Duden Mayer, male, thirty-five years old, Ember Fifth Rank, was a craftsman.

From Thousand Islands, a common mixed-blood like any ordinary Ember, he had apprenticed under many, gathering a wide range of expertise—meaning he shuttled between various workshops taking odd jobs. In his pursuit to become a craftsman and chase after Mutation, he received the Stagnant Rot Blessing. After that, he knocked his head at the feet of You Sui Mentor, Jian Yuan, becoming a nominal disciple who played the flute.

As a student on paper but a workhorse in practice.

As a master who gained fame a century ago and defected to the Nine Evils after leaving the association, Jian Yuan was a prime example of an educator who taught without discrimination.

When it came to students, as long as they were useful, he taught them, and once taught, they were used to exhaustion.

Over the years, as the number of disciples increased, his school astonishingly seemed to amass talents, successively producing countless monsters and demons, earning the reputation of a Corrosive Furnace. This meant the furnace produced countless grotesque fetuses.

And Duden was the least promising one among the worst batch… not metaphorically, but genuinely.

With a scatterbrained foundation, unreliable theories, none of the four aspects—Ascension, extraction, Purification, Integration—were up to par.

After a mishmash of self-contradictory skills were learned, he couldn't integrate them, nor could he refine the essence, resulting in a bellyache from eating random food, and being disowned by every school he attended.

Patchwork after patchwork, he turned himself into an average craftsman. It could be said, this was his life from then on.

No more progress.

This was what Jian Yuan had told him explicitly. If it weren't for a sheer lack of manpower, probably not even a workhorse like him would have a turn.

However, in Duden's view, it was clearly this old scoundrel playing hard to get and not willing to share his legacy, just a pretext to knock him down. Anyway, in his mouth, this old guy was as bad and ruthless as one could be, even passing cats got slapped... In stark contrast to his current senior's magnanimous, calm, and amiable demeanor!

So, could you perhaps spare my life out of kindness for my honesty, I am willing to turn from darkness to light, to be the Security Bureau's dog for life, forever grateful for your grace...

There was no torture, no coercion, not even an interrogation.

Ji Jue had barely started, and without the process even being completed, Duden was spilling everything like a machine gun.

Desperately afraid that without thorough confession, he wouldn't be able to buy his life.

Especially when Ji Jue destroyed an alchemy equipment with the Dissociation Technique right in front of him, and then, with a silent smile, placed his hand on him...

Then, there was a long silence.

Everyone was quiet.

Tong Shan hesitated for a moment and opened his mouth to ask, while Xu Guan, who had been monitoring the whole process, sighed silently, rubbing his face, "He didn't tell any lies."

There were no traces of deception, nor were any key points overlooked.

Either this guy was pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, at a level high enough to easily crush everyone present, merely indulging in bad taste to play games with them,

Or... everything he said was true.

Thus, a collective gasp arose.

With an impassive face, Ji Jue said nothing, Tong Shan bowed his head in silence, Lou Feng's face turned ashen, and the other members burst into their hometown's lingo or Cliff City's expletives.

You could only say, it's truly a sinister gathering...

Now, Spring City was a veritable gathering of talents.

Under the advocacy of Chief Bigwig - Lu Changsheng, the current Sacrificial Master, Church Master, Holy Envoy of the Evil Cult, the subordinates of the Nine Evils suddenly arose. Every kind of villain that didn't see the light of day emerged, converging in Spring City via the secret pathways beneath the whirlpools, plotting a significant event much beloved by lunatics.

What that significant event was, a mere workhorse like Duden, only fit to be Jian Yuan's clumsy assistant, had no clue.

But the scale alone...

One was more heavyweight than the other.

First, the Evil Cult which revered Evil objects and spread Mutation; then the infamously notorious Dragon Sacrifice Ceremony; followed by Wulou Temple, advocating for the extinction of all beings in pursuit of the Absolute Abyss; the Heavenly Heart Society selected by the Great Calamity, also known as Wei Yang; and, the You Sui Craftsman of the Zhi Fu lineage...

Take a look at these five groups of peculiar folks. Which one wasn't a lawless villain, an established demon, or a darling child of the Nine Evils? Oh, the Dragon Sacrifice Ceremony did some edge-playing and doesn't count... but for my body to become a dragon, chasing disasters, they caused even more and more exaggerated trouble!

This bunch of oddly shaped guys coming together to do big things...

Hai Province had never gathered such talents!

Even without the full force of the Evil Cult, at least they had sent their own strong and core members.

A single Evil Cult taking on the Security Bureau was like throwing eggs against a rock, but when all these monsters and demons joined forces, the outcome would be dire.

Even if there was fierce infighting among them, with dogs biting dogs that never ceased, they weren't fools. With great interests at stake, any divergences were just minor disputes.

Of course, they would focus on the big affair first!

The big affair! The big affair! The big affair!

Ji Jue could not imagine, when this group of prodigious wonders got together, what kind of disaster they could bring about!

He thought that after heavy damage was inflicted on a faction of the Evil Cult, these guys would've suffered significant losses, or at least be in pain for a long time. Now it seemed it was merely a scratch.

Such a trivial matter.

A mere trifle, not worth worrying about.

Now they couldn't even be counted as a significant concern...

And who knows whether it was a blessing or curse amidst misfortune—there was news from Lou Feng's aunt.

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