“Are you kidding me? Who are you looking down on!” Ji Jue sneered and waved his hand grandly. “Give me ten jin!”

“Oh, sure. Using Auntie’s gold membership card, it’s seven thousand per gram.” Ye Chun pulled out her phone. She turned the screen toward him, smiling gently. “Please scan the QR code for payment.”

“W-What?!”

“Hm?” Ye Chun blinked in confusion, then seemed to realize something. She lowered her head and checked the PDF order sheet on her phone again. “Sorry, I got it wrong. It’s 7,636 per gram. But if you buy over one kilogram, there’s a discount, so it comes down to about 7,200 per gram on average.”

Ji Jue couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. If his math wasn’t wrong, his entire account balance was just enough to buy sixty-nine grams. Damn it, no wonder that delivery guy was smiling so enthusiastically earlier. If it were him, he’d be smiling even brighter.

What kind of scam merchant was this?!

Carefully, Ji Jue set the jar of mercury, which weighed at least seven or eight jin, onto the ground. He sealed it properly to prevent evaporation, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and asked in a trembling voice, “Is it really that expensive?”

Ye Chun glanced at him like he was inexperienced. “Of course. What did you expect? Anything that gets even slightly connected to alchemy shoots straight up in price. Most craftsmen just buy raw materials and process them themselves. Stuff like this mercury is too niche. Most workshops don’t even have the equipment for it. It’s not worth setting up a supply chain just for it. Auntie only added it to her order to fill the cart. Otherwise, where do you think you’d get practice materials?”

She casually pointed toward the corner of the room. There sat a robot vacuum cleaner.

“Now you understand why you have to wear work clothes when entering and leaving the warehouse, right? Just the dust left behind after your usual practice sessions already fetches a market price of over 4,000 Fedra per a hundred grams once the waste materials undergo property overload. On the market, it’s only sold in batches of a hundred jin or more, and it disappears instantly the moment it’s listed.

“The demand is terrifying. If this were any other workshop, an apprentice like you, with no background and no connections, wouldn’t even dream of getting a waste recycling job, even if you worked yourself to death trying to get promoted to supervisor.”

After alchemical products went through property overload breakdown, the ash left behind was still useful. Before breaking down, the products had already been pushed beyond their limit through excessive alchemical processing, therefore these ashes would become a kind of malformed spirit matter residue. They didn’t easily react with other spirit matter substances anymore.

So, after being collected, they were usually fired into special bricks. These bricks were used for sealing and aging certain materials, for constructing tomb chambers for Chosen Ones who were prone to corpse reanimation after death but were inconvenient to cremate, or for building various specialized facilities, like prisons.

In every major city of the Federation, there was at least one entire building constructed from this material, not even counting the cost of the raw materials. Once you included the sealing rituals and all the embedded systems inside, the total cost became a number so absurd that someone like Ji Jue, who had only just escaped poverty, wouldn’t even dare to imagine it.

The Ember Path was exactly like this. While it could make money, it also meant burning through money at ten or even a hundred times the rate of other paths.

Compared to other paths, Ascension required inspiration and realization. The Origin Path required control over oneself. The White Deer Path demanded overcoming strength with weakness or survival of the fittest. The Ruins Path required closeness to the essence of the world. The Heart Core Path required understanding one’s own nature.

The Ember Path was much more straightforward; Ji Jue just needed to spend money. Spending money wouldn’t necessarily make you stronger, but if you didn’t spend money, you definitely wouldn’t become stronger.

More than ninety percent of Ember Chosen Ones were self-taught outsiders. Not because they lacked the chance to become formally trained, but because they simply could not afford the astronomical costs. The initial investment required to cultivate a registered craftsman was enormous. Even after pouring in so many resources, there was no guarantee of any result.

Compared to other penniless beginners, Ji Jue already had an ideal start. He had an open-minded teacher who didn’t bind him with rules, a senior who would guide him whenever needed, and an entire warehouse of scrap materials for him to experiment with freely.

But, if he wanted to make progress, or even speed it up, he would inevitably have to face a bottomless pit of resource demand.

Once you entered a workshop, it was basically like getting into telecom fraud. A mature apprentice had to learn to reflect on three things every day: Is my account balance high enough? Can I still use my credit card? Have I exhausted all small loans?

And even then, can I still squeeze money out of friends and relatives? Do I have any godfathers or godmothers I can beg from?

Facing this predicament, Ji Jue wasn’t without options. After all, he had just dismantled Mercury’s workshop and brought back a huge amount of materials. Even if they were high end, he could downgrade and make do.

But the question was...

Was he really sure he wanted to shove materials collected by a sage, originally reserved for enhancing legendary weapons to +12, into his broken beginner-grade sword?

Ye Chun patted his shoulder and spoke in a solemn, lecturing tone. “So, know your place, Ji Jue. Back in the day I didn’t bother arguing with you, but you need to understand the gap between us. You, an illegitimate apprentice, actually think you can compete with me, the legitimate eldest niece?”

