Forty Millenniums of Cultivation - Chapter 375

Chapter 375: Lonely Flying Sword

The explosion immediately triggered a chain reaction. Centering at the metal puppet, ripples of destruction spread out, turning the ancient battleground into an ocean of broken diamonds. Cracking noises were echoing nonstop in the vast, cold expanse.

Even the most powerful magical equipment and creatures would find it difficult to withstand the corrosion of time for thousands of years. Like a castle made of sand on a beach, the splendid ancient battleground soon fell into nothingness when crushed by the surging tide.

Yet, on the edge of the battleground, clusters of weird smells were popping up.

“That is…”

Li Yao set the resolution of the crystal camera to maximum and activated the full potential of the nerves of his retina by stimulating them with his spiritual energy, so that his sight was improved by five times temporarily.

On the edge of the battleground, he saw that several demon beasts which also looked like ice sculptures did not explode into pieces like the other demon beasts did. The only thing that was broken was their ice shell, revealing their black bodies which resembled countless dried octopuses.

They were gradually expanding.

These demon beasts had been in the periphery of the frigorific cyclone’s reach. They must’ve entered the hibernation stage in time, which allowed them to survive the disaster.

The demonic energy from their bodies was burning more and more fiercely like a wild fire.

Soon, the dozens of demon beasts had been enlarged to an unimaginable level, which looked like balloons that had been fully pumped up.

Every demon beast was three to five meters in diameter. They were floating in the midair, each with hundreds of messy tentacles full of thorns dangling to the ground.

Such balloon-shaped demon beasts did not have eyes. Their airbag-like bodies were full of wrinkles and holes. Their tentacles wriggled forward and interweaved into a grey net hundreds of meters in diameter.

“Judging from the appearance of those demon beasts, they should be sort of like the ‘Floating Jellyfish’ from ancient times.

“Such demon beasts can absorb the air around them, condense it to minimum, and spurt it out through the holes and wrinkles over their bodies. Their bullets of air can be very intimidating.

“Especially here in Mystic Glacier where the air contains corrosive gas. It’s a perfect slaughterhouse for them,” Yan Yangtian blurted out.

“Don’t be nervous, everybody. Those demon beasts are not at very high levels. Middle-level or high-level demon general, tops. Besides, after thousands of years of hibernation, their body tissue must’ve been significantly undermined. Although they’ve woken up again, they are far less effective than thousands of years ago.”

Hong Tong’s words were mostly meant to ease Li Yao.

Although the demonic waves from them were not intense and they were probably still very weak after thousands of years of hibernation, it was hard to tell whether or not they had any hidden moves, considering that they were demon beasts from thousands of years ago after all.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao tried to calm himself down. He moved his right hand inch by inch, until he eventually grabbed the Boiled Blood Wind Slash Saber quietly.

His other teammates dispersed silently according to the tactics that they had practiced countless times during training.

The giant net of tentacles from the dozens of demon beasts drifted in the air like a weird grey cloud, until they sensed the existence of human beings and quickly moved toward them.

They were moving in the same way as Heaven’s Roar did. The intense air spurting from the holes on the back of their bodies was boosting them forward at an astonishing speed.

A fierce battle was about to break out.

In the blink of an eye, the closest demon beast was only fifty meters from Li Yao.

Li Yao was able to vividly see every thorn on every tentacle right now. The Boiled Blood Wind Slash Saber was shivering violently inside the sheath, eager to jump out.

Suddenly, a shriek burst out from his left, as a streak of brightness passed by him and pierced into the body of the demon beast!

A flying sword!

The Floating Jellyfish were all filled with air inside their body. Now that a flying sword left a long, narrow cut on it, a high-pitched noise of air being leaked immediately echoed and didn’t stop until the demon beast withered again.

The other Floating Jellyfish were apparently greatly shocked. They waved their tentacles and formed a dense line of defense.

Li Yao was dazed, too. The flying sword didn’t come from him, but from the northeast corner of the ancient battleground.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

The earth was shaking.

Appearing in front of his eyes were dozens of triplet crystal cameras in the shape of triangle, which were emitting brutality and toughness as their owners march forward in the grey fog.

Soon, it was clearer. Dozens of metal puppets walked into his eyesight rigidly yet firmly.

Their arms had been modified into chainswords and sabers, and they had dull and burdensome honeycomb launchers affixed to their shoulders which were ejecting flying swords unstoppably as they marched on.

Many puppets had been greatly undermined by the blowing wind after such a long time. Their ankles or knees exploded as they were walking, making them fall to the ground, unable to stand up again.

But the remaining puppets never bothered to even glance at them. They stepped over their companions’ bodies and marched on.

For the fallen puppets, as long as their crystal processors were still working, they would wave their hands and move their bodies forward with their arms, continuing on their charge at the demon beasts.

“They’re the metal puppets from the Star Ocean Imperium.

“In extreme conditions, some puppets will also enter the hibernation state. Only when they detect intense demonic waves will they awaken again to destroy the targets,” Hong Tong explained.

While they were talking, the army of metal puppets rushed into the grey net of the demon beasts. A bloody battle with no blood being spilt broke out!

At first, the metal puppets sent out massive flying swords from their honeycomb launchers and separated the demon beasts, before they wielded their chainswords and sabers and slashed the demon beasts as well as their tentacles into pieces.

The demon beasts were not easy to deal with. Countless bullets of air erupted out from the wrinkles and holes covering their bodies and blew the limbs of the metal puppets to pieces.

Both parties had been sleeping in the extreme coldness for thousands of years. Their bodies were unbelievably weak because of the weathering of the wind. Often, after several clashes, the two opponents fell into pieces at the same time.

But neither the demon beasts nor the metal puppets knew what fear was. They were simply carried out what they had been told to do.

Ten minutes later, the protracted war that had been delayed for thousands of years ended.

All the demon beasts and metal puppets had become broken pieces. Their limbs and components drew a painting of destruction on the grey land.

The only thing left was a flying sword in the sky, which was spinning in the air, somewhat lost, because it could not find a target. Eventually, it came at Li Yao.

Li Yao swallowed. His right hand held his saber even tighter.

“Don’t be anxious. The flying sword should have the identification system installed. We are all human beings. It wouldn’t attack us,” Hong Tong explained.

The flying sword flew over the heads of each of them. Li Yao saw clearly the dented edge, the thick rust which was work of the acids of the demon beasts, and also the Red Dragon Swallowing the Sun emblem on the body of the sword.

It used to be the pride of human beings, flying in every corner of the sea of stars.

The tip of the sword shivered for a long time, like a hound which was sniffing to find its prey. After recognizing that they were all human beings, the flying sword went westward into the grey fog, until it completely vanished beyond the horizon later.

“Where is it going?” Li Yao asked.

“Although we are not demon beasts, we don’t have the identification spiritual tattoo of the soldiers of the Star Ocean Imperium, either. It has perhaps considered us to be civilians,” Hong Tong replied.

“It is going to find a troop of the imperial army, or a demon beast to attack.”

Li Yao was dazed for a moment and further questioned, “What if it can’t find either?”

Hong Tong answered, “If it can’t, it will continue searching until it runs out of spiritual energy.”

Li Yao inevitably pictured the following scene.

A lonely flying sword had been flying on the godforsaken land for no one knew how long, without being able to find any comrade or enemy. It was flying more and more slowly. The rust on its body grew thicker and thicker. Sometimes, it even fell down from the sky. But it did not know what fatigue was, nor would it ever abandon its mission. It would only carry on flying and flying until the last bit of its spiritual energy ran dry.

“Little Black, are you looking for a companion or an enemy like that flying sword?” Li Yao asked Black Wing on his back with a telepathic thought.

Black Wing shivered. Li Yao immediately understood what it meant.

“I’ve already found a companion.”

“Alright. Everybody, keep it up! Battles between ancient demon beasts and metal puppets are not unusual in the Occult Orbs!”

Hong Tong bellowed, “Vulture and Dummy, clean up the battleground, and see if there’s any trophies that are worth bringing back. Yan Zi and Lingdang, form a scout team and search the mountain nearby. Since this is a battleground, it is very likely that a tunnel is somewhere around here. Shell and I will be on guard!”

Leng Ziming picked an excellent position where he set up his sniper rifle, monitoring the situation of the battleground.

Li Yao and Ba Weiqi jumped down into the ancient battleground which was now covered in shards of ice.

Most of the ancient flying swords, crystal suits, and metal puppets had turned into powder. Although some of them looked intact, they would break into pieces the moment one laid a hand on them.

Li Yao could only scan their appearances with the mystic rays and save them to his crystal processor, hoping that it could be of some help to the designers of magical equipment in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

On the other hand, many of the components of the metal puppets which were engaged in the fierce battle just now were still undamaged.

Li Yao studied carefully. The artificial limbs and the honeycomb launcher were no more advanced than their counterparts in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, and therefore were useless to take back.

In the meantime, the hibernation system that kept the puppets alive for thousands of years was quite delicate. Li Yao had never seen anything similar in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

After the Floating Jellyfish fully released the air inside their body, they were not very large in size. Li Yao picked the smallest one, which he soaked in ‘Corpse Solidifying Liquid’ before throwing it into his Cosmos Ring together with the core of the hibernation system.

He was quite lucky. In the first trip to the Occult Orbs, he had discovered a piece of new magical equipment and a demon beast species which had been thought extinct for a long time. A lot of contribution points had been secured!

Good news came from the scout team, too. Yan Zi and Ding Lingdang had found the entrance of a tunnel which was still open five kilometers west of the ancient battleground.

Five seconds later, the six of them gathered in the entrance of the tunnel.

This place was below cracked rocks. After the long time, the crevices of the rocks were full of Sole-eyed Giant Mushrooms, which were swinging in the wind and emitting a feeble glow.

A steep cave more than three meters in diameter pierced down into the ground, leading to a complete darkness.

The cave was apparently man-made, yet the passage of time had almost ruined all traces of the workers.

Li Yao picked up a piece of round magical equipment and knocked it to his helmet. The ball immediately started cracking.

Then, he threw the ball into the depths of the cave.

After a dull noise, a greenish mystic ray flashed deep down the cave, scanning every direction thoroughly.

The light beam of the six crystal suits displayed a 3D map of the cave which was quite spacious and extended to various directions.

Such a piece of magical equipment was known as ‘Light Wave Grenade’, which could send out spiritual waves that were similar to sound waves to scan the unknown environment before drawing a 3D map and feeding the conclusion back to the crystal processor. It was very useful in wilderness survival.

Li Yao rubbed his hands and said excitedly, “This tunnel goes 430 meters below the surface, where there are twelve operation platforms. It appears that there will be quite a lot of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in this place!”

Chapter 376: Devastating Icy Revenants

The beast puppets on the back of Yan Yangtian were freed again; they flew into the cave according to the routes that Li Yao had provided just now. The puppets examined the environment carefully and sent back a lot of images.

“No dens or traps discovered yet. But still, be careful, everyone! Let’s go down.”

Not far away from them, there was a railway leading to the underground. But it had been well worn after thousands of years of time.

Li Yao checked it and discovered that although it was not difficult to repair, the work could take at least an entire day to collect all the materials required.

Therefore, they abandoned the cart and gathered around. Captain Hong Tong activated his gravity controlling ability and set the gravity five square meters nearby into one fifth of the standard gravity, which equaled to one third of the gravity of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Under the effect of the new gravity, everybody felt that they were as light as swallows. Controlling their crystal suits with the delicate power rune arrays on them, they floated down into the cave like six feathers. Now and then, they would step on the wall of the tunnel to stop them from dropping too fast.

“Bo! Bo! Bo!”

While he was descending, Li Yao released more Light Wave Grenades, which scanned every crack in the underground world and every operation platform and added more details to the map of the mine.

Very soon, the steep tunnel became flat. Side tunnels appeared in the left and right. They also saw debris of abandoned carts, which were evidence that they were reaching the end of the tunnel.

Illuminated by the feeble brightness from the crystal suits, the walls around them reflected thousands of colors, as if they were solidified rainbows. Rocks that looked like crystals made the cave feel like a splendid palace.

In many crevices of the rocks, Sole-eyed Giant Mushrooms also existed.

Different from their cousins on the ground, the Sole-eyed Giant Mushrooms here were taller and thinner, with green adornments and clouds of vague purple mist surrounding them. They were dancing merrily in the mild breeze.

More than thirty different kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures could be found on Mystic Glacier, including Variously Colored Stones and Thunder Spirit Diamonds.

The brightness they saw came from those minerals.

But most of them could be found in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, too. They were too large in size to be excavated and brought back.

What they needed was the Nine-holed Stones and Spirit Melting Crystals that were of a much smaller size and higher value.

“Continue moving. Pay attention to the mushroom here. If there are red streaks inside the green spots on them, it means Nine-holed Stones and Soul Melting Crystals are nearby. Also, stay safe and keep the internal circulation system of your crystal suit functioning normally. The narcotics of the mushrooms here are ten timers more effective than the mushrooms on the ground. Even Building Foundation Stage Cultivators might fall for the illusions easily!”

Before Hong Tong finished his talk, thousands of streams of brightness flooded out of the cracks of the rocks and floated in the air with freezing coldness like a hundred translucent hairtails.

The temperature of the mine immediately dropped by more than ten degrees.

Despite the double protection of the crystal suit and the spiritual stamp, Li Yao still felt chilled to the bone.

Such formless hairtails seemed to be intelligent. Two deep blue lights beamed out from the holes in front of them and soon locked unto the six Orb Patrollers.

“Do you see that?” Li Yao asked in a low voice, trying to make sure that he was not hallucinating.

“We do. It’s not an illusion. They are known as ‘Devastating Icy Revenants’.”

Yan Yangtian quickly explained, “It is very common to see such devastating souls lingering around ancient battleground, which are the last bit of awareness of killing and destruction of the deceased combined with the environment of the ancient battleground. They are not ghosts, but they are more aggressive than ghosts.

“The underground of Mystic Glacier is full of frigorific cyclones. Part of their energy may leak out and blend with the remaining consciousness of the dead soldiers. After thousands of years, an incredible number of Devastating Icy Revenants have been created!”

Right then, almost a hundred Devastating Icy Revenants had gathered in front of them, painting the underground ground blue.

They were shrieking silently, yet Li Yao could hear the sound of steel pins rubbing the glass.

The Devastating Icy Revenants crouched and charged at Team Blue Bronze like arrows!

“Plan 6 for ghost-type enemies, activate!” Hong Tong roared. He punched two sides of the tunnel. A huge amount of stones fell down, which were then pulled in front of him by manipulation of gravity and formed a loose defense line of stones.

Many Devastating Icy Revenants crashed into the stones and froze the minerals into ice blocks, which cracked into pieces and fell to the ground immediately.

But during the process, a lot of the spiritual energy of the Devastating Icy Revenants had been wasted. The despair and coldness that they brought quickly dispersed.

Ding Lingdang took the opportunity and led the counterattack. Scorching redness burst out from her Crimson Phantom Battlesuit in the darkness, while her arms turned into two dragons of fire which rushed out and consumed the Devastating Icy Revenants in the front.

The Devastating Icy Revenants screamed in the flames, melting into blue liquid.

A few Devastating Icy Revenants broke through the fire and continued marching forward, only to be blown away by ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming’s explosive bullets which had been carved with flame rune arrays.

In the end, only two Devastating Icy Revenants managed to reach them. Li Yao slashed them into pieces with his Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber effortlessly.

No more than ten minutes later, the tunnel was cleaned up again. There was not a single Devastating Icy Revenant any more.

“It’s possible that no expert of the ancient times participated in the battle on this ancient battleground. What the frigorific cyclones swallowed was the fighting will of the common soldiers, so the Devastating Icy Revenants that were created were not very tough.

“If the fighting will of an ancient expert was able to combine with a giant frigorific cyclone deep under the ground, the Devastating Icy Revenant that came into being would be much more frightening!”

Hong Tong was greatly relieved. After cleaning up debris quickly, everybody continued walking.

Beyond the remnants of the car was the main platform of the underground mine.

Quite a lot of ruined crystal suits were lying in a corner. Li Yao checked them up and noticed that there was no weapon on any of the crystal suits. Their structure was also different from that of the common battlesuits. It was quite possible that they were for the miners. They were also extremely feeble after such a long time. Before Li Yao was able to study them more carefully, they’d already broken into sparkling powder.

Li Yao was quite amazed.

‘I’m told that in the era of the Star Ocean Imperium, Cultivators brought the technology of crystal suits to an unimaginable altitude, making them everyday tools. Not just the Cultivators, ordinary people also had their own crystal suits.

‘The story is very true judging by what I’ve seen today. Even the miners were equipped with crystal suits. If that was the case, ordinary people would be able to work in environments whose conditions were supposed to be unfavorable for them. The efficiency of resource collection and the utility rate of resources for the entire civilization would be greatly improved.

‘No wonder the Star Ocean Imperium could dominate the cosmos for thousands of years as the largest empire in the history of human beings!

‘There’s still a long way to go for the Star Glory Federation!’

While he was pondering, he heard Ding Lingdang’s joyful exclamation in the communication channel.

“I got one!”

She had found a Nine-holed Stone near a Sole-eyed Giant Mushroom.

Nine-hole Stone was a kind of mineral the size of thumb. Each Nine-holed Stones had eight or nine small holes in a weird distribution, which made it look like a tiny face with three to four eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and everything.

When some of the Nine-holed Stones were being collected, grey liquid would flow out of the holes, which would consolidate within five seconds after it met the air. The liquid would be ‘Soul Melting Crystal’.

“Excellent. We’ve discovered a Nine-holed Stone in such a short time. It seems that Lady Luck is smiling on us this trip. Let’s rest for ten minutes before we start collecting!”

Hong Tong waved his hand. Li Yao picked out six round barriers from his Cosmos Ring and placed them in a corner of the tunnel which was relatively flat.

He opened the barrier. The air inside was immediately blocked from the outside.

Then, he picked out a sanitizing rune which could purify the air enclosed by the barrier into something clean and breathable. After that, all the team members took off their crystal suits in turn, before they each drank two doses of high nutrition drug.

Although it was not a big deal for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators to eat and drink nothing for several days, it was still best for them to restore their spiritual energy reserve while they could, because they might be engaged in fierce combat at any time.

After a brief rest, Team Blue Bronze explored all the operation platforms, cleaned up four waves of Devastating Icy Revenants, and established six defense rune arrays, before they finally started the collection work.

The team was divided into two squads. Yan Yangtian and Shen Ziming formed a scout squad and went back to the ground where they would explore the area near the entrance of the tunnel.

This was partly to discover more of Mystic Glacier, and partly to ensure the safety of the tunnel.

The rest of the four team members began to search for the Nine-holed Stones and Soul Melting Crystals near the red-streaked Sole-eyed Giant Mushroom.

Although Li Yao was quite new to the collection work in Occult Orbs, he had grasped quite a few secret arts of the Hundred Smelting Clan on the collection and utilization of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures by absorbing Ou Yezi’s memory pieces.

Therefore, the speed of Li Yao’s collection soared soon after he got familiar with the work, even though he was somewhat clumsy when he first started. By the next morning, he was already collecting faster than his captain.

By the evening of the second day, Li Yao had filled up an entire Cosmos Ring. He had to resort to his personal Cosmos Ring to store the additional trophies. The amount of his own collection was even larger than that of Hong Tong’s and Ba Weiqi’s combined together.

Ba Weiqi did not buy it at first. He thought of Li Yao as a green hand who had picked up the irrelevant minerals which were close to the Nine-holed Stones.

But later at night, when everybody gathered inside the barrier and sorted out their work, he couldn’t help but notice that not only did Li Yao have the most Nine-holed Stones, the purity of his Nine-holed Stones was also the highest. They were barely contaminated, and more than 90% of them were rich with Soul Melting Crystals.

“Vulture, how come your eyes are so sharp when it comes to distinguishing all the best Nine-holed Stones?”

Ba Weiqi scratched his big helmet in confusion, failing to come up with any reason.

“Maybe, it is because I am naturally connected to the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures!”

Li Yao was excited, too. The skills of collecting Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures were only theories to him in the past. He had learnt and improved a lot on this trip to Mystic Glacier by putting them into practice.

Nine-holed Stones and Soul Melting Crystals were not the rarest Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.

When he met really valuable Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in the future, the collection skills that he practiced here would prove to be very helpful.

While everyone was talking and laughing, ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming returned to the tunnel with a gloomy face and a message that extinguished everyone’s happiness.

The scout squad had detected activity from the demon clan 324 kilometers away.

Chapter 377: Assault in Firn

The vast, desolate mountain pierced into the sky like a grey saber, and five members of Team Blue Bronze were hiding behind that saber.

Yan Yangtian, on the other hand, had melted into the cold air. She was monitoring the situation in the valley from the very tip of the saber.

From the images she sent back, Li Yao was able to see clearly that there were thirteen demons who were wearing white furs all over their bodies and crimson crystals that were emitting heat in their joints. They were like thirteen polar bears which had learnt to stand up.

It was unlikely that the white furs were their real skin. It was perhaps a biochemical shell that they formed in order to resist the extreme coldness.

Their faces were all exposed to the air. Their facial organs were quite distinguishable, which were quite similar to a human being’s, except that there was a cluster of additional flesh on their nose that was probably some sort of mini air-cleaning demon insect.

The more a demon looked similar to a human, the higher they’d evolved and the higher their capability would be. There was a good chance that they were silver-blood demons.

The civilization level of the Blood Demon Sector was on a par with that of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. It would consume a lot of demonic energy to teleport demon kings and demon emperors to hundreds of lightyears away, not to mention that the odds of success were very low.

Unless it was necessary, demon kings and demon emperors wouldn’t risk being torn apart by the cosmic turbulence in order to be teleported to the Occult Orbs.

The main force exploring the Occult Orbs were all demon generals.

Normally speaking, after Building Foundation Stage Cultivators put on crystal suits, their personal ability would be greatly enhanced. Demon generals of the same level were no match for them.

However, the bodies of the demons were born to be tougher than the human body, which allowed them to overcome the by-effects of the interstellar teleportation more easily.

Therefore, the vehicles of the same level as star shuttles could carry more demons.

As a result, in the Occult Orbs, it was often the case that Cultivators boasted higher combat capability while the demons had an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

It was especially so today.

Yan Zi quickly summarized the intelligence collected so far.

“I discovered a star shuttle of the demon clan 37 kilometers away. It was not large in size. The thirteen demons and the two guards over the ridge there should be all of them.

“According to my observation, the fifteen demons are all no higher than high-level demon generals. There is no demon king. It is reasonable considering the scale of the star shuttle.

“For a star shuttle of that level, it would definitely not be able to accommodate a demon king after stuffing fifteen demon generals inside, unless they are willing to be torn to pieces during their teleportation.”

While listening, Li Yao observed the situation himself.

Those white-furred demons had built up a bizarre building inside the valley. At first glance, it seemed to be a high tower. A giant pillar was standing in the middle of the tower; countless crystals were surrounding it and were spreading eccentric demonic energy.

“Vulture, you are a refiner. Can you tell what they’re working on? A camp? An altar?” Hong Tong asked in a low voice.

Li Yao narrowed his eyes. Hundreds of similar buildings popped up in his head. He compared each of them with the one in front of his eyes, only to get no match, until in the end, he suddenly realized something and said confidently, “It is neither a camp nor an altar. It is a pile driver, or a drill, if you will.”

“A pile driver? Drill?” Hong Tong was somewhat confused.

“Correct.”

Li Yao added, “The giant pillar in the middle should be some sort of magical equipment that can drill deep into the ground by vibration and revolution. Generally speaking, it is often used when a mother lode has yet to be detected.

“But according to our files, of the dozens of kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in Mystic Glacier, Nine-holed Stones and Soul Melting Crystals are the only two that are worthy of collecting. It is the same for the Blood Demon Sector.

“Also, their way of advancement is different from that of Cultivators, and they do not have the concept of Building Foundation at all, which means Soul-melting Crystals are completely useless for them!

“If they are collecting the Nine-holed Stones, the most convenient way would be to make use of the tunnels of the ancient mine thousands of years ago. Re-prospecting and rebuilding a tunnel? It is too difficult. Also, it is highly unnecessary.

“Therefore, my conclusion is that there is something much more precious than Nine-holed Stones and Soul Melting Crystals buried under the valley!”

While Li Yao was talking, the drilling machine in the valley suddenly started glowing. The giant pillar in its middle started revolving rapidly while it dug into the underground.

“What are these scumbags doing? Don’t they know that frigorific cyclones are everywhere under the surface of Mystic Glacier? What if some of them are triggered by the drilling?” Hong Tong gnashed his teeth. “This team of demons outnumbers us, but none of them are very strong. Whatever they’re doing, let’s just catch them unprepared and take them down. Fifteen demons are a lot of contribution points. Their belongings will all be ours. How about it?”

“Let’s do it!”

“Kill those lousy bastards! They are just some ten demons. Team Blue Bronze used to slay more than twenty demons without any trouble!”

All the teammates, including Li Yao, were rubbing their hands, too eager to make a move.

But ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming was more cautious. He said, “Do we need to send the message to the Heaven’s Origin Sector and ask another Star Team to reinforce us? Not that I think we can’t beat them. I’m just worrying that some of them might be able to run away and cause trouble in the future.”

Hong Tong shook his head and said, “No. To send the message back, we will have to return to the Star Shuttle. This place is hundreds of kilometers from our star shuttle. By the time we go there and come back, these scumbags will probably have already dug out what they need from the underground. Besides, we will be more likely to expose ourselves. The risks are too high.”

Leng Ziming thought for a while and nodded his head.

“Fair enough. Let’s do it.”

“Good!”

Hong Tong’s voice suddenly turned extremely calm. “Last minute check. Yan Zi will take out the guard on the left; Shell will deal with the one on the right. Dummy will launch mental interference to reduce the alertness of the demons to the minimum.

“Vulture and Lingdang, be prepared. Later, I will establish a channel in front of you where there is zero gravity, so that your speed will be boosted!

“Then, carry out Plan 19. Free fire and kill everything you see!”

“Understood!”

“Understood!”

“Understood!”

The five teammates dispersed silently. A giant animal had opened its bloody mouth, ready to enjoy the delicious food.

The demons in the valley were fully focused on the drilling machine, not having the slightest idea that the wings of death had passed by their heads.

Mental interference from ‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi further strengthened their illusion that the mission was about to be completed.

Last ten seconds.

‘Shell’ Leng Ziming was in position. His telepathic thoughts had locked onto a demon guard 735 meters away who had disguised himself as a rock.

Yan Yangtian had turned utterly invisible. She snuck to the back of the other guard.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang had checked all their power rune arrays and attack magical equipment. Their spiritual energy was rejoicing, flooding out of the pores on their skin at any time.

“Five, four, three, two, one!”

In one corner of the ridge, a scarlet star blinked. A bullet which had been carved with sophisticated runes all over its body, covering the more than seven hundred meters silently and speedily, pierced through the demonic shield of the guard and into his head without any trouble.

Yan Yangtian appeared out of thin air. The other demon guard was completely suppressed by her spiritual energy, while she severed the spine of the guard with a glittering sharp knife and stabbed his heart with another.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

The other four Cultivators all opened fire. More than a hundred flying swords dashed down into the valley.

“Now is the time!” Hong Tong roared and raised his hands up abruptly.

On the mountain path before Li Yao and Ding Lingdang, countless rocks were rolling while producing cracking noises. Some pebbles were even floating in the air.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang immediately activated their spiritual energy to the maximum. Dazzling brilliance burst out from their crystal suits, while the power rune arrays were all screaming. They stomped on the ground, causing earsplitting thunder to echo through the valley, and rushed down.

On the path where there was zero gravity, their speed was brought up to an unimaginable level. They reached the foot of the mountain before everyone was able to realize what was going on, like two burning blades.

“Pa! Pa! Pa!”

Flowers of blood were blossoming among the demons who were now in utter chaos.

‘Shell’ Leng Ziming, after taking care of the guard, had aimed at the commander-like demon in the group.

