Chapter 161: Mu Fei
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Ye Chong’s spacious room was now a glorious sight. It was filled with rows of neatly arranged bottles of chemical reagents in all colors, in which many types of skeletons were immersed in. Under the illumination of the room’s lighting, his room looked like a world of crystals.
In the room were also many high precision apparatus used specifically by alchemists. This made Ye Chong’s room looked more like a laboratory.
Ye Chong carefully observed the skeletons in the various chemical reagents. Today was the day he would test the skeletons for their properties. As for how many of them could be valuable, Ye Chong had no idea, and could only leave that to fate.
He removed the skeletons from the reagent bottles one by one. Most of the skeletons had already undergone drastic transformations, looking vastly different from when they were first immersed in the chemicals. It must be due to the immersion process.
How many of them were useful? Ye Chong had to experiment on each of them to find out.
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Master Fan sat vexedly before his desk. He had just received orders from the Elder to stop the young skeleton carver from passing the Level Five Trial. This has happened every year, and Master Fan was not entirely surprised. There were many ways to stop the young skeleton carver to pass the Level Five Trial, the easiest way being to modify the trial. If the trial was made very difficult, then it would almost impossible for the candidate to pass.
These modifications were among the easiest to make before the Level Five Trial. Since the trials before Level Five were judged by only one Master, he would only need to assign a compliant Master to judge Ye Chong’s test to ensure his failure. Level Five Trials were, however, judged by a panel of seven Masters. With him among them, and another Master under his control, he could only control two of the seven, and thus, would be unable to control the final result.
The Elder’s instructions were for Ye Chong to fail his trial after Level Four. This was extremely troublesome for Master Fan. Master Xiao, who was in charge of Ye Chong, had always been at odds with him, and was a man with a temper. Men like him were all their own masters, basically unmoved by other people’s opinions. When it came to their profession, they were all serious about it, and would not accept such interference.
Master Fan knew that, if not for the Sanctuary’s control over the Level Five Trials, he would not have become a Master. With his true abilities, he was not on par with the standard requirements, and was one of the least capable of all the Masters. This had always put him in a difficult position - the other Masters were often condescending towards him and isolated him.
He did not even have influence over the other Masters. Those who reached this position by their own strength were often dedicated to their jobs, and found these unfair and manipulative methods repulsive. On the contrary, they mixed well among themselves, and Master Fan often felt that he was boycotted by them. Then came a day when he found blackmail material for one of the Masters, and after some persuasion and threatening, he had him under his control. However, the others quickly noticed that something was wrong. Very soon, both he and the other Master were isolated. On the other hand, these Masters were all honored guests of the Sanctuary. Not only could he not display any hostility towards them, he must also protect them against danger. This was a depressing situation for Master Fan.
All of a sudden, he found himself out of ideas, and could only hope that Ye Chong was incapable of passing the final two Trials. If not, his mission this time would only end in failure.
It was for the Heavens to decide!
Up till now, the Sanctuary could not completely control the five Trials. This was one of the reasons the Masters agreed to manage the Trials in the first place. The Sanctuary’s Trials were first proposed by a Master who agreed to work for the Sanctuary. This suggestion was later supported by the other Masters, as they believed that the Orbits should offer a way for outsiders to leave this place. On the one hand, the Sanctuary was under pressure from the Masters, and on the other, they believed it was a good way to discover new talent. In the end, the Sanctuary agreed.
The Masters’ professional attitude caused the Trials to be as difficult as they were.
"Huu …" Ye Chong let out a breath in relief. There were three skeletons with satisfying results after immersion. What excited him the most was the skeleton from an animal called Dopodo. The Dodopo's skeleton had the best results among the three immersed skeletons. Besides, Dopodo skeletons were quite common, unlike the other two rare skeletons. This meant that it could have wide applications!
"Shang, have you recorded the results for the Dopodo skeleton?" Ye Chong asked.
"Of course, how can I make those kind of mistakes that only you would?" Shang mocked.
Acknowledging Shang’s words, Ye Chong put pressure into his hands and pressed on the Dopodo skeleton. The bones turned to dust in the blink of an eye, and fell to the ground from between Ye Chong’s fingers. Ye Chong heard footsteps approaching him. He was very familiar with them by now, since Wei Xi came to visit every day, and Ye Chong could identify them easily by now.
Ye Chong shook his hands a little, and the skeleton dust came off his hands, spreading into the air like a mist. His hands were now clean.
Wei Xi pushed through the door right then. Ye Chong turned back to face her casually, but was startled!
