his warnings were like stones sinking into the sea.
Anita might have heard him, but she clearly didn't take his words to heart.
Perhaps, given her current level of "intelligence" and her interests, independently researching, understanding, and constructing her own witchcraft model was simply too difficult and uninteresting.
"After all, not everyone can be a genius like Amy and Victor..." Jieming murmured to himself, observing from the shadows. A pang of nostalgia for his old friends swept through him.
Even with their innate talent, Amy and Victor had been the shining stars of their academy cohort.
In contrast, Jieming's own research was progressing remarkably smoothly.
Having completed the third phase of energy modification on the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, the abundant energy now at his disposal allowed him to finally unleash his full potential.
The hatching rate of the Black Giants had drastically increased, and their population was now growing steadily.
Jieming estimated that by the time he needed to participate in the next planar war, the number of Black Giants under his command would likely surpass the one thousand mark!
This meant he would possess a formidable legion of heavily armored ground cannon fodder, both sizable and possessing immense combat power.
Meanwhile, research on the various exotic biological samples he had brought back from the Void Domain Plane was progressing according to plan.
Through in-depth analysis of their flight structures, energy utilization methods, and spatial adaptation capabilities, Jieming had already developed a clear mental blueprint for the next generation of cannon fodder units.
However, his most pressing plan at the moment was to undertake a second refinement of his lifebound magical treasure, the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror!
After years of accumulation, he had gathered most of the rare materials required for the refinement, with only one crucial element remaining: crimson gold.
"Crimson gold... refining this stuff is truly a painstaking process," Jieming's conscious body sat cross-legged before the Great Dao Library Pavilion deep within his sea of consciousness, cradling an ancient tome radiating profound dao resonance. He meticulously studied the records detailing crimson gold refinement.
According to the ancient texts, crimson gold, like adamantine, is a conceptual material refined from gold as its base raw material.
However, the core "concept" refined from each is fundamentally different.
Adamantine refines the "eternity" concept of gold, emphasizing "immutability" and "everlasting existence." This grants artifacts near-indestructible properties.
But this excessive focus on "eternal immutability" can also limit a magic treasure's future growth and potential for transformation.
Crimson gold, on the other hand, refines the "immortality" concept of gold.
Immortality is not merely eternal immutability; it emphasizes the "indestructible essence" and "everlasting true nature."
Even if its form and properties change, its core "existence" and "essence" remain intact, and it can even achieve rebirth through transformation.
For magic treasures like the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror, which refine illusory substances of various "lights," the concept of "immortality" is far more suitable than "eternity," leaving ample space for future evolution and advancement.
The challenge lies in the refinement's "purity."
The initial refinement method for crimson gold, like that for adamantine, is surprisingly simpleāso simple that even qi refining cultivators can master it.
With Jieming's golden core realm cultivation and his precise control over energy and matter through wizard alchemy, the initial refinement posed no difficulty.
The real challenge lay in the subsequent purification.
Since only the pure concept of "immortality" was required, Jieming had to meticulously remove all other concepts mixed within the initially refined crimson gold, as well as the vast majority of the material properties of the gold itself, through repeated high-intensity quenching.
This process demanded immense patience and energy investment.
According to ancient texts, at least ten cycles of refinement were necessary to obtain crimson gold material that was barely close to pure conceptualization.
"The technique isn't complex, it's just time-consuming and energy-intensive," Jieming concluded, withdrawing his inner vision and returning to the core laboratory on the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
Staring at the mountain of standard gold ingots before him, radiating a dazzling golden light, he assessed, "Fortunately, I have plenty of time."
The texts also indicated that the mass of crimson gold would continuously decrease during refinement. To ensure sufficient raw material for the second reforging of his magic treasure, Jieming prepared a thousand cubic meters of gold!
Activating the pre-arranged large-scale composite Alchemy Formation, Jieming began the first step: the initial refinement.
The surging pill fire intertwined with the energy of the Alchemy Formation, melting and boiling vast quantities of gold at the formation's center.
The concept of "immortality" was forcibly extracted and condensed into chunks of dark crimson Primary Crimson Gold, each with a peculiar texture.
He then merged all the Primary Crimson Gold and fed it into another, more complex formation from a cultivation system focused on "purification," initiating a second refinement process.
As the formation whirred to life, light flowed through its intricate patterns. Under the relentless energy surge, the Primary Crimson Gold slowly "evaporated," its impuritiesāincluding unwanted concepts and residual materialsāseparated and expelled.
The remaining substance deepened in color, its texture seemingly becoming purer.
He knew this process needed to be repeated at least ten times.
The later stages would become exponentially more challenging, consuming spiritual power and time at a geometric rate.
"Fortunately, this thing can mostly run automatically. I just need to periodically replenish spiritual power and adjust the formation parameters... It shouldn't waste too much of my time."
Jieming set up monitoring alarms and plunged his primary conscious body back into his other research.
Time flowed like sand through fingers, slipping away unnoticed.
In the blink of an eye, the graduation day arrived for the current cohort of apprentices at Noren Academy No. 147.
The atmosphere in the plaza was solemn, tinged with nervous anticipation.
Jieming hovered on the high platform in the mentors' viewing area, his gaze sweeping calmly over the crowd below. He easily spotted the familiar yet distant figure of Anita Chuck.
Ten years at the academy had left surprisingly few marks of transformation on her.
Instead, by scattering her energy across flashy but fundamentally unstable spells, she had stagnated in alchemy, a domain requiring a solid foundation and rigorous thinking. In some areas, she had even regressed.
The outcome was predictable.
When Dean Avery Knight announced the names of those who had passed the graduation trial and qualified for the elite selection, Anita's name was conspicuously absent.
She stood among the failed candidates, head bowed, hands clenched tightly around the hem of her robe, her shoulders trembling slightly, as if struggling to accept this reality.
The wizards around her shared the same reaction, the air thick with disappointment and resentment.
According to Noren Workshop regulations, apprentices who failed the graduation trial were not barred from the wizard's path.
They still had a chanceāto serve on the frontlines of the planar war, where the crucible of life-and-death combat might forge a breakthrough, or... lead to their demise.
(End of the Chapter)
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