Although the bullet didn’t kill him, the crowd was thrown into greater confusion.

A hundred meters to the demons.

For Cultivators, the distance was like the width of a hair.

Li Yao extended his telepathic thoughts and summoned four floating Vulcan Machine Guns which knitted a net of flame and death in front of him.

In the meantime, he unsheathed the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber. The blood aura piercing out of the saber almost reached nine meters away. He wielded the saber, raising a hurricane of destruction.

The demons in the range of his attack all lifted their weapons to block his saber. But the arm of one of the demon generals was shot by the sniper just now, which made his reaction slower than it should have been. His giant head flew up to the sky, his shocked face frozen in the cold hair.

First blood, secured!

For the other demons, although they were not hit by the body of the saber, the aura of the blood had penetrated through their demonic shield into their body weirdly.

The demons that were relatively weaker immediately started bleeding.

Li Yao’s soul was connected to his saber in a mysterious way. He recognized the weakness of the demons easily. Sneering, he charged at the demon whose bleeding was fastest and slashed down at his head!

In the meantime, Ding Lingdang had rushed into the crowd of the demons with her three serpents of fire.

She was already at the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage. With the enhancement of the Crimson Phantom Battlesuit tailor-made for her by Li Yao, her strength was even greater than that of many high-level demon generals. Besides, she had inherited the ancient Cultivation art ‘Nonacolored Fire’. Therefore, she was fighting against five demon generals at the same time, single-handedly.

By the time Yan Yangtian, Hong Tong, and Ba Weiqi reached the battleground, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang had slain three demon generals, while another three demon generals were in a state of extreme weakness due to critical blood loss.

As the saying goes, fortune always favors the bold. The victory here was already guaranteed!

Hong Tong did not expect that Li Yao would be so tough in his first battle in the Occult Orbs. He was planning to let Li Yao and Ding Lingdang disrupt the formation of the demons first, so that the three of them could clean up the remaining demons together. As it turned out, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang had almost wiped out all the demons on their own. He was overjoyed and shouted, “Well done, Li Yao! Don’t kill all of them! Leave someone alive!”

Silver-blood demons were as intelligent as human beings. The two parties could understand each other. Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector had a lot of secret arts to interrogate the demons. ‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi of Team Blue Bronze was an expert in this aspect.

The few demons who were still resisting knew that they were destined to lose. After looking at each other, one of the demons whose fur was more glamourous than others’ gritted his teeth and crumbled something round in his hand while brutality was burning in his eyes.

“BOOM!”

The drilling machine suddenly started working dozens of times faster. A weird, teeth-twisting noise broke out in the depths of the underground!

Chapter 378: Deadly Fog

As if thousands of thunder shocks were bursting out under the ground, the earth was shaking violently. The drilling machine that the demon clan built up rose up a little bit at first, before it was pulled down and exploded in cracking noises.

Then, a cluster of high-pressure fog erupted from the hole and broke out in the sky into thousands of pieces of ice.

“Not good. A frigorific cyclone!”

Hong Tong’s voice was somewhat hoarse.

They did not know that the demons were drilling in this place just to get a frigorific cyclone out.

They’d witnessed the power of frigorific cyclones with their own eyes the other day. A battleground of more than ten square kilometers could be entirely frozen by one of them. It was extremely tricky for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators such as themselves to cope with them.

The question now was how big the incoming frigorific cyclone would be.

Li Yao’s pupils constricted violently as he thought of something. He said in a hurry, “It’s not simple as that. It’s impossible that the demons came such a long way here just to pick up a cluster of frigorific cyclone!”

Before he was able to finish his sentence, the frigorific cyclone seemed to have woken up from a prolonged dream. It cycled through various forms in the sky, before it twisted and condensed into a cerulean cloud of ice dozens of meters in diameter with bright blue streaks.

Although its size was smaller than they had imagined, its temperature was much lower. Everyone’s crystal suit was beeping with warnings even though they were all dozens of meters away, strongly suggesting that they get out of there as soon as possible.

The blue streaks stared at everyone like long, narrow eyes.

They were all grasped by fear.

“It’s a Devastating Icy Revenant! One with such a tremendous size!” Yan Yangtian murmured to herself.

Everyone’s hearts were frozen like an ice tube.

Devastating Icy Revenants were the last bit of the fighting will of the deceased combined with the energy leaked from the frigorific cyclones that could only come into being after hundreds of years.

Li Yao and his teammates had run into several Devastating Icy Revenants yesterday in the underground tunnels, which were like translucent hairtails. Even the largest of them was only the length of an arm.

But this Devastating Icy Revenant was hundreds of times larger, which seemed to be capable of devouring all of them at the same time.

It appeared that someone strong must’ve participated in the war on the ancient battleground and left an intense sense of slaughtering at the last moment of their life. By accident, his mental power infiltrated into the main conduit of the frigorific cyclones and, after thousands of years of melting, created such a gargantuan Devastating Icy Revenant.

The demons might’ve discovered it dozens of years ago. Now that the conditions were just right, they were planning to dig it out and save it for their use. But Team Blue Bronze had appeared out of nowhere and disrupted their plan. Having no other choice, they were forced to release the Devastating Icy Revenant earlier, hoping to die together with their opponents.

All the demons that were still alive were dancing in wild joy upon seeing the appearance of the Devastating Icy Revenant, while they shouted with twisted faces, “Embrace me, Pantheon of Demons!”

“Hooo!”

Like puffing cheeks, the Devastating Icy Revenant expanded suddenly, before it suddenly shrank and blew out a stream of ice that was visible to everyone. The demons, standing in the middle of the stream of ice, were immediately solidified into transparent sculptures in their dancing postures. The limbs of two demons who were moving too quickly dropped down the moment of the solidification. But the fracture was neat and clean like mirror, without the slightest hint of blood.

The natural instinct of Devastating Icy Revenants was to freeze everything they saw, especially the living creatures.

After freezing all the remaining demons, the cerulean cloud of ice drifted to Team Blue Bronze without pause.

“Let me!”

Ding Lingdang stepped forward and crossed her arms. The fire serpents were twisted into a helix and thrown at the Devastating Icy Revenant.

Like boiling oil pouring into snow, cracking noises burst out inside the cloud of ice.

The bright blue streaks twitched violently, as if thousands of eyes which were squinting out of sharp pain.

Then, five blue ice balls were ejected from the Devastating Icy Revenant.

“Watch out!”

Li Yao reacted quickly enough to push Ding Lingdang away. The two of them rolled on the ground, and five thick ice spears were standing in the exact place where Ding Lingdang had been standing.

Had Li Yao not taken action promptly, Ding Lingdang would’ve definitely been injured by the ice spears, if not frozen by them.

The Devastating Icy Revenant, on the other hand, chewed the fire serpents before freezing them, and continued drifting at Team Blue Bronze.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

Four flowers of flame blossomed on the right side of the Devastating Icy Revenant, which were soon turned into frosty flowers.

They were the incendiary bullets that ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming shot out!

A hissing sound like that of gas leaking out could be heard from the inside of the Devastating Icy Revenant. It seemed to be in great pain. Suddenly, four ice cones darted out to where the bullets had come from, leaving four vague traces of ice in the air.

A moment later, clusters of ice grew out on the ridge where Leng Ziming had been hiding.

“Shell!” Hong Tong shouted.

“I’m fine. The plate armor of the right leg has been damaged with a performance reduction of 52%. Moving on to the second shooting position.”

Leng Ziming’s voice was as calm as ever.

“Alright, cover us in the second shooting position. Let’s fall back!”

The appearance of this super-large Devastating Icy Revenant was beyond everyone’s expectations. Now that neither the long-range point of attack nor the melee one had any solution to deal with it, Hong Tong immediately made the call to retreat to the Heaven’s Origin Sector as soon as possible.

His manipulation of gravity couldn’t be more useful at this moment. He lifted up giant stones and placed them between Team Blue Bronze and the Devastating Icy Revenant, while he lowered the gravity around them to one third of the standard gravity.

All members of Team Blue Bronze covered each other up with furious firepower according to the retreat plans that they’d practiced during training.

Yet, the Devastating Icy Revenant was staying close behind them. Floating in the sky like a cloud, it was astonishingly fast, and since it was so high, it was very easy to locate their route.

Now and then, it would spit out clusters of high-pressure ice fog like arrows so powerful that as soon as they touched one corner of the plate armor, the whole part of the plate armor would immediately be frozen and lose all functionality.

Everyone activated their power rune arrays and sprinted across the ice-covered world. After taking several turns through ridges and caves, they finally managed to get rid of the Devastating Icy Revenant.

“Let’s go back to the star shuttle!” Hong Tong said hurriedly. Sweat was appearing on their forehead, which was instantly frozen into ice drops. The spiritual stamps of flame on their bodies were barely of any use now.

However, when they finally reached the valley where their star shuttle was hidden and were ready to board it, an arrow of ice darted close from the sky and froze the star shuttle into a giant ice block!

The Devastating Icy Revenant that they thought they’d escaped from was eyeing them in the sky among other ordinary clouds.

Everyone’s faces were drawn and couldn’t look more awful.

To shatter the void in such a star shuttle would be like committing suicide; the components of the star shuttle were, most likely, seriously damaged by the frost and their hardiness greatly undermined. And that was assuming the star shuttle could be unfrozen at all.

Their only hope was ruined. There was no help in Mystic Glacier that they could count on to cope with the Devastating Icy Revenant.

Even if the Heaven’s Origin Sector sent out a second star shuttle, the Devastating Icy Revenant could destroy it easily.

There was but silence in the communication channel, as if it had been frozen by the Devastating Icy Revenant, too.

Shortly after, Li Yao’s voice struggled in the channel, like flickering embers in the darkest cave.

“Let’s go back!

“The demon generals that we encountered just now were weaker than us. They should be scared of the Devastating Icy Revenant as much as we are. It’s not like they were trying to kill themselves here.

“If they knew that such a strong Devastating Icy Revenant was hiding underground and were planning to release it, they were definitely carrying something that could suppress it!

“But since they ran into us, they never had the opportunity to use it!”

As if awoken from their dreams, everyone came back to themselves. Hong Tong gritted his teeth and said, “Li Yao, Lingdang, you two go back and look for that something. The four of us will try to lure the Devastating Icy Revenant away. But make it fast. The Devastating Icy Revenant seems to be absorbing the coldness in Mystic Glacier and getting larger and larger. We won’t be able to hold it for long!”

“Understood!”

The six members of Team Blue Bronze rushed for a while, before they suddenly split into two squads and ran off in different directions.

The Devastating Icy Revenant hesitated for a moment, then chased after the squad which had more people as they expected.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang rushed back to the battleground hundreds of kilometers away as quickly as possible without bothering about their consumption of spiritual energy.

Glancing around, Li Yao immediately discovered the corpse of the demon in glamourous clothes. He kicked it into pieces of ice.

As he expected, there was a piece of magical equipment the shape of a sea snail in the middle of the ice.

Since the magical equipment was supposed to be used to suppress the Devastating Icy Revenant, it was quite possible that it was cold-proof. Therefore, Li Yao had decided to find it out in the simplest way.

However…

Li Yao had never seen such a kind of magical equipment before; he had no idea how to use it at all.

In the communication channel, Hong Tong and his other teammates were breathing heavily. Ba Weiqi was even screaming crazily. Every sign indicated that they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao took out the maintenance glove that Ding Lingdang had given him. He crumbled it in his palm. Silver liquid instantly flowed out from the gaps of the finger of the crystal suit and formed a silver glove enveloping his hand, while dozens of disassembling and maintaining tools appeared in his fingertips.

Li Yao’s right hand turned into a streak of silver and dismantled the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment into the most fundamental components.

Demon Beast Empire was based on the ancient Cultivation world. Much of its technology and secret arts were similar to those of the ancient times.

Therefore, the methods through which the demon clan refined magical equipment and demonic equipment were greatly influenced by the ancient refining arts which Li Yao was quite familiar with.

Li Yao’s eyes were shaking back and forth dozens of times per second, as he was identifying the components of this particular magical equipment while picturing the design and spiritual energy flowchart in his brain.

“So, this is the case. The key component of this magical equipment is a Cosmos Ring that was made to suppress unrested souls. It has undergone major modifications so that it is functional in the frigid temperature of less than minus two hundred degrees. The special spiral vibration that it triggers can raise a massive attraction force for souls and icy fog…

“This magical equipment can only be activated by the blood of silver-blood demons. But it doesn’t matter. I can totally design a new triggering component and cut it in to activate the magical equipment by force!”

Li Yao was fascinated by the idea, his eyes shining.

“Vulture, we can’t delay it any longer. Have you found anything that can tame it?” Hong Tong bellowed exhaustedly.

“I have.”

Li Yao licked his lips and crossed his fingers. Every joint in his hand was shivering rapidly, as he declared confidently, “Get it here. I need… 4 minutes and 38 seconds!”

Chapter 379: Harvest

When Hong Tong and the other three teammates drew the Devastating Icy Revenant to the camp of the demons in their broken crystal suits, Li Yao was still waving his hand up and down as quickly as lightning.

The general components that he had brought with him were polished, reshaped, and modified, before they were piled on the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment until it was entirely enclosed.

Although the Devastating Icy Revenant was rampaging overhead, Li Yao didn’t have time to blink because his full attention was focused on the complicated crystal wires and rune arrays.

The triggering component was not hard to assemble per se. The real tricky part was to deceive the authorization system of the magical equipment to fool it into thinking that this was a normal activation.

Dazzling brilliance was beaming out from Li Yao’s eyes, while he mumbled to himself, “4 minutes and 17 seconds, 4 minutes and 18 seconds, 4 minutes and 19 seconds…”

Walls made of rocks rose up in front of Hong Tong one after another, only to be ripped apart by the Devastating Icy Revenant again and again.

The Devastating Icy Revenant turned into thousands of torrents of ice flowing through the holes and regathered in the air with hisses, as if it were sneering.

“CRACK!”

The plate armor on Hong Tong’s shoulder was hit by the ice arrow, which immediately turned into a blue tube. As he continued moving his arm, the plate armor gradually broke up, exposing his shoulder to the coldness of below minus two hundred degrees. Despite the double protection of the mustard suit and the spiritual stamps, his movements still turned extremely rigid.

His other three teammates were in much worse states than himself. Their crystal suits were so crappy that they seemed as if they could break up at any point. There was not any part on them that was intact.

“Li Yao, we can’t take it any longer!” Hong Tong roared.

“Nine seconds to go. Give it to me.”

Li Yao’s voice was calmer than ever, with a confidence of victory.

Hong Tong gnashed his teeth.

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me!” Li Yao responded decisively.

Hong Tong was dazed for a moment. Then he roared and led his other three teammates past Li Yao and Ding Lingdang, before they all fell to the ground because their spiritual energy had run out.

In the center of the Devastating Icy Revenant, shrieks were echoing like growling wind. All the bright blue streaks were suddenly more brilliant than ever, as it swept at Li Yao.

“Three… Two… One…”

Li Yao ignored it. He even somehow slowed down his movements as he inserted a crystal chip carved with triggering rune arrays into the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment gently and pressed it.

“Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!”

The sea-snail-shaped magical equipment immediately started shinning and vibrating. A cluster of grey mist was released and charged at the Devastating Icy Revenant.

The Devastating Icy Revenant which was domineering a moment ago seemed to have felt that a predator was coming. It wriggled and hissed while it tried to run away, only to be caught up by the grey mist and melted with it.

Corrupted by the grey mist, the Devastating Icy Revenant turned into a giant swirl revolving in the sky from inward to outward. One stream of ice after another was thrown out from the swirl and absorbed by the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment.

In less than three minutes, the ice cloud—dozens of meters in diameter—was entirely swallowed by the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment.

In the meantime, the shell of the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment turned into deep blue, with bright blue streaks here and there, which was quite beautiful.

At this moment, Li Yao was finally relieved. He sat on the ground and exhaled a long breath.

The six Orb Patrollers of Team Blue Bronze sat on the grey, barren, desolate land for a long time in silence, until someone burst into laughter in the communication channel. A few seconds later, all of them lost control and started laughing crazily.

…

A day later, in the launch base of Occult Orbs Fellowship in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

“Chi!”

A star shuttle, which had been frozen to the color of grey-white and was emitting icy steam, stopped at the end of the rail precisely. The six members of Team Blue Bronze crawled out of it on all fours.

The first thing Li Yao did was open up his helmet and take a deep breath of the fresh and warm air of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

“Home sweet home, right?” Hong Tong asked with a smile.

“Indeed.” Li Yao said with quite complicated feelings.

He was born with foreign memories from a different time and space, which made him less troubled by nostalgia than other children were.

However, after this trip to Mystic Glacier, he had truly come to understand the preciousness of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Hometown…

Yes. There might be thousands of worlds in the boundless sea of stars, but only one of them was his hometown: the Heaven’s Origin Sector!

He wouldn’t let his hometown ruined by the demon beasts at any cost!

Because of the fierce battles that they were engaged in in Mystic Glacier, Team Blue Bronze underwent thorough physical examinations to ensure that no sequela remained. It was not until more than half a day later that they finally got everything done and entered the base where they turned in the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and had their contribution points balanced.

They met several ‘old friends’ by accident in the base, the members from Team Lingering Wind.

Guo Yu of Team Lingering Wind was seriously wounded by Li Yao in the duel more than one month ago. It had taken him more than twenty days before he was half recovered.

They had just completed an exploration mission, too. But they were much luckier than Team Blue Bronze. They had not been harassed by the demon clan and successfully collected a lot of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures without much trouble.

“This time, not only did we gather a huge amount of Blood Swallow Stones, we also collected a special plant, Moon Tear Flower, not to mention, we explored more than a half of Mysterious Moon’s map. I believe we will earn more than twenty thousand contribution points, won’t we?”

“Haha. The result is out. 27,520 contribution points! Our rank has risen by two!”

Guo Yu stared at Li Yao who was not far away from him and scoffed, “After trading the contribution points for new magical equipment and secret arts, the capability of Team Linger Wind will definitely reach a whole new level and break into the top 50 of the Rank of Stars in no time!

“As for Team Blue Bronze, I’m told that they encountered major chaos during their mission to Mystic Glacier. They even wasted a star shuttle, which means a huge reduction of contribution points!”

“Ha. Newbies are newbies anyway. However remarkable they are in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, they will reveal what they really are the moment they set foot on an Occult Orb. They are totally useless garbage that will only drag the entire team down!”

“Just wait for it, Vulture Li Yao. I will challenge you to a duel soon!”

Yet, Li Yao and his teammates completely ignored Guo Yu’s resentment. They left in a hurry after balancing their contribution points in the mainframe crystal processor.

Guo Yu was gritting his teeth, but his shoulder was pressed by the captain of Team Lingering Wind.

The captain did not seem to be in a good mood. He said in a low voice, “Guo Yu, don’t be rash. Members of Team Blue Bronze have beaten you twice in duels, which is a disgrace for Team Lingering Wind, too. We are definitely going to set everything straight! Just wait until we get a few more train sessions in the Occult Orbs, then I will challenge Team Blue Bronze in the name of Team Lingering Wind!”

“Captain, are you sure?” Guo Yu was overjoyed.

Duels between teams were more formal than personal duels. They were more intense, too.

“Of course! Team Blue Bronze has wounded you twice. We’ve wasted months of times because of not being able to explore the Occult Orbs. Our losses are astronomical. If we don’t fight back, we will always be the biggest joke among the Children of Occult Orbs!” The captain of Team Lingering Wind said toughly. Then he raised his eyebrow, “Strange. Why are so many people crowding at the mainframe crystal processor? Is something going on?”

Members of Team Lingering Wind were confused. They moved closer and noticed that everybody was talking and pointing at the Rank of Stars.

Glancing at it, the countenance of everyone in Team Lingering Wind changed.

“What? Team Blue Bronze earned more than 114 thousand contribution points for the exploration of Mystic Ice? That is five times ours!”

“How can that be?”

“Didn’t they wreck a star shuttle? Almost ten thousand contributions are supposed to be deducted!”

“Mystic Ice is just a mining base. There shouldn’t have been any treasure that is of significant value in that place. What on earth did they find that is worth so many contribution points?”

“Their rank has soared by more than twenty. They are the 46th now!”

The members of Team Lingering Wind were all dumbfounded. They didn’t have the vaguest clue as to how Team Blue Bronze was able to earn more than a hundred thousand contribution points.

Even the super teams ranking in the top 10 were not always capable of getting such a huge amount of contribution points for one mission. It was truly a great fortune!

Some of the bystanders had talked with Team Blue Bronze just now. They were whispering to each other, “Did you know that Li Yao was the MVP for the more than a hundred thousand contribution points?”

“Vulture Li Yao will be able to get thousands of contribution points after his first official visit to the Occult Orbs. His own income will be even more than many teams’! He’s a rich guy now!”

“Team Blue Bronze is indeed unbelievably lucky! A few months ago, Queen of Fire Ding Lingdang joined the team. A few months later, through Ding Lingdang, an even stronger new guy, Li Yao, was recruited, too!”

“Judging from the trend, it won’t be long before Team Blue Bronze returns to its peak state, just like when its former captain Yin Qingfeng was still alive, and reclaims its title as a super team by breaking into the top 10 of the Rank of Stars!”

Members of Team Lingering Wind retreated out of the crowd silently.

According to the tradition of the star teams, contribution points would be evenly distributed among the members. But if one of the members played an irreplaceable role for the success of the mission and reversed the situation single-handedly, the member would be credited as ‘MVP’ and would get additional contribution points.

Team Lingering Wind had been collecting Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures for days and nights in Mysterious Moon and also picked up a special plant by luck, all of which together only amounted to some twenty thousand contribution points.

How was it possible that Vulture Li Yao, an utter green hand, who had never been to an Occult Orb before, could earn almost fifty thousand contributions by himself, which was even more than the revenue of their entire team?

How did he accomplish it?

Guo Yu was scratching his head so hard that he was almost bleeding.

“Well, Guo Yu…”

The captain of Team Lingering Wind was dazed for a long time, before he finally opened his mouth hesitantly. “About you going to challenge Li Yao for a duel, and the match between Team Lingering Wind and Team Blue Bronze…”

“What about them, captain?” Guo Yu was about to cry.

“Let’s just not rush into anything, shall we?”

The captain took a long breath and, containing his envy, made the most sensible choice.

Chapter 380: Center of Attention

While Team Lingering Wind was caught in their misery, Team Blue Bronze was rejoicing in their base on the top floor of the luxury hotel.

“Li Yao, had you not cracked the magical equipment left by the demons at the critical moment on our trip to Mystic Glacier, I’m afraid we would’ve all been buried under that planet’s snow. You saved all our lives!” Hong Tong said cheerfully.

The other three members, except Ding Lingdang, had also changed their attitude toward Li Yao.

When they were training together, they had learnt of Li Yao’s capability. However, since he was a newcomer, they had always feared that he might be a burden to the team in the Occult Orbs.

They’d even prepared quite a few contingency plans in case something went wrong with Li Yao.

As it turned out, not only was Li Yao tough enough to send the demons into chaos with Ding Lingdang, he was also courageous enough to unlock the magical equipment that the demons left in such a short time despite the threat of the Devastating Icy Revenant.

After going through life and death together, Team Blue Bronze had truly become united. The mutual trust among teammates was much stronger than before.

“Li Yao, you played a decisive role on the trip to Mystic Glacier. Therefore, when I was balancing the contribution points, I listed you as the MVP. According to tradition, you will get one third of the contribution points we earned, and the rest of us will divide the remaining contribution points evenly. You can take a look at your account now. There should be 37,000 contributions already,” Captain Hong Tong announced.

Their contribution points did not just come from the Nine-holed Stones and the Soul Melting Crystals that they collected but had more to do with the Devastating Icy Revenant as well as the magical equipment that tamed it.

According to the rules of Occult Orbs Fellowship, since the demon clan summoned the Devastating Icy Revenant while they were alive, it was considered to be the property of the demon clan.

Then, Team Blue Bronze had taken over the Devastating Icy Revenant from the demons, which meant that it was their trophy and belonged to them without having to be shared with Occult Orbs Fellowship.

The target of such a rule was to encourage the Star Teams to attack the demon squad actively.

Otherwise, everyone would only be willing to carry out the collection missions which were easy and safe instead of missions that involved fighting and killing. That would go against the core purpose of Occult Orbs Fellowship.

Since it was a trophy, Team Blue Bronze could’ve kept the Devastating Icy Revenant and the magical equipment for themselves.

However, after discussion, they had realized that the Devastating Icy Revenant was too dangerous and out of their control. Once it was released, it would attack everything it met indiscriminately.

Besides, no one in Team Blue Bronze was good at controlling spiritual energy of the ice class. It was hardly likely that the power of the Devastating Icy Revenant would be best utilized with them.

Therefore, it was decided that it would be a better choice to sell them to Occult Orbs Fellowship for contribution points which could be used to purchase more practical magical equipment and Cultivation arts for the preparation of the big event in several months’ time.

As a result, the Devastating Icy Revenant and the corresponding magical equipment was traded for more than a hundred thousand contribution points. Together with the reward of the Nine-hold Stones and the Soul Melting Crystals, and deducting the loss of a star shuttle, they earned about 110 thousand contribution points.

It was quite a large fortune for them. Even during the time when their former captain Yin Qingfeng had still been alive, such a large number of contribution points were still a remarkable achievement.

Li Yao scratched his head and said, somewhat embarrassed, “Captain, I think we should divide our revenue evenly. Everybody tried their best to make sure all of us survived the disaster. I wouldn’t have been able to take the Devastating Icy Revenant down if I had been alone.”

Li Yao meant what he said.

After the trip of Mystic Glacier, the importance of teamwork was clearer to him than ever before.

Scout, sniper, defense, attack, mental interference… Every Orb Patroller was irreplaceable for the mission to be completed.

If he had been there by himself, he would’ve barely been able to collect any resources, if he survived at all.

Hong Tong waved his hand and said frankly, “No need to hesitate. This is the tradition of Team Blue Bronze. We’ve all agreed to this decision.

“Besides, we all have our savings, more or less. But you’ve already run out of contribution points since you are a newcomer. With the thirty thousand contribution points, you will be able to purchase things that you need for your Cultivation, which will be of great help for the team and our future missions, too!”

Pausing for a moment, he rubbed his hands in excitement. “I didn’t expect you to be so capable. It appears that we can adjust our plan and apply for missions that are more dangerous but reward more contribution points!”

Li Yao thought for a moment and realized that it did make sense. Whatever remarkable performance he had offered, he was still at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage, the lowest in the team, after all. It would be for the best if he could improve his strength fast in case he became a burden for the team.

Making up his mind, he nodded his head and said unhesitatingly, “Alright. I will try to raise my Cultivation as soon as I can, so that Team Blue Bronze can be stronger and return to the top 10 of the Star of Ranks sooner!”

Li Yao was grinning while he was talking.

That was more than thirty thousand contribution points! It was a huge fortune for anybody. Many kinds of powerful magical equipment that he had been dreaming about were all affordable to him right now.

“Great.”

Hong Tong continued, “Do you have anything that you want to buy yet? Do you need our advice?”

Li Yao licked his lips and nodded with a smile.

“There are indeed a few kinds of magical equipment that I’m interested in. Firstly, ‘Seven Star Fire Dragon Grenade’, which is a kind of powerful explosive magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium. Once it was triggered, it could fly to almost a thousand meters away and turn into seven explosive spots. In each spot, dragon-shaped fire will burst out, which are powerful enough to directly burn the souls of the demons into ashes!

“Secondly, ‘Frigid Prison Grenade’, another kind of explosive magical equipment. Similar to the Devastating Icy Revenant that we met, it will freeze almost a hundred square meters to below minus two hundred degrees while releasing a weird wind that can seal the internal organs of the demons directly!

“Thirdly, ‘Illusive Venomous Grenade’, still another kind of explosive magical equipment which can launch attack to the brain of Cultivators and demons. After they explode, the enemy will be put in the worst nightmare. However solid the soul of the enemy is, they will lose their consciousness briefly!”

