Mechanical Grotto-Dwelling.

Cultivation Chamber.

The walls, cast in brass, revealed numerous mechanical components: slowly turning gears and cooperatively moving levers.

The heavy copper door of the chamber was tightly shut, without a single gap.

The sounds of the mechanical parts operating filled the chamber, continually adding to the grim and solemn atmosphere.

Ban Ji sat cross-legged on the central futon, his expression blank, his eyes tightly closed.

His cheekbones were high, and the light from above cast his face in mottled shadows. A faint sheen of sweat covered the tip of his aquiline nose.

Suddenly, a whisper came from the void.

Ban Ji’s heart instantly jolted, “It’s here!”

His body reacted instinctively, his gaunt back suddenly arching, and the veins in his neck bulging.

The fragmented whispers entered his ears, like strange long fingernails scraping inside his skull.

Ban Ji grit his teeth, opening his eyes, blood vessels filling his eye sockets at a visible rate.

The whispers quickly became continuous, growing louder and louder to Ban Ji.

His rationality steadily declined, and his right foot suddenly began to itch intensely!

Ban Ji curled his right leg, extended his fingers, and subconsciously began to scratch.

The itching was unbearable!

Ban Ji’s fingertips, adorned with steel hooks, tore through his boots, scratching frantically.

Soon, his right foot was torn open, revealing pale white bone. The pain this caused, however, was like a few drops of water to a traveler dying of thirst in a desert!

But soon, the whispers boomed like a bronze gong, powerfully pouring into Ban Ji’s ears.

“Stop! Stop it!” He slammed his hands, enveloped in demonic light, against his ears, instantly destroying his eardrums. But even losing his hearing, the whispers only diminished slightly, still vibrating within his skull, causing his temples to bulge and veins to pop on his forehead.

By now, Ban Ji was lying on the ground, his body twisting under the combined assault of intense pain and unbearable itching, like a lone boat struggling in a stormy sea.

His head was splitting, and the intense itching on his right foot felt like a venomous snake climbing his calf.

He subconsciously used his heel to repeatedly pound the floor tiles, splattering blood. Flesh and bone fragments mixed together, forming a paste that adhered everywhere nearby.

His originally white leg bone now emitted a yellowish-brown turbid light, transforming into countless mechanical parts!

Immortal Talent (Xian Zi)—Myriad Automaton Demonic Abomination (Wan Yan Mo Guai)!

This was not a side effect of Ban Ji cultivating the demonic art *Greedy Machine Demonic Heart Art* (*Tan Ji Mo Xin Gong*), but rather the activation of the Xian Zi, Wan Yan Mo Guai.

Cultivators possessing this Xian Zi would continuously receive an influx of knowledge about mechanical arts, demonic paths (Mo Men), and strange dao (Guai Dao).

In Ban Ji’s vision, chaotic and disordered runes began to appear.

He could not understand these runes at all, closing his eyes tightly amidst his roars.

Darkness was only temporary.

Soon, various runes, like living maggots, pierced through the darkness and reappeared in Ban Ji’s vision.

The flesh of his entire right lower leg had turned into translucent gel. Not only had his leg bone transformed into machinery, but it also emitted a powerful suction force.

In this cultivation chamber, several brass mechanisms were placed. These mechanisms were pulled by an invisible force, colliding one after another with Ban Ji’s mangled limb.

*Bang bang bang, clang clang clang—*

The mechanisms crashed into each other, firmly adhering and clustering together.

The yellowish-brown turbid light rapidly spread, disassembling and reconstructing these mechanisms.

After more than ten breaths.

Ban Ji’s right lower leg was completely disfigured. Gears were embedded in the bone, and chainsaws pierced the fascia. Gelatinous flesh enveloped all sorts of strange objects like living wax.

At the same time, Ban Ji’s magical power, like countless woven threads, permeated every corner of his right lower leg.

His entire right leg had swollen into a colossal object, requiring two adults to embrace it. The outermost skin had transformed into brass, and numerous gears rotated within the leg bone, while blood mist continuously spewed from his right knee.

Ban Ji’s throat became hoarse from screaming.

His eyes were lifeless, his pupils somewhat unfocused from the torment.

Just then, the jade pendant around his neck suddenly erupted with an inch of cyan light.

The cyan light entered his brain, and Ban Ji’s gradually muddled consciousness suddenly became clear.

He struggled to open his eyes to look. Various runes almost occupied his entire vision. In the gaps between these runes, he saw his right leg, and saw a purplish hue spreading upwards from his knee along his thigh.

“Sever it for me!”

Ban Ji ferociously swung his palm, his magical power surging forth like a blade, cutting into his right thigh and directly severing it.

Blood flowed profusely from the severed leg, making Ban Ji gasp sharply and clench his teeth.

