I can receive unlimited protection; my parents handed me over to the state.

Meanwhile, when Liu Wuhen and Chi Lian finished cleaning up the "garbage mountain," they were so exhausted that they collapsed to the ground like two dead dogs. But instead of showing any signs of fatigue or resentment, their faces were filled with excitement and satisfaction as if they had found a treasure.

Because they learned so much in the process of sorting through these "waste materials"! By analyzing these materials that Lu Yuan had rejected, they glimpsed for the first time the "Master Craftsman's" vast and profound knowledge of materials science and his extremely precise control over energy!

They discovered that Lu Yuan rejected those materials not because the materials themselves were bad, but because they contained extremely subtle energy structure defects at certain microscopic levels! These defects were completely undetectable to ordinary blacksmiths, and even an eighth-level blacksmith might not be able to see them! Yet Lu Yuan could easily identify them and ruthlessly discard them as "garbage"!

This almost obsessive pursuit of "perfection" is the real reason why he was able to become a "master craftsman"!

"I...I think I understand..."

Liu Wuhen looked at the A-grade [Void Shadow Crystal] in his hand, and then at the pile of "waste" that he had separated out not far away, which also had the "shadow" attribute. It was as if a lightning bolt had flashed through his mind!

He suddenly realized that his proud Grade A material was actually inferior to a Grade C Shadow Stone in that pile of "waste" in terms of the purity and stability of its energy!

At that moment, he finally understood why Lu Yuan had said they weren't qualified. Because they couldn't even distinguish what truly constituted "good stuff."

Just as the two were still marveling at their new discovery, Lu Yuan's voice came from behind them again: "Finished organizing?"

The two men were startled and quickly scrambled to their feet, standing respectfully at attention: "Yes, Master Lu! Everything's done!"

"Hmm." Lu Yuan nodded, stepped forward and casually glanced at the "garbage heap" that the two had neatly divided, a barely perceptible smile of satisfaction on his face, "You have some understanding."

He said calmly, then turned his gaze to Liu Wuhen and Chi Lian, whose bodies trembled slightly with nervousness and anticipation: "Bring out the 'gifts' you've prepared, and let me see your 'sincerity'."

Upon hearing Lu Yuan's words, Liu Wuhen and Chi Lian's hearts leaped into their throats. They knew the real test had arrived. Whether they would live or die, whether they could cling to this powerful figure or suffer a crushing defeat and lose all opportunity, depended on whether their "sincerity" could move the capricious "divine craftsman" before them.

Liu Wuhen took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the tension in his heart, and carefully took out a box made of special ice crystal from his storage bracelet. As soon as the box was opened, a cold and eerie spatial fluctuation instantly spread out. Inside, there lay a fist-sized, irregular crystal that seemed to be composed of countless twisted shadows—it was the A-grade material he had obtained at a great cost, the [Void Shadow Crystal].

"Master Lu... Master Lu." Liu Wuhen's voice trembled slightly. "This is a small token of my appreciation. Although it may not be considered anything special in your eyes, it is the most sincere thing I can offer."

After he finished speaking, he raised the box high above his head with both hands, awaiting Lu Yuan's judgment.

Lu Yuan didn't take it immediately. He just glanced at the [Void Shadow Crystal] and shook his head.

Seeing this action, Liu Wuhen's heart sank. It's over, he still doesn't like him?

Just when he was about to despair, Lu Yuan spoke up: "This thing has mixed energy and too few fragments of rules. It's not qualified to be your main material."

Upon hearing this, Liu Wuhen's face instantly turned deathly pale. Not good enough? This was his most prized possession!

"However..." Lu Yuan changed the subject, a half-smile on his face, "It's barely enough as a 'starter'."

He reached out and gently touched the crystal, and an incredibly pure spiritual energy instantly surged into it.

"Buzz—!"

The [Void Shadow Crystal] trembled violently. The chaotic energy and fragments of rules within it miraculously became orderly under Lu Yuan's domineering and unparalleled mental power! In just a few seconds, the crystal transformed from an ordinary black stone into a dazzling diamond that seemed to contain a deep starry sky, its quality improving by at least one level!

"This...this is..." Liu Wuhen stared wide-eyed at the incredible miracle before him, which could be described as "turning stone into gold." He never dreamed that forging could be done like this.

"Alright, put it away." Lu Yuan withdrew his finger and said calmly, "Tomorrow, go to the 'Ten Thousand Laws Pavilion' and read through all the theoretical books on 'Spatial Folding' and 'Dimensional Assassination,' then write a 30,000-word reflection and hand it in to me. I'll design a weapon for you when I'm satisfied."

"Huh?" Liu Wuhen was stunned. Write...write a reflection? And it has to be 30,000 words? Is this even humanly possible? He felt like he wasn't here to suck up to someone, but to attend a cram school, and the most rigorous and insane kind of cram school at that!

"What? You have a problem with that?" Lu Yuan glanced at him.