“Fourth…”

Li Yao talked about almost ten different kinds of explosive magical equipment in a row, all of which had been retrieved from the Occult Orbs and were still too advanced for the Heaven’s Origin Sector to provide.

Everyone was stunned. ‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi muttered to himself, “Well well well. If we can gather enough of them, our firepower will be multiple times greater than it is right now. We might be even to invade the Blood Demon Sector!”

Li Yao smiled and said, “I’m not just buying the magical equipment because I want to use them. I’m more interested in dismantling them, study their design and structure, and see if there is any possibility for us to replicate them or mass-produce them.

“If the magical equipment inherited from the Star Ocean Imperium can be manufactured, the power of the federal army will be greatly improved!”

Everyone’s faces turned even more pale, while they were eyeing Li Yao as if he was a lunatic. Ba Weiqi clicked his tongue and said, “You dare to disassemble and study the explosive magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium? That’s crazy enough! But please don’t do it in our home here. Our contribution points won’t suffice if you blow this building up!”

Everybody laughed.

Hong Tong continued, “Li Yao, whatever you need to buy, just buy it. I can help you contact the refining workshop that has the most advanced facilities here. But I suggest you spare some contribution points. In a few days, a ‘secret treasure exchange’ will be held. This time, we’ve got plenty of contribution points in our pockets. We can go there and take a tour!”

“Secret treasure exchange?”

Li Yao’s curiosity was immediately aroused. As a refiner, he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to visit the largest secret treasure exchange in the federation for the world.

…

Two days later, in the secret treasure exchange held in the biggest convention center in Empyreal Star City.

Almost all the Orb Patrollers who were not out on missions had gathered in this place, partly to choose items that fit their need, and partly to get to know more people, make more friends, and strike more deals with potential partners.

“It’s Team Blue Bronze!”

“I’m told that they’ve made a fortune! They earned 110 thousand contribution points out of a simple exploration and collection mission.”

“I’ve seen the video clips. The new Team Blue Bronze had complementary personnel and professional tactics. They took down the demon squad made of more than ten demons without any trouble. Very impressive!”

“Indeed. Inferno Witch Ding Lingdang and Vulture Li Yao are only in their twenties, but they do not look like newcomers at all. Their attacks are brutal, and they are very confident!”

“True that. Vulture Li Yao dismantled and cracked a piece of magical equipment from the demon clan in less than five minutes!”

“This was the first time that they’ve ever cooperated, and they’ve already made such remarkable achievements. It seems that Team Blue Bronze is very likely to return to the top ten of the Rank of Stars!”

As the only team exclusively made of outside-world Orb Patrollers that had been in the top 5 of the Rank of Stars, Team Blue Bronze had always been paid close attention to by many teams.

Li Yao was not someone who liked to keep a low profile, either. No sooner had he entered Empyreal Star City than he beat Guo Yu up terribly, which was quite shocking news at the time and made him the focus of public attention.

Ding Lingdang and he were both under twenty-five. Although they were not the strongest of all the Orb Patrollers right now, their potentials were definitely among the top.

Many well-informed Orb Patrollers came close and greeted Team Blue Bronze, trying to become acquainted with them.

Many missions in the exploration of the Occult Orbs required several Star Teams to work together. A powerful and dependable team was definitely worth befriending.

Even the Star Teams made of Children of Occult Orbs were also eyeing them in amazement.

In the Occult Orbs, capability was everything. Children of Occult Orbs worshipped the strong more than common Cultivators did.

The accomplishments and capability of Team Blue Bronze had been appreciated by them, if not somewhat with respect.

Chapter 381: Eggs and Fossils

As a refiner, Li Yao paid great attention to other Orb Patrollers, too, because helping them maintain or modify magical equipment could earn him a lot of contribution points without any risk.

His feat in cracking a piece of magical equipment from the demon race in Mystic Glacier in a very short time had become known by a lot of people. If he behaved friendlily right now, he expected that many people would seek out his service very soon.

Many stronger refiners could call on a lot of Cultivators when they needed to. Most of the time, their friendship originated from the simple relationship of a refiner and a customer.

Hong Tong and his other teammates found a few old acquaintances and started chitchatting enthusiastically, planning to work with several other Star Teams for some difficult missions that demanded cooperation.

Soon, the lights in the hall dimmed. Many ivory, translucent crystals appeared out of thin air, emitting mild brightness that illuminated the room like a warm spring morning but was not in the least dazzling.

Almost a hundred booths rose up from the ground of the hall.

As for the plants, minerals, fossils, and remnants of magical equipment which were too large to be showed in a booth, they were displayed in front of everyone via holograms. Anyone interested in them could go to the warehouse below the convention center to study them more closely.

Ba Weiqi jabbed Li Yao with his elbow and said, smiling, “What do you think? A real eye-opener, isn’t it?”

“It truly is; it really is incredible.”

Li Yao’s eyes were glowing, like those of a wolf which had been offered with a fat, roasted lamb after having nothing to eat for three days. He was so excited that he almost forgot where he was.

All the showpieces in the secret treasure exchange of Empyreal Star City were treasures that Star Teams had retrieved from the Occult Orbs. Not only was the scale of the secret treasure exchange ten times large than what Li Yao experienced in Serpent City, the exhibited items were also significantly more elegant.

Although Li Yao failed to recognize the background and attributes of most secret treasures, he was still deeply impressed by the intense spiritual waves that they released which swept over him like surging tides.

Any refiner would find it hard to control themselves in such a soul-stirring place.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao started to study each item with his eyes wide open.

99% of the secret treasures were unknown to him, but the 1% that he had recognized were all invaluable and once-in-a-hundred-years rare treasures in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

‘This is the egg of a ‘Gold Spirit Ice Boa’ infiltrated by a ‘Phantom Thread Venomous Bee’ which has injected its own eggs into the host. Then, the egg of ‘Gold Spirit Ice Boa’ provides nutrition for them. When it breaks out of the shell, it will become a ‘Gold Thread Venomous Bee’ that has attributes of both spiritual beasts. It is the king of insect-type spiritual beasts!

‘Although the egg is lifeless after being buried in the underground for almost a thousand years, there is still a 1% likelihood that the Gold Thread Venomous Bee could be revived after thorough treatment. Even if the endeavor proves to be in vain, I can still retrieve more than ten constituents from the egg for other magical equipment. Part of the power of ‘Gold Thread Venomous Bee’ can be carried out, too!

‘I can even refine a batch of beast puppets in the form of bees with this egg. They will be perfect for scouting and attacking lone soldiers!’

Li Yao’s heart was pounding.

Triggering the vitality of this strange egg was not something that he was good at. But it was his specialty to get the useful constituents out of the egg as ingredients to refine other pieces of magical equipment.

On the second floor of the Heavenly Refining Tower, there were almost twenty books on the subject of refining magical equipment with the eggs and bones of spiritual beasts.

Looking at the price tag, Li Yao almost laughed out aloud. Such a precious secret treasure was only selling at 800 contribution points!

It was possible that except himself who had seen the Gold Spirit Ice Boa Egg in the ‘Gallery of the World’ on the second floor of the Heavenly Refining Tower, other people might know nothing about the item at all. Even if they knew a thing or two about its usage, they had no idea how to get the useful constituents out. That was why it had been set at such a low price.

This was the charm of the secret treasure exchange.

In this place, knowledge was money!

In the eyes of those who were ignorant, these items were garbage; in the eyes of those who were informed, they were the real treasures!

Cultivators usually did not like other people idling around when they were studying Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. Therefore, every booth was surrounded by several crystal processors whose light beams hid the excavation process and the preliminary conclusion of the experts.

If they saw eye to eye with the item, they could place an order on the crystal processors directly.

Li Yao typed on the virtual rune keyboards and search for relevant information. This strange egg was discovered in an Occult Orb named ‘Endless Frost’.

Endless Frost was home to Gold Spirit Ice Boas. The purpose of the mission had been to hunt down a Gold Spirit Ice Boa King. The team discovered the strange egg accidentally after they finished the hunting.

Li Yao’s judgement was further supported.

He stopped hesitating and bought it instantly. As the contribution points in his account were deducted, a string of words appeared on the strange egg: Li Yao, Team Blue Bronze.

Then, the booth containing the strange egg gradually sank to the underground.

After the secret treasure exchange was over, all the things that he bought would be packed up together. There was no need to take it with him right now.

After buying a bargain such as the egg of the Gold Spirit Ice Boa, which was far beyond his expectations, Li Yao was greatly satisfied. He strolled in the hall, only to notice that Ding Lingdang was standing in front of a giant slate, tempted and hesitating.

A few other Cultivators were also pointing at the slate.

Li Yao stepped close to look at it more carefully. The slate was more than ten meters both in length and width. It was made up by more than ten smaller slates, which were full of bumps and hollows. Countless traces were interweaving on them.

Li Yao squinted. From the bottom of the hollows, he saw uneven stripes that looked like two extremely long bones, together with dozens of paw marks.

It was a fossil of two dragons.

The two dragons tangled each other tightly. After millions of years of time, their flesh and blood had turned into dust. The only things remaining were the scattered bones, which were still releasing an intimidating scent nonetheless.

Closing his eyes, Li Yao seemed to be able to see two dragons fighting each other in a prehistoric world where volcanoes were erupting and land was collapsing.

“Hiss!”

While Li Yao was dwelling in it, one of the dragons suddenly dashed at him and slapped his forehead, which chilled him and forced him to take a step back. Li Yao didn’t come back to himself after he retreated from the hallucination for a long time.

What tremendous mental power! What a marvelous fossil!

The two dragons were dozens of meters long. This fossil was only part of their bodies. If the fossil of their entire bodies was gathered together, the mental power contained within would be enough to slay a low-level Cultivator directly.

“Do you want to buy the fossil?”

Li Yao was somewhat astonished. Ding Lingdang was the purest battle-type Cultivator. Since when had she started studying fossils?

“Yes.”

Ding Lingdang’s passionate eyes were fully focused on the fossil, unable to be moved to anywhere else at all. She mumbled to herself, “I don’t know what’s happening, but the moment I got here, my whole self was attracted to the fossil, and I pictured two fighting dragons which were shaking the sky and the earth. I felt enlightened!

“You know that I’m practicing ‘Nona-colored Fire’ as my main Cultivation art right now. But when my spiritual energy bursts out, it is always in the form of dragons! If I can buy the fossil and feel the spirit and soul of the ancient beasts restrained in it, it will be useful for me when condensing my spiritual energy, which will definitely improve my combat ability!”

“That’s why you’ve been standing here.”

Li Yao nodded his head. Feeling the spirit and soul of the deceased beasts through fossils was an advanced art in Cultivation. He didn’t know that Ding Lingdang had grasped such an incredible skill after only several months of training.

“Then what are you waiting for? If you can’t walk away from the fossil, it means you are connected to it. Just buy it already!”

Ding Lingdang was somewhat embarrassed. She grimaced and said in a low voice, “But it is too expensive.”

Different from the egg of Gold Spirit Ice Boa that Li Yao picked up just now, the fossil was quite easy to see through. Anybody who was not blind could tell that it was a dragon-type fossil which boasted quite a long history, even if they couldn’t feel the calling from it. Therefore, it was much costlier, with a price of nine thousand contribution points.

Although Ding Lingdang joined Occult Orbs Fellowship a few months earlier than Li Yao, it was quite possible that she did not have too many points saved, since she had never been thrifty. After the trip to Mystic Glacier, she only got some ten thousand contribution points. Naturally, she was hesitating to pour all of them into this one fossil.

Li Yao couldn’t help but smile,

“Money is no problem. I’m here for you. Just buy it if you want it. There are quite a lot of dragon bones inside the fossil. After the demeanor of the dragons is fully appreciated by you, I can dig them out as materials for refining. Killing two birds with one stone. It’s a good bargain!”

Shopping was a girl’s natural instinct. Hearing Li Yao’s gallant declaration, Ding Lingdang was eyeing Li Yao in a much gentler way, forgetting briefly that she was a human-shaped tyrannosaur.

The moment they bought the dragon fossil, a tall, thin, gloomy middle-aged man reached the booth hurriedly, only to witness the dragon fossil sinking down. He was dazed and smiled bitterly.

After chitchatting for a while, they learnt that the man was an Elder from ‘Divine Serpent Hall’, a famous combat sect in the southwest of the federation.

Many Cultivation arts of Divine Serpent Hall required the trainees to feel the actions of real-life dragons. Therefore, when he was told that there was such a dragon fossil to be exhibited in the secret treasure exchange, he came as fast as possible. Yet, he was still one step late.

Ding Lingdang was a maniac in martial arts. Her spiritual energy was always in the form of dragons. She had been longing to make friends with Divine Serpent Hall, yet there had never been an opportunity.

After talking with the Elder of Divine Serpent Hall, the two parties reached a deal to the satisfaction of both of them.

Ding Lingdang would take out the dragon fossil for the disciples of Divine Serpent Hall to appreciate and study for three days every month.

In exchange, Divine Serpent Hall would provide several of their sect’s top Cultivation arts for Ding Lingdang.

This was a common way for Cultivators to make friends and get to know more people.

Chapter 382: Top of the Rank of Stars!

Awed by the dragon fossil, Li Yao was of a mind to look for an eagle fossil to help with his training, since his spiritual energy had always been in the form of an eagle when it was condensed.

However, since eagles were always flying in the sky, there were hardly any fossils that were made of eagles. Besides, Li Yao had not reached the level where he could gain a lot just by observing a fossil. Taking a gander for a while, he found nothing and had to give up the thought temporarily.

Yet, an inconspicuous booth at a corner of the all attracted his attention, which was displaying the magical equipment scraps retrieved from the Occult Orbs. Most of them were chainswords, battle sabers, and melee magical equipment that were well damaged.

Those melee weapons were on the verge of destruction because of the fierce battles. Now, after thousands of years of time, their basic structure was all crumbling. They were just piles of garbage that had no value whatsoever either in studying or replicating.

If possible, no Orb Patroller would ever bring such rubbish back to the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

However, sometimes they were terribly unlucky and found absolutely nothing useful in the Occult Orb where they were working, and, unwilling to go home empty-handed, they had to pack up some remnants of magical equipment and bring them back, no matter how discontent they were.

The scraps were uninteresting both in Empyreal Star City and in the outside world. Few people were willing to purchase them. After a long time of accumulation, they’d been piled up into a hill. What Li Yao saw was just the tip of the iceberg. There were a lot more in the underground warehouse.

Li Yao thought of something and was fascinated by the idea.

The scraps were too ruined to be repaired even by him.

However, by the fractures on the scraps, it was possible to infer the causes of the damages, just like autopsies.

Back in the Battle of Veteran Tarn City, Li Yao had comprehended quite a number of mysteries about the saber art by maintaining the broken magical equipment on the battleground.

The damage on the scraps was all left thousands of years ago. If he could perceive a hint of the saber art at that time, it would be a great benefit!

Looking at the price tag, Li Yao discovered that the contribution points required for the scraps were few to none. They were almost being sold for free.

Seeing this, Li Yao decided to take the lift down to the underground warehouse.

All the scraps of the magical equipment were piled up in a corner of the warehouse. A scent of death, which almost felt like it was coming from a living thing, was being released nonstop, twisting at Li Yao’s internal organs like thousands of sharp, bloody knives.

Li Yao licked his lips and, squatting in front of the hill, started picking.

His main Cultivation art was the saber art. Therefore, he mainly singled out the scraps that seemed to have been broken by battle sabers.

It was not an easy task, but since Li Yao had always been crazy about magical equipment, he didn’t find it too tedious. After more than two hours of searching, he dug out nine scraps that were relatively intact. It was impossible to tell what they had originally been, but there were slights traces of sabers on each of them.

Li Yao vaguely felt that the saber art demonstrated by the traces was as impressive as that on the stone that Long Wenhui had offered him before.

By studying the stone that Long Wenhui gave him, he invented his own ‘Thunderous Tornado Saber Art’.

What would he be able to grasp after he fully understood the remaining traces on the nine scraps?

Li Yao was greatly satisfied and ready to leave, when something glinting in the hill caught his attention.

He fumbled and found that it was a piece of weird magical equipment that looked like a watch, only with an exceptionally long watchband.

If it were really a watch, its owner must’ve had an extremely thick wrist which presumably belonged to a giant three to five meters tall.

But its dial was even smaller than that of common watches, which was utterly disproportionate to the watchband.

Li Yao pondered for a long time, before he finally realized that it was not a watch, but some sort of hair clasp that was worn on one’s head.

The magical equipment was not damaged by weapons. But it had been completely corrupted by acid. There was blue and purple rust from inside to outside, like a layer of weird moss.

But looking through the moss, Li Yao noticed that a large number of delicate components were still intact.

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao took the magical equipment as well.

The biggest problem about the magical equipment was the rust on its shell, and in regard to rust removing, he was probably one of the most proficient experts in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Even if he failed to repair it, he could still practice his maintenance skills with the delicate components. Considering that it wouldn’t cost him much at all, there was nothing to lose.

After paying for them, Li Yao returned to the exhibition hall in delight.

At this moment, the secret treasure exchange had almost come to an end. The number of the Orb Patrollers in the hall had greatly declined.

Li Yao immediately noticed that Hong Tong and Ding Lingdang were talking with three other intimidating Orb Patrollers. The leader of them seemed familiar. Thinking for a moment, he soon recognized that it was ‘Yan Jun’, the arrogant young man he saw when he first arrived at the headquarters of Occult Orbs Fellowship.

That guy was one of the leading figures for the Children of Occult Orbs. Team Thunder Soul, of which he was the captain, rested at the top in the Rank of Stars!

Li Yao’s eyes twitched. He strode forward and stood behind Ding Lingdang.

On Yan Jun’s left eye, there was an incurable scar that was deep to the bones, making his face awfully appalling. It was said that the wound was a result of the chaos caused by the sloppy outside-world Orb Patrollers. Yan Jun’s blood sister perished in the Occult Orb because of the accident, too.

Therefore, Yan Jun had never liked Orb Patrollers from the outside world.

Glancing at Li Yao, Yan Jun quickly focused his eyes on Hong Tong again as he said casually, “Hong Tong, your former captain Yin Qingfeng was the only one of the outside-world Orb Patrollers that I’ve ever admired. It’s too bad he passed away in the accident.

“Despite the two newcomers that you recruited recently, I don’t think that you are half as close to what you were when Yin Qingfeng was alive.

“If you really want to fight side by side with me in Ultimacy, then just cultivate and kill crazily!

“However, do bear in mind that you only have three months to prove your capability!”

Finishing his piece, Yan Jun and his companions left, never to look back.

Confused, Li Yao blinked, having no idea what was going on at all. He turned to the side and asked, “What’s the meaning of this, captain?”

Hong Tong showed no expression. He scratched his red nose and said calmly, “Occult Orbs Fellowship has released a piece of breaking news just now. In a hundred days’ time, five teams from the top 10 of the Rank of Stars will be designated to execute a plan that is of paramount importance.”

Li Yao’s heart was beating fast. He said, “The exploration of Ultimacy!”

Hong Tong nodded and observed, “Correct. The news has been a public topic for a long time. Now, it has been officially confirmed. But it is much earlier than we expected. We must break into the top 10 of the Rank of Stars within the next 100 days in order to be qualified to compete for the mission to Ultimacy!

“Although we earned more than 110 thousand contribution points and our position improved a lot, the competition will get more and more intense as we ascend to higher places. None of the first-rate teams ranking in the top 20 are easy to deal with. It will be quite challenging to bypass them!”

Looking at the captain in the eyes, Li Yao found that there was no frustration or hesitation at all, but passion that was burning brighter and brighter, even though he was saying ‘it will be quite challenging’.

Li Yao smirked.

“If it’s so difficult and coming so soon, then what are we waiting for? Let’s head back and start training right now, so that we can return to our best state and get ready for the next mission!”

…

In Li Yao personal chamber inside Team Blue Bronze’s base…

In front of Li Yao was a giant basin which was filled with boiling violet liquid. Bubbles and pungent steam were popping up nonstop.

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao put his hands into it. The bubbles immediately began popping ten times faster than before, while crackling noises came out.

Due to the excruciating pain, veins were bulging on his face, making him more hideous than ever. Two tears even flowed out of his eyes uncontrollably.

This was the secret art recorded in a book on the second floor of the Heavenly Refining Tower named ‘Thousand Fingers Soft Bone’. By soaking his hands in the boiling liquid which had been refined out of 21 kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, the bones of the hand would be destroyed and reborn.

The procedure was extremely dreadful. But once it succeeded, the speed of his hand movement could be improved by 10%!

The 21 kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that the procedure required were all rare ingredients even in the ancient Cultivation world 40,000 years ago. Li Yao failed to find any of them in the outside world. It was not until he joined Occult Orbs Fellowship that he finally gathered all the necessary materials at the cost of a great fortune of contribution points and cooked this mysterious purple liquid.

Every drop of the liquid was worth a billion. Therefore, although Li Yao was in agony, he didn’t dare pass out. He quickly drew several seals in the scorching liquid while he held back the pain.

As the seals were completed, all the purple liquid was kept within the basin no matter furiously it was raging inside, as if it was bound by an invisible force.

Half an hour later, the previously dirty liquid was as clear as clean water now.

Li Yao’s clothes had been soaked in sweat. Exhaling a long breath in relief, he took his hands out of the basin.

At this moment, not only were his hands smooth and warm like jade, they were also endowed with a vague layer of purple color.

“Wonderful!”

Moving his fingers, Li Yao quickly drew almost a hundred runes in the midair, both naturally and gracefully.

“Thousand Fingers Soft Bone has been perfectly performed by me. My hands are much faster than before. Not only will the efficiency of the maintenance work be greatly improved, it will also be of great help when I need to draw runes empty-handed and when I am in combat!”

Li Yao started planning.

He had been used to his Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber, which was more than mighty but not delicate enough.

Now that his hand movements were much faster than Cultivators of the same level, could he make the best use of that and refine a new weapon in order to make up for the shortcomings of his saber?

While he was contemplating, his mini crystal processor started buzzing. After reading the message, Li Yao rose up and smiled, his white teeth gleaming.

A new mission had been approved. This time, it was a pure hunting mission. Although it was more dangerous, the contribution points that it rewarded were much greater, not to mention the trophies that they might be able to get from the demons.

“Top 10 of the Rank of Stars?

“No, my target is the top of the Rank of Stars!”

Waving his hands, the purple color vanished into his flesh and blood. Li Yao strode out of the room.

Chapter 383: Flash Claw, New Treasure

A secret operation was to begin in a hundred days!

It equaled to a public declaration that exploration of Ultimacy was beginning soon, and that only the most brilliant Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector would set foot in the mysterious place that had never been visited before.

Empyreal Star City was on fire.

All the Star Teams had gone crazy, busily applying for all kinds of difficult tasks.

The star rails of Occult Orbs Fellowship’s launch base were working day and night. There were star shuttles rushing out through the sea of stars every hour.

The thunder in the sky never died down. The reddish clouds never faded.

In the moment when all the Star Teams were desperate to show themselves, Team Blue Bronze announced its grand return by the dazzling and awe-inspiring achievements that they accomplished.

Each team who returned from Occult Orbs full-loaded and balanced their contribution points in satisfaction would hear Team Blue Bronze’s much more flabbergasting news, which spread to every corner of Empyreal Star City easily.

“On March 15th, Team Blue Bronze went to Secret Mirage where they picked up a rarely-seen plant ‘Shocking Thunder Flower’. It is of great use to Cultivators whose spiritual energy is of the lightning class when they are entering the Core Formation Stage.

“In the meantime, they slew the atrocious spiritual beast guarding the flower, a Thunder Spirit Leopard!”

“On March 21st, Team Blue Bronze went deep into Burning Flame. Not only did they find a vast ancient battleground where a lot of well-preserved weapons were dug out, ‘Vulture Li Yao’ also unearthed an armed shuttle that was basically intact!

“Some of the technology employed in the armed shuttle are at least thirty years more advanced than the existent ones in the Heaven’s Origin Sector. If they are fully decrypted, they will be a great help for the development of the next-generation armed shuttles of the federal army!

“On March 27th, Team Blue Bronze and another three Star Teams started an expedition to Burning Inferno. A blood pool that the demon clan built up to breed special demon beasts was demolished. More than fifty demon generals were killed. Inferno Witch Ding Lingdang slayed three high-level demon generals personally and was credited as the MVP!

“On April 6th, in competition for the right to carry out a mission that was extremely dangerous, Team Blue Bronze challenged Team Eternal Phoenix which ranked the 29th to a duel and finished the battle in only 21 minutes and 37 seconds!

“Over the past one month, Team Blue Bronze has been unstoppable. Its rank has improved by more than thirty places and has reached 27th place!”

Breaking news regarding the latest progress of Team Blue Bronze was shocking the Orb Patrollers every day.

As for the two newcomers, Vulture Li Yao and Inferno Witch Ding Lingdang, their personal strength had been continuously soaring after every mission. Their unbelievable mission videos were great eye-openers for a lot of people, making them two of the best-known celebrities of Empyreal Star City right now.

…

On April 27th, in an advanced refining workshop with the most facilities…

As the number of the contribution points in his account increased crazily, Li Yao could afford better services now. This particular refining workshop was modified based on a maintenance workshop of a starship from the Star Ocean Imperium. It was the top refining workshop even in the entire Heaven’s Origin Sector. Naturally, the hourly fee to rent it was also astronomical. Li Yao gritted his teeth and rented the workshop for three hours every day.

After training for over a month in the Occult Orbs and going through life and death in frost, flame, and blood pools of the demon clan, Li Yao’s demeanor had greatly changed.

Before, although he had been engaged in several big events such as the Battle of Verdant Tart City and the War of Seven Cities, Li Yao had spent most of his time in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Inevitably, a vibe of immatureness that belonged to the college students who had never experienced real life always lingered around him.

But after fighting and killing in the foreign lands far away from the Heaven’s Origin Sector, he was like a saber whose sharpness was all hidden deep inside the edge because it had been burnished hundreds of times. He was much more peaceful and sophisticated than before.

However, a bright blue scar that looked like a tear could be found right below his right eye, which destroyed the overall serenity in his face and made him looked somewhat brutal.

The scar had been left by the splashing corrosive acid when they were uprooting the blood pool of the demon clan. Although he had smeared medical ointment, it would take at least two months before new flesh could grow out.

Li Yao couldn’t care less about it. On the contrary, he quite enjoyed his new appearance which was endowed with an air of cruelness.

Li Yao warmed up his fingers slowly. After two months of soaking and regenerating that were as miserable as hell, the ‘Thousand Fingers Soft Bone’ technique had been fully carried out. Purple colors were spreading out of his fingers and spinning around them, as if he were holding two torches of purple flames in his hands.

After a shiver of his fingers, all the purple flames were absorbed by his hands, which now seemed to be carved out of flawless and sparkling purple jade.

“Ka!”

In the next second, bones and joints bulged out from his two hands which were as warm and smooth as jade a moment ago. In his flesh, ten sharp knives of bones seemed to be buried. He opened his hands, and they immediately ejected out with an intense smell of blood. Dozens of electric arcs flickering with blue and purple spluttered among his fingers.

In front of Li Yao, a rock that was extremely hard was placed.

This kind of rock was harder than most metals, and it was naturally resistant against spiritual energy. It was almost as good as the rock in Li Yao’s own refining workshop on which he hammered his magical equipment.

Sniffing, Li Yao waved his hands which were wreathed in blue and purple electric arcs and scratched the rock. Cracking noises echoed nonstop, as if a giant animal was chewing its prey’s skin and bones. The rock crumbled and shrank in size like it was a piece of rotten wood. Half a minute later, it was only half its previous size.

Li Yao was greatly satisfied. He examined the traces of his claws and mumbled to himself, “As expected of an ultimate martial art that cost me 32,000 contribution points. This ‘Purple Electric Blue Hell Claw Art’ is indeed marvelous!”