His gaze, like a vulture’s, fixed on the wound, disappointedly finding that a purplish hue still lingered, eroding outwards along the flesh.

As the purplish hue intensified, the agonizing itching returned!

His actively severed right lower leg was blasted by his magical power into the corner of the wall.

The disfigured right leg, now seemingly unsuppressed and unrestrained, emitted an even stronger suction force, attracting all remaining mechanical constructs in the cultivation chamber.

The grinding of gears was as dense as a sudden downpour, and levers struck like hammers repeatedly. The right lower leg began to expand rapidly again, and a chaotic aura spread outwards, gradually carrying a hint of danger.

Ban Ji gasped for breath, drenched in sweat.

The whispers in his ears grew stronger and stronger, and the runes before his eyes became so dense they threatened to consume his entire vision, the remaining small gaps rapidly disappearing.

In this critical moment, Ban Ji, with his last shred of clarity, formed hand seals.

Divine Art (Shen Shu)—Blind Stupor (Mang Yu)!

A large plume of gray smoke appeared out of nowhere, descending upon Ban Ji.

The gray smoke quickly condensed, forming an off-white, bone-china-like shackle that pierced through Ban Ji’s upper body. Two chains passed through his eyeballs into his skull, then emerged from both ears.

The Divine Art quickly took effect.

The strange runes in Ban Ji’s vision became blurry, as if covered by a hundred layers of grease.

The blood vessels in his eye sockets reduced by more than half, his pupils became unfocused and gray, and saliva mixed with blood trickled from his idiotic grin onto the floor tiles.

The previously unbearable itching receded like a tide, and while the intensely suppressed pain surged, Ban Ji was unable to perceive it in his current state.

His wound was not treated, but the bleeding had stopped, as the flesh around the wound had transformed into brass-textured mechanical plates.

Ban Ji lay in a pool of blood, his right leg from the knee down empty. He chuckled foolishly, his ten fingers still dug firmly into the floor tiles, his fingernails all bent back.

His severed leg continued to tremble, its form like a bubble, constantly expanding and contracting, its appearance also changing bizarrely.

The severed leg eventually transformed into a monstrous object the size of a carriage compartment, its surface filled with various mechanical components. They were mixed together, without any discernible pattern, yet somehow they functioned.

With a soft click, a humanoid mechanical hand suddenly extended from one side of this ugly and bizarre mechanical monstrosity.

The hand still had strange gel clinging to it. Its five fingers tapped the floor tiles, and after searching around, it turned directly towards Ban Ji’s main body, like a venomous snake sensing its prey.

But its momentum stopped short in the next instant.

It was dragged down by the enormous mechanical monstrosity behind it, its reach extremely limited.

Yet, the hand did not give up. It possessed a primal, beast-like desire. It frantically pulled its massive body, inching towards Ban Ji’s main body.

At first, it remained motionless.

But soon, its body trembled slightly, continuously shedding various broken mechanical fragments, which adhered to the hand, making it slowly grow larger.

The hand gradually gained strength, actually moving a tiny bit, drawing closer to Ban Ji’s main body.

After the time it takes for one stick of incense to burn.

The Blind Stupor Divine Art reached its time limit, and the condensed gray smoke shackles transformed back into gray smoke and dispersed.

Ban Ji regained his senses, abruptly opening his mouth and gasping for air.

Intense pain, like a sharp iron awl, fiercely drilled into his nerves. But the presence of pain without itching brought Ban Ji, experienced as he was, an ecstatic joy.

He endured the intense pain, quickly checked himself, and then scanned his surroundings.

A colossal, bizarre mechanical monster seemed to be looking down at him. Its hand had grown as large as a python, still an arm’s length away from Ban Ji.

But it was motionless, stopped in place, without any sign of life.

Ban Ji’s heart skipped a beat, then a smile appeared on his pale face.

The smile rapidly widened, finally erupting into a triumphant laugh of survival.

“This time, I successfully passed the activation of my Xian Zi!”

Wan Yan Mo Guai.

This Xian Zi had made Ban Ji exceptional since childhood.

Initially, the activations of the Wan Yan Mo Guai talent were widely spaced, and the knowledge imparted to Ban Ji was minuscule.

Young Ban Ji simply thought he was having nightmares.

But when he started school, he displayed an almost intuitive understanding of mechanical arts.

Normally, mechanical arts involved calculations, but Ban Ji would just glance at something and intuitively feel: “This is the result.”

And every time a calculation was performed, the result matched his intuition. In fact, his intuition even surpassed calculations, as calculations could sometimes be wrong.

This exceptional performance immediately caught the attention of Ban Ji’s parents.

As the activation intervals of Wan Yan Mo Guai shortened and the imparted knowledge increased, Ban Ji exhibited symptoms of fainting and convulsions. And after each “episode,” his “intuition” for mechanical arts would significantly grow.