"No! No objection! Absolutely no objection!" Liu Wuhen trembled in fright, shaking his head vigorously like a rattle-drum. "Don't even mention 30,000 words! Master Lu! Even if you asked me to write 300,000 words, I would write it for you!"

What a joke! This is "homework" personally assigned to me by the "Master Craftsman," which means I have successfully entered his probationary period. It is an immense honor!

Liu Wuhen quickly and carefully put away the crystal that Lu Yuan had "blessed," and bowed deeply to Lu Yuan again: "Thank you for your guidance, Master Lu!"

He was genuinely grateful. He knew that Lu Yuan's casual remark had not only improved the quality of the materials, but more importantly, it had shown him a completely new path of cultivation he had never considered before—assassins could not only pursue speed and unpredictability, but also combine with space! This was simply opening a door to a whole new world for him!

Seeing Liu Wuhen's tearful gratitude, as if he had received a peerless secret, Chi Lian felt a surge of warmth in her heart. She quickly took out the "gift" she had prepared—a lava crystal that was still slightly pulsating, like a heart, which was the B+ grade [Lava Dragon Heart].

"Master Lu... this is mine..."

Before she could finish speaking, Lu Yuan waved his hand and said, "Alright, you don't need to look at yours."

"Huh?" Chi Lian was stunned. What did she mean by "no need to look"? Was her sincerity insufficient? Her heart sank to the bottom instantly.

"Your talent is [Daughter of the Flame Demon], right?" Lu Yuan asked, looking at her.

"Yes...yes."

"How's the fire-playing going?"

"It's...it's alright," Chi Lian replied somewhat uncertainly. After witnessing Mu Bingli's terrifying power of freezing thousands of miles with a single move, she dared not be proud of her own little bit of fire talent.

"Alright." Lu Yuan nodded, then pointed to the pile of unused [Yin Phosphorus Wood] charcoal next to the barbecue grill, "Starting tomorrow, your task is to start fires."

"Start...start a fire?" Chi Lian was stunned again.

"Yes, start a fire." Lu Yuan's face revealed a devilish smile. "Use your 'Fire Demon's Flame' to set these [Yin Phosphorus Wood] ablaze. Come find me again when you can make these [Yin Phosphorus Wood] spontaneously combust from the inside without any external force, using only the temperature of your own flame."

After saying that, he ignored the completely petrified red-haired beauty and turned to walk into the villa.

Only Chi Lian was left standing there dumbfounded. Using the Flame Demon's Fire to set the Yin Phosphorus Wood on fire? What a joke! The Yin Phosphorus Wood was renowned as the "fire-resistant divine wood," naturally possessing extremely high resistance to all fire energy. Even with her A+ grade talent, let alone a real Flame Demon, it might not be able to ignite it! This was simply an impossible task!

And so, in an extremely eerie atmosphere, the three newcomers of the "God Creation Project" began their "learning" life in the Zenith World.

Every day, Liu Wuhen locked himself in the "Wanfa Pavilion," studying various books on space theory with utmost diligence, writing down his 30,000-word reflections. Chi Lian, on the other hand, squatted in the corner of the courtyard of Villa S-0 every day, channeling her energy into a pile of black charcoal. Her fiery demonic energy, powerful enough to melt steel, seemed to have met its nemesis in front of the Yin Phosphorus Wood, unable to even produce a spark. Several times, she almost suffered internal injuries from overexertion.

The first person to gain Lu Yuan's approval, Wu Gu, became the new "head chef" of Villa S-0. He spent every day with Lu Yuan, either researching how to use poisonous insects to refine stronger Gu poison, or discussing how to use more bizarre ingredients to make more "delicious" dark cuisine. As a result, the entire villa was filled with an indescribable and eerie aroma all year round, which made Gu Tianye and Xiang Batian, two gluttonous foodies, both love and hate him.

Time flew by in this peaceful and fulfilling "learning" atmosphere, and a month passed in the blink of an eye.

On this day, Lu Yuan was in the "Divine Craftsman Palace" instructing witchcraft practitioners on how to perfectly fuse the neurotoxin of the "Void Jellyfish" with the corrosive mucus of the "Abyss Worm" when Zhao Qingxuan's figure suddenly appeared silently behind him.

"Mr. Lu." For the first time, his gentle smile was gone, replaced by an unprecedented solemnity. "Something has happened."

"Something happened?" Lu Yuan stopped what he was doing, his brows furrowing slightly. He turned to look at Zhao Qingxuan's grave face, and his heart sank as well. For the usually composed and elegant head butler to show such an expression, something was definitely not simple.

"What's wrong?" Lu Yuan asked in a deep voice.

"It's the North." Zhao Qingxuan's voice was somewhat low as he handed a tactical tablet to Lu Yuan. "Just an hour ago, all our troops stationed at the T-03 forward position in the North, including Commander Iceblade and his 'Ice Wolf' special operations team, lost contact at the same time."

"What?!" Lu Yuan's expression changed upon hearing this. The T-03 forward position was a strategic stronghold they had painstakingly captured last time, a bridgehead for the counterattack against the Void Rift. How could it suddenly lose contact?