Why was there another person with her?
Ye Chong immediately went into high alert. He had clearly heard only Wei Xi’s footsteps earlier, but now there were two people entering his room. The other person’s footsteps had obviously escaped him! On the trash planet, Ye Chong had developed good hearing. After some meditation training, he found his hearing improved even further, even though he did not gain anything in terms of mental abilities.
This was the first time he met someone who could approach him so closely without him hearing his footsteps!
Looking at the man with long hair standing beside Wei Xi, Ye Chong looked calm on the surface, but inside his emotions rolled like a tsunami!
What a terrifying man!
The other party’s physique was well balanced, without any particularly bulging muscles, but Ye Chong did not underestimate him just because of this. From what he knew, among the mentalists in the Sanctuary, only the unpopular students would have obvious bulging muscles. The stronger one was, the more inconspicuous they seem from the outside. This man’s eyes were calm and steady, and Ye Chong was sure that the man before him was already at a very high level in terms of his mental attainments, unlike what he could achieve with some simple meditations. Ye Chong could only just sense his breathing. If not for his eyes looking at the man before him, Ye Chong definitely could not have otherwise sense the man’s presence!
Could the Sanctuary produce men of such caliber on a normal basis? The thought was terrifying!
"Ye, be careful, this guy’s good!" Shang seemed to noticed as well that the man was unusual.
Wei Xi smiled to Ye Chong and said, "Mr Ye, how are your experiments going? Do you have anything new? Oh, right, almost forgot to introduce you two!" Wei Xi stuck her tongue out in a cute way, and continued, "This is Sir Mu Fei, he will replace me as your guide. Sigh, I really hoped to learn more from you, but I have other tasks to attend to, so Sir Mu Fei will act as your guide, I hope you and him will get along together!"
Ye Chong started to think. With the man as guide, would that not mean that he would be nearby every day? Sir? It seemed that he had a high status! Ye Chong’s expression did not change as he acknowledged, "Okay," and nodded at Mu Fei.
"Glad to be of service. I heard you have quite astonishing achievements in skeletons, please take care of me!" Mu Fei’s delicate profile lacked the usual masculine roughness, and he smiled enigmatically as Wei Xi watched from aside, charmed.
"It’s nothing." Ye Chong waved in polite dismissal.
Wei Xi noticed the two skeletons in Ye Chong’s hands and asked curiously, "Mr Ye, are those skeletons from your successful experiment results?"
"Yes, only two of them barely make the cut!" Ye Chong affected a regretful expression.
Wei Xi quickly consoled him. "It’s alright, even so, they are still Mr Ye’s astonishing breakthroughs!"
Fei Mu suddenly approached from the side. "These must be the skeletons from the Rohin primate and the Blitzwing!"
Could he also be well versed with skeletons? Ye Chong was again startled, but he managed to take a casual glance at Mu Fei and asked in a calm but slightly surprised voice, "Is Mr Mu also experienced with skeletons?"
Mu Fei smiled modestly and said, "I don’t know much about skeletons, but I’ve encountered with these two mutants before!"
Ye Chong was surprised once again. He knew these two life forms. The Rohin primate was alright, but the Blitzwing was terribly ferocious and aggressive. They always appeared in pairs, and their claws were sharp, capable of damaging mech armor. They moved agilely and were cunning creatures, difficult opponents to fight against! Mu Fei may have said that he encountered them before, and Ye Chong believed that it must not be some friendly encounter. It seemed that Mu Fei must be very strong!
Why did the Sanctuary assign Mu Fei to him? Ye Chong was perplexed.
However, Ye Chong quickly grew absorbed in his work for the Trial. No matter the circumstances, passing the Trial was still his utmost priority. What made Ye Chong uncomfortable was that Mu Fei never seemed to leave him alone. No matter what he was doing, the man would observe with interest from the side, and that made Ye Chong grew suspicious of him.
Nonetheless, there was not much time left. Ye Chong was too busy to mind having Mu Fei around him. He began to work in earnest towards building a full skeleton mech engine. Ye Chong, careful as he was, had thought it through. Since Master Xiao had said that any engine model would do, Ye Chong chose the simplest mech engine he knew of - the Raven model engine, which was the engine for the eponymous mech that Ye Chong was very familiar with.
Even so, the work took a lot of effort from Ye Chong, since this was his first time building such a thing, and he had no experience to draw from. Fortunately, however, Ye Chong finally completed his work within the designated time frame, building the world’s first full skeleton mech engine!