Wizard: I Can Refine Everything

On the smooth asphalt road, a carriage smeared with foul-smelling blood and flesh sped past.

The carriage was one of four carriages. Although the carriage was covered with rotten meat and darkened blood, its luxurious decorations could still be discerned.

On the coachman's seat, a Third Level servant who had once climbed mountains with Frank was driving. However, compared to when he met Richard, his condition was undoubtedly terrible—

His body was covered in wounds, from knife cuts to claw marks, of all kinds, almost as if he had gone through a meat grinder. Worse yet, most of these wounds were covered by dark red scar tissue, which connected together like a dark red garment of flesh.

This layer of flesh garment was continuously eroding the coachman's body. It was relentlessly corrupting and transforming his muscles and moving through his blood to erode his organs. If nothing unexpected happened, it wouldn't be long before he would fall into becoming a lower demon of the Abyss.

Inside the carriage, Oli, a Noble clad in Crystal Armor, was operating a Crystal Stone Communicator.

Although the Blood and Flesh Court had not installed a Crystal Stone communication system on the same scale as the Mechanical Court, this carriage, as the Great Shepherd's ride, was created by the Mechanical Court's Bishop of Tyr.

When Tyr worked on this carriage, he installed a portable Crystal Stone Signal Transmitter. This ensured that as long as there was a Crystal Stone Signal Tower within a hundred kilometers of the Great Shepherd, Crystal Stone communication could be carried out.

The Crystal Stone Communicator was huge, resembling old-fashioned walkie-talkies, and its handset currently emitted a continuous crackling noise.

Suddenly, the crackle disappeared and an elderly but strong voice came from the handset.

"Oli, what's the matter?"

Upon hearing Frank's voice, Oli let out a sigh of relief, and a tide of boundless exhaustion instantly washed over her brain.

But now was not the time to sleep. Oli perked up, her eyelids fighting to stay open, as she transmitted all the news from the Royal Court.

"Master...the Royal Court has fallen. The Divine King couldn't resist the corruption of the Abyss, and almost all the Nobles...were infected and devoured by him."

Oli's voice grew lighter and lighter. To escape from the Royal Court, she had fought non-stop without sleep for two days and nights. Her intense use of ancient relics had nearly drained her spiritual power.

"Alright, I understand. How about Dis?"

"...I'm not too clear...but now there is still no..."

Looking at the communicator that had been silent for a long time, Frank, the Great Shepherd of the Church of the Lord of Flesh and the Archbishop of the Miracle Sect's Blood and Flesh Court division silently turned it off.

Then he took out a scroll from his pocket and opened a rift to the Secret Realm.

...

Life really was becoming more hopeful.

Wali watched as the steel bucket pouring molten iron thought to himself.

The scorching iron poured into molds, forming numerous cast embryos. Once cooled, Wali's coworkers used machinery to move the embryos to the processing workshop to be used for making plate embryos, completing the cycle.

In the past, this kind of life was dismal, numb, and utterly devoid of vitality. But now everything had changed.

"Let's go, Wali. There's beef soup in the canteen today, and it'll be gone if we're late," called out his coworker, snapping Wali out of his reverie. The distant, melodious bell sound surpassed the smelting factory's cacophony and reached his ears.

It was twelve o'clock, time for lunch.

Wali fished out his own meal can from a corner and quickly followed his calling coworker.

Beef soup was a delicacy—previously, he might not have had it once a year. Even though he could now enjoy it once a week, that didn't stop the workers from scrambling for it like starving ghosts reborn.

Arriving at the canteen, he found it crowded, with an even longer queue winding twice at the beef soup window.

Looking at the lengthy line, Wali's coworker complained, "Damn it, these beasts act like they've never had beef soup in their lives. Even if you're slightly late, you still have to queue up like this."

Complaints aside, the two still joined the queue without hesitation.

Based on experience, their place in line should guarantee them some beef soup.

After queuing for half an hour, it was finally Wali's turn. He handed his meal ticket to the ticket collector, and the master chef next to him, wearing a white chef's hat, swiftly scooped a ladle of beef soup from a pot big enough for a whole cow, filling Wali's can.

Inhaling the rich aroma of the soup, Wali's appetite surged.

"Hey, life really is looking up," he remarked.

Drinking soup alone would certainly not suffice for the afternoon's work, so next to the beef soup window, there was a window selling pancakes. Wali grabbed two oil pancakes and finally sat down with his coworker.

However, they did not start eating right away. Finding their spot, they placed their meal cans on the table and began to pray devoutly.

"Thank the Lord for bestowing upon us this meat soup."

"Thank the Lord for bestowing upon us these oil pancakes."