After he was done with ‘Thousand Fingers Soft Bone’, he had been thinking to learn a new martial art that could make best use of his fast hand movement and monstrous finger strength.

After considering for a long time, he decided to learn a claw art.

After all, his spiritual energy was in the form of an eagle when solidified.

The most common way for an eagle to attack was snatching the prey with its claws. By learning a claw attack martial art, it would be easier to resonate with his spiritual energy.

Therefore, after he had accumulated enough contribution points, he redeemed them for one of the best claw arts in the Heaven’s Origin Sector without any hesitation.

Although he hadn’t fully grasped it since he’d only bought it half a month ago, Li Yao was very satisfied with his progress.

“In the Cultivation world, there is a kind of unusual magical equipment named ‘Flash Claw’ which can unleash high-voltage electricity when it tears the enemy apart. I could totally add a Flash Claw to the left hand of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, with additional high-frequency vibration abilities.

“With the electric shock and the high-frequency vibration, even the demon beasts with the thickest skin wouldn’t be able to suffer one of my strikes!

“Then, I will have Floating Vulcan Machine Guns as my long-range weapons, Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber as my melee weapon, Vibrating Flash Claw during a close combat, together with the forty mini beast puppets that I refined out of the egg of the Gold Thread Venomous Bee. I am already armed to teeth. Who knows? I think I’m ready for Ultimacy right now!”

Licking his sharp teeth, Li Yao smiled and returned to peace. He washed his hands carefully and walked into the dust-free room on the right side of the refining workshop.

The practice of ‘Purple Electric Blue Hell Claw Art’ was just meant to warm up his fingers.

What he was going to do next was more important.

Over the past month, he had been carrying the nine scraps that he bought from the secret treasure exchange with him all the time and studied the damage on them whenever he was free. He had perceived several of the saber actions from them, which made his Thunderous Tornado Saber Art all the more intimidating.

However, what brought him the most benefits was the rusted, watch-like magical equipment.

This piece of magical equipment looked shabby and not worth repairing at all. But after Li Yao removed the dust with the secret technique of the Hundred Smelting Clan and cleaned all of its components, he discovered that it was far less ruined than he had expected.

The delicacy of the magical equipment was beyond his expectation, too. He estimated that it was even more precise than the most advanced hunter’s watch of the Zephyr Guild.

Studying in the Grand Desolate War Institution all the time, Li Yao was not familiar with precise magical equipment. This was a good opportunity for him to practice.

Out of pure curiosity, Li Yao dismantled the magical equipment and got countless components than were smaller than millet and narrower than a hair, before he studied the usage of each component and the purpose of this magical equipment as a whole.

At first, he was only doing it for fun. But soon, he was deeply attracted to the magical equipment.

After spreading out all the components, it would only take up an area of a desk.

But for him, it was like a vast ocean that he couldn’t see the boundary of.

Li Yao was addicted to it. Except for the days on the Occult Orbs, he was completely devoted to the polishing and maintenance of this mysterious magical equipment.

Today, he finally understood the attributes of all the components and devised a few new tiny components according to the intention of the designer of the magical equipment. Everything was set.

“The technology employed in the magical equipment is too complicated for me. It’s impossible for me to fully repair it at present.

“However, I can bypass the trickiest part and fix the peripheral components only. By connecting an outlet unit with the peripheral components, I can make it work with the minimum functions. I estimate that thirty percent of its functions can be triggered!

“Thirty percent is good enough!”

To deal with the components that were tinier than millet, Li Yao had undertaken a new method to assemble them: refining with spiritual threads!

He closed his eyes, while his spiritual energy rippled out and lifted thousands of miniature components which were floating up and down in the air like invisible hands.

Then, he extended innumerous spiritual threads out of his spiritual root, each of which tied up one component gently.

Muttering spells to himself, Li Yao quickly waved his hands in the air, drawing not runes, but a translucent, bright gold holograph that appeared to be the internal structure of something.

After that, his ten fingers trembled at a speed that was too high for the human eyes to catch, as he guided his spiritual threads to drag the components to the corresponding location on the holograph.

When the thousands of components were all in position, Li Yao’s half-closed eyes suddenly opened. Then he crossed his fingers and bellowed, “Freeze!”

The bright gold holograph instantly condensed into a ball, before it exploded and unveiled a brand-new artifact inside.

The thousands of components that were tinier than millet had been assembled momentarily!

Chapter 384: Stars to Destroy List

“Does it work?”

Li Yao’s forehead was covered in sweat, his cheeks puffing, while he stared at the watch-like magical equipment with a racing heart.

He was both nervous and excited.

This was the first time he’d ever repaired a piece of magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium. If it succeeded, it meant that he had made a great leap forward in the path of refining.

Although it looked perfect and the spiritual energy flowed smoothly, whether or not it was fully functional depended on what would happen after it was triggered.

Holding his breath, Li Yao picked out a red crystal the size of grain. The moment it came close to the watch-like magical equipment, a hexagonal hole was opened in its back where three metal threads stuck out and snatched the red crystal, dragging it inside.

The red crystal was part of a marrow crystal.

Although the watch was not large in size, the spiritual energy that it consumed to function was astronomical. Ordinary crystals and crystal cells were not satisfactory at all. Only marrow crystals could meet its need.

“Hum!”

After absorbing the marrow crystal, something shivered inside the watch-like magical equipment. All the components were resonating as if they had been brought back to life by Li Yao again. The dial was also shining like a starry night sky.

“It works!”

Li Yao was fascinated. He put the magical equipment on his head and aimed the dial at his spiritual root. The watchband seemed to be able to automatically adjust its length, which fastened the magical equipment to his head comfortably. There was no feeling of coldness or hindrances at all. It seemed to have melded with his flesh and blood.

Calming himself down, Li Yao extended one of his telepathic thoughts into the magical equipment.

Almost a hundred streams of information flooded into his head as feedback. They scanned through his brain and, after making sure that he was a human being and that he had never used such a piece of magical equipment before, transmitted detailed instructions and user manuals.

This magical equipment was weirdly known as ‘Slaughterhouse of Demons’, which had been used by the imperial army of the Star Ocean Imperium as a training facility.

However, not all the soldiers were qualified to train with the ‘Slaughterhouse of Demons’.

It had been specially designed for the special forces of the imperial army, as well as the elites in the ordinary troops who had enormous physical strength and ultra-solid souls with remarkable accomplishments.

Those who were entitled to use the ‘Slaughterhouse of Demons’ were all the best warriors of the Star Ocean Imperium!

The reason was that the ‘Slaughterhouse of Demons’ was extremely dangerous as a tool for training. Only those with strong mental power and a solid soul would be able to exercise with it at their will.

If a random soldier were to use it carelessly, they would possibly be killed by it instantly!

Li Yao read the documents carefully. The Slaughterhouse of Demons was divided into 100 levels, with Level 1 being the easiest and Level 100 being the most difficult.

However, since many of the key components had been broken and Li Yao failed to repair them, it was only opened until Level 37, with a few missing levels in between. There were only 29 levels in total that he could make use of.

“Is it really as scary as it claims? Let me set it to Level 1 and have a try.”

Slaughterhouse of Demons projected dozens of complicated operation menus inside Li Yao’s brain. The way of using it was different from any kind of magical equipment in the Star Glory Federation.

However, Li Yao had been playing with another piece of magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium named ‘Neltharion’, whose operation system was hundreds of times more complicated than the Slaughterhouse of Demons’.

Therefore, it didn’t take long before he figured out the options of the Slaughterhouse of Demons, set it to the easiest level, and initiated the magical equipment.

“Shua!”

Li Yao felt an ivory ray of light beam out of his forehead and condense into a transparent hologram not far away from him.

A moment later, the hologram became more solid. A dry, thin, greenish-skinned demon who had sharp teeth and protruding cheeks was eyeing him coldly from three meters away.

“An illusion?”

Before Li Yao was able to take any action, the demon grinned hideously, displaying its brown tusks, before it suddenly turned into a streak of brightness and passed by Li Yao.

Unimaginable, unpredictable and unstoppable!

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. He felt that his throat was itching, cold and uncomfortable; then he heard large swishing noise; it was not until several seconds later that he realized it was the sound of blood spurting out of the ruptured carotid artery.

He scratched his neck, only to find that his hand was covered in blood.

Li Yao was greatly shocked. At this moment, an acute pain finally grabbed him, while a black swirl started revolving in front of his eyes, swallowing his soul.

He told himself repetitively that it was just an illusion. But it took him ten seconds before he finally got himself away from the pressure of death. He touched his neck again, and he did find a drop of blood there.

This time, it was not an illusion, but the body reaction after the brain cells were seriously stimulated.

Many experts of mental attacks could hypnotize and fool other people into thinking that their hand had been cut by a knife. It was often the case that injuries would appear on their hand even though nobody hurt them.

This was a world where mental power could change reality after all.

No wonder only the most determined experts were allowed to train with the Slaughterhouse of Demons.

For the ordinary soldiers who were not resolute enough, their brains might be wrecked when they were killed in the illusion!

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao calmed himself down, yet his eyes caught a hint of greenness again.

The mysterious, greenish-skinned demon was not gone yet. It was grinning hideously at him behind him, to the left. Before he knew it, it turned into a streak of brightness and darted at his neck again.

Li Yao’s eyes were twitching violently. His pupils constricted to the size of two needles. There was no time for him to defend himself. He simply ignited the purple flames in his hands and snatched at the chest of the green demon.

“Swoosh!”

The artery on Li Yao’s neck was cut open again.

In the meantime, the guts of the demon were minced into pieces by Li Yao’s Purple Electric Blue Hell Claw Art.

After a scream, the green demon burst into thousands of pieces of brightness and vanished.

“Interesting!”

Li Yao finally woke up from the illusion. He scratched his neck which was still aching and licked his lips excitedly.

He was beginning to understand how the Slaughterhouse of Demons worked.

When it was put on his head, it would stimulate his brain cells and generate all kinds of illusions of strong demons in front him. His nerves would be kept in a highly active state while he was completely devoted to the fierce combat, so that he could break his own limits and improve himself under the menace of death all the time.

“Shua!”

This time, two green demons appeared in front of his eyes, both of which carrying coldly-shining poisoned daggers in their hands.

It seemed that the Slaughterhouse of Demons would automatically adjust the difficulty of the training according to the approaches undertaken by the trainee.

“Come on!”

Every one of Li Yao’s brain cells were burning furiously. His eyes were so bright that fire seemed to be popping out. Before the two green demons could launch their attack, Li Yao had already charged at them!

From the afternoon to the next morning, Li Yao played with his new toy for more than fifteen hours without any sleep or rest, dwelling in the new world and forgetting where he was.

From Level 1 to Level 7, he was ‘killed’ 372 times and ‘killed’ 631 demons in total.

At first, his opponent was the simplest greenish-skinned demons; but after Level 5, he was faced with enemies with greater strength than a middle-level demon general, many of whom were new to him but not any less formidable. By his estimation, they must be the strong ancient demons who had gone extinct thousands of years ago.

Li Yao’s combat skills continued on the rise after each ‘death’ and each execution.

He was planning to practice another three days and three nights, but Ding Lingdang suddenly appeared and disrupted his nice plan.

Ding Lingdang’s eyes were wide open. Staring at the refining workshop which was in a mess, she exclaimed in astonishment, “What are you doing here? Why is it so messed up here? You didn’t have an accident in one of your crazy experiments with explosive magical equipment, did you?”

Ding Lingdang strode close and examined Li Yao’s body carefully. She was greatly relieved when she noticed that there were no wounds on Li Yao’s body.

Li Yao smiled.

“I’m fine. Why are you here? Aren’t we on a five-day vacation because the captain said we needed a good rest after a month of frequent visits to Occult Orbs? What, anything wrong?”

Ding Lingdang grimaced. She waved her wrist where her mini crystal processor was worn and said airily, “Good news, or maybe bad news. You made it to the list. You are now the 2998th on the Stars to Destroy List.”

“What?!”

Li Yao was dazed. He repeated, “I made it to the 2998th on the Stars to Destroy List?”

The Star Glory Federation, to tackle the powerful enemies in the Blood Demon Sector, resorted to every method possible to track down the demon kings, demon emperors, and other influential figures and proposed a ‘Deadly Demons List’, where the names of three thousand expert demons that were most threatening to the Star Glory Federation, as well as their respective bounties, were written.

It was one of the highest honors for a Cultivator of the Heaven’s Origin Sector to slay a major demon who was on the Deadly Demons List.

At the same time, some demons of the Blood Demon Sector were designated to gather and analyze the intelligence from the Heaven’s Origin Sector, too, and they offered the names of three thousand Cultivators who were most threatening to the Blood Demon Sector, which was known as the ‘Stars to Destroy List’.

One might say that the three thousand expert demons on the Deadly Demons List and the three thousand Cultivators on the Stars to Destroy List were the most influential figures in their respective worlds for the war to come.

They were the well-deserved celebrities in their worlds!

One year ago, Li Yao could only look up to the three thousand Cultivators on the Stars to Destroy List in admiration.

Never had he anticipated that his name would appear on the list one day!

Although he was only the 2998th, it was already a remarkable achievement.

Speaking of influence and importance to the federation, the leaders, as well as many Elders, of the top 500 sects in the federation were all more than qualified to appear on the Stars to Destroy List, not to mention the presidents of the Nine Elite Universities, renowned professors, generals of the major military regions, senior Cultivators who had been fighting against the demons for hundreds of years…

There were few places left for beginners.

There were even fewer experts who had become a center of hatred for the demons and made it to the Stars to Destroy List before thirty.

Not quite fully convinced, with her hands resting on her hip, Ding Lingdang exclaimed, “I never expected that you could rise to fame so fast. I’m been training day and night dreaming to squeeze into the Stars to Destroy List, and yet you still arrived earlier than me!”

Li Yao grinned and was well aware that his appearance in the Stars to Destroy List was not just based on his excellent performance in the Occult Orbs over the past two months. It had more to do with his ability in refining, or more specifically, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.

Although the demon clan didn’t launch massive attacks over the past several months, the warfare never ceased in the northernmost of the Grand Desolate Plateau.

As more and more troops were equipped with Mystic Skeleton Battlesuits, the defense of the federal army significantly improved. In dangerous areas which were too risky for crystal warships, legions armed with Mystic Skeleton Battlesuits could be deployed to confront the demons in head-on battles.

To some extent, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit brought as much trouble to the demon clan in the war as a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator would.

As the youngest participant of Project Mystic Skeleton, Li Yao also boasted amazing personal combat ability. More importantly, considering his young age, his potential was enormous, which was the primary reason why his name appeared on the Stars to Destroy List.

The fact that he was discovered so soon and registered as one of the three thousand most threatening Cultivators for the Blood Demon Sector also proved the effectiveness of the demon clan’s espionage work. It was evident enough that their infiltration into the Heaven’s Origin Sector was quite productive.

“From now on, I’m no longer a Mr. Nobody. I can put myself on the scale of victory now. Even if I only weigh one gram, I still have the chance to change the balance of the war!”

Chapter 385: Ghost Ocean, Fearsome Kraken

“Appearing on the Stars to Destroy List might not be a good thing. It means that you will be a target for everybody. In a battlefield, the demons always attack the Cultivators whose names are on the Stars to Destroy List. For those whose ranks are at the top, sometimes the demons even teleport assassins through the void in order to kill them!” Ding Lingdang said with a smile, not in the least worried.

She was quite proud that her boyfriend had appeared on the Stars to Destroy List, although she was discontent that she hadn’t made it to the list.

Stars to Destroy List and Deadly Demons List had been established for the purpose of hunting the important figures of the hostile world more easily.

Once someone’s name was on one of the lists, their enemy would search for their files at any cost and offer a high bounty, all so they could be extinguished sooner.

Killing an expert on the Stars to Destroy List or the Deadly Demons List would not only undermine the enemy’s war potential, but also significantly damage the morale of their army.

After Li Yao entered Empyreal Star City, he had heard of many confidential events in the federation.

For example, Xu Haoran, the Speaker of Parliaments, who ranked third in the Stars to Destroy List, had been the victim of many attempted assassinations every year.

In the meantime, many Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were also trying to sneak into the Blood Demon Sector to hunt down the super demons ranking in the top 100 on the Deadly Demons List.

The demise of any expert at that level would be shocking news.

Li Yao sniffed and then smiled.

“Assassinate me? Come and try. I feel that my rank in the Stars to Destroy List is too low anyway.”

Thinking for a moment, he took off the Slaughterhouse of Demons and put it on Ding Lingdang’s head. Then he activated it and said, “Try it. This is a piece of magical equipment for training from the Star Ocean Imperium that I just repaired.”

Ding Lingdang was quite amazed.

“You were able to repair the magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imp—Hiss…”

She was lost for a moment. Sweat was dropping from her forehead, while her body was trebling. A moment later, she came back to herself in a shiver. Pressing her chest, she exclaimed passionately, “This thing is interesting!”

Li Yao smiled and saw that Ding Lingdang was apparently hooked on it. Her eyes were bulging, her teeth clicking, while she was fighting against the invisible enemies in her illusion. Therefore, he took a step back, brought out the nine scraps, and, closing his eyes, touched them with his hyper-sensitive fingertips, observing the saber art from thousands of years ago.

He had multiple methods of training. It was unlikely that he would use the Slaughterhouse of Demons 24 hours a day. Sharing it with Ding Lingdang was a much better idea, so that it wouldn’t be left idle.

Li Yao hoped that Ding Lingdang would enter the Stars to Destroy List, too, and that the two of them could march forward hand in hand.

A journey by himself would be too lonely.

In the next couple of days, they took turns to undergo the extreme training sessions of the Slaughterhouse of Demons. When the vacation was over and Team Blue Bronze gathered together again, their sharp and unstoppable vibe surprised everyone.

In the next month, Team Blue Bronze applied for several missions of unimaginable risks and completed all of them perfectly. Their position in the Rank of Stars rose to the top 15. Li Yao and Ding Lingdang distinguished themselves more and more. Their brilliant mission videos were spread to every corner of Empyreal Star City, and later, into the entire Cultivation world.

Nobody considered them to be newcomers anymore. They’d become the most proficient Orb Patrollers.

…

On June 2nd, in Ghost Ocean…

This was an Occult Orb covered by a raging ocean. Except for the sharp rocks that popped out from the black ocean once in a while, there was no land that one could set foot on at all.

Blowing wind dominated the sky of Ghost Sea. Giant swirls were everywhere in the ocean. The waves raised by the ferocious undercurrent could jump to hundreds of meters high while uttering weird sounds that resembled screams of the unrested souls.

Looking from above, it seemed that countless ghosts were wandering under the ocean, hence the name ‘Ghost Ocean’.

At this moment, among the tusk-like ocean waves each higher than another, a crystal suit was dodging and flying fast with gold exhaust flames behind it.

After being strengthened and polished by countless Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures from Occult Orbs Fellowship, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit right now had undergone tremendous changes compared with three months ago.

With the Swallow Shadow Stones, Heavenly Tiger Core Copper, Red Glow Liquid, and many other rare materials, the color of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit had turned from bright grey into deep black, with a streak of blood red outlining the edge of every piece of the plate armor.

Against the background of the black ocean, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit seemed to have vanished. What was left in the air was a red, translucent holograph, around which gold brightness was shimmering occasionally. It was full of mysteries and coldness, like… the vast starry sky!

“BOOM!”

Behind the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, which was fleeing at full speed, a tremendous lump about fifty meters in diameter rose up from the surface of the ocean, before it exploded, producing earsplitting booms.

What was unveiled after the explosion was a strong demon beast more than thirty meters in diameter that looked like an enlarged squid.

Every tentacle of the kraken was as thick and long as a crystal train. Not only was it covered in suckers which could absorb seawater and air and also interrupt the spiritual waves nearby, there were also many caruncles among the suckers that could spurt seawater, thereby forming many ‘high-pressure water swords’.

Without the protection of a crystal suit, even a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator might be sliced in two by the water sword easily.

Lifted by the eight copious tentacles was a giant head that was almost as large as a floating mountain, which was affixed with countless colorful seaweeds and shells that seemed to be its armor in the form of weird, round stripes.

In the middle of the round stripes, a crimson eye, which was more than two meters in diameter and naturally blessed with the ability to perform mental attacks, was glaring. One glance from it was enough to rip the souls of low-level Cultivators apart.

Behind the eye, there were eight wrinkles surrounding the body through which the prey would be devoured.

Every wrinkle was filled with coldly-shining bones that were as sharp as teeth, leaving no doubt that if Li Yao was bitten, both his crystal suit and himself would be chewed into pieces without the slightest traces remaining.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”

The kraken was more than furious. Liquid as thick as blood flowed out of the crimson eye. Spurting water from the spouts behind its head, it boosted itself forward with the counterforce and stayed close behind Li Yao.

“Pu! Pu! Pu!”

While it was chasing, it shot out liquid that was as black as ink from sixteen spouts on its head, which exploded near Li Yao and formed clusters of stinky venomous fog.

The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit at this moment was no longer the MP crystal suit from half a year ago. After every mission, Li Yao would spend a fortune of contribution points on Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to further modify it. All the way to this day, his crystal suit was no worse than the super crystal suits worth billions that the Core Formation Stage Cultivators wore.

Li Yao’s skill at controlling the crystal suit was becoming more and more fluid after countless life-and-death battles.

The venomous fog was about to wreathe the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, when the battlesuit suddenly turned into countless blurred shadows and dashed out of the enclosing fog at an unimaginable angle, before it rushed forward under the cover of the rampageous waves.

Sometimes, the waves and the water swords of the kraken were only the width of a hair away from the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.

But the width of a hair seemed to have been fixed by superglue. However furious the kraken was, it was not able to cut off any part of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, not even the corner of a piece of plate armor.

Suddenly…

Hundreds of blurred shadows melted into one. The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit came to a halt abruptly.

In front was the place where currents congregated. A giant water wall that was fifty meters tall and almost a thousand meters long was blocking his way.

The kraken was squeaking in excitement. Eight giant swirls were stirred up by its tentacles, while it charged toward him at full speed.

Too bad that as large as its eyeball was, its sight was not good enough, otherwise it would’ve seen the cruel smile on Li Yao’s face.

“Ka!”

Sixteen noises echoed at the same time, as sixteen explosions took place on the surface of the ocean surrounding the kraken. Sixteen bright blue blasts swept over, freezing the savaging waves into solid sculptures.

Together with the kraken, the entire ocean in the hundred square meters was consolidated into a giant iceberg!

“Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!”

The kraken was quite tough. The ‘Frigid Prison Grenades’ from the Star Ocean Imperium that were supposed to be able to freeze everything within its range only stopped its movement briefly.

Soon, the frozen ocean broke. The crimson eye which had been rigid for a moment started rolling crazily again, unleashing a vicious, red light.

But for Li Yao, a moment of rigidness was more than enough.

Li Yao stomped in the air, leaving two giant holes more than ten meters in diameter on the wall of seawater that was dozens of meters high. Then he took a weirdly sharp turn and blinked in front of the giant eye of the kraken.

Three sharp knives unfolded from his left arm, turning his left arm into a metal claw. Each of the talons were carved with complicated rune arrays. An invaluable marrow crystal was embedded in between the talons. Purple electric arcs and blue fire were dancing on the claw, tearing the air apart with cracking sounds.

Compared with the mainstream melee weapons such as chainswords and vibrating sabers, Flash Claws were much less popular.

It was because grasping a claw art was often a painful process. Besides, they could only be carried out by keeping close to the enemy during a combat. Therefore, most Cultivators who preferred poise and elegancy were not interested in them.

Li Yao was different. His hands had endured the torture of the ‘Thousand Fingers Soft Bone’ technique. The miserable training process was like living in hell.

Compared to the ‘Thousand Fingers Soft Bone’ technique, no claw art was cruel anymore.

Besides, the ‘Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining’ technique had endowed him with extraordinary body sturdiness, making him must suited to close combat.

A melee weapon such as the Flash Claw fit his every need.

This particular Flash Claw he was using had been refined by an Elder of ‘Falcon Strike Sect’ which was renowned for its claw arts. It had been marked by his soul seal, distinguishing it as one of the limited editions from the mass-produced ones made for the ordinary disciples.

Li Yao had further burnished it with more than three different kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, as well as abundant marrow crystals without considering the cost, through the ancient techniques of the Hundred Smelting Clan. It was definitely one of the best Flash Claws in the world!

Therefore, although he had only been training with the ‘Purple Electric Blue Hell Claw Art’ for only a little more than one month, this ultimate Flash Claw still raised a blue-and-purple lightning that was almost one meter long while it snatched at the sole crimson eye of the kraken!

Chapter 386: Slaying a Deadly Demon

“Ting!”

The sharp claw enveloped in purple electric arcs and blue fire raised crackling sounds like a piece of metal crashing into a stone. It had failed to pierce through!

The eyeball of the kraken was large and soft, which was its biggest weakness. How could it not prepare for it?

The moment before the Flash Claw fell down, the surface of the eyeball was covered in a layer of transparent membrane that protected the eyeball as if it were tempering glass.

The membrane seemed to boast extraordinary resistance against spiritual energy. No matter how furiously powerful the lightning and the fire were, they were not able to breach the defense at all and simply vanished after they reached it.

In the meantime, the frozen ocean was cracking under the kraken’s brute force. Jagged, giant gaps appeared on the surface!

The kraken was breaking free in no time. The crimson eye was filled with disdain and abhorrence. Its mental attack stirred chaos within Li Yao’s brain like burning iron needles.

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao turned his claw into thousands of blurred shadows, which were humming and appeared fuzzy.

It was vibrating at almost ten thousand times per second!

After the high-frequency vibrations, the first crack appeared in the membrane covering the crimson eye.

The interconnecting gaps on the frozen ocean were also expanding. In many places, the ice fell down into craters where seawater jumped up dozens of meters like fountains.

One of the kraken’s tentacles had been freed from the ice. It was beating the ice crazily, hoping to break up more.

Right now, it was just a matter of speed!

The eye of the kraken was filled with contempt, while another two of its tentacles got out of the ice and joined with the first tentacle in ripping open the ice. The frozen ocean was shaking and would crumble in no time.

Yet, the confidence in Li Yao’s eyes was not in the least diminished. He roared and poured all his spiritual energy into his left arm. Two gold rings at the front end of his right arm suddenly started revolving in opposite directions. The claw between them started swirling, too.

The Flash Claw immediately turned into a mincing machine that was vibrating rapidly.

Purple electric arcs, the blue fire, high-frequency vibration, and rapid revolution!

Under the effect of these four abilities, the defensive membrane outside of the crimson eye finally couldn’t bear it any longer and broke into pieces after a cracking sound.

The Flash Claw pierced into the eyeball unstoppably. A balloon made of blood exploded over him.

The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was showered by the strongly corrosive red liquid, which was eroding the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. But it had no influence on the highly strengthened shell and the anti-corrosive layer whatsoever.

In less than one second, the crimson eye had been cut into pieces by the Flash Claw and collapsed.

The electric arcs and the blue fire even penetrated through the bottom of its eye into its brain.

The kraken was squeaking in desperation, while it extended its three tentacles to maximum and smashed the ice, spluttering the pieces of ice to everywhere.

With a cold smile, Li Yao pulled black his Flash Claw and folded it up, revealing his left hand.

Simultaneously, his right hand picked up the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber. Then, his left hand joined with his right hand to draw the saber out and stab into the crimson eye of the kraken which had already been shattered.

Although the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber was only two meters long, the blood aura from the saber flushed out into the surrounding ten meters, boosted by Li Yao’s high spirit and fully activated spiritual energy, protruding directly into the depths of the kraken’s soft brain.

Li Yao didn’t just stop there. He twisted his saber brutally, as if he was trying to churn the brain of the kraken into a mess.

It was not until the fourth tentacle of the kraken, which was the closest one to him, was freed from the ice and slashed at him in blowing wind that he pulled his saber out and leaped three meters away.

Then he immediately summoned four Floating Vulcan Machine Guns from his Cosmos Ring, aimed at the giant blood hole more than one meter in diameter, and opened fire!

