Crumbling Facade

Jing Hai and Feng Guang both watched with horror in their eyes the miserable appearance of a teenage girl probably not older than 18 pressing herself against a burning hot furnace.

"What's this?!", even Feng Guang was disturbed by the sight, turning to Jing Hai with horrified eyes, "What is your son doing?! The girl is going to get seriously injured if they don't stop working with that furnace!"

But Feng Guang could shout at Jing Hai all he wanted, the latter was just as frightened by what he saw.

Even if the crowd had no clue about the current situation and was only slightly confused as to why Lei Mingxing suddenly clung to the furnace without rime or reason, Jing Hai and Feng Guang were able to recognize the problem at a glance.

There was something wrong with the furnace, more specifically, it was breaking apart in real-time.

And that just made Lei Mingxing's actions that more concerning.

Because, if you continued working and heating a furnace that was even just the slightest bit unstable, especially with the Qi necessary to continue working a third-rank artifact, at some point, it wouldn't be able to take the forces acting inside it anymore and simply eject all the energy still stored within.

In other words, the furnace would explode.

Feng Guang knew it, Jing Hai knew it, Jing Jiang knew it and Lei Mingxing also knew, it was one of the most basic things you learned when you became an artificer after all.

Culminating in the simple lesson of always giving your equipment a thorough check before starting work.

Which they obviously hadn't done.

Granted, the resulting explosion when only refining third-rank artifacts wasn't that extreme, you were unlikely to get seriously injured by it when there was even so much as a meter distance between you and the furnace.

But the keywords were: standing a meter away from the furnace, which Lei Mingxing was definitely not at the moment.

Knowing this, Jing Hai and Feng Guang both felt anxious to death, desperately waving their arms and shouting for Jing Jiang to stop, but the latter didn't even look up from the artifact in his tongs, not hearing their cries over the animated cheering of the crowd at the start of the final thirty minutes.

It was at that moment that Jing Jiang suddenly stopped striking the metal and hurriedly dropped the hammer in his hand.

But just when Jing Hai and Feng Guang were about to sigh in relief, Jing Jiang bent down, disappearing behind the furnace for a moment before returning with a certain item in hand that had been dropped to the ground previously.

The bright glint of the smooth blue fourth-rank Spirit Core looked almost provocative in Jing Hai and Feng Guang's eyes.

They couldn't help falling into a speechless silence.

And yet again, it was Feng Guang who broke out of his daze and opened his mouth first, gripping Jing Hai's arm with a grave expression on his face.

"Do you want to drive your 'genius apprentice' to death?! Stop your son!", Feng Guang shouted directly in Jing Hai's face, there was not a hint of leisure left in his eyes.

They both knew, this was no longer a joking matter, even if Feng Guang had never met this girl before, truthfully, he didn't even know her name, putting someone's life in danger, especially the life of a still wide-eyed beginner artificer, for some measly competition was too much.

Third-rank artifacts were one thing, but the moment you set out to create a fourth-rank artifact you stepped into the true world of artifact creation, bringing about a qualitative change that simply couldn't be bridged by fancy materials or techniques no matter how much you tweaked a third-rank artifact, just like with Qi Condensation and Core Formation stage in cultivators.

And the same went for the consequences of messing up.

Jing Hai understood that as well, hurriedly pulling his arm out of Feng Guang's grip, determined to jump onto the stage if nothing else would help, but just as he was about to lay his hand on the stage's grainy wooden surface, two guards stepped forward to block his way, glaring at him, their tone threatening.

"Members of the audience are not allowed to go on stage."

"No! You have to let me through, it's a matter of life and death!", Jing Hai replied, trying to force his way through the guards to the stage, "That's my son up there, his furnace is about to blow up, people will get injured!"

Desperately gesturing and pointing at his son and Lei Mingxing, Jing Hai tried his best to make known just how severe the current situation was.

But the guards didn't budge, only coldly staring at him.

Doubts began to rise inside Jing Hai at the emotionless with which the guards reacted to his words.

They weren't surprised or unsure, not even annoyed, it was as if they knew what was happening and were instructed specifically not to do anything about it.

Realizing that forcing his way through and climbing onto the stage was not an option, Jing Jiang stepped back and instead began braving through the crowd to cycle the stage and reach the judges' panel on the opposite side.

If only he was able to reach the Mercenary Association Manager, he would be able to stop his son.

He and Min Fangxin were good friends, the other would definitely listen to his concerns and interfere even if it meant interrupting the competition.

Unfortunately, Jing Jiang had already started the embedding process while Jing Hai was arguing with the guards.

Of course, Jing Hai regretted not acting quickly enough, but even if prematurely interrupting an embedding process could lead to the abolishment of his son's cultivation base, Jing Hai was determined.

After all, he didn't actually have any other choice, either he stopped his son now and Jing Jiang's dantian might get destroyed, or the furnace blew up, forcefully halting the embedding and leading to the same outcome just with an added fatally injured or dead Lei Mingxing, and he was almost certain that this wasn't an outcome his son would want.

So he continued to push aside audience member after audience member, growing more and more nervous the more guards he had to evade and walk around just to circle the stage at a painfully slow speed.

Feng Guang also restlessly watched as Jing Hai struggled to make his way around, recklessly bumping into people, shoving them aside just to go a little faster while ducking behind others and disappearing into the crowd.

Leaving Feng Guang to shift his gaze back to the ever-worsening situation on stage.

The Qi around Jing Jiang surged as the Spirit Core began to sink into the metal. Clearly, he hoped to accelerate the process by pouring as much of his Qi as he could into the embedding.

And unexpectedly, it worked!

Turning something that should have taken about twenty minutes into a barely ten-minute process.

This would have been a testament to his skill and talent to Feng Guang, if it wasn't for the current situation and the extra strain it put on the already crumbling furnace.

And this wasn't an exaggeration, literal bits and pieces of metal were falling to the ground beneath the furnace.

It was a horrible sight to his experienced eyes, bringing him ultimately to the same conclusion as Jing Hai.

He would stop this embedding process himself.

So, Feng Guang grit his teeth, starting to slowly churn the Qi that had grown stagnant inside him, preparing to jump onto the stage and stop Jing Jiang forcefully, when he suddenly froze.

It was as if time itself stopped.

He hurriedly looked around, scanning the sweating and cheering crowd around him as his heart beat so loud inside his body that it drowned out all the noise.

Where was it?!

Where did the familiar Qi come from?!

Suddenly reappearing after 16 years of regret and yearning!

His eyes, still shining with hope, hurriedly followed the faint metal Qi that had a near-identical feeling to his own to its origin, in fear of losing it again for several more years of unending grief.

Until his gaze finally stopped on the still-kneeling girl on stage.