Ban Ji’s parents struggled to resolve the “strange illness” and could only seek help from their clan.

The clan’s in-depth research revealed many mysteries of this talent: it was not any recorded talent, but it was extraordinary. Not only did it impart knowledge of mechanical arts, but it also taught about demonic paths and strange dao.

And this knowledge directly affected Ban Ji’s body rather than being infused into his spiritual sea (Shen Hai), which gave him an almost intuitive “comprehension.”

Comprehension was merely a superficial manifestation; the reality was that Ban Ji’s body inherently understood what was happening.

Coma was also just a superficial manifestation; in essence, Ban Ji found it difficult to bear the principles from these three aspects, so his body could only spontaneously protect itself, causing him to fall into a coma to avoid the infusion of knowledge.

However, this infusion could not be completely exempted, and as Wan Yan Mo Guai activated more frequently, the intensity of the infusion became more ferocious.

After discovering this, the Ban family began to take Ban Ji seriously.

Initially, everyone in the Ban family believed this to be a drawback of the talent, a side effect, but after realizing the true nature, they were astonished to find it wasn’t a defect at all; clearly, Ban Ji simply couldn’t keep up.

The talent was confirmed as a Xian Zi, and the Ban family, centered around Ban Ji, secretly tailored a cultivation path for him.

*Greedy Machine Demonic Heart Art* was meticulously selected, for which the Ban family paid a heavy price.

This demonic art focused on cultivating the spiritual sea (Shen Hai) to enhance Ban Ji’s learning ability. Rather than passively enduring the infusion of knowledge through his body, it was better to actively learn.

This was a correct measure, allowing Ban Ji to adapt quickly, his strength steadily rising, and his cultivation of mechanical arts and demonic paths progressing by leaps and bounds.

After Ban Ji established his foundation (Zhu Ji), the Xian Zi once again significantly strengthened!

Ban Ji began to struggle to cope.

The Ban family, naturally, would not abandon their future hope who possessed a Xian Zi, and fully assisted him. To alleviate Ban Ji’s predicament, they provided much help from various aspects.

And to completely resolve this flaw, they sought external help while maintaining secrecy.

An accidental opportunity led them to encounter Duni Sanren, who was traveling the world. This extraordinary individual had a cultivation level as high as the Refinement-Void (Lian Xu) stage, was renowned throughout the land, and was almost universally recognized as the strongest divination cultivator of his time.

The Ban family’s grand patriarchs devoutly entreated him, and Duni Sanren performed a divination for Ban Ji, divining that the latter’s Xian Zi was unique and represented a King’s Mandate!

“Throughout history, innate talents have always been bestowed by Heaven.”

“The Way of Heaven diminishes the abundant and supplements the deficient. Looking back through history, mechanical arts and strange dao have never given birth to a king.”

“Heaven has placed its piece here. Of course, there must be more than just this one.”

“In the future, if Ban Ji succeeds, he will be the King of Mechanics and Strange Dao.”

“Your naming of this Xian Zi as Wan Yan Mo Guai is also fitting.”

The Ban family’s grand patriarch was puzzled and asked, “If so, then why is there also an infusion of demonic path principles?”

Duni Sanren sighed leisurely, “This is the great calamity hundreds of years from now, where demonic power rises and righteousness wanes, which is the general trend of the two realms. Since the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the world has enjoyed peace for a long time, and the righteous path has suppressed everything, flourishing to its extreme. Prosperity leads to decline, and tides rise and fall; this is the cycle of heaven and earth.”

The grand patriarch then asked, “The prosperous era of cultivation has lasted for nearly a thousand years. This great calamity will undoubtedly bring turmoil to heaven and earth. Will a Fourth Emperor be born?”

Duni Sanren said, “Heavenly secrets are chaotic; how can we calculate them? It’s just that this time, even if it’s just a king, it will be the most special one in history.”

This answer invigorated all the grand patriarchs of the Ban family present.

What is “most special”?

Isn’t being the King of Mechanical Arts and Strange Dao the most special thing?!

That is to say, our Ban Ji, possessing a King’s Mandate, is very likely to be the future king who unifies the world?

Our Ban family is very likely to overcome centuries of developmental constraints because of this, and leap to become one of the most powerful royal relatives in the entire world?

The grand patriarch knelt on the ground, continuing to seek guidance from Duni Sanren.

Duni Sanren, however, only left behind a pile of precious materials: “Our缘分 (yuanfen) has ended. This pile of precious materials, when used with the clan’s destiny pivot chain (zuo shuji lian), can calculate Ban Ji’s path to kingship. Simply follow the results of the calculations, step by step, to achieve the King’s Mandate. At the very least, it will be a situation where he dominates a nation.”