Chapter 106: Sweet Dreams Are Easy to Awaken
"It's bitter. I'm so miserable."

A few days later in the afternoon, Ji Jue finally couldn't help but started wailing again.

When he finally crawled out of the library covered in dust and dirt, he was already dying.

Just like the kids who start to look forward to the start of school before the end of every summer vacation, after the initial joy disappears without a trace, they are once again crushed by their schoolwork.

Before, he thought he had at least mastered the basics of modern alchemy.

Then Professor Ye used practical actions and continuous questioning and pressure to tell him, no, you haven’t, you are still far from it.

After a series of tests, he was given the paper with a politeness score of 59, and then a long list of books was given to Ji Jue, which was enough to bury him. He was told that his task in the next few months was to read all of them, write a report based on his own understanding, and accept Professor Ye's random checks and torture from time to time.

"A Brief Discussion on the Four Elements of Alchemy", "A Discussion on the Different Theories of the Way of Ascension", "The Basics of Modern Alchemy I, II, III, IV", "Analysis of the Real Questions of 300-400 Registered Craftsmen in Previous Years", "Two or Three Discoveries Based on Waste Recycling in Water Quenching"...

At first, Ji Jue was worried about how to find all the books in such a huge library, until Ye Chun took him to a corner, pointed to six bookshelves one, two, three, four, five and told him that there was no need to look for them, just read them all, they were all here.

After realizing that Ji Jue's ability to understand was sufficient for self-study, Professor Ye's teaching style became much more rough. He mainly used cramming, and after he finished cramming, he would torture him based on his weak understanding, and then ask him to go back and look at the text again. As a result, even Ji Jue had nightmares about practicing questions, memorizing books, and doing real test questions.

Now, every time Ji Jue smells the smell of the library, he starts to suffer from PTSD.

Who invented such a vicious alchemy...

Now his daily schedule is filled with various beatings.

First, at eight o'clock in the morning, I was beaten by Professor Ye in the spiritual attack and defense. At ten o'clock, I was tortured and beaten by Professor Ye in the teaching and testing. From noon to afternoon, I was beaten by various theories in the library. In between, I went to the warehouse to be beaten by dissociation.

It was nothing but beatings.

Ji Jue was beaten until he lost consciousness. He was lying on the ground like a maggot, wriggling and groaning. "Does one always have to be beaten in life, or is it only like this when you are an apprentice?"

"Young man, don't be discouraged just because you were beaten at the beginning." Ye Chun touched the dog's head and comforted him, "Because you will gradually get used to it in the future."

"I don't want it! I still have a lot of youth left..."

Ji Jue covered his face and screamed: "Senior sister, save me!!!"

"Senior sister has been crushed by you!"

Ye Chun, who had been staying up late to finish his thesis, pulled up his disheveled hair and sneered, "You chose it yourself, idol!"

"When you rolled up others, why didn't you think about today? This is the end of a rolled up dog! A miserable, extremely miserable, and inhumane death!"

When it came to hatred, she couldn’t help but pinch Ji Jue’s neck and shook him vigorously: “One day, I will scatter your ashes into Tianmen Lake ah ah ah ah ah ah!!!”

In the living room, the sound of the TV was heard. The little calf curiously leaned out of the front of the car, holding a small bird on its head, and watched the scene of the two people persecuting each other.

Soon, he withdrew his gaze without any interest, returned to the TV, and continued to enjoy the food program attentively.

“It looks delicious.”

Gloria started swallowing as she watched the roast chicken coming out of the oven.

When the calf heard this, he raised his eyes and looked above his head at the alchemical creature that seemed to belong to the same bird family as the one on TV. He nodded in agreement and was eager to try it.

Then the two little ones began to tiptoe towards Ji Jue's backpack while he was not paying attention, trying to use his mobile phone to order some takeout.

Ji Jue saw it, sighed but didn't stop it.

After all, it was better than their own cleverness, carrying a plastic mannequin in the middle of the night and letting Gloria hide in their heads to order food, which frightened the waiter to faint. Thanks to them, the legend of the scary diners who came to take lives late at night has been added to the horror stories of Beishan District...

Besides, he was hungry!

Just wait for the takeaway to arrive and snatch it from their mouths. It will surely taste even sweeter.