They were both believers of the Miracle Sect, followers of the Master of Miracles. Among the workers, ten out of ten were adherents of the Miracle Sect.

The Divine might not cook soup for them or make oil pancakes, but without the Divine, this meat soup and oil pancakes would not be before them at all.

Those factory owners would rather build a hundred uninhabited manors than add a bit more meat to their workers' meals.

But with the arrival of divine beings, with cultivators blessed by divinity, everything changed.

Their old house was rebuilt, their wages were increasing, their work environment was improving, and their meals now included beef soup and fried dough cakes.

Thank the Lord.

The factory owners who once prospered on their toil and sweat were all moved by the divine, weeping bitterly as they ended their lives and entrusted their estates to the Church.

Praise the Lord.

The bullies who tormented them were brought to justice by the cultivators, hanged at the gates of various factories.

May the Lord's glory endure forever!

A strand of faint but pure Power of Faith emerged from Wali, from Wali's workmates, from the multitude of canteen workers, from the billions of workers in Mechanical Court, Blood and Flesh Court.

Billions of distilled Power of Faith formed into a great river, ceaselessly converging into a dimension known as the Gods.

Countless Powers of Faith turned into a shapeless Divine Statue, and at the moment it took shape, a new divine spirit would be born.

…

"Is our luck really this bad?"

Upon hearing Frank's report, Ulysses was the first to speak.

"What's going on?" Richard asked, tilting his head, "Why would the World Master, after being corrupted, devour the Nobles of the court?"

He had planned on waiting for the situation to worsen, so he could then absorb those nobles, taking the opportunity to swindle them of their Pioneer Relics.

"The Abyss's transformation takes many forms; this is one of them," Ulysses explained. "We call this type of transformation 'web transformation.' Once the infected lose control, they involuntarily transform and devour all life around them. The devoured ones don't matter, but those who are transformed will become associated races of the transformed.

A new Demon Race's birth will invoke the Abyss's blessing, and the blessing will significantly enhance the infected's combat ability."

Richard frowned at the explanation: "You should have said this earlier; if you had, we might have been able to take some of those nobles..."

"Sir, it wouldn't have worked," Frank suddenly interjected. "You haven't dealt with those arrogant folks; each of them carries a mystery-like self-confidence. Even if you informed them about this, they'd merely arrogantly acknowledge it and continue with their balls.

Of course, if you, sir, are willing to make a sacrifice, there could indeed be a chance to take some of them away."

Richard's brow furrowed deeper: "What do you mean by 'make a sacrifice'?"

"Sir, you're quite attractive, not green enough, but our local Nobles are quite diverse in their tastes, and they won't mind that bit..."

"Enough, no more," Richard interjected with a dark face.

To sacrifice his charm to seduce a bunch of Aliens? He'd rather be killed.

Elsewhere, Ulysses innocently added: "The probability of web transformation is very low, so low that it's almost negligible. In two thousand years of combat, we've only seen it happen twice. Heaven knows why we'd be so unlucky this time."

"Is there a way to deal with it?" Richard asked with some resignation.

"There is, but it's somewhat underhanded."

"Hmm?" Richard looked at Ulysses, puzzled. "Do you think I care about morality at a time like this?"

"The method is to send the World Master of Mechanical Court to his death. Once he dies, the World Will would be forced to grant us an origin enhancement. It would effectively neutralize the Abyss's blessing."

"Then that's what we'll do," Richard said without hesitation.

Ulysses looked at Richard a bit surprised, "You made that decision so decisively? We could actually work with those World Masters and possibly kill the Abyss Infected directly."

"But would that be beneficial to us?" Richard countered.

"Most likely not, but there's a small chance to gain a Subordinate God."

"Then why wouldn't I let that fellow die? Ulysses, I have no friendship with that guy."

"But this action will lead to the death of many Goblins."

Richard was silent for a moment, then calmly said, "...This is a necessary sacrifice."

Frank, who had been observing the exchange in Wizard Language between the man and the bird, keenly sensed a change in the atmosphere.

He could tell that Master Sage had made some decision, and that decision seemed to have stirred something in his heart.

"Richard, your decision should be true to your heart," Ulysses, looking into Richard's eyes, slowly began, "At the moment your Soul leaps, your consciousness will enter a delusional world.

In that world, the guilt in your heart, the unease within you, will become stumbling blocks. You must possess unwavering will to cross that boundary.

This is a path all World Masters must take."

"The captain as well?"

"What do you think someone who isn't even a Level 1 Creature achieved such feats by?"

Richard was silent for a while, and then again said calmly, "I said, this is a necessary evil."