He immediately took the tablet and quickly browsed through it. It displayed the last surveillance video transmitted from T-03 before it lost contact. The video was shaking violently, accompanied by piercing alarms and the terrified screams of the soldiers; the entire Blackstone Fortress seemed to be shaking violently.

The dark purple void rift in the sky, which had been suppressed by the power of [Phoenix Cry] and [Soul Suppression], was now expanding wildly at an incredible speed! Streams of void energy, even more concentrated and evil than that of the previous "Skeleton Demon Infant," surged out of the rift like a flood bursting its banks, dyeing the entire sky a nauseating dark purple!

The most bizarre thing was that what emerged from the cracks was no longer strange, grotesque void creatures, but an endless, seemingly living, purplish-black carpet of flesh and blood! The carpet spread across the ice plains at an extremely terrifying speed. Wherever it passed, whether it was hard frozen soil, cold steel, or Chinese soldiers who hadn't had time to evacuate, everything that came into contact with the carpet was instantly assimilated, devoured, and decomposed, ultimately becoming part of the carpet!

At the end of the video, the camera focused on a young soldier being frantically devoured by the creep. His face, contorted with extreme fear and pain, opened and closed his mouth as if silently screaming something.

Lu Yuan understood his lips; he was saying—"The abyss...is...the abyss..."

"Click." The video recording abruptly stopped, and the entire "Divine Craftsman Palace" fell into dead silence.

Lu Yuan stared silently at the screen, which had turned to static. His knuckles were white from gripping the tablet so tightly. The soldier's desperate words before his death echoed repeatedly in his mind: "Abyss, the abyss again! These persistent bastards!"

"According to the research institute's preliminary analysis," Zhao Qingxuan's voice broke the silence, his tone heavy with worry and exhaustion, "the flesh-covered fungus that appeared this time is a completely new abyssal species that we have never seen before, and we have tentatively named it—[Abyssal Moss]. It is extremely aggressive and assimilative, and it also seems to emit special mental spores. All life forms that inhale the spores will go insane and attack each other within a short period of time, eventually turning into 'Spore People' who only know how to kill and spread spores."

"After receiving the news, Elder Su, Tang Long, and Yan Ji rushed to the Northern Territory immediately, but the situation is not optimistic." Zhao Qingxuan pulled up another real-time battle map, where the purplish-black area representing [Abyssal Moss] on the Northern Territory map was spreading towards the heart of China at a terrifying speed! In just one hour, it had swallowed up the three forward positions of T-03, T-04, and T-05, and it was still accelerating.

At this rate, the entire northern defense line will collapse within three days. Then, an unprecedented catastrophe awaits China!

"Dean Qian and the committee held an emergency meeting overnight." Zhao Qingxuan looked at Lu Yuan, his voice extremely solemn. "They asked me to come and seek your opinion."

"Seeking my opinion?" Lu Yuan chuckled self-deprecatingly. "At this point, what's the point of seeking my opinion?"

He tossed the tablet aside and slowly stood up. His eyes, which always held a hint of laziness, now burned with an unprecedented, chilling rage!

"Summon everyone." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable resolve. "Gu Tianye, Xiang Batian, Ye Cang, Mu Bingli... and those three newcomers, have them come to the 'Divine Craftsman Palace' to see me immediately."

"Yes!" Zhao Qingxuan nodded heavily and turned to relay the order without hesitation. He knew that this usually unassuming "divine craftsman" was truly enraged this time. And when the divine craftsman was angry, the whole world would tremble!

Ten minutes later, all members of the "God-Making Project" gathered in front of the massive forging furnace in the "Divine Craftsman Palace." Gu Tianye, Xiang Batian, Ye Cang, Mu Bingli, and others had solemn and angry expressions on their faces, clearly already aware of the situation in the Northern Territory; Liu Wuhen, Chi Lian, and Wu Gu, the three newcomers, stood at the back of the crowd, their faces showing unease and tension, unaware of Lu Yuan's purpose in suddenly summoning everyone.

"Is everyone here?" Lu Yuan slowly emerged from the shadow of the [Heaven and Earth Creation Furnace], carrying no weapon and wearing no armor, only a plain black forging suit. Yet, the chilling, overwhelming killing intent emanating from him made everyone present feel as if their souls had been frozen! Even Ye Cang's [Asura] emitted a low, uneasy clang the moment it sensed this killing intent, as if it had encountered an even more terrifying being!

"You all probably already know about what happened in the North." Lu Yuan cut to the chase without wasting words. "I only have one question for you."

His gaze, like two merciless swords, swept over everyone present: "Are you afraid, or not afraid?"

"We are not afraid!" Gu Tianye and Xiang Batian roared first, their eyes burning with fierce battle intent. "We are willing to fight to the death for China!"

"Don't be afraid!" Mu Bingli and Lin Ziling also stepped forward. Although their voices were not loud, the determination and resolve they contained were no less!