Frost bullets, flames bullets, corrosive bullets, explosive bullets… All kinds of bullets that had been carved with powerful attack rune arrays and cleansed by a Blood Baptism rained upon the kraken, which was shaking under the attack nonstop.

Translucent, white liquid was flowing out of the holes in its body.

This was its real blood. The red liquid inside the crimson eye previously was only a medium to trigger the mental attack.

The kraken finally set itself free from the ice, but its head had already been blown to smithereens by Li Yao.

The soft body of the kraken turned rigid. The tentacles which had been waving crazily lost their momentum.

The kraken was on the brink of death, but a weird flame was burning brighter and brighter in the core part of the giant body.

“Swoosh!”

One of the wrinkles on the head of the kraken suddenly split, from which a grey figure spurted out and floated in the air, while it eyed Li Yao with utmost odium.

This figure was more than two meters tall, with four limbs and one head. The facial features, although warped, was still distinguishable. There was no hair whatsoever around its body, only a layer of scarce scales.

“Beep! Beep!”

The crystal processor of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit immediately retrieved information about the demon.

“Sang Hang, the 2722nd on the Deadly Demons List!”

He was good at mental attacks and possessed remarkable skills to escape through water. More importantly, he was good at breeding biochemical beasts based on all kinds of strong sea animals.

To breed the so-called biochemical beasts, the fetus of strong demons, and sometimes even demon kings, would be chosen and modified through all kinds of secret arts.

After the biochemical beasts grew up, they would possess enormous physical strength as well as a powerful brain, but with little self-awareness. The only thing that they were born with were the natural instincts to hunt and survive that were no different than ordinary animals’.

For the intelligent silver-blood demons, they could enter the biochemical beasts and connect their brains together so that the biochemical beasts would become their weapons in a battle, and their capability would be greatly enhanced.

Such a method would not only endow them with tremendous physical strength, but it entailed no risk of the backlash when the demon beasts were tamed by mental attacks.

Biochemical beasts were to silver-blood demons what crystal suits were to Cultivators.

It was much more difficult to breed a biochemical beast. But once it succeeded, the product was often much more powerful than common crystal suits.

Sang Hang was an expert in breeding sea biochemical beasts whose name was on the Deadly Demons List. Naturally, he was wise enough to look for information on his opponent with the two information bugs which were wriggling beside his earholes.

Sang Hai’s three round pupils suddenly constricted, as he gasped, “Vulture Li Yao, the 2833rd on the Stars to Destroy List!”

Sang Hai turned around and jumped at the ocean without any hesitation.

Although both of them were on each other’s must-kill list and ranked in similar places, he had remained in the position for quite a long time, since his capability had more or less reached its limit.

On the other hand, Vulture Li Yao was a brutal guy who had just entered the list a few months ago. He had slain quite a few renowned experts of the Blood Demon Sector in the competitions in Occult Orbs.

Besides, most of his capability hinged on his biochemical beast. Right now, his sharpest weapon had been broken off. The battle would not be in his favor if it were to continue.

Within a moment, Sang Hai was only ten meters away from the ocean.

As long as he entered the ocean, with his brilliant skills of water escaping, he was confident that even a Core Formation Stage Cultivator wouldn’t be unable to catch him.

But right at this moment, he suddenly felt that his body was lighter, and that he was about to lose balance.

All kinds of hallucinations were appearing in front of his eyes. He seemed to have become a small octopus which had been pinned to a chopping board and exposed to the scorching sun. The acute pain was beyond the description of any words.

Before he was able to get rid of the hallucinations, his body felt 72 dull pains caused by 72 deadly bullets which were rushing close from unpredictable angles.

Sang Hai deserved his name as a respected demon on the Deadly Demons List. Explosive sound waves were uttered from his mouth, which set all the bullets away off course momentarily.

His eyes suddenly blinked with intimidating brilliance. The illusions were torn to pieces immediately. ‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi, who was hiding in the bottom of the ocean, vomited blood because of the intense mental counterforce.

In the meantime, his body twisted weirdly as if it was swimming in the sea even though it was in the midair. Then, he turned around and fled out of the area in which gravity had been changed by Hong Tong.

In only several seconds, the fatal attacks from three enemies had been resolved by him easily.

Yet, before he was able to feel proud of himself, he fainted and almost fell off from the sky.

“What’s going on? I am… bleeding!”

Sang Hai was greatly shocked.

He had been lurking in the center of the brain of the kraken. Although Li Yao’s saber was too short to reach him, the blood aura had swept over his body.

Sang Hai had been complacent about his defenses. He wouldn’t be bothered by it even if a real saber cut his body. Therefore, he didn’t care about the sweeping blood aura at all.

But he didn’t know that the blood aura of the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber could trigger internal bleeding. Any living creature with a blood circulation system, be they human beings or demons, would be its victim!

He didn’t feel anything wrong just now. But the dodging movements in order to avoid the three formidable enemies’ attacks had almost exhausted his physical strength and mental power. The consequences of the previous injury were finally revealed!

0.1 seconds later, Sang Hai held back the bleeding by force and suppressed his dizziness.

But what he saw when his eyes were clear again were three dragon flames endowed with primitive, barbarian, and aggressive scents as if they’d crossed time and space from billions of years ago!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Running out of his strength, Sang Hai was hit by Ding Lingdang’s ‘Nona-colored Fire’ precisely.

After appreciating the dragon fossil day and night and training in the extreme battles through the Demon Slaughterhouse, Ding Lingdang had decorated her ‘Nona-colored Fire’ with an intense prehistoric scent that was nothing like how it had been several months ago.

After the attack hit its enemy, the spiritual energy raged out unstoppably like a torrent.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

The 72 bullets that had been affected by Sang Hai’s sound waves detoured and hit their target under the control of ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming’s telepathic thoughts.

These bullets had been refined by Li Yao whom he had made the request of after buying a large batch of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. With his proficient gunfighting skills, the bullets were ten times powerful more than previously.

“Gold Dissection!” ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming bellowed. Gold electric arcs were spluttering among the bullets, before they were suddenly lengthened and pierced into Sang Hai’s body like hundreds of sharp swords.

Sang Hai’s struggling body suddenly turned stiff.

There was no time for him to take any preventative actions. The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit had blinked behind his back. Exhaust flames as intimidating as tsunamis were gushing out from the power rune arrays. His speed and strength at maximum, the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber drew an almost perfect red arc, passing by Sang Hai’s neck in the blink of an eye!

The movement was so fast that the head stayed on the neck even though it had been cut off, which stopped the blood from spurting out. The brutality in the three eyes was completely gone.

The renowned demon Sang Hai on the Deadly Demons List had been killed by Li Yao and his teammates!

Chapter 387: Temple of Fallen Stars

“Huala!”

‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi jumped out of the ocean. Nine antennas covered in rings stood out from the disproportionately large head of his crystal suit, which projected his mental power that had been enhanced by dozens of times to the sky where it formed an impregnable dragnet.

A moment later, a translucent shadow appeared in the sky, dancing and dashing, only to be blocked by the vast, invisible net, before returning to Sang Hai’s head helplessly.

“Sang Hai’s soul has been pressed back to his dead body!” Ba Weiqi yelled.

Yan Yangtian, who had been hiding nearby all the time, leaped forward and slapped Sang Hai’s head, which was immediately frozen with frost flowers flourishing.

Emotionlessly, Yan Yangtian picked the frozen head, put it into a container, and placed it in her Cosmos Ring.

Since Sang Hai was one of the three thousand deadly demons, he must be aware of much confidential information about the Blood Demon Sector. The secret arts that he employed to breed biochemical beasts would also be a great help to the study of life science in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

He had been executed neatly. His brain cells were all intact; his demon soul failed to run away. After the team returned to the Heaven’s Origin Sector, many research-type Cultivators would be able to make him confess every secret buried inside his brain.

“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

At this moment, more than ten earthshaking explosions took place deep down the ocean in the far ahead. The fireball soared to the sky and dyed the gloom into redness.

The sea biochemical beasts breeding base that the Blood Demon Sector had established deep under the ocean had been detonated by four Star Teams.

Letting out a long sigh of relief, Li Yao watched the kraken’s dead body floating up and down in the dark swirls moving toward the depths of the ocean, knowing that a potential hazard had been removed successfully.

Had Occult Orbs Fellowship not discovered the secret base in time, the demon clan would’ve been able to throw the eggs of the biochemical beasts into the sea of the Heaven’s Origin Sector where they would have grown up over ten to twenty years without anybody noticing anything wrong. At the right timing, a demon squad could’ve snuck into the Heaven’s Origin Sector and appeared in the seashore of the Star Glory Federation reining those biochemical beasts, locking the ports and cutting off transportation… The consequences would’ve been calamitous.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

More than ten streaks of brightness dashed toward them, which were the other Orb Patrollers taking part in this collaborative mission.

Seeing the twitching dead body in the air which was still surrounded by intense demonic energy even though it had lost it head, all the Orb Patrollers were dumbfounded, and it was not until five seconds later that then finally gasped in disbelief.

They might have demolished the breeding base of the demon clan, but Team Blue Bronze had slain a well-known expert on the Deadly Demons List!

It seemed that Team Blue Bronze would receive the most contribution points again!

But no one had any complaints.

They were a hundred percent sure that they could destroy the breeding base of sea biochemical beasts, but they had no faith whatsoever that they could kill Sang Hai and were not even willing to give it a try.

Team Blue Bronze had become the best team of the outside-world Orb Patrollers!

…

“Chi!”

Four seriously damaged star shuttles stopped at the end of the star rails.

Members of Team Blue Bronze walked out of their star shuttle with their heads held high, surrounded by staff that were almost five times as many as before.

Many research-type Cultivators had learnt of the news in advance. They were waiting outside to get the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures retrieved from the Occult Orb and the head of the deadly demon, so that they could begin their study sooner.

Right now, Team Blue Bronze had been well acknowledged as a first-tier team.

Other than Li Yao, Ding Lingdang and Captain Hong Tong had appeared on the Deadly Demons List, too, which meant that they were considered by the demon clan to belong to the three thousand most dangerous people of the Star Glory Federation which had a population of almost ten billion.

Captain Hong Tong ranked the 2321st, while Ding Lingdang ranked the 2904th.

Three members of a team were on the Stars to Destroy List. It indicated that the personnel of the team were neatly organized. There was no significant drawback. Even if the team suffered great damage in a battle, in which one or two main members perished, the capability of the team wouldn’t be entirely lost.

After handing in the trophies obtained from the mission in Ghost Ocean and submitting the mission videos, they asked the mainframe crystal processor to reevaluate the capability of the team.

According to the accomplishments and the personal strength of the team members, the system soon calculated their rank.

11th on the Rank of Stars!

Seeing their new rank, all the members of Team Blue Bronze had complicated feelings, especially the four old members including Captain Hong Tong.

“After Captain Yin perished, we never expected that we could return to the top 20 of the Rank of Stars within a year after the pillar of the team had died. Our comprehensive score is only one step away from 10th!”

Staring at the light beam, Hong Tong’s eyes turned reddish while tears were brewing. He remarked, “Li Yao, Lingdang, thanks to you, Team Blue Bronze has been revived!”

“Captain, we’ve been through life and death together enough times to drop the civilities.”

Li Yao smiled and said, “Ding Lingdang and I always feel lucky that we chose Team Blue Bronze, too, because this is the place where we can bring out the best of what we are! It’s needless to say anything else. There are ten days to go before the candidate teams eligible for the secret operation are to be announced by Occult Orbs. We must reach the top ten by then!”

“Correct!”

Hong Tong calmed himself down. His eyes regained sharpness, while he said in a low voice, “Everything is in vain if we cannot arrive in the top ten of the Rank of Stars. We’ve been pushing ourselves for three months. There are only ten days to go. We must overcome the barrier in front of us, no matter how hard it seems!

“Only after we enter the top ten of the Rank of Stars will we qualify to receive the enlightenment of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and accept their spiritual seeds.

“Of the six of us, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang are still young and full of potentials, while the rest of us are almost fixed, our potential running dry, although we are at the middle level and high level of the Building Foundation Stage.

“Without undergoing fortuitous events and just by training normally, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang may need dozens of years in order to break into the Core Formation Stage, if they are unbelievably lucky.

“As for the four of us, we don’t stand a chance at all.

“But, spiritual seeds! With the help of the spiritual seeds of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, we will be bestowed an opportunity to experience the higher level and form our cores! Li Yao and Ding Lingdang’s training time will be greatly saved. It will take less than ten years for them to form their cores!

“Not to mention that exploring the unseen Ultimacy is the highest honor for us Cultivators. If we set off on the expedition, our names will be left in the history books of the Star Glory Federation!

“Even if I have to die, I will stab my bones deeply into the earth of Ultimacy!”

Hong Tong’s speech triggered countless thoughts in everyone’s hearts.

From the ancient time to nowadays, millions of Cultivators had been seeking the path to immortality, but none of them had ever succeeded.

For some of them, not only were their bodies rotten, the innocent also fell victim to their attempts. Even the world had once been on the verge of dilapidation. They and their descendants were doomed and cursed for all eternity.

However, although bodies may cease to exist, spirits could live forever. The names of all the Cultivators would be indelible in the magnificent history of the Star Glory Federation.

As long as the Star Glory Federation lived on, these Cultivators would be immortal!

When the Star Glory Federation expanded into the universe, their names would be spread to every corner of the sea of stars!

As modern Cultivators, this was the supreme immortality that they were pursuing and willing to die for!

“I suggest that we take a three-day rest, and that 80% of the contribution points be allocated to Li Yao, who then will purchase secret treasures for all of us, so that our magical equipment can be fully upgraded again. After that, we will carry out the most risky and difficult mission in order to reach the top ten of the Rank of Stars!”

Captain Hong Tong waved his hand fervently.

Yet, his teammates didn’t answer to his declaration as enthusiastically as he’d expected, because they were gazing at the light beam behind him in bewilderment.

Hong Tong was surprised and turned back, only to notice that the Rank of Stars was changing violently while Team Blue Bronze jumped upward to…

10th of the Rank of Stars!

Then, they heard shocking exclamations from the chitchatting Orb Patrollers nearby.

Soon, the latest news popped up at the bottom of the light beam. Everybody’s eyes were stung by the blood red.

“Team Dragon Slayers, originally 6th in the Rank of Stars, was ambushed by the demon clan during a mission in Forest Sea; there were no survivors. All six members, including the captain who ranked 2441st on the Stars to Destroy List, have perished!”

…

Ten days later, in the Temple of Fallen Stars, a building of solemnity and reverence in front of the central square of Empyreal Star City.

During the ten days, Team Blue Bronze had poured all the resources available to purchase a large batch of secret treasures. They had also completed another mission, securing tenth place on the Rank of Stars to this day and leaving no chance for the Star Teams behind to catch up to them.

Explorations of the Occult Orbs were extremely perilous endeavors. Orb Patrollers died every month.

In the middle of each month, all the Orb Patrollers in Empyreal Star City would congregate in the Temple of Fallen Stars to pay their respects to the Orb Patrollers who were gone.

Over the past few months, the resource competition between the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector had gotten fiercer and fiercer.

Many names on the Deadly Demons List had been eradicated.

On the other hand, thirty-one Orb Patrollers had fallen, including Team Dragon Slayers which had been eliminated as a team. It was a great loss for Occult Orbs Fellowship.

Therefore, the Temple of Fallen Stars was extraordinarily grave today.

In the temple, Li Yao bowed to the 3D portraits of the Cultivators who’d passed away over the last month deferentially three times, left the line, and mourned silently, with mixed feelings rolling over in his heart.

Although the accident of Team Dragon Slayers had emptied room for Team Blue Bronze to return to the top 10 of the Ranks of Stars effortlessly, it was not a result that Li Yao desired.

On one hand, reaching the top ten in such a way felt like cheating.

On the other hand, although Team Dragon Slayers was exclusively made of Children of Occult Orbs and they’d never seen eye to eye with Team Blue Bronze, they were Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector after all. The conflicts between them seemed trivial when a war concerning the future of the human race was drawing near.

Li Yao couldn’t help but feel sad for the demise of so many fellow Orb Patrollers.

Seeing from the 3D portraits the vivid figures, some of whom had been training with him, some of whom had been on the same mission as him, and still some of whom had asked him to modify magical equipment for them, Li Yao was clenching his fists tighter and tighter.

Chapter 388: Best Warriors, Three Nascent Souls!

“Today is the day when the secret operation will be revealed. The top ten teams on the Rank of Stars are all here!” Captain Hong Tong said softly.

Li Yao retreated his gaze and glanced around.

The super teams ranking in top ten usually wouldn’t stay too long in Empyreal Star City. They were either in an Occult Orb or on their way to one. So, Team Blue Bronze had barely seen them in reality before.

However, Li Yao had watched their mission videos hundreds of times to learn lessons from them. Therefore, he recognized them without any trouble.

Team Nine Cauldrons, whose six members were all above the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage. Their melee combat ability was the best in Occult Orbs Fellowship.

Team Permanent Apparition. Four out of its six members were adept at mental attacks; they could make their enemy’s brain crumble without drawing their weapons.

Team White Fang. All six of its members were gun experts who were best at gunfighting. Once their fire net took form, even a demon king might be minced instantly.

Of course, there was also Team Thunder Soul led by Yan Jun, the first on the Rank of Stars for an entire year and the unquestionable king of Occult Orbs Fellowship.

While Li Yao was eyeing the other nine teams, they were also observing him quietly.

Team Blue Bronze was once a top 5 team. Its return was not very surprising. The old members such as Hong Tong and Ba Weiqi were all skilled Orb Patrollers whose capabilities were well acknowledged.

On the other hand, the eye-opening performance of the two newcomers, namely Vulture Li Yao and Inferno Witch Ding Lingdang, had attracted the attention of quite a few Orb Patrollers and Cultivation sects.

It was going to take a long time before two worlds were fully merged. According to the astronomers, the process could be as protracted as twenty or even thirty years.

Since the development levels of the two worlds were similar to each other, there was a good chance that neither of them would be able to defeat its nemesis before the final war, not without some extremely lucky accidents.

Which meant that this war could linger on for decades.

The young Cultivators who were full of potential such as Li Yao and Ding Lingdang might still be at the beginning level or middle level of the Building Foundation Stage at present. But after twenty to thirty years of training and killing, they would likely become first-rate experts as long as they were lucky enough to not get killed.

While the two parties were spotting each other, a breeze without any sign started drifting inside the temple.

In the blink of an eye, three shadows appeared in front of the temple before they consolidated, as if they’d been standing there the whole time.

Li Yao was entirely refreshed. The real experts were here!

On the left, it was a bald, athletic man more than two meters tall. His bulging muscles left the illusion that his black tuxedo was one size too slim and that it was going to be torn apart at any time. There was an extremely tiny flying sword on his back, which was so small that it looked like a child’s toy.

For a muscular man of his height and weight, it was only reasonable that he wielded chainswords that were two meters or even three meters long. Yet, his weapon was a flying sword that had a length of no more than twenty centimeters, which was like an iron toothpick compared to his appearance. The contrast was somewhat hilarious.

The one in the middle was a plain-looking old man who was wearing ordinary clothes. The drowsy countenance and the messy grey hair could be found everywhere in a town on the retired old men who were idling around every day.

On the right, it was a graceful, middle-aged lady. Since they were here to pay respect to the sacrificed warriors, she was wearing a white dress, naturally bringing an air that she was an angle who did not belong to this world.

The auras of the three experts were locked into their body without any bit being leaked out. But still, one could feel the overwhelming dominance from them. This must be what the poets called ‘traceless suppression’.

“Nascent Soul! Three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators!”

Li Yao’s eyes were full of passion. He was thinking of holding up his eyelids with his fingers, so that he wouldn’t miss anything that the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators said or did.

In the entire Heaven’s Origin Sector, there were only a few dozen Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, and less than a thousand Core Formation Stage Cultivators.

Among the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, there were fewer than ten battle-type Cultivators. Most of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were admin-type and research-type Cultivators.

After all, the advancement of battle-type Cultivators often required fierce combat. Their death rate was far higher than the death rate of Cultivators of other types.

The three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were all Councilors of Occult Orbs Fellowship. Li Yao had paid a great many contribution points for their tutorial videos before. Therefore, he recognized them instantly.

They were all battle-type Cultivators!

A third of the best warriors of the Heaven’s Origin Sector were standing right in front of him!

In veneration and deference, Li Yao held his breath and recalled the stories about the three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

The inconspicuous messy old man in the middle was ‘Iron God’ Yan Ba, known as the best body practitioner in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, who was the former leader of Marvelous Fist Sect and also a ‘body fundamentalist’ that despised all sorts of magical equipment and resorted to nothing but his own fists during combat.

Li Yao had studied one of his combat videos before, in which he beat a demon king to death bare-handed in less than five seconds. Li Yao had to admit that his fists were the most formidable weapons in the world, sharper than any magical equipment could ever be.

The middle-aged lady on the right was ‘Sevenfold Dreams’ Meng Weiyang, a hybrid-type Cultivator both talented in combat and culture.

She was a Grand Illusionist, one of the most mysterious professions in the world of Cultivators. She was best at creating an illusionary wonderland with her pen in which her enemy would be trapped in endless scenes dominated by the rules written by her.

The bald, muscular man on the left who was using a weapon that was the very opposite of his size had a nickname that was equally in discordance to his stature—’Sand’.

‘Sand’ Sha Tianqing, 192 years old, founder of ‘School of Sand’.

‘School of Sand’ was also known as ‘Quicksand’. It was not a real sect but a regularly-held seminar where Cultivators of different sects with similar beliefs gathered together and exchanged their ideas and thoughts.

Cultivators participating in the School of Sand maintained that speed was the decisive factor for strength. As long as the speed was high enough, a grain of sand was enough to kill a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator!

Therefore, magical equipment, mystic rays, and all other trivial technologies were all unnecessary. There was one and only one thing that School of Sand studied, which was how to accelerate an ordinary item to a super-high speed beyond limits.

As a result, School of Sand was also known as ‘School of Acceleration’. Some of the believers even held that, when its momentum broke the ultimate limit, a grain of sand could blow a planet into pieces effortlessly, let alone Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

Of course, it was a different matter entirely to keep the sand intact at such high speeds.

Although countless Cultivators had openly declared that the principles of School of Sand were nothing but a joke, none of them ever dared to look down upon Sha Tianqing himself. In quarrels as to what ‘the right path of Cultivation’ was, Sha Tianqing had proved his theories time and time again with the extraordinary speed of the ordinary-looking flying sword on his back.

The appearance of the three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators cast the entire temple into an odd silence. Everyone was staring at them with passion and admiration like Li Yao.

The three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators paid respect to the sacrificed Orb Patrollers solemnly first. After mourning in silence for one minute, they turned around and glanced over the crowd with sharp eyes.

Meng Weiyang said seriously, “Three months ago, Occult Orbs Fellowship proclaimed a secret operation which required ten candidate teams. The teams we choose will receive the unreserved enlightenment of the Nine Councilors of Occult Orbs Fellowship as well as Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

“I believe most of you have heard of a thing or two about the secret operation. We’re about to commence the exploration of Ultimacy!

“According to our latest intelligence, the Blood Demon Sector is also pouring all the resources they have into the construction of an unprecedented super teleportation array named ‘Eye of Blood Demon’. In the meantime, they have been winnowing out the promising princes and nobles from all the demon kingdoms, building up the candidates’ bodies with the cruelest, bloodiest methods, and preparing to send them to Ultimacy.

“What I’m saying is that the Orb Patrollers taking part in the mission to Ultimacy will most likely be engaged with the most formidable enemies in history.

“The opportunities and dangers have been stated clearly to you. If any of you wishes to withdraw, please step back so that the subsequent teams can fill up your place. If you’ve made up your mind, the mission to Ultimacy will officially begin now!”

…

One day later, in a rocky valley three hundred kilometers away from Empyreal Star City…

Six military bases were in the periphery, with countless flying sword positions and surface-to-air defense rune arrays. There were even more than a hundred crystal warships stationed in this area.

Inside the valley, there was a giant crater almost five hundred meters in diameters. The inner wall of the crater was as smooth as a mirror, as if it had been made of glass. The entire pit seemed to be a result of a gargantuan meteorite.

Passing multiple checkpoints, a few crystal airships flew toward the crater.

With his nose pressed firmly against the cabin window, Li Yao observed the crater carefully.

The closer he got, the more he was impressed by the splendor of the crater. It gave the feeling that he was an ant crawling in an enormous pan.

When he was five hundred meters from it, he noticed that the wall of the crater was covered in runes the size of a palm.

To cover such a giant crater with such small runes, what a marvelous project it was!

In the middle of the crater was a hole more than ten meters in diameter leading to the deep underground, which made the crater look somewhat like a funnel.

Li Yao could vaguely feel the furious spiritual waves of the fire class being emitted from the depths of the funnel.

“This is the super teleportation array that can send Cultivators to Ultimacy nearly ten thousand lightyears away, our Heaven’s Artillery.”

Standing at the front of the cabin, Meng Weiyang said proudly, “Since the scale of the teleportation array was too large and the star rails demanded are too long, it is impossible to fix the problem regarding the hardness of star rails and the spiritual energy supply on the ground. Therefore, the Heaven’s Artillery has been established under the ground.

“The pit you can see right now is the silo of the Heaven’s Artillery.

“We chose this valley because there is a very active magma belt underground. It is filled with intense spiritual energy and is desperate to rush to the surface.

“Transformed by tens of thousands of rune arrays, the furious fiery spiritual energy has become pure and stable which will be used to activate the Heaven’s Artillery. When the time comes, the star shuttle will be launched by a volcanic eruption!”

Chapter 389: My Cup of Tea

“However, the underground magma belt does not explode every day. According to the specialists, it goes into its medium eruptive state every half month and its super eruptive state every half a year.

“The next super eruptive state is coming in one and a half months from now. Only with the energy released from the big magma explosion can the Heaven’s Artillery be full activated to fire five star shuttles to Ultimacy.”

Meng Weiyang went into even greater detail.

The federal government was planning to select five out of the top ten Star Teams as the first batch of explorers. They would cruise through the sea of stars in one and a half months’ time, travelling a distance of almost ten thousand lightyears for the first time ever in history.

But since Ultimacy was too far away from the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the spiritual connection between the star shuttles and their homeland would be quite feeble after they were launched. In no more than 24 hours, the connection would be lost.

Therefore, the five star shuttles setting off on the journey were not recoverable. The thirty Orb Patrollers would have to persist by themselves for one month in Ultimacy.

One month later, with the energy of a medium magma explosion, the Heaven’s Artillery could be activated to 50%, which was not enough to launch manned star shuttles but more than capable of sending five empty star shuttles over.

The thirty Orb Patrollers would have to locate the five empty star shuttles within the next day and return to the Heaven’s Origin Sector through them.

As for the five eliminated Star Teams, they would be second-tier candidates to explore Ultimacy again half a year later when the magma belt entered the super eruptive state again.

Listening to the briefing from Meng Weiyang, everyone in the cabin put on impatient, aggressive expressions. Orb Patrollers from different Star Teams were eyeing each other with unmistakable hostility.

“Five out of ten. It’s going to be a fierce competition.”

Ding Lingdang spoke to Li Yao in a low voice, full of eagerness.

Li Yao was not as light-hearted as her.

None of the top ten teams would be easy to cope with. Everybody was fighting for the supreme honor with all they had.

They were currently at the tenth place. It was almost their limit. Any step upward would be extremely difficult.

An Orb Patroller from Team White Fang raised his hand and asked, “Councilor Meng, I would like to ask, what kind of training will we receive in the coming month, and how will the final examination be conducted?”

Meng Weiyang answered emotionlessly, “In order to give you the abilities needed to survive at least one month in Ultimacy against the best elites of the Blood Demon Sector, Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators will teach you in person for the coming month.

“However, the capability of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators is often unfathomable. Even their true disciples may not be able to learn much from them in a year, not to mention that you only have one month of time.