Brother Ji is under a lot of pressure, so Brother Ji takes it first!

The reason why he has become so 'generous' recently and even dares to order takeout casually is largely because the financial situation on Ji Jue's books is finally no longer in a debt state that is on the verge of bankruptcy at any time.

After all, it’s not a wasted trip.

Taking into account his financial situation, Professor Ye helped him sell some of the materials he left behind that were not of temporary use and were not particularly valuable.

The money just arrived yesterday morning.

After deducting his and Lu Ling's student loans, there is still more than 700,000 yuan in the account.

If he saves a little, it will be enough for Ji Jue to lie down for ten years from now on.

For the first time in his life, there was such a huge amount of money in his account. The generous Ji Jue not only bought gifts for everyone in the family, but also went to Lao Zhang's family's massage parlor to apply for a membership card that could be used by the whole family.

Originally, he was going to deduct the money owed to Sister Leila, but the other party refused to pay the bill and just said that it was a favor between friends. Since it was a friend helping out, Ji Jue didn't say much and simply accepted the favor. If there was anything he needed later, he would just help out more.

In the bitter life of cramming, sweet money has become Ji Jue's spiritual support. Every time he was beaten and felt hopeless, he would take out his mobile phone to check his account balance.

The happiness can't stop.

"Well, it starts again."

Ye Chun rolled his eyes, glanced at Ji Jue who was holding a cell phone and grinning foolishly, and shook his head helplessly.

Forget it, forget it, even if this is cured I'm still drooling.

Sweet dreams are hard to come by, so let him sleep a little longer.

Sooner or later, the cruel reality will come and slap them in the face.
.
After lunch in the afternoon, Ye Chun received a call and sent Ji Jue to push the cart to pick up the goods.

At the entrance of the workshop, a man in a suit got out of a black van with a friendly and enthusiastic smile. He shook hands with Ji Jue, handed him his business card, and offered him a cigarette. He was so enthusiastic that after he put the small sealed can on the cart, he stood there and waved, waiting for Ji Jue to enter the door before returning to the car and driving away.

“Is sales involution so severe now?”

Ji Jue curiously fiddled with the head-sized but ridiculously heavy sealed jar: "What's inside?"

"Aren't you going to practice fluid alchemy?"

Ye Chun took a look and said, "This is the purified mercury that my aunt ordered from the Tianping Chamber of Commerce. It's hard to find, so it just arrived today."

It has to be said that the mercury that has undergone spiritual essence fusion and qualitative change is much easier to operate than the mercury that Ji Jue transformed casually by himself.

Ji Jue simply stretched out his hand to handle it, and then he was able to use it as if it were his own arm.

Just like a snake charmer, he casually waved his hand, and the mercury in the jar slowly rose up, wriggling in the air with his movements~
Sometimes Ji Jue's face appeared, sometimes Ye Chun's appearance appeared.

Extremely agile.

“How convenient!”

Ji Jue's eyes lit up: "I'll make some at home later! This amount is not enough."

"That's more troublesome. If the purchase quantity is small, Tianping will not be willing to do it." Ye Chun bit the pen and reminded without looking up: "The minimum order is about half a kilogram."

"You're just kidding, who are you looking down on?"

Ji Jue sneered and waved his hand: "Give me ten pounds!"

"Oh, OK, if you use my aunt's gold membership card, it's seven thousand per gram." Ye Chun took out his mobile phone, pointed the screen at him, and smiled gently: "Scan the payment code."

"Take the young master?!"

"Huh?" Ye Chun was puzzled, but he seemed to have realized what was happening. He lowered his head and flipped through the PDF purchase order on his phone again: "Sorry, I made a mistake - it's 7,636, but there's a discount if you buy more than one kilogram, so it's about 7,200 per gram."

Ji Jue's hand holding the jar trembled once, and then trembled again.

If I calculated correctly, the balance in my account... seems to be only enough to buy 69 grams?

Damn, no wonder the grandson who just delivered the goods was smiling so enthusiastically!
If it were Ji Jue, Ji Jue's smile would definitely be brighter than his.

What kind of profiteer is this? He carefully placed the mercury jar, which weighed at least seven or eight kilograms, on the ground, and carefully covered it with a lid to prevent it from evaporating. Then he wiped the cold sweat off his face and asked in a trembling voice, "Is it so expensive?"