She lifted her chin and pointed toward the fridge, issuing a commanding order. “Go. Bring me a Coke. The one with zero sugar.”

Ji Jue obediently dashed over and came back holding the drink in both hands. “Here you go, here you go.”

Ye Chun clicked her tongue, then waved her empty hand. “Chips. Wasabi flavor.”

Ji Jue immediately complied, running back with a pile of snacks. “There are three kinds of wasabi flavor. Which one do you want?”

“Hm... today I’ll go with grilled meat flavor.”

Leaning back on the sofa, Ye Chun drank Coke and ate chips while directing Ji Jue to massage her shoulders and legs. After thoroughly enjoying herself, she finally wiped her hands and spoke in a very official tone. “Alright. Out with it. What nonsense are you thinking now?”

Ji Jue hesitated for a moment. “Let’s say, with my current level, if I open a workshop and make prosthetic arms and legs for people, wouldn’t that have money flowing in like water? Does it have potential?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Ye Chun shook her head decisively and raised three fingers. “First, the Taiyi Ring prohibits the sale of unlicensed, mass-produced alchemical products on the market. It doesn’t matter how much alchemical processing is involved. As long as it contains spirit matter and isn’t standard material, it counts.

“Second, to even submit for approval and obtain a license, the maker must first be a registered craftsman and have a certified workshop to vouch for them. Third, not many people can afford it.”

“What the hell?” Ji Jue was stunned. “I don’t have a license nor a certified workshop to vouch for me, but even a prosthetic arm shouldn’t be so expensive that no one can afford it, right?”

Ye Chun didn’t answer. She took out her phone, opened the calculator, tapped a few times rapidly, then turned the screen toward him.

“This is a conservative estimate. For the prosthetics you made, the basic model cost is about 311,000 Fedra per unit.”

“WHAT?!” Ji Jue blurted out.

“‘So expensive?!’ That’s what you wanted to say, right?” Ye Chun smiled. “Even though the materials only cost a few hundred at most, and machining electricity might be like a few Fedra...”

“Uh... yeah, kind of.”

Ye Chun nodded. “Did you factor in Auntie’s technology licensing fee?”

Ji Jue froze.

“Did you factor in your own time cost and labor cost?” Ye Chun continued, then waved her hand before he could respond. “You’re thinking your time isn’t worth that much, and your labor isn’t that expensive, right? But you’re no longer that broke college student, Ji Jue.”

She sighed lightly.

“Right now, are you really willing to sacrifice your most valuable resource, your time, which should be used for honing your craft, just to throw it away on something like this?”

Ji Jue had no answer for her.

No matter how you looked at it, this period of time was a golden phase for Ji Jue as an apprentice to focus on theoretical study. At this stage, any apprentice with even slightly decent conditions would avoid distractions, let alone trying to open a workshop, build sales channels, set up distribution networks, and handle after-sales service.

Not to mention, he hadn’t even fully mastered modern alchemy yet, let alone Fluid Alchemy.

“So, regarding those things you made, my only advice as someone who grew up in a workshop is this: it’s fine to give them away, but if you’re going to talk money, then sell them at twice the cost price. Even lowering it by a single cent is disrespecting yourself.”

Ye Chun patted Ji Jue on the shoulder in comfort.

“Even though this sounds very mercenary and cold, that’s just how the world and the market work. Don’t let your favors turn cheap, and don’t become the kind of person others think they’re cheap either. Otherwise, you’ll end up with endless trouble and consequences.”

Even without Ye Chun saying it, Ji Jue understood this logic. No matter how strange or complicated the market was, one had to maintain a clear grasp of reality. Those who overestimated themselves and tried to go against the market had long since been eliminated.

What right did an apprentice who hadn’t even passed the registered craftsman exam have to argue otherwise? At a price of 620,000 Fedra, it had already basically exited the market entirely. Vortex-type regenerative limb surgery only cost around 2.1 million, and some Chosen One’s clinics even had “buy one, get one free” promotions.

Finally, Ye Chun handed him a can of iced Coke, placed the unfinished bag of chips into his hands, and reminded him once again to focus on reality. “So stop thinking about all these unrealistic things. Finish this, then go work. Master Ji, it’s time to process scrap again.”

Fifteen minutes later, after his dream had shattered, Ji Jue wiped away a few tiny tears and once again pushed open the workshop door. On the workbench lay the twisted longsword, covered in scratches and cracks. In this absolute silence, even his breathing and heartbeat sounded unusually clear.

Ji Jue took a deep breath and slowly raised both hands. As spirit matter began to circulate within him, the intricate circuits of Pacifier grew increasingly distinct. He steadied his mind, guided the spirit matter, maintained stability, and finally prepared to trigger a qualitative change.

“If you’re bad at it, then just practice more!”

Suddenly, his eyes lit up as his hands slammed down hard toward the scrap longsword on the table.

Take this. Dissociation Technique!