“If possible, we would like very much to give you another half year and keep you studying until then.

“But times waits for no one. ‘Eye of Blood Demon’, the super teleportation array of the Blood Demon Sector, is almost completed. It is estimated that the first teleportation will be performed very soon.

“If we wait until the next year, the demon clan will have stolen all the treasures in Ultimacy by then.

“Therefore, we have to make do with whatever we have.

“To improve your strength as much as possible and as shortly as possible for you to become the strongest Building Foundation Stage Cultivators in the history of the Star Glory Federation, Occult Orbs Fellowship has specially initiated a special training facility from the Star Ocean Imperium.

“This training facility can retrieve the most impressive memory pieces from the brains of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, transform them into oceans of information, and inject them into your brains, while keeping all the telepathic thoughts inside intact.

“As long as you are able to digest and absorb the knowledge, you will be blessed with a short memory fragment of a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator. You will be able to feel what they felt and experience what they have experienced!

“But I need to remind you that memory fragments of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators are made of extremely fierce mental power which is too dangerous for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators such as yourselves, even with the protection of the training facility.

“It is almost like feeding a three-year-old with roasted beef. The child is very likely to be killed by the tasteful food.

“Of course, the most proficient doctors of the Star Glory Federation have been summoned here. All kinds of strengthening drugs cooked by Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures will be at your disposal. But the odds are still high that you will be seriously damaged by the foreign intrusion. In better-case scenarios, your brain might be injured, and your Cultivation will drop a lot; in worse-case scenarios, your brain cells could be entirely destroyed, and you will fall into a vegetative state!

“So, I’m going to repeat my words. It’s still not too late to go back right now. If you are not determined to make it to the end, you’d better not waste the resources of Occult Orbs Fellowship as well as your own life!

“This is both a training session and a match. In one month, the first batch of Star Teams to go on the expedition to Ultimacy will be nominated according to the progress of your memory absorption and your comprehensive capability!”

Meng Weiyang’s words immediately raised whispers inside the cabin.

Grasping the combat experience and teachings of a higher-level Cultivator by transmitting memories between brains and reading the memories of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators directly…

This unbelievable method of training was indeed risky, but the potential gains were enormous, too.

Everyone was half worried and half delighted, worried that their brains might be damaged to the point of loss of consciousness, and delighted at Meng Weiyang’s declaration about them becoming the strong Building Foundation Stage Cultivators in the history of the Star Glory Federation.

Li Yao was the only exception. His face was so outlandish that he seemed to have stuffed an egg into his mouth. He was not sure about what to feel.

‘Training by absorbing memories? Are you serious?

‘Just my cup of tea!’

The rest of Team Blue Bronze, on the other hand, were quite grave. Hong Tong frowned and said, “Memory transmission? It seems that the giants of the Heaven’s Origin Sector are indeed trying to do their best for the trip to Ultimacy!”

It was not hard to understand that the memories of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, which were their most precious property, might only be available for their blood descendants. Even their true disciples might not have the privilege of enjoying them.

If it were in a different scenario, the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators wouldn’t bother to think about it even if someone offered tens of billions for them.

Captain Hong Tong had heard a thing or two about the memory transmission facility from the Star Ocean Imperium before.

It was said that the facility was one of Occult Orbs Fellowship’s greatest treasures ever retrieved, and it took ten years to transport the facility from an Occult Orb back to the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Every time it was to be used, it would require a huge amount of precious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and an astronomical number of crystals.

It was not an exaggeration to say that, every minute it was functioning, the cost was equivalent to a crystal tank being burnt to the ground.

The Cultivators and the federal government were indeed generous this time.

“It is said that the process of memory transmission through the facility can be so excruciating that even Cultivators find it hard to resist. Many of them withdraw half way through it. Not to mention that the procedure can be quite dangerous anyway.

“Li Yao, the top ten Star Teams are mostly middle-level and high-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators. Very few of their members are at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage. Your Cultivation is the lowest of all.

“Although your battle experience is quite abundant, and you are an excellent Exo, which allows you to stand up to opponents at the middle level or even high level of the Building Foundation Stage, memory transmission depends more on the solidness of your soul and the hardness and broadness of your brain. It is a hardcore battle devoid of any tricks. Don’t be too greedy.

“Over the next month, you should try your best to digest and absorb one memory piece of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator.

“If you have extra time and vigor, you may consider absorbing a second piece. But don’t go any further than that. Otherwise, I’m afraid it will be too much for your brain, and you might lose your mind because of that!”

Hong Tong spoke solemnly.

Li Yao was the most irreplaceable member in the team right now. Many tactics wouldn’t work without him. If he went crazy, Team Blue Bronze would lose all hope.

Li Yao’s lips moved, as he was planning to defend himself. But on second thought, he realized that cheap talk wouldn’t mean anything, and that it would be best if he could try this ‘memory transmission facility’ first before making any empty promises.

Li Yao smiled and replied sincerely, “I will do what I can, no more and no less, captain. I will eat until my stomach is full and stop there. I won’t be greedy.”

Three hours later, 61 Orb Patrollers, including Li Yao, arrived at the depths of the facility after thorough physical examinations.

What they saw was a vast training base that could almost be called an underground palace. It had been constructed for the mission to Ultimacy.

Other than fully-equipped training rooms, a few Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators had also set up their villas nearby, where they had been living for a long time in preparation for the likely assaults that the demon clan would launch against the Heaven’s Artillery.

Li Yao walked into a training room which was decorated in pure white. The door closed quietly behind him, leaving no trace on the wall at all. The room seemed to be an enclosed eggshell right now.

For the next month, he would be training in this place.

In the middle of the training room was a capsule that looked like a giant cocoon. It was filled with bright green liquid with a vague, cheesy aroma.

Taking off his clothes, Li Yao stepped into the capsule in his mustard suit that was as thin as the wings of a cicada. He slowly lowered himself into the strengthening drug. It flowed through his nasal cavity into his body, but his breathing was not blocked at all. If anything, it was more permeable and comfortable than before.

Thousands of silver threads crowded around him from various directions and covered him gently.

Over his head, the silver threads formed complicated patterns.

On Li Yao’s retina, almost a hundred pictures appeared weirdly, each with a large introductory paragraph beside it.

There were almost a hundred memory fragments from Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. The trainees were allowed to pick them according to their specialties, interests, and personal strength.

For the memory pieces of daily training, they contained relatively less information, and their shock to the brain would be less.

But for the memory pieces which included fierce combats, the information contained inside could be as rampageous as raging flood. They would cause severe shock to the brain.

Holding his breath, Li Yao glanced over all the pictures and selected the first memory piece shortly after.

It was a memory piece that recorded a dangerous combat that ‘Iron God’ Yan Ba was engaged in when he’d just broken into the Nascent Soul Stage. The data contained inside was tremendous. It was extremely difficult and risky to absorb!

Something hummed inside Li Yao’s brain, while a line of white words popped up on his retina.

“Orb Patroller Li Yao, you are now at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage. Absorbing a combat memory piece with vast information streams such as the one you are picking can pose a serious threat to your brain and may even lead to mental derangement. Are you sure you want to take this memory piece?”

“I am!”

Chapter 390: Astonished Nascent Souls

In the center of the underground training base, there was a gigantic control center where almost ten thousand blinking light beams were floating in the air.

Meng Weiyang, Sha Tianqing, and Yan Ba, three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, were observing the constantly-changing pictures solemnly.

In some of the light beams, the 61 Orb Patrollers were soaking in the strengthening drugs, holding their breath, and meditating.

The light beams around those ones displayed the status of their muscles, nerves, veins, and bones layer by layer as if the scenes had been shot using a fluoroscope.

Complicated data was pouring on still other light beams, which displayed the vital signs of the Orb Patrollers. They even included the change of hardness of the Orb Patrollers’ cells.

If anyone went senseless, they would be treated within the next half second.

After all, transmitting memory pieces of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators into the brains of Building Foundation Stage Cultivators could be really unsafe.

The process almost equaled to inputting the bloody battle memories of a seasoned special forces soldier into the brain of an infant.

The most likely outcome was not that the infant would be given abundant experiences, but that the infant would go insane on the spot!

Therefore, behind the three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, dozens of Core Formation Stage Cultivators were working busily. Quite a few research-type Core Formation Stage Cultivators were paying close attention to the body status and the brain cell activities of the Orb Patrollers. A large batch of doctors, nutritionists, and training planners were also standing by.

Standing behind them was the higher-ups of the military and dozens of members of parliament, who were all experienced experts too.

Almost one fifth of all the troops of the Star Glory Federation had been deployed in this place.

The mission to Ultimacy concerned the destiny of the federation as well as the entire sector. If the Blood Demon Sector retrieved any planetary magical equipment, or even stellar magical equipment, everyone here would be screwed.

The dire consequences had prompted the federal government to invest all the resources available into the edification of the strongest Building Foundation Stage Cultivators in history.

“Dangerous. It’s too dangerous. After one month of training, I’m afraid many of them will go crazy. The souls of some of them may be broken and get them killed instantly,” Iron God Yan Ba said in a low voice, not expressing his emotions, but stating a fact.

Sha Tianqing, the bald, muscular man, replied calmly, “But the real elites will have an opportunity to truly distinguish themselves, too. There’s no second way other than this that can improve the capability of a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator up to a peak that is unreachable in history.

“The exploration of Ultimacy is a risky mission in itself that will probably have an unimaginably high death rate. If they go crazy here, they can be given the best treatment quickly, but if they are incapable when they are engaged with the elite demons in Ultimacy, they will possibly be killed without leaving any traces.”

“Old Sha is correct. As long as half of them can pass the test and devour three to five of our memory pieces, the odds of success of the mission will be increased by at least 17%,” Meng Weiyang said factually. “As for the top experts at the Building Foundation Stage such as Yan Jun, they may even be able to absorb more than ten memory pieces. If so, they will be the key to victory in Ultimacy!”

Yan Ba nodded. The Building Foundation Stage Cultivators in the high level or at the peak, including Yan Jun, were their priority targets.

At this moment, 61 Orb Patrollers started selecting the memory piece that they wanted to read.

“Beep! Beep!”

Dozens of light beams were suddenly in red.

A Cultivator in the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage was applying for a Level 2 battle-related memory fragment.

In order to produce the best Building Foundation Stage Cultivators for the mission to Ultimacy, the Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector spared no effort. 24 Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators provided more than two hundred memory fragments in total.

Some of them were their daily training or research, while some others were battles that they had been engaged in.

But the memory fragments that involved battles were of different danger levels. Some of them were just scenes of them slaughtering low-level demon beasts like a lion hunting rabbits, which were relatively easier to take in. But some of them were the memories of them struggling on the verge of death after being besieged by formidable enemies.

According to the amount of information and the potential danger, the memory pieces were classified into ten levels.

Level-2 memory pieces were already hazardous enough.

The three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator looked at each other, but they didn’t stop the Cultivator’s reckless choice. They simply asked the doctors and the research-type Core Formation Stage Cultivators to focus more attention on the guy.

The mission of Ultimacy was the largest strategic gamble in the history of the Star Glory Federation. It was filled with uncertainties by itself.

If the Building Foundation Stage Cultivator wished to make a bold attempt, of course, they would fully support it. The choice was indeed a dangerous one, but if everyone retreated when they were faced with danger, how could they ever sail through the sea of stars and fight their way forward ten thousand lightyears away?

“Breathing, normal. Heartbeat, normal. Intensity of brain waves, normal. Functioning of spiritual energy, normal. Loading the memory piece!”

“Progress: 33%… 46%… 77%…”

“Not good. The intensity of brain waves is growing way too fast. It’s soaring out of the normal range!”

“His spiritual energy is too violent. It’s a sign of loss of control over the body!”

“Breathing in disorder! Cardiac arrest! Nerve reactions partly lost! The brain has been damaged. We’re losing him!”

“Hurry up, stop the memory transmission of Orb Patroller No. 33 and implement the No. 9 treatment plan! Prepare first aid!”

Everyone saw from the light beam that water was splashing from the capsule inside the No. 33 training room. Someone was cramping inside. Two arms whose veins were bulging waved crazily in the air for a moment, before they fell into the liquid helplessly.

The hundred light beams monitoring the status of this Orb Patroller all turned red, while a blood red line popped up in the main light beam.

“Memory transmission, failed!”

Weak sighs could be heard all around the control center.

The special training had started for less than ten minutes, and an Orb Patroller had gone crazy. It was certainly not a good omen.

Yet, the three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were entirely emotionless. Even their eyelashes did not move at all. They stared at other light beams without any expression.

“Beep! Beep!”

Another hundred light beams were glittering in dangerous redness, in a frequency that was twice than previously.

Another Building Foundation Stage Cultivator had selected a memory piece that was supposed to be unbearable for him.

What he selected was a Level-1 battle-related memory piece which was the riskiest of all!

Everyone in the control center gasped. All the doctors and research-type Cultivators started taking reactions according to the rehearsal.

“Focus on the No. 59 training room!”

“Attention, everyone! A memory transmission with an estimated failure rate of 95% is about to commence. Be prepared for possible brain injuries!”

“Memory transmission begins. Progress: 25%… 59%… 74%…”

“Heartbeat rate, 338% of normal. Brain cell activity, 453% of normal. Both are still on the rise! Major fluctuations of spiritual energy! He is about to lost consciousness!”

“Brain cell activity, 588%! 689%! Growing, still growing!”

“Dear lord!”

“What… Check the monitoring equipment right now and see if there’s anything wrong with it. The data does not fit his vital signs at all!”

“According to the figures, Orb Patroller No. 59 should’ve gone into the vegetative state long ago! His brain should’ve been burnt to ash already!”

“His brain cell activity has been upgraded to 758%. Even many Core Formation Stage Cultivators would not be able to do that. But he is only a Cultivator in the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage.”

“Judging from the twitching of his nerve endings, he is in excruciating pain right now. But his breath and heartbeat are both stabilized at the 500% level and working in a normal state!”

“Memory transmission progress, 84%… 95%… The velocity is steady!”

“Memory transmission completed!”

“How could that be!”

“Every piece of data about the Cultivator indicates that he should be in a state of insanity. But he didn’t go crazy. He entered the Level-1 battle-related memory piece and is absorbing it rapidly!”

The unimaginable figures changed the color on everyone’s face. The doctors and specialists, who seemed to have everything under their control a moment ago, were in a flurry now.

The three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators stared at the light beam with their full attention. The series of data was hopping and glistening in the depths of their pupils.

“What’s the name of Orb Patroller No. 59? Which sect is he from? Who are his parents?”

Soon, all the files on Orb Patroller No. 59 were filtered and projected to a new light beam, which was then enlarged by ten times so that everyone could see it clearly.

“Parents of Orb Patroller No. 59 are not Cultivators. He is an orphan, and he comes from the Grand Desolate War Institution!”

“His name is Li Yao!”

…

Li Yao was not aware that many people had been greatly shocked by his insane brain cell activity and his monster-like nervous system and that even a few Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were interested in him, because he had entered the memory piece of ‘Iron God’ Yan Ba’s fiercest battle.

He had selected Yan Ba after thorough consideration.

Yan Ba had never used any kind of magical equipment. As the most obstinate ‘body fundamentalist’, he was the very opposite of Li Yao who was a skilled refiner and utilized magical equipment to secure victories.

Many of the memory fragments available for Li Yao included experts wielding their powerful magical equipment in battles. Several of them were even the scenes of the best refiners at the Nascent Soul Stage refining marvelous magical equipment.

However, Li Yao had been walking on the path of combining ancient methodologies with modern ones. A huge bunch of memory pieces from Ou Yezi had already been stored inside his brain. He did not intend to introduce memory pieces from someone else in case there were conflicts.

As a refiner who had crafted many kinds of powerful magical equipment before, he knew best the feeling when his magical equipment that he relied on turned unusable.

Ultimacy was an Occult Orb that no one had ever stepped on before. No one could foresee what kind of danger was lurking there. In those extreme conditions, he might lose all the magical equipment that he deemed necessary. He did not intend to just wait to be killed in such a scenario.

Therefore, he might as well swallow some memory pieces from the body fundamentalists based on his amazing body toughness and learn how to fight his battles without the help of any magical equipment!

The environment was blurred, all the details gone. He lost his body, while part of his soul was attached to Iron God Yan Ba. He could feel clearly Yan Ba’s thoughts, tactical plans, and even his anxiety.

Torrents of information were on a rampage inside his brain.

Li Yao’s brain had been expanded by the ocean of memory fragments from Ou Yezi. Absorbing memory pieces had become a daily routine for him, like eating and drinking.

The memory of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator pricked his brain. But he got used to it very quickly.

In front of him, or rather, in front of Iron God Yan Ba, was a hideous behemoth hundreds of meters long that looked like a huge mountain!

Chapter 391: Primeval Force!

The appearance of the mountain-like beast was between that of a living creature and that of an enormous rock. Rugged stones were everywhere on its black body. The shell between the rocks was scattered with crossing ravines, from which scorching venom was flowing. At first look, they seemed like magma from the underground.

What was more terrible was the ten or so black lumps growing on the two sides of the spine of the beast. They were fluctuating and spurting red venom with a temperature of thousands of degrees, as if dozens of volcanoes were erupting at the same time.

The hundreds of square meters nearby were a burning hell enshrouded in black smoke and pungent smell of sulfur.

This mountainous beast was a volcano beast!

It was impossible for such an appalling demon beast to be born naturally.

It was actually a biochemical beast that the demon scientists procreated based on dozens of strong demon beasts after thousands of years of evolution, mutation and metamorphosis.

Since the metabolism of their body was too fast and their life was burning too fast, a volcano beast could only live two to three years. Their brains shrank in size, too, resulting to their low intelligence. It was impossible for them to ever evolve into intelligent beings. They were nothing but destructive killing machines.

Destructive killing machines were the purpose of the human beings when they created demon beasts.

But what was ironic was that the almost perfect biochemical weapons were never successfully made until the demon race restarted the project.

“HOOOO!”

The volcano beast roared astoundingly. The dozens of venomous lumps on its back sprayed poisoned magma. For a moment, the sky rained fire. Furious flames were burning everywhere on the ground while crackling, adding liveliness to the dead silent battleground.

Iron God Yan Ba, bare-handed, was confronting an opponent hundreds of times larger than himself.

Part of Li Yao’s soul tangled Yan Ba and seemed to merge with him into one. Not only could he smell the stinky, hot air, feel the skin being burnt, and sense the spiritual energy careening unstoppably inside every nerve and every vein, he also knew Yan Ba’s mental state, thoughts, and his undying fighting will.

Li Yao discovered that, faced with such a gargantuan beast, Yan Ba was actually absent-minded!

The thoughts of Yan Ba penetrated through the depths of the brain and traced back to the primeval point of life and even beyond, where he triggered the power of the bloodline that his parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and all earlier ancestors had passed on generation after generation to all the human beings, including himself.

Mankind did not appear out of thin air, nor was it a creature of any supernatural existences.

From monads at the beginning, to trilobites and nautili, to draconic sharks and Sarcosuchus, to Smilodon, mammoths, and oriental apes…

On the path of evolution, human beings had broken limits time and time again, struggled against the ever-changing environment, and survived the apocalypse of thousands of falling stars which was supposed to wipe out all the living creatures. Only by doing so was the greatest species in the sea of stars crowned!

Draconic sharks, Sarcosuchus, Hydras, Tyrannosaurs… The once unparalleled kings in the history of evolution were all the ancestors of the human race!

Just because human beings embarked on a new path of evolution by developing their brains, burning their spiritual energy, and creating all kinds of magical equipment and stopped resorting to brute force in a fight due to diminishing body size and physical strength, didn’t mean their bloodline, which could be dated back to the prehistoric era, was gone.

The terrible force that once split the sky and earth against natural disasters was hidden in the deepest part of every cell inside the human body. It had been bequeathed to every human being and was never lost.

The so-called ‘body fundamentalists’ would trigger the deepest memories inside the cells and thus place themselves into the atavistic state. Then, they could blow out the primitive force that once belonged to Draconic sharks, Sarcosuchus, Hydras, and Tyrannosaurs.

“HOOOOO!”

Li Yao couldn’t tell whether it was himself or Yan Ba, but the guy roared more wildly and violently than the volcano beast did with the seemingly delicate throat!

The world was collapsing before Li Yao. He seemed to have travelled back in time to millions, no, billions of years ago!

The desolate battleground was no more. He was placed in a hot, muggy antediluvian continent. Unfolding in front of his eyes was a giant ape more than ten meters tall whose hair was sticking up.

The ape was roaring to the dim moon and waving to the sky savagely.

After every punch, a cluster of gold brightness would be blown into the sky, stirring the air and shattering the clouds. Wind and thunder were echoing nonstop. The entire world was seething.

The land around it was all frozen, with dead bodies and ruins everywhere.

This was the ancestor of human beings challenging nature after surviving an apocalypse.

Then, Li Yao went further back to history. The gold-haired ape turned into a colossal tyrannosaur which had bloody horns on its head like a crown of thorns.

The tyrannosaur, together with its thousands of brethren, was gazing at the sky with their tiny eyes wide open inside a valley.

Thousands of meteorites poured down from the sky, riddling the sky with burning holes.

It was a level-2 apocalypse, and also one of the most disastrous catastrophes during the evolution of life.

Once the meteorites hit the earth, the surface of the planet would be flattened, all forms of life gone.

“HOOOO!”

The tyrannosaur wearing the thorny crown opened its bloody mouth and spurted out clusters of colorful, shining balls which collided with the meteorites and crushed them into pieces.

Most of the pieces of the meteorites dissipated in the atmosphere. Few of them were able to land on the earth and the ocean.

Outside of this valley, in and on thousands of other valleys, plateaus and oceans, countless dinosaurs were aiming at the meteorites in the sky and resisting the apocalypse with all they could.

Even if the apocalypse was supposed to destroy the planet, they would fight until their last breaths!

In the end, the level-2 apocalypse which could’ve disrupted the evolution of life was undermined by the dinosaurs, the dominators of the planet at the time, to a level-5 one. The natural environment was entirely reshaped, the climate got warmer, and all plants started mutating crazily.

The expert dinosaurs mostly perished in the disaster. The entire species gradually disappeared over the following millions of years.

But there were other creatures who survived the apocalypse and lived on.

The memory of the immense strength of the dinosaur race, however, was buried deep inside the cells and passed on to this day.

The picture changed again. Memories of the ancient times broke out continuously. Shadows of Draconic sharks, Sarcosuchus, Hydra Serpents and so on appeared in front of Li Yao’s eyes one after another.

All the shadows were glittering with a gold brightness, unleashing incomparable supremacy from the long-gone past.

The dozens of intimidating shadows stood behind Yan Ba silently. After a moment, they turned into streaks of gold brightness and were absorbed by the pores all over his body.

Then, brilliance that eclipsed the sun beamed out from Yan Ba’s eyes. The brute force kept in the depths of each cell was fully activated. His body suddenly expanded from an old man one and a half meters tall into a muscular giant more than three meters tall. The dark skin which was full of wrinkles seemed to be made of steel, but upon closer inspection, one would notice that it was actually the tensile skin resembling that on dinosaurs and Sarcosuchus.

The roots of human beings were in all extinct creatures. As primeval kings, the dinosaur race could be considered to be one of the earliest ancestors of the human race!

Right now, the power of the ancient bloodline took its full form inside the body of Yan Ba, an extraordinary body fundamentalist.

He crouched and jumped, leaving a giant pit more than thirty meters in diameter on the solid ground. The stones were compressed to such an extent that the bottom of the pit was as smooth as glass!

“Swoosh!”

Yan Ba charged at the volcano beast at seven times the speed of sound!

Despite the appalling size, the volcano beast was not in the least sluggish. It waved its giant paw brutally downwards.

“BOOM!”

…

Inside the capsule in the training room, Li Yao’s body convulsed violently. After a crack in his chest, blood flowed out of the corner of his mouth, while his eyeballs were flickering crazily.

In the control center, another two hundred light beams were manifesting Li Yao’s body status. The anomaly was immediately discovered by someone, who exclaimed in shock, “Orb Patroller No. 59 is successfully docked with the memory piece. He has entered the ‘deep dock’ state. The brain cells are affecting the body construction!”

“He seems to have experienced a heavy blow in the memory. His ribs are broken. His internal organs are bleeding, too. The injuries are too severe for a Cultivator at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage!”

“Hurry up, medical team! Prepare to inject liquefied Great Revelation Pill, liquefied Dragon Scale Grass, liquefied Nine Turns Soul Reviving Pills! Watch his body status and prepare to forcefully wake him up. And brace for his insanity!”

Vivid imagination could alter reality; vivid imagination was reality.

This was a world where mental power could change and decide real beings.

Expert Cultivators in the ancient times, after finding a secret book of martial arts, often looked for a perfect residence in a natural paradise, where they would seclude themselves for as long as twenty years, doing nothing but sitting cross-legged on the ground and meditating every day.

When they appeared in public again, their capability would be greatly improved beyond everyone’s expectations.

It seemed pretty unreasonable. If an ordinary person were to keep the same posture for several hours, their body would be paralyzed. They could barely stand up again, not to mention building up their strength.

Why on earth could Cultivators sit for twenty years and be entirely renewed during the process?

This was an instance where mental power altered reality.

When meditating, Cultivators might seem still, but their brain cell activity was 500%, 1000% and even more higher than normal. They cleansed their body with their mental power and excited their every cell into a super active state that was even more intense than when they were doing vigorous exercise.

Vigorous exercise required rest. But stimulating the cells with mental power could be done for decades without pause.

Together with the spiritual energy in the natural paradises, it was no wonder that their capability could be significantly improved.

It was exactly so for Li Yao’s current state.

Although he was lying inside the capsule quietly, his brain cells were more active than those of many Core Formation Stage Cultivators when they were engaged in fierce battles.

Yan Ba’s memory piece that he read had been treated as a real-life experience by his body.

His body was far less sturdy than that of a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator. Therefore, he suffered tremendous injury from the impact.

However, Li Yao’s body was still robust enough. With the Art of the Swallowing Whale, a basic Cultivation art of the Hundred Smelting Clan from 40,000 years ago, it devoured all the food and spiritual energy particulates near him mercilessly like a black hole.

“The concentration of the recovery drugs is dropping fast. 68% of the liquefied Great Revelation Pill has been used up. Most of the ingredients have been absorbed by him!”

“The guy’s breath and heartbeat are still stable despite the serious injuries. Even his brain waves show no fluctuations at all, as if the injury is nothing unusual!”

“His body seems quite hungry. Hurry up, inject elixirs in double dosage!”

“Hiss… The broken bones and veins have started recovering!”

“What kind of monster is this guy?!”

Chapter 392: A Month of Absorption!

Astonishing brilliance burst out from the eyes of the three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

Being wounded was not a bad thing. On the contrary, it was a good omen that Li Yao had been immersed in the memory piece and that his mental power had started affecting his flesh and blood.

Memory transmission was a very advanced training method. His body was bound to be stronger when it recovered.

However, the speed of his recovery was indeed amazing…

“Vulture Li Yao? Interesting. I’ve heard of the name before, but I didn’t pay much heed to it. It appears that a son of no one who awakened his spiritual root and marched into the Building Foundation Stage on his own has indeed got something to him. Old Yan, congratulations! Another super genius from the Grand Desolate Plateau has emerged!” Sha Tianqing said with a smile.

Iron God Yan Ba only nodded his head slightly, but there was delight in his eyes.

As a Cultivator from the Marvelous Fist Sect, he was a native of the Grand Desolate Plateau.

The Marvelous Fist Sect was also one of the largest sponsors of the Grand Desolate War Institution. The two parties were closely in touch.

Many Hall Leaders and Elders of Marvelous Fist Sect were graduates of the Grand Desolate War Institution. Some of them were even its visiting professors.

Since Li Yao came from the Grand Desolate War Institution, he could be considered a native of the Grand Desolate Plateau, too. Now that he had picked Yan Ba’s memory piece as his first choice and become immersed in it perfectly, Yan Ba was quite pleased.