"Yeah, what do you think?"

Ye Chun glanced at his ignorant look and said, "Once something has something to do with alchemy, the price will go sky-high, okay?
Most craftsmen buy the raw materials and process them themselves. This kind of mercury is because the processing equipment is too unpopular and the workshop does not have it. It is not worth buying it just for this purpose, so my aunt brought it to make up the order. Otherwise, where can you get something to practice with?"

As he spoke, he pointed to the sweeping robot in the corner.

"Now you know why you need to wear work clothes when entering or leaving the warehouse, right?

Just the ash left over from your usual practice after the waste material is overloaded has a market price of more than 4,000 federal coins per hundred grams.

In the market, the starting price is 100 kilograms, and they are sold out in seconds. The demand is terrifying. If this were in other workshops, an apprentice like you with no background and no connections would never get a job in waste recycling, even if you work hard to become a supervisor, okay?"

You know, after the physical properties of the alchemical products collapse due to overload, the ashes left behind are actually useful.

Because they had undergone alchemical treatments exceeding the upper limit before the collapse, these ashes had become adverse reactions to spiritual essences, and were not easy to react with other spiritual essences. Therefore, after being collected, they were often burned into special bricks. They were used to store certain materials that needed to be aged, or to make tombs for some chosen ones who were easy to resurrect after death but inconvenient to cremate, or to build some special function buildings.

For example...a prison cell.

In every big city in the Federation, there is at least one entire building that is constructed using such materials. Not only the cost of the materials, but also the cost of the internal shackles and secret instruments and various equipment added together...it becomes an astronomical figure that a poor guy like Ji Jue, who has just escaped poverty, would not even dare to dream of.

This is the way of Embers. While making money, it also means burning money ten or a hundred times more than other paths.

Compared to other paths, the path of transformation requires inspiration and understanding, the path of Tianyuan requires self-control, the path of Bailu requires the weak to defeat the strong or the law of the jungle, the path of desolate ruins requires getting close to the essence of the world, and the heart needs to understand its own nature...

The embers became much simpler and stronger - pay money.

Spending money may not make you stronger, but if you don’t spend money, you will definitely not become stronger!

More than 90% of the Chosen Ones of the Ashes are self-taught. It's not that they don't have the opportunity to become a regular professional, but they simply can't afford the high price.

To train a registered craftsman, the initial investment is huge. But such a huge investment may not necessarily produce any results.

Compared with other newcomers who had nothing, Ji Jue had a dream start.

He has an open-minded teacher who doesn't stick to rules, a senior student who's always there to tell him what to do, and an entire warehouse of scraps for him to mess around with.

But if we want to make progress, or even speed up the process, we will inevitably have to face the bottomless pit of demand.

Once you enter the workshop, it's like committing cyber fraud.

A mature apprentice must learn to examine himself three times a day: Is the account balance sufficient? Can I still use my credit card? Have I taken out any small loans?
Even more, can relatives and friends still afford the money?

Do godfathers and godmothers still need a ditch?

Faced with the current predicament, Ji Jue is not without a solution. After all, he had just dismantled Mercury's workshop and moved so many materials back. Even if they are high-end, they can be downgraded and made do with.

But, are you sure that you have to add the stone-born gold specially collected by the sages to enhance the legendary weapons by +12 to your shabby village good sword?

"So, you must recognize your own position, Ji Jue."

Ye Chun patted his shoulder and said earnestly: "I didn't bother with you in the past, but you have to understand the gap and chasm between us - you, a bastard apprentice, dare to compete with my eldest daughter?"

As she spoke, she raised her chin, pointed at the refrigerator, and said in a commanding tone: "Go, bring me some Coke! I want sugar-free."

Ji Jue ran over obediently and came back with Coke in both hands: "Please, please."

Ye Chun clicked his tongue and shook his free hand, "Potato chips, mustard flavor."

Ji Jue followed suit and came back with a bunch of things, smiling flatteringly: "There are three types of mustard flavors, which one do you want?"

"Well, let's have barbecue flavor today."

Ye Chun leaned on the sofa, drank Coke and ate potato chips, directing Ji Jue to massage his legs and shoulders. After enjoying himself enough, he wiped his hands and said in a full-bodied tone, "Alright, just tell me what you're thinking."

