Translator: AnubisTL
"Dear Father and Mother, by the time you read this message, I may already be strapped to an operating table as an experimental subject. But please don't grieve too much. As family members, you'll likely be brought in as experimental subjects yourselves. I'm sure we'll be reunited soon..."
To be honest, after hearing Amy's devastating "news" and confirming that he was the person in question, Jieming's immediate reaction was this.
From that moment on, his life felt like waiting on the executioner's block, constantly anticipating the guillotine's fall.
After all, he had become the "mysterious apprentice who shook the academy"!
Jieming had expected the academy's wizards to immediately confront him, demanding to know the source of his materials and interrogating him about his alchemy lineage.
Even worse, they might discover the flaws in his power system and immediately detain him for research.
Escape was out of the question. After two months of study, Jieming had a clear understanding of the Noren Academy's overwhelming combat capabilities.
As the supreme leader overseeing Noren Plane No. 13 and dozens of surrounding minor planes, the dean of Noren Academy was a seventh-tier wizard.
The mentors of the various schools under his command were generally fourth-tier wizards or higher, while the number of first and second-tier wizards temporarily stationed at the academy for rest and recuperation was countless.
Meanwhile, Jieming, the holder of the Great Dao Library Pavilion, had only reached the second layer of qi refinement.
After this incident, Jieming completely abandoned any thoughts of resistance or escape. Instead, he began mentally rehearsing his explanation, planning to confess everything the moment he was confronted, and then plead for "protection."
I just hope whoever comes to arrest me will give me a chance to explain.
Various possibilities flashed through Jieming's mind, leaving him in constant dread as he awaited the impending judgment.
Yet half a month passed, and everything remained calm.
The workshop remained its usual monotonous and busy self. Mentor Clark remained his usual expressionless self. Amy continued to chatter about the latest gossip, and Victor continued to meticulously calculate his mission tasks.
No wizard, not even senior apprentices, showed him any special attention.
This left Jieming somewhat puzzled.
"Could it be... that occasionally inventing a special material isn't enough to catch the academy's notice?" Jieming couldn't help but start convincing himself inwardly.
It wasn't entirely impossible.
After all, both in his previous life and in the Wizard World, the study of materials science was like an unfathomably deep abyss.
Apart from discovering naturally formed exotic materials on other planes, attempting to create a new material with extraordinary properties by purely recombining, refining, and synthesizing existing materials was unimaginably difficult.
This process relied 7% on profound knowledge and theoretical foundations, 3% on relentless effort and repeated experimentation... and the remaining crucial 90% on sheer luck.
Therefore, a wizard apprentice, through innate talent or sheer luck, accidentally stumbling upon an exceptionally remarkable material... theoretically, such a thing might not be entirely impossible, right?
Jieming mentally repeated these self-hypnotic reassurances, but his actions betrayed no hint of complacency.
His inner circulation system operated ceaselessly, completely sealing off his qi and preventing even the slightest trace of cultivator energy from leaking outward.
To guard against potential mind control or soul penetration techniques employed by the wizards, he meticulously alchemized the remaining adamantium into an almost imperceptible protective film coating his skin.
Jieming knew these measures were ultimately psychological comforts. If the academy's high-ranking wizards truly suspected him and sought to uncover his secrets, they possessed the means and power to pierce through all his disguises.
He felt like a small boat before a storm, outwardly calm but inwardly churning with turbulent emotions, constantly bracing for the tempest that might strike at any moment.
Amid this daily dread, the "storm" never arrived. Instead, an unexpected crisis suddenly erupted.
That afternoon during a public class, Jieming was in the alchemy workshop practicing the fundamental skill of shaping composite materials into standardized forms.
To increase the challenge, several apprentices nearby were using an old "elemental dust separator"—a device designed to extract specific elemental particles from air or materials—to enchant the composite materials they were practicing with.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared through the workshop!
Beep... beep... beep...
Jieming's heart leaped in his chest. This was a warning of equipment overload or malfunction!
Instinctively extending his mental power toward the machine, he detected that within the core rune of the ancient separator, an energy flow had instantly spiraled out of control, creating an energy blockage and turbulent currents.
Simultaneously, a highly corrosive gray dust, carried by the chaotic energy currents, was spreading outward like a tidal wave!
"Watch out!" Jieming shouted almost instinctively, his body already reacting before his mind could process the danger.
He lunged backward, leaping with cheetah-like agility behind the nearest thick, load-bearing pillar.
As he retreated, he caught a glimpse of Amy standing not far from the separator, staring blankly at the device, seemingly still unaware of the impending danger.
Jieming's right hand shot out like lightning, seizing Amy's arm and yanking her back with irresistible force.
Amy gasped as Jieming's sudden pull threw her off balance, nearly dragging her behind a load-bearing pillar.
Immediately afterward, a visible gray mist erupted from the elemental dust separator, spreading rapidly outward.
"Ahhh!!"
"My hand! It burns!"
"What the hell is this?!"
Apprentices who hadn't retreated in time screamed in agony.
Though the corrosive dust's range was limited, its effects were terrifying. Upon contact with skin, it began to dissolve flesh, emitting wisps of blue smoke and sizzling sounds.
One apprentice, caught in the chaotic energy currents while trying to escape, convulsed violently and collapsed to the ground.
The scene descended into chaos and panic.
Sheltered behind the pillar, Jieming dodged a wave of energy corrosion. As the gray mist spread across the room, he frowned deeply.
The elemental dust separator continued to blare alarms, its energy fluctuations growing increasingly violent.
His accumulated knowledge quickly allowed him to decipher the device's core rune structure and trace the flow of the runaway energy.
He identified several critical energy congestion points, realizing that if he didn't act swiftly, the device would either explode completely or leak on a much larger scale!
"Damn it!"
(End of the Chapter)
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