Although Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector had always stuck together under the tremendous pressure from the Blood Demon Sector, there was always competition among them.

Born and raised in the Grand Desolate Plateau, Yan Ba naturally hoped that Cultivators from his hometown could be as strong as possible. That way, the voice of the Marvelous Fist Sect would be louder in the world of Cultivators.

Yan Ba spoke to an assistant in a low voice.

“Call President Xiong Baili of the Grand Desolate War Institution for me. I want to know more about this Vulture Li Yao.”

“Look! Yan Jun and a few other high-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators have entered a ‘deep dock’ state. Injuries are appearing on their bodies.”

Everyone was refreshed and resumed their work.

Speak of geniuses, all the 61 Orb Patrollers here were one-in-ten-thousand super geniuses.

Whether or not Li Yao could distinguish himself depended on the thirty days of training’s outcome!

…

In the memory piece, the three-minute fierce battle had come to an end.

The volcano beast had collapsed to the ground, like a water container which had leaked everything inside because it had been stabbed hundreds of times. Red venom was flowing everywhere on the ground. Since the body of the beast had lost the enhancement of demonic energy, its venom started eroding its own body.

But the volcano beast had lost the strength to scream. It was not until quite a while later that it moaned feebly.

From a gap on its head, a silver-blood demon with red hair was spat out. It was the master of this volcano beast.

There was a hole the size of a bowl on his abdomen, through which one could see that his internal organs had been minced. His eyes were wide open, but there was no light in them whatsoever.

Iron God Yan Ba was standing on the horn of the volcano beast. Bloody wounds were everywhere on his body. His flesh and blood were being corroded by the venom, causing excruciating pain.

Li Yao felt everything.

Despite his tough body and sturdy nerves, it was so agonizing that Li Yao almost wanted to kill himself.

But he knew that this was the most critical moment. If he couldn’t bear it and withdrew from the memory piece, all his previous effort would have been in vain.

He carefully recalled the changes of Yan Ba’s every muscle, every vein, and every nerve. He analyzed Yan Ba’s every tactical choice. He studied how Yan Ba exerted the most force in each punch and how he dissolved the heavy blows he suffered by the coordination of spiritual energy and body movement.

Although the battle only lasted three minutes, it was like an encyclopedia with information as vast as an ocean. Li Yao was fascinated by it and started reading it crazily.

After he didn’t know how long, Li Yao felt that he was in a trance. Knowing that his mental power was running dry, he had to exit the memory piece unwillingly.

His consciousness returned to his own brain. Ou Yezi’s memory tree was still flourishing. All the memory pieces were glittering like golden leaves.

Something weird happened!

Many streaks of light crowded toward the tree from various directions and condensed into a whole new leaf on one of the branches.

It was the memory piece of Iron God Yan Ba versus the volcano beast!

Li Yao immediately thought of something.

According to the staff of Occult Orbs Fellowship, only with the training facility from the Star Ocean Imperium at the cost of countless Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures could the Orb Patrollers read the memory pieces of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators deeply in a 100%-real simulated world.

Otherwise, a memory would be just a memory.

A common Cultivator wouldn’t be able to re-enter their own memory years ago without the help of magical equipment.

For most people, they would forget most of the details of what had happened yesterday after a night’s sleep.

But it was apparently different for Li Yao.

Before Ou Yezi’s soul perished, his immense soul power had planted this memory tree in the depths of Li Yao’s brain.

It was his biggest secret as well as his greatest treasure.

Was it possible that the memory tree could absorb new memory pieces even though they didn’t belong to Ou Yezi?

‘Does that mean I can train with the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators’ memory pieces whenever and wherever?’

Li Yao was greatly amazed.

For other Orb Patrollers, this special one month of ‘seclusion’ might be the most precious days in their Cultivation life, because in one month, they wouldn’t be able to make use of the memories of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators without the support of the training facility from the Star Ocean Imperium.

But for Li Yao, he could utilize them repetitively in the future as long as he read them once now.

‘It’s officially decided then. I will try to absorb as many memory pieces as possible in the coming month!’

Li Yao opened his eyes and regained control over his body. He noticed his injuries but was not in the least bothered.

When fighting against Ding Lingdang, he had suffered much more serious injuries every few days.

Sometimes, when he was reading Ou Yezi’s memory pieces, the mental power would feed the experience back to the body, too, leading to severe wounds even though nothing touched him.

He had gotten used to everything.

Li Yao jumped out of the capsule, wiped his body casually, and walked to the back of the training room.

Reading Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators’ memory pieces would consume a lot of mental power for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators. They wouldn’t be able to do it 24 hours a day.

Therefore, behind every training room, there were fully-equipped rehabilitation rooms, gravity rooms, meditation rooms, and gym rooms. The Orb Patrollers could take a rest and regain their mental power however they wanted.

Li Yao strode into the gravity room.

…

“Orb Patroller No. 59 had activated five times, no, seven… eight times gravity even though his body had not fully recovered!”

“Hiss… Does the guy not know what pain is? Other beginning-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators would hardly be able to stand up with such serious injuries, and it would take them quite a few hours in the med bay before they could walk again!”

“His breathing and heartbeat are still stable. The broken ribs seem to have no effect on him at all!”

…

After exercising for two hours in the gravity room, Li Yao felt that he was mostly refreshed. He gobbled up a huge amount of high-nutrition food and drowned himself in the capsule again.

This time, he selected a new memory piece.

It still belonged to Iron God Yan Ba. But it was not a battle; it was reflection and meditation.

“Shua!”

The world twisted in front of Li Yao’s eyes again. Lights were changing rapidly while his consciousness sank to the deepest part of his brain through an immeasurable black hole into a brave new world.

He found himself in an extremely spacious underground cave. Almost a hundred giant fossils were scattering in the place, which were all primeval beasts of the antediluvian era.

Draconic sharks, Sarcosuchus, Hydras, Tyrannosaurs…

The intimidating fossils hundreds of meters tall dwarfed the insignificant human being nearby.

Iron God Yan Ba sat cross-legged in the center of all the fossils, extending his telepathic thoughts like light smoke to the bones, claws, and teeth, while he sensed the primeval force of the ancient times.

Holding his breath, Li Yao started reflecting and meditating, too.

Days passed.

Li Yao devoured the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators’ memory pieces gruesomely like a hungry tiger chasing lambs.

Sometimes, he entered the memory of Iron God Yan Ba and fought fearsome enemies bare-handed with nothing but the primeval force buried inside his cells.

Sometimes, he entered ‘Sand’ Sha Ziming’s memory, where he learnt that a grass or a branch could kill everything when its speed broke all limits.

Sometimes, he visited Meng Weiyang’s memory. The battles between mental attack experts that seemed tranquil but not any less dangerous were demonstrated to him.

There were still more memory pieces. Li Yao spared none of them, especially when they belonged to Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators who were best at swords or sabers.

Half a month later, most Orb Patrollers absorbed no higher than five memory pieces, of which only one or two were battle-related.

After all, the information inside the battle-related memory pieces was too enormous for them digest easily.

Strong as Yan Jun may be, he had just absorbed 21 memory pieces.

In the meantime, Li Yao had already absorbed 49.

Even though he couldn’t comprehend them all at once, he could store them on Ou Yezi’s memory tree and study them later on.

One month later, it was the final day of the memory training.

Li Yao seized the last few minutes to work out in the gravity room.

Compared with one month ago, he was much thinner. His skin was pale, and his muscles were flattened. All his strength had been buried deep inside the cells.

Judging from his appearance, he looked somewhat like a scholarly, professional refiner.

But the number on the control menu gave his toughness away.

‘Current setting: 20 times standard gravity!’

“Shua! Shua shua!”

Li Yao seemed to be standing still in the middle of the gravity room, but there were earsplitting sounds of air being torn apart.

Only the most advanced crystal cameras could capture his super-fast movements.

He was fighting against invisible demon beasts with the Demon Slaughterhouse.

After a short month, he had arrived at Level 33.

He was no longer faced with several demon beasts, but a boundless, ever-raging ocean of them!

Chapter 393: Final Competition

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

Despite the twenty times gravity, the sounds of air being torn apart grew more and more intense, as if an invisible storm was raging inside the small room.

Li Yao’s chest was fluctuating fast. Arrow-like breaths were rushing out of his nose. The misty air inside the room twisted and blurred his figure.

It was his sweat which had been vibrated and atomized by his muscles.

Suddenly, the mustard suit on Li Yao’s body, which was supposed to be elastic enough to be stretched to ten times its origin length, exploded into shreds the size of a fingernail and spluttered in the room. More than ten deep footprints appeared on the super-alloy floor. Every toe was distinguishable!

A moment later, the stomping noise echoed from the ground like thunder.

A mild synthesized voice came from the walls.

“Beep! Beep! Your time is up!”

“Phew…”

Taking a long breath, Li Yao walked out of the gravity room. One of the walls had glided open to two sides. Three pairs of artificial arms picked up a brand-new mustard suit and put it on him.

Black as the background, with red lines on the edges which gathered into jumping fire on his chest, the mustard suit highlighted his muscles and make him look sharper than ever.

He stretched his arms, and staring at the capsule for the last time, Li Yao strode out of the training room, never to look back.

A small teleportation array was waiting for him outside.

The last test was going to be held.

Of the ten Star Teams, only five could enter Ultimacy as the first echelon.

Everybody knew that the first echelon would be very likely to experience unexpected adventures.

As for the second echelon setting off half a year later, there might not even be leftovers for them.

Nobody would give up such a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity.

Then, just let your capability do the talk!

Li Yao smiled confidently and stepped into the small teleportation array.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared in a world fragment.

This was a world of rocks. Clouds the color of lead were floating in the sky, as if they’d all been stuck together. The environment gave a feeling of gloom and mugginess.

Hills dozens of meters tall standing in the middle of nowhere like giant maze-like city walls.

Between some of the hills, there were pits and cracks dozens of meters deep where steams were popping up nonstop.

From the underground came suspicious noises that did not resemble the screams of demon beasts but sounded more like the roars of the earth itself.

Beside the teleportation array was a solid mini crystal processor as well as a vest refined from gold threads as thin as a cicada’s wings and embedded with countless crystals.

Li Yao put both of them on. With a telepathic thought, the vest uttered a ‘Bo’ sound and enveloped him in a bright gold spiritual shield.

“Beep!”

The mini crystal processor was activated automatically, from which a fervent voice came out.

“Elites of the Orb Patrollers, your one month of special training has ended today!

“Over the past month, you’ve all experienced perilous tests and passed by the shadow of death more times than anyone could count. But you are also blessed with incomparable Cultivation knowledge.

“First of all, I’m sorry to tell you that, during the last month, five Orb Patrollers went deranged during their training and their brains were seriously damaged. Their lives were saved miraculously with attentive care. But their spiritual roots have been destroyed, and they will never be able to Cultivate again.

“There are another two Orb Patrollers who suffered even more injuries than them. They perished on the spot before any treatment could be applied!

“They’ve all sacrificed for the Star Glory Federation and for all Cultivators in the Heaven’s Origin Sector. Let’s have a one-minute silence in honor of the heroes!”

Li Yao was startled.

For him, absorbing memories were as simple as eating and drinking. He’d never realized that the process was so dangerous for other Cultivators.

Supported by the training facility from the Star Ocean Imperium, monitored and protected by so many Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Core Formation Stage Cultivators, many of them still failed to make it. The result was beyond his expectation.

There were 61 Orb Patrollers in total. Seven of them had accidents. The casualty rate was approximately one ninth!

It was a stunningly high failure rate, and the consequences of failure were too dreadful!

Did Ding Lingdang and the other members of Team Blue Bronze completed the training successfully?

All of them had been secluded for the past month. Everybody was too busy minding their own business to communicate with other people.

To this moment, Li Yao had never learnt of Ding Lingdang’s progress. He became somewhat anxious.

After a minute of silence, the passionate voice was heard again.

“But for those who have succeeded, your gains are tremendous.

“Some of you have absorbed dozens of memory pieces and retrieved valuable combat experiences.

“Some of you have taken in the spiritual energy contained in the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. Your capability has soared and even lead to your breakthroughs.

“In fact, four high-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators have climbed to the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

“In the meantime, there are almost twenty Cultivators who broke into the high level from middle level or broke into the middle level from the low level.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that you’ve already become the best Building Foundation Stage Cultivators ever in the history of the Star Glory Federation!

“You’ve all done your best. So, it will be decided by yourselves as to who is eligible to go to Ultimacy and who is not in this final test!

“Rules are simple. All the 54 Orb Patrollers have been randomly placed in this world fragment named ‘Thousand Mountains Domain’.

“The mini crystal processor that you carry has communication and positioning functions. It can help you find your teammates.

“The spiritual shield covering you will be broken every time you encounter a fatal attack and absorb 90% of the damage for you.

“Every time it is shattered, you will be given ten seconds for rest and adjustment, during which time you cannot attack or be attacked. You can try to escape during the ten seconds or shift to a different tactic.

“After your spiritual shield is broken ten times, you will be forced to leave the fragment.

“Your task will be to destroy the spiritual shield of other Orb Patrollers that are not your teammates as many times as possible. You will get one score after you break a spiritual shield once.

“The scores of the Orb Patrollers that belong to the same team will be summed. In one hour, the five teams with the highest scores will be acknowledged as candidates for the mission to Ultimacy!

“Please note that one of the Star Teams has lost too many members to maintain the original tactical system. Therefore, according to the study and analysis of the experts of Occult Orbs Fellowship, the remaining members of the team have been regrouped into other Star Teams that have vacancies.

“I’ll end with three reminders for you all.

“Firstly, it is suggested that you find your teammates as soon you can and work as a team.

“Secondly, you are all on the border of Thousand Mountains Domain. You have no equipment except for your mustard suit. But in the center of Thousand Mountains Domain, a lot of magical equipment has been randomly strewn.

“Thirdly, the tectonic structure of Thousand Mountains Domain is extremely unstable. Earthquakes might take place any time!

“Now begins the final test!”

Hardly had the announcer finished his talk when the shrieks in the underground turned into roars.

The earth was shaking. The rocks were rolling. The hills that were dozens of meters high suddenly sank into the underground, while a lot of other hills that were as sharp as tusks rose up and pierced the sky abruptly.

The land had been shattered and turned into an ocean of rocks in which stones were surging and splashing.

Li Yao turned into a streak of black light, dodging the raging stones swiftly, and picked up two of the stones.

After cracking sounds, one of the two stones was crushed into dozens of sharp stone blades which he hid all over his suit, whereas the other was crumbled into stone powder by his spiritual energy.

It was not until he had finished doing everything that he turned on the communication and positioning system.

The six light spots on the map and the names beside made him greatly relieved.

All the members of Team Blue Bronze were safe and sound.

‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi’s cheerful laughter immediately echoed in the communication channel.

“Excellent! We are all here!

“Over the past month, I’ve been being tormented in the deepest level of hell. Thankfully, everybody has made it!

“I’ve absorbed nine memory fragments. Most of them belonged to the Grand Illusionist Meng Weiyang. I tried all her methods of mental power training. They are indeed mysterious and marvelous!

“Right now, I’m almost twice as strong as one month ago!”

“Don’t be overjoyed yet. There are 54 Orb Patrollers, which equals to nine Star Teams. Four of them will be eliminated. Let’s pass this test first!”

“Yes, I survived the hell-like training and absorbed twelve memory pieces not to be substitutes!” Yan Yangtian shrieked.

“We should group up as soon as possible. It is tricky for me now that I don’t have any guns in hand. Other Orb Patrollers are appearing nearby already!” ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming said, somewhat anxiously.

“Alright!”

Captain Hong Tong commanded, “Let’s scan the territory around and make clear where we are and what the environment is. Then, join everyone’s map and congregate to Shell immediately.

“Lingdang, Vulture, Yan Zi, your personal strengths are relatively better. Try to collect some magical equipment from the center of the map.

“If you are engaged with a formidable enemy, don’t be held up by them for too long. It’s our top priority to gather together!”

“Understood!”

“Let’s move out!”

Among the rocks that were rising and collapsing, the six members of Team Blue Bronze acted quickly. Li Yao and his other two teammates rushed to the center of the map, in case other people took away all the magical equipment and they had to fight bare-handed.

‘Look, it’s Vulture Li Yao of Team Blue Bronze!’

‘He is just at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage. As a refiner, he is best at fighting with magical equipment and in crystal suits. Right now, he has nothing at his disposal. This is his weakest moment!”

The two Orb Patrollers had been confronting each other fiercely.

Now that Li Yao appeared out of nowhere, the two of them immediately thought that this was a good opportunity to secure one score from a push-over. They glanced at each other and, crushing the stones below their feet into pieces, charged at Li Yao simultaneously with one on the left and one on the right!

Chapter 394: Central Zone

Li Yao grinned hideously. Instead of running away in a flurry as they had expected, he rushed toward them, crushing rocks to dust with every step he took.

After each step, his momentum and dominance rose a lot!

The two Orb Patrollers felt that a quickly accelerating tyrannosaur was charging at their face.

Although the earthquake was continuing, Li Yao’s blowing stones to pieces with his feet apparently gave them more shock.

‘He has no weapon in his hands. Why is he so confident? Does he have any other trump cards?’

‘Over the past month, whose memory fragments has he been absorbing? And what kind of new skill has he learnt?’

If there were only of them here, they would certainly grit their teeth and attack Li Yao anyway.

But since the two Orb Patrollers belonged to different Teams, they were in competition themselves. Subconsciously, they hoped that the other one would test Li Yao’s capability first. As a result, they both slowed down and spared most of their computational ability calculating hundreds of defense plans against the potential opponent.

Li Yao’s speed remained on the rise. The rocks that he stepped on exploded into pieces, leaving a trail of smoke behind him, as if a crystal train made of sandstorm were sweeping over.

Seeing that the two of them were intending to back off, Li Yao sneered, “Get out of the way if you don’t want to die!”

“Swoosh!”

Li Yao penetrated through between the two Orb Patrollers in a streak of black light. When he passed by them, he sprayed the rock powder and the scattered stones all over the two Orb Patrollers’ faces.

They were not expecting this, and there was no time to distinguish what he was spraying. Therefore, they chose the safest plan simultaneously by leaping backwards!

The dragon of smoke passed them and, after a few turns, continued marching toward the central zone of Thousand Mountains Domain.

Li Yao’s evil laughter could be heard from the front of the smoke.

“Thank you for clearing the way!”

The two Orb Patrollers were dazed for a moment. Then they realized that they’d been fooled by Li Yao, who was just bluffing and trying to run away without any intention of fighting at all.

“Asshole!”

They blushed in embarrassment and fury, before they sped up again and followed Li Yao’s tracks.

Yet, the trail of smoke was moving at an amazingly fast speed. The two Orb Patrollers only managed to catch up to it by fully activating their swiftness skills. The anger of being conned had made them lose their minds. One of them knocked off a cone-shaped rock and kicked it away, which darted to the path in front of Li Yao where he was rushing.

Regardless of whether Li Yao decided to bypass it or to crush it, he would be hindered briefly.

Delighted, the Orb Patroller charged into the smoke like a hungry tiger seeking a lamb.

Yet, there was nothing in front of his eyes. Their prey had vanished into thin air.

Suddenly, a sharp coldness pricked his back. Li Yao no longer seemed to be as bigheaded and dominating as just now. He was enveloped in an air of bleakness and darkness, while he dashed out quietly like a shark in the undersea.

“BAM!”

The spiritual shield protecting the Orb Patroller was broken into smithereens immediately. Then, it was quickly regenerated and put on a mild green color.

He entered in the short protective period, during which time he could not attack or be attacked.

But his mind was in chaos.

“When did Li Yao run to my back?

“He was apparently bare-handed. Yet, he blew up my spiritual shield in one punch and killed me once?

“Isn’t he a refiner who is best at explosive magical equipment and battle saber techniques? Why?!”

The other Orb Patroller was much more prudent. He had sensed that something was wrong inside the smoke that Li Yao created, and therefore he didn’t enter it at all.

As it turned out, half a second later, it was Li Yao who walked out of the smoke slowly.

He was as thin as before. But every muscle on his arms were bulging, like clusters of rebar tangled together. His hands were emitting gold brightness. Purple electric arcs and blue fire were jumping and dancing on his fingertips in brilliant balls of light as if they were spirits brought back to life.

The Orb Patroller gasped. Finding it hard to believe his eyes, he screamed, “You are just at the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage, and you can bring ‘Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw Art’ out to such an extent?”

Li Yao smiled, squatted, and sprinted!

“Not the beginning level, the middle level!”

After a month of crazy training, with the absorption of abundant memory fragments from Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, Li Yao finally broke his limits and reached the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage!

Arriving at the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage from the beginning level in half a year, Li Yao had performed a miracle that no one had ever achieved in the history of the Star Glory Federation!

“Shua!”

A moment later, Li Yao’s kills reached two.

The total kills of Team Blue Bronze had reached eight, ranking the second of all teams.

Hong Tong and Yan Yangtian each had killed a competitor, while Ding Lingdang had blown up the spiritual shields of four opponents by herself.

Since she was a body practitioner, the unarmed combat couldn’t be more in her favor. It was the best to kill as many people as she could right now. After most people had found some useful magical equipment, it would be much more difficult for her to perform.

The only exception was ‘Shell’ Leng Ziming. As a gun expert, he was not good at close combat. Therefore, his main task was to run away. But he had been killed once during his escape.

“Li Yao, you’ve already reached the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage? Does that mean you are on par with me right now? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Ding Lingdang’s loud voice came through the communication channel, mingled with the screams of other Orb Patrollers.

While she continued her slaughter, Ding Lingdang shouted in disbelief, “It took you only half a year to reach the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage from the beginning level. You are three times faster than I was! Other people say that I’m a monster. In my opinion, you are the real monster!

“But thankfully, I didn’t waste my time over the past month, either. I’ve absorbed nineteen memory pieces of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, and most of them are battle-related!

“Hahahaha! My capability has soared, too. When the final competition is over, let’s have another practice spar and I’ll show you what I’ve become right now!

“Right, how many memory pieces have you absorbed? Five? Eight?”

Before, none of the team had much hopes in Li Yao. After all, he had been at the very beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage. It would be quite a fruitful training session if he could absorb two or three memory pieces smoothly.

However, now that they learnt that he had experienced a breakthrough, naturally, their expectations of him grew higher.

Li Yao rushed into the central zone of Thousand Mountains Domain so fast that his feet barely touched the ground.

Looking at the front, he found that countless bright gold balls were floating in the air, enshrouded in glittering octagonal runes.

There was a piece of magical equipment in each of the balls.

“Swoosh!”

Li Yao kicked a giant rock to the sky, hitting one of the balls precisely.

A crimson saber whose edge was full of tusks fell from the sky, which was fetched by him easily.

Li Yao was greatly relieved now that he had a saber in his hand.

Although he had absorbed much of Iron God Yan Ba’s memory pieces regarding bare-handed combat, the knowledge and experience could not be translated into his own skills in such a short period of time.

To fully understand the insights and embed them with his own flesh, blood, bones, and veins, he needed the whetting of countless of real-life battles.

At this moment, a battle saber was still Li Yao’s favorite weapon.

Licking his lips, Li Yao rushed toward the next bright gold ball, and at the same time, he dismantled the saber into the tiniest components and reassembled them by spinning them fast around his arms.

But there were a few remaining components in his hands.

The components were used to stabilize the frequency of vibration and ensure the steady, continuous output of spiritual energy.

If these components were removed, the vibration frequency of the saber would be extremely unstable. The maximum spiritual energy output would be increased by 30%, allowing the damage of the saber to be improved by more than 15%.

As a result, the longevity of the saber would be greatly undermined. It would most likely become a total loss after one battle. Even during the battle, odds of it malfunctioning or even exploding were not low.

While he was modifying the saber, Li Yao spoke in the communication channel briefly.

“Sixty-eight.”

The communication channel went silent for a long time. After a while, Ding Lingdang asked in confusion, “Sixty-eight what?”

Li Yao furrowed his brows. He slashed at the sky. A crimson saber aura was triggered off the edge, rushing toward the second bright gold ball, which ripped it in half with blood red ripples.

A double-edged chainsword dropped from the sky.

“Weren’t you asking me how many memory pieces I’ve absorbed? Sixty-eight. I absorbed sixty-eight memory pieces.”

There was nothing but silence in the communication channel. The only thing that could be heard was everyone’s heavy breath.

It was not until ten seconds later that Ding Lingdang shouted, “Damn! I was distracted and got killed once!”

Very soon, all the magical equipment within hundreds of square meters nearby was looted by Li Yao.

He started marching closer to the center of the world fragment.

More Orb Patrollers were appearing nearby.

But they were rational enough to not start a fight at this moment. Everyone was collecting every piece of magical equipment available in a rush without wasting any time.

Sometimes, two Orb Patrollers got their eyes on the same magical equipment. But there was still no fight. The two parties would run calculations fast. The Orb Patroller who found that the likelihood of their success was relatively lower would simply retreat and look for other magical equipment.

Five minutes later, every piece of magical equipment had been claimed.

Everyone’s faces turned excessively hostile at this moment.

Each of them had at least four to five pieces of magical equipment in their hands. If they could kill an opponent, not only would they get points, they would also be able to snatch the loser’s magical equipment.

Almost ten pairs of eyes were fixed on Li Yao immediately.

Thanks to his sharp eyes and fast movement, he had picked up nine pieces of magical equipment. Right now, he was carrying a saber in his left hand and a sword in his right hand, with a battle axe on his back and a pair of power knuckles bound to his waist. He was no doubt a rich man at this point.

“BOOM! CRACK!”

The earth trembled violently again. The uneven ground was shattered. Many people rose high above together on the rock that they were standing on, while some others fell into pits dozens of meters deep.

The battlefield turned from an uneven plane to a fractured mess.

Li Yao was standing on a giant rock more than forty meters high, which was the peak of this three-dimensional battlefield.

The raging smoke took the form of fuzzy, blurred giant beasts behind him.

Five Orb Patrollers were impatient and leapt forward at him.

Li Yao squinted, and a dangerous smile crept onto his face.

The saber in his left hand was vibrating violently like a roaring hungry tiger, while the tusk-like sawtooth of the chainsword in his right hand started revolving crazily!

Chapter 395: Who’s the Best?

Inside the control center, thousands of light beams were radiating at the same time, capturing every corner of Thousand Mountains Domain.

The light beams displaying intense battles would be enlarged so that the details could be demonstrated more clearly.

The light beams that were showing combat Li Yao was engaged in were among the largest ones.

Six light beams were displaying his every movement from all possible directions.

On the summary light beam nearby, Li Yao’s personal kills were soaring.

Three… Four… Six… Seven…

In half a minute, Li Yao had secured seven kills. The spiritual shields of many other middle-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators were shattered to pieces after a single blow.

Even many high-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators failed to resist against his rampageous attacks for longer than five seconds.

“Vulture Li Yao has absorbed sixty-eight memory pieces of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. It appears that he has understood them all. His combat ability has improved a lot!”

Knowing is totally different from doing.

Pouring the battle-related memories of a soldier from the special forces into the brain of a three-year-old does not mean that the three-year-old is qualified as a special agent.

The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators had been worrying that Li Yao’s crazy absorption was because of a mutation in his brain and that he would not be able to comprehend the essence of the memories.

But as it turned out, Li Yao’s growth was beyond their wildest imagination!

Beaming with a smile, Meng Weiyang continued to say, “Old Sha, Li Yao’s straight, piercing attack is clearly blended with the distinctive features of Quicksand. It is both brutal and savaging. All the spiritual energy is used to bring up the speed. There are no fancy tricks at all! Yet, the saber in his right hand brings me the same feeling as ‘Moon Fiend’ Qiu Xinghe once did. Senseless and bloodthirsty. He is trading his life for the enemy’s life. It appears that he has analyzed and fully digested the memory pieces from both of you!”