Ji Jue pondered for a moment and asked tentatively: "You say, with my level of skill, if I open a studio and help people make prosthetic arms and legs, wouldn't it be a lot of money? Is there any way to do it?"

"I'm sorry, that's not possible."

Ye Chun shook his head decisively and raised three fingers again: "First of all, Taiyi Ring prohibits the sale of mass-produced alchemical products on the market without review and approval, regardless of the proportion of alchemical processing, as long as there is spiritual essence inside and it is not a standard material.

Secondly, in order to obtain permission to submit an application for review, the maker must first become a registered craftsman and be guaranteed by a registered workshop.

In the end, few people could afford it.”

"What the hell?" Ji Jue was stunned. "It's fine if there's no registered craftsman qualification and workshop guarantee, but the price of a prosthetic limb shouldn't be so expensive that no one can afford it, right?"

Ye Chun didn't answer. He took out his phone, opened the calculator, and after a few taps, he lifted the screen to show him the result: "According to conservative calculations, the cost price of the basic model of the prosthesis you made is about 310,000 yuan per piece."

"What the hell?!" Ji Jue lost his voice.

"So expensive?! Is that what you meant?" Ye Chun smiled. "The materials alone are only a few hundred yuan, and the electricity cost for turning is only 70 or 80 cents, right?"

"Well, it does feel a bit."

So, Ye Chun nodded and asked, "Have you included my aunt's technology authorization in this?"

Ji Jue was stunned.

"Have you taken your own time and labor costs into account?"

Ye Chun asked again, and seeing that he was about to speak but hesitated, he waved his hand to interrupt: "You want to say that your time is not so valuable, and your manpower is not so laborious? But you are no longer the college student with nothing, Ji Jue."

She sighed: "Now, do you really want to sacrifice your most precious time and use the effort you use to study hard to play with water?"

Ji Jue was speechless.

No matter from which angle you look at it, this period of time is the golden period for Ji Jue to study theory as an apprentice. At this stage, apprentices with a little bit of conditions will not let themselves be distracted, let alone open a studio, contact sales, set up channels, sell products and provide after-sales services.

What's more, he hasn't even fully mastered modern alchemy, let alone fluid alchemy.

"So, regarding the things you made, as someone who grew up in a workshop, the only advice I can give you is: it's fine to give them as gifts, but if you want to negotiate the price, then sell them at double the cost price. Even a penny lower would be disrespectful to yourself."

Ye Chun reached out, patted Ji Jue on the shoulder and consoled him, “Although it sounds mercenary and cold to say this, this is the state of the world and the market.

Don’t let your favors become cheap, and don’t let yourself become someone who is cheap in the eyes of others, otherwise, there will be endless troubles and endless troubles. "

Ji Jue himself understood this truth without Ye Chun explaining it.

No matter how bizarre and complex the market conditions are, we must remain aware of reality. Those who overestimate their own capabilities and want to go against the market have almost died long ago.

What qualifications does Ji Jue have as an apprentice who hasn’t even passed the registered craftsman exam?
At a price of 620,000, it can basically be taken out of the market.

You know, the price of Vortex System's limb regeneration surgery is only around 2.1 million, and some of the Chosen One's clinics even offer a buy two get one free deal.

"So, don't think about those things."

Ye Chun finally handed him a can of iced Coke, put the unfinished potato chips in his hand, and reminded him again of the cruel reality: "After you finish eating, you must go to work obediently.

Master Ji, it’s time to continue processing the waste.”

Fifteen minutes later, after his dream was shattered, Ji Jue wiped the little pearl, pushed open the door of the workshop again, and looked at the twisted long sword covered with scratches and cracks on the operating table.

In absolute silence, even the sounds of breathing and heartbeat become so clear.

Ji Jue took a deep breath and slowly raised his hands. As the spirit essence circulated, the complicated circuit of non-attack became more and more clear. Calm down, mobilize the spirit essence, maintain stability, and finally, trigger a qualitative change.

"If you're not good at it, practice more!!!"

At that moment, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he raised his hands and slammed the scrap sword on the table.

——Eat my dissociation technique!

　Sorry, I went to wash the dog during the day, and it was past six when I came back. Hurry up and finish writing, I'm going to have a meal~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)