‘Sand’ Sha Ziming nodded his head. Glancing at the data to the side, he smiled, too.

“Indeed. His combat efficiency is quite amazing, which even exceeds many high-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivators. His combat consciousness and tactical plans are very clear. The young man is quite smart!”

A high combat efficiency meant that one could slay the most enemies in the shortest amount of time with the least movements at the cost of minimum spiritual energy.

Cultivators often had to pay a high price by burning their spiritual energy. The longer they stayed at their peak state, the severer the consequences would be.

Therefore, the middle-level and high-level Cultivators always attached great importance to combat efficiency. If a battle could be finished in one second, they would never spend 1.1 seconds on it.

When a Cultivator reached the Core Formation Stage or the Nascent Soul Stage, if their combat efficiency was 1% higher than their opponent’s, they might be able to stay in the best state for 0.1 seconds longer, and the 0.1 seconds would be enough to determine their life and death!

Therefore, if a Cultivator was relatively weak, he was not entirely unpromising as long as he boasted acute combat consciousness and high combat efficiency.

With the support of enough resources and the enlightenment of mentors, it was always possible for them to advance to a higher level.

However, if the combat efficiency of someone was really low, who simply squandered his spiritual energy and physical strength, their prospects were quite dim, regardless of how intimidating they seemed to be right now. It was very unlikely that they would become a real super expert.

Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators wouldn’t waste their time and effort on such people.

Currently, Li Yao was just in the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage, but his combat consciousness was the most distinctive among the fifty-four Orb Patrollers.

His combat efficiency was just a bit lower than that of Yan Jun who was well acknowledged as one of the strongest Orb Patrollers at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage!

While the two Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were talking, Li Yao’s kills reached nineteen.

But there were more and more Orb Patrollers charging at him.

It was not because everyone hated him or was targeting him, but because the Orb Patrollers ‘killed’ by him would often drop a lot of magical equipment.

The Orb Patrollers came after the magical equipment like sharks which had smelled the stink of blood. When they noticed that Li Yao was bathing in the brilliant exhaust flames of various kinds of magical equipment, they naturally considered him to be a fat, delicious prey.

It was not until Li Yao slashed their spiritual shields to pieces that they realized that the prey was not fat, but fatal!

Twenty-one… Twenty-three… Twenty-seven…

Li Yao’s kills continued to rise, whereas his combat efficiency was as stable as ever.

However, the number of the times he got killed was growing, too.

In less than ten seconds, he had been killed six times.

When other Orb Patrollers were killed and entered the protective state, most of them would flee from the place of chaos.

But Li Yao simply roamed around the edge of the battlefield. The moment the protective state was over, he would rejoin the battle with a roar.

Frowning, ‘Sand’ Sha Ziming watched it for a while and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Li Yao’s attacks are absolutely amazing. In comparison, his defense is not very satisfactory. There were several deadly attacks that he could’ve avoided, but they hit him precisely.

“Besides, instead of escaping the battlefield as quickly as possible while he was in the protective state, he returned to battles again, which seems a little reckless to me. It is also inconsistent with his fighting style according to his files.”

Iron God Yan Ba, on the other hand, was eyeing the light beams in appreciation. He smiled and said slowly, “He’s doing it on purpose.”

“On purpose?”

As a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, Sha Tianqing immediately drew a lot of conclusions after being reminded by Yan Ba. His eyes were gleaming, too, as he asked, “Do you mean he has been perishing together with his opponents after accurate calculations just in order to increase his kills by as many as possible?”

“The rules we set up dictate that the five teams with the most kills after an hour will win. One’s death count does not matter as long as it does not surpass ten.

“It means that being killed once and being killed nine times are exactly the same.

“Right now, so many Orb Patrollers have gathered in the center of the world fragment. Even a random slash might hit several people.

“Li Yao has thought that through, and even at the cost of his own ‘lives’, he will slaughter as many people as he can.

“He must be aware that, after everyone retreats to the edge of the world fragment and reunites with their respective teams, it will be extremely difficult for him to continue butchering as smoothly as right now!

“Therefore, it is quite a bargain to trade his own ‘lives’ for kills. The most favorable outcome will be that all the six members of a team are killed nine times in exchange for triple or even quadruple scores!”

Iron God Yan Ba nodded his head.

“That should be it. Li Yao has understood the most critical part of the competition precisely, which is how to barter one’s deaths for more valuable things at the highest efficiency!

“Remarkable. He is indeed remarkable!

“If Yan Jun was the biggest hope for the mission to Ultimacy in our plan, this Vulture Li Yao is the biggest surprise that we didn’t anticipate!

“Although he is just in the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage, a meticulous mind can be as useful as powerful personal strength in Ultimacy.”

Sha Ziming interrupted him. “Old Yan, look, your ‘biggest hope’ and your ‘biggest surprise’ are confronting each other!”

Yan Ba raised his eyebrow.

“Huh?”

…

On two bizarre-shaped rocks in the center of Thousand Mountains Domain, where hot steam was still billowing up, Li Yao and Yan Jun, the best of all Orb Patrollers, were gazing at each other with a long distance in between.

After he killed two members of Team Thunder Soul momentarily, his on-fire performance finally attracted Yan Jun’s attention.

Different from Li Yao who was armed to the teeth with a saber in his left hand and a sword in his right hand, there was nothing but a dagger in Yan Jun’s hand, which was orbited by eight black, octagonal, iron blades with coldly-shining sharpness.

“Vulture Li Yao, I didn’t know—”

The scar on Yan Jun’s face resulted in the constant jerking of his facial muscles, making him look cruel and hideous.

His voice was like a frozen iron block, both cold and tough.

“There are too many things that you don’t know. Let’s just get down to it. Time is precious!”

He had been informed that Yan Jun had advanced into the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

In the junior year of his high school, he had witnessed Fiend Blade Peng Hai, his senior brother, burning his soul and marching to the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

The dreadful scene where spiritual energy was raging like a tsunami had been etched into the depths of his brain.

At that time, Cultivators had been gods in his eyes.

God of war! God of killing! God of destruction!

Peak of the Building Foundation Stage had been an unimaginable level for him. Fiend Blade Peng Hai could’ve turned him into minced meat with nothing but his hair easily.

But today, he had captured the attention of another Cultivator at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, and he was even capable enough to fight him with his best!

It was indeed intriguing and intoxicating!

“BOOM!”

Li Yao rushed forward like a black shooting star, only to fly backwards half a second later, barging into multiple rocks.

Yan Jun sniffed, not even bothering to look at him.

Suddenly, his eyelids twitched, while a narrow, long, red line appeared below his cheek. A drop of blood had zigzagged to the corner of his mouth like an earthworm.

Li Yao jumped out of the broken stones. Spitting out a mouthful of black blood uncaringly, he grinned.

Yan Jun licked the blood stain on the corner of his mouth slowly. His expression suddenly turned livid.

The blue scar through his left eye was glittering, as if a dragon was dancing on the right side of his face.

“Shua!”

Yan Jun suddenly vanished into thin air, and in the next second, he had appeared behind Li Yao.

The brightness of his dagger cut Li Yao into pieces. But it was just Li Yao’s gradually dispersing blurred shadow.

The real Li Yao had moved twenty meters away.

Before Li Yao was able to take a breath, the back of his head was prickling. He waved his saber and sword into a white, shining ball. Cracking noises echoed nonstop, while sparks danced to everywhere, as if his weapons were on fire.

Yan Jun’s first appearance was a blurred shadow, too, just to make him relax.

In the meantime, the real Yan Jun had moved below him and locked onto him precisely!

Chapter 396: Success!

The two of them collided heavily. A large cloud of dust immediately wreathed them. It was not due to the crash, but from both of them breaking the sonic barrier multiple times within 0.1 seconds!

After a moment, dozens of shadows flew out of the dust clouds, which were the blurred shadows of the two parties due to their astonishingly fast speed.

All the blurred shadows were fighting savagely in midair.

But Li Yao’s real body was fleeing out of the battlefield as quickly as possible.

It was not until he was engaged with Yan Jun that he truly felt the dominance of the peak of Building Foundation Stage in person. Although his speed broke its limits time and time again, Yan Jun had blocked his every route of escape like an impregnable dragnet.

Li Yao had to do his best to breach through it!

BOOM! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Explosions rang out ahead of him all the time, as if multiple volcanoes were erupting, or the crystal bombs deployed previously had been detonated. They were nothing but the sword auras created by Yan Jun’s dagger, yet they were already so formidable.

The eight octagonal iron blades circling Yan Jun, on the other hand, were even more dreadful. Manipulated by his telepathic thoughts, they reached Li Yao’s next position from unimaginable curves at more than twice the speed of sound, even faster than bullets!

Faced with such a frightening enemy, Li Yao realized that the memory pieces which he’d absorbed over the past month were taking effect. He was like a veteran that had endured hundreds of bloody wars without getting killed. Dangers were all foreseen by him before they were able to deal any damage!

Just now, when everyone was fighting for the magical equipment, he was fighting aggressively and even trading his own life for others’.

But at this moment, he couldn’t be more cowardly.

Now, he was running away with his hands covering his head; the next moment, he was crawling forward on all fours like a lizard. He narrowly escaped all the deadly attacks, as if he were an undying cockroach!

Yan Jun’s sword aura had left scratches on his body which was all covered in blood now. The mustard suit had been dyed in red.

However, the spiritual shield would only break when suffering a ‘fatal attack’. Li Yao’s injuries were mostly superficial and did not affect his speed. In fact, he even looked for several opportunities to counterattack!

“Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!”

Brilliant sparks burst out around Yan Jun. Three of his octagonal iron blades had been slashed into pieces by Li Yao!

Even his chest had been kicked heavily by Li Yao once!

Yan Jun sneered in derision. The broken blades did not fall to the ground. Instead, they sped up and passed by Li Yao quickly!

With a shiver, Li Yao managed to block Yan Jun’s dagger attack with the chainsword in his right hand. But there was no way he could stop Yan Jun’s fist from cutting-in. His stomach was punched so brutally that he felt that he had been hit by a falling star. Agony and paralysis grabbed him like an octopus, making him unable to control himself at all. He was blown hundreds of meters away and crushed into piles of rocks. The blood that he spat out dyed the surrounding smoke red.

“Shua! Shua! Shua!”

Almost ten streams of blood spurted out from Li Yao’s body, which were the result of the sharp iron blades.

“CRACK! CRACK!”

The skin on Li Yao’s hands was almost entirely torn to shreds. The flesh and blood were barely distinguishable. Yet, he was still gripping his chainsword and battle saber, unwilling to let them go.

But the constant, massive spiritual input and the intensity of the combat were apparently too much for the two pieces of mass-produced magical equipment.

The chainsword broke in the middle. The sawtooth dangled down like a dead snake.

In the meantime, the battle saber had cracked into pieces, its components flying everywhere.

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao tried to draw the battle axe from his back, only to find that he could hardly move his finger because of the excruciating pain.

Staring at him coldly, Yan Jun folded his dagger in his palm and walked toward him one step after another.

Li Yao smiled miserably. His left hand moved toward the battle axe on his back inch by inch, while he unsheathed a dagger from his waist awkwardly with an ever-trembling wrist.

They were only fifty meters apart.

The number of the black iron blades spinning around Yan Jun had increased to almost twenty. They were amazingly fast and enveloped in streaks of blackness, as if they were satellites orbiting a planet.

Yan Jun took another step forward, but then his pupils constricted violently. He immediately backed off like a ghost in the same posture.

It was not until he was more than a hundred meters away from Li Yao that he stared at Li Yao deeply and left, never to look back.

“Hu…”

Watching Yan Jun disappear behind the majestic rocks, Li Yao was greatly relieved, albeit not without dissatisfaction.

He was so close to victory!

Yan Jun was indeed a super elite raised up in the Occult Orbs. His instincts for noticing incoming dangers were really keen.

“Shua! Shua! Shua!”

Ding Lingdang, Hong Tong, Yan Yangtian, Ba Weiqi, and Leng Ziming crawled out from the crevices nearby.

Li Yao jumped out of the rocks. He breathed on his palms, rubbed his hands, and started repairing the seriously damaged chainsword and battle saber. The wounded, wretched appearance was entirely gone.

The spurting blood was also stopped as he wriggled his muscles.

The terrible body conditions where he could barely hold his dagger tight turned out to be just an act!

This place was Team Blue Bronze’s rendezvous point as well as the location where they planned to ambush Yan Jun.

If Yan Jun had taken a few steps forward, within 47 meters of Li Yao, the rest of the team except Leng Ziming would’ve launch attacks immediately.

Even though he was at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, there was no way that he could escape.

It was a pity that he somehow saw through it and simply left in advance.

“Ding Lingdang, these are your power knuckles; Shell, these two guns are for you. Sorry that there’s no sniper rifle; there was only one of them in total. The competition was too fierce, so I didn’t participate. But other than the two assault rifles, I snatched a third gun and dismantled it. After modification, the two guns should be able to achieve 60% of the precision and power of a sniper rifle.

“Dummy, this is your brain wave enhancer. Your mental power will be increased by at least 10% if you put it on your head.

“Captain, your physical strength is excellent. This battle axe is perfect for you. This dagger is for Yan Zi!”

While he was maintaining the two broken weapons, Li Yao distributed all his belongings.

Everyone was dazed to see that his hands were rolling up and down swiftly despite the injuries all over his body.

A moment later, ‘Dummy’ Ba Weiqi mumbled, “Just now in the communication channel, you said that you absorbed 68 memory fragments of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, but I didn’t quite believe it.

“Well, I do now.

“You are only in the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage. However, not only did you persist for so long under the bombardment of Yan Jun, a Cultivator at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, you were even close to lure him into our trap…

“You are an undeniable monster!”

…

Five kilometers away, Yan Jun seemed to be roaming. Now and then, he would tread on the rocks lightly. Yet, his speed was astonishingly high.

‘Vulture Li Yao, you’ve improved so much in only a few months. Even I failed to finish you quickly while trying my best. Interesting.

‘It seems that there are indeed experts among the Orb Patrollers from the outside world.

‘If I had walked forward another three steps, your teammates hiding in the crevices would’ve launched deadly attacks, wouldn’t they?

‘But although you’d been preparing to ambush me, you were all bare-handed, while I still had my dagger. You wouldn’t have been able to take down me easily even if I fell into your trap!

‘It was just that I didn’t want to be delayed by you for too long. Don’t ever presume that I was scared of you!’

At this very moment, Yan Jun heard a feeble cracking noise.

Stunned, Yan Jun lifted his dagger in disbelief, while his face suddenly turned extremely awful.

On his dagger, a crack that was even tinier than hair was spreading out like divaricating fungus.

Crack!

After a gentle swing, the dagger exploded into pieces. The only thing left in his hands was the hilt.

The scar on Yan Jun’s fact twisted like a snake that had been shocked. A drop of cold sweat dripped off from his forehead, while he murmured, “What…

“When was my weapon damaged?

“Vulture Li Yao is best known as a refiner. Could it be that his knowledge regarding weapons is profound enough to let him wreck my weapon without me knowing it, even at the cost of his own weapons being broken?”

If so, other than the black iron blades surrounding him, he would’ve been bare-handed, too.

Under the attacks of four Orb Patrollers, including Ding Lingdang who was best at close combat as a body practitioner, chances were slim that he could run away!

Yan Jun squinted. The scar on his face trembled for a long time before it finally stopped. Taking a long breath, he put on a mysterious smile.

“Thankfully, this Vulture Li Yao is on our side.

“If there were such a formidable figure in the demon race, the trip to Ultimacy would be really perilous!”

In relief, Yan Jun threw away the shattered dagger casually. He slapped his hands, and sensing the spiritual waves nearby, he marched toward the spiritual waves which were the most intense with his hands behind his back.

Very soon, cries and screams echoed behind the rocks over there.

…

After Team Blue Bronze assembled and acquired abundant magical equipment, they didn’t make any mistakes.

They were one of the fastest-regrouping Star Teams.

The six of them swept across the margin of Thousand Mountains Domain anticlockwise. None of the lone Orb Patrollers could withstand one blow from them.

When all the Star Teams had regrouped, their kills were already high in the rankings.

Later, they had a few fights with several other Star Teams, with more victories than failures.

When the one-hour final competition was over, the total kills of Team Blue Bronze surprisingly ranked the second among the nine teams, only below Team Thunder Soul led by Yan Jun.

In the meantime, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang, with 71 kills and 67 kills respectively, ranked the fourth and the sixth among all the Orb Patrollers, which made them the two most distinctive dark horses after the one-month special training.

Therefore, Team Blue Bronze had successfully distinguished itself from the top 10 Star Teams and won the qualification to be one of the five teams setting off to Ultimacy in the first echelon.

Chapter 397: Last Defense Line

It was midnight, and the sky of the desert were extremely clear. The giant stars dangled down from the blue-black sky like countless glittering diamonds, giving the feeling that one could pluck them out of the sky if they stood up on their tiptoes.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang walked to the depths of the desert, hand in hand.

Their palms were somewhat wet, indicating the anxiety on their mind.

It was because they were paying a visit to Iron God Yan Ba, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator as well as one of the strongest men in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

The previous morning, after they successfully won the final competition, they went through thorough physical examinations and treatment to further consolidate the fruits of their training.

Then, they refreshed themselves in the deep sleep capsule and took in a lot of high-nutrition drugs.

After that, the time had come to select the spiritual seeds of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, the most alluring benefit of the trip to Ultimacy.

Threatened by the Blood Demon Sector, the Cultivators of the Heaven’s Origin Sector were more united than ever. Almost every Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator had provided a spiritual seed. Many battle-type Cultivators even condensed more than one, trying to bring the Building Foundation Stage Cultivators to the best state, even at the risk of injuring themselves.

The spiritual seeds of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators had different abilities and triggering conditions. Not only did they depend on the level of the user, the ideology of the user would also need to befit the provider’s. At least, their understandings about the path of Cultivation couldn’t be contradictory.

Otherwise, the success rate of spiritual seed explosion would be greatly undermined, and the odds of derangement would soar.

Therefore, one had to think very carefully about which spiritual seeds to select, because their choice concerned their own life.

The selection of spiritual seeds would proceed according to the rank of kills in the final competition. Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were both in the top 10. Their range of choices were fairly large. Yet, they studied them for a long time, only to be notified by a worker that Iron God Yan Ba, the king of body fundamentalists, would like to meet them.

Naturally, they dared not to hesitate now that a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator wanted to see them. Guided by their mini crystal processors, they returned to the ground and reached the desert outside of the valley.

On the sandhill in front of them, a man was sitting there alone. Brilliant stars were shining around him, casting a gentle halo above him.

There was not the tiniest spiritual energy leaking out of Iron God Yan Ba. He had become one with the stars over his head and sand beneath his feet, as if he were part of the splendid nature.

Exchanging a look, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang strode forward with their heads held high.

“For the trip to Ultimacy, I spent a lot of time and efforts over the past year condensing two spiritual seeds.”

Iron God Yan Ba didn’t act mysteriously. Hearing their breaths, he turned around slowly and smiled at them like a friendly next-door neighbor. “Li Yao, Ding Lingdang, are you interested in my spiritual seeds?”

Although knowing that the purpose of Yan Ba’s invitation would probably be about spiritual seeds, Li Yao was still somewhat surprised to hear it with his own ears. He raised his eyebrow and hesitated.

“Senior Yuan, it is reasonable for Ding Lingdang to accept your spiritual seed since she is a body practitioner. But I’m a refiner who’s strongest using magical equipment. May I ask why you turned to me even though you are a body fundamentalist?”

He had been considering Yan Ba’s spiritual seed for a long time, but he didn’t understand why Yan Ba would talk to him in person.

Yan Ba smiled, seeming somewhat lonely.

“Body fundamentalists are the living fossils among the Cultivators. Not just body fundamentalists, even the total number of body practitioners has plunged in recent years. Except for the Combat Department of the Grand Desolate War Institution which has been raising body practitioners, they are rarely seen elsewhere.

“Of the thirty eligible Orb Patrollers that are chosen through all the trouble, there are only two body practitioners. As for a pure body fundamentalist who doesn’t resort to any magical equipment, there is not one.

“Although the two of you are not disciples of the Marvelous Fist Sect, the Grand Desolate War Institution has always been a close friend to the Marvelous Fist Sect, as they are both natives of the Grand Desolate Plateau. If I have to make a choice, naturally, I want to bequeath my spiritual seeds to Cultivators from the Grand Desolate Plateau.

“We all know Ding Lingdang. She is the best body practitioner among the thirty Orb Patrollers. But you, Vulture Li Yao, have an equally sturdy body despite the fact that you are a refiner, which is even more impressive than the bodies of many common body practitioners. I do wonder how you built up your body like this.

“Triggering my spiritual seed is an agonizing, dangerous process. Only those with strong bodies, such as Ding Lingdang and yourself, have a chance at handling the pain.”

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. He didn’t anticipate that the reason Yan Ba picked him was because of his endurance of pain. His face turned quite odd.

Thinking for a moment, he replied frankly, “Senior Yan, I considered taking your spiritual seeds before. But I am a refiner, and magical equipment always comes at the top in my path of Cultivation!

“I’ve absorbed quite a few of your memory pieces and admired the enormous primordial strength that you activated. But I cannot acknowledge the idea that ‘bare-handed is better than fully-armed’. This might be what we call a disagreement about the right path of Cultivation.

“I don’t know if it is suitable or not for me to accept your spiritual seeds because of our different beliefs.

“It is the same for Ding Lingdang. Although she is a body practitioner, she does not reject magical equipment. If she has the chance to fight in a crystal suit, she won’t do it bare-handed.

“Please be aware of that, Senior Yan.”

“Correct,” agreed Ding Lingdang, who then continued solemnly. “Senior Yan, you are the king of body fundamentalists, and you’ve been my idol since I was a kid. I hesitated a long time when I was deciding which spiritual seed I was going to take, because I doubted that I could accept the principle of zero reliance on magical equipment. So, I don’t know whether or not I’m qualified to accept your spiritual seed.

Iron God Yan Ba smiled and said, “So, you think magical equipment is better than empty hands… Everybody knows that!”

“What?!”

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were both dumbfounded.

Yan Ban eyed them as if they were two idiots, before he opened his mouth again.

“Even a three-year-old knows that magical equipment is better than empty hands! The transition between apes to human beings cannot be completed without the usage of tools, can it? There is no reason why we should abandon tools which have changed from the simple stoneware to delicate magical equipment and just resort to two empty hands.”

“But—”

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang failed to understand what was going on.

Yan Ba’s words would have been more than convincing, if they were from someone else’s mouth.

But Yan Ba was a body practitioner monk who discarded all kinds of magical equipment and weapons. As a body fundamentalist, he would fight against an overwhelming beast tide with absolutely nothing but his bare hands!

“Are you curious as to why I would say that even though I’m a body practitioner, and why I never resorted to any magical equipment if I felt that it was better than empty hands?

“The truth is, the principle of the body fundamentalists is not what you’ve considered it to be.

“Body fundamentalist is the most ancient profession in the modern Cultivation world. Not ‘one of’.

“During the Great Dark Age forty thousand years ago, the demon race dominated the sea of stars and established a giant, hierarchical Demon Beast Empire. They slew the Cultivators and suppressed the ordinary humans in tyranny, eliminating any possibility of the usage of magical equipment.

“During the thirty thousand years of darkness, we had no jade chips to store Cultivation arts, no flying swords to fight against the oppressors, and no Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to build up our bodies. If someone was discovered to have been secretly hiding a piece of magical equipment, their family and friends would all be murdered mercilessly by the demon race!

“But even faced with such tremendous pressure, we never gave up our hopes of cultivating. Without jade chips, flying swords, and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, the only thing that we could count on was this.”

Yan Ban lifted his thumb and pointed at his somewhat dry chest, then he continued speaking calmly. “The only thing that mankind could count on was our own flesh and blood, our veins, nerves, muscles, heart, cells, as well as the power hidden deep inside us that had been passed on by our ancestors and predecessors during times of great trouble after countless apocalypses.

“The power was sealed in the deepest part of our cells. Once we tore off the seals and released the power, it was the start of the rebellion against the reign of the demon race.

“Hence the oldest profession in the modern Cultivation world, the body fundamentalists.

“Body fundamentalists are never too obstinate to learn the advantages of magical equipment and weapons. We never use them because none of the human beings had any access to magical equipment when the profession was created!

“But even without magical equipment, we would fight against the demon race until the last breath with our fists, fingernails, and teeth!”

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were greatly touched.

Li Yao couldn’t help but ask, “But it was thirty thousand years ago. Right now, the human race has regained control over the sea of stars. Magical equipment is more useful than ever, why…”

Yan Ba smiled.

“Although the human race is divided and scattered in different worlds, there is no doubt that we are the dominators of our respective worlds, and it’s quite convenient to get a piece of magical equipment.

“But, what if the demon race comes back again? What if demonic Cultivators, or even foreign species that are stronger than all others, or an unprecedented apocalypse, come knocking at our door?

“If the threats wipe out the mankind’s ability to refine and use magical equipment and we are forced to fight bare-handed again, body fundamentalists will have to step up and lead the rebellion. They will show everyone how to fight a battle with nothing but their hands, feet, and teeth!

“Yes, everybody knows that it is very unlikely that such events will ever occur. But the sea of stars is boundless; who knows what kinds of dangers are lurking in the darkness?

“Therefore, body fundamentalists are never insignificant. We are like a tiny fuse.

“If one day, humanity falls into darkness again and loses all the magical equipment, we—the body fundamentalists—will be the last defense line of our civilization!

“This is the reason why I chose to become a body fundamentalist.

“Maybe my spiritual seeds are not as impressive as others’ will be when they explode. But no one can say for sure what will happen in Ultimacy. In the worst-case scenario where your magical equipment is all damaged and your weapons lost, my spiritual seeds might be able to save your lives, and also… rekindle the fire of hope for the federation and the Heaven’s Origin Sector!”

Chapter 398: Blazing Hydra, Immortal Phoenix

Under the brilliant night sky, in the middle of the quiet dessert, Iron God’s every word struck Li Yao and Ding Lingdang like a falling star, raising countless thoughts in their minds.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang, exchanging a quick glance, said honestly, “We’re sorry, Senior Yuan. We never truly understood the beliefs of the body fundamentalists until this moment.”

“Beliefs…”

Yan Ba sighed. Then he said slowly, “I’m 264 years old right now. Most of the Nascent Souls are around the same age as me. Even Sha Tianqing, the youngest Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator in the federation, is almost two hundred years old. That’s why people call us ‘old monsters’. Monsters we might be not, but old we really are.

“Two hundred years ago, I was born in a small village in the depths of the Grand Desolate Plateau. The villagers made a living by exploiting a mother lode nearby. My parents were the guardians that the Marvelous Fist Sect sent to protect the village.

“At that time, the demon race in the Heaven’s Origin Sector hadn’t been cleared up yet. The Grand Desolate Plateau was riddled with great demons’ dens and even demon kingdoms. Fierce battles would break out every day.

“Since the human race wasn’t able to control the entire Grand Desolate Plateau, the invasion of beast tides from the Blood Demon Sector was much more convenient than right now. They could congregate in unhabituated areas unhurriedly until their army was unfathomably large, before they paved a way of destruction and swallowed everything in their way.

“Before I was ten, I’d experienced dozens of beast tide outbreaks, more times than many Cultivators at present have seen in their entire lives.

“When I was eleven, I witnessed a beast tide devouring the blue sky, the vast earth, and also my hometown.

“My parents were not very talented, but they were both passionate about training. After they were stationed to the village, they’d trained hard every day. They were already in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage at that time. But so what?

“To cover the villagers’ retreat, they charged into the beast tide unhesitatingly, only to be drowned in less than ten minutes.

“Because of their sacrifice, twelve children, including myself, were rescued by the reinforcements of the Marvelous Fist Sect in time. But the rest of the villagers, the homes, and the livestock were all consumed.

“After the beast tide ebbed and we returned to where the village used to be, there was no sign whatsoever that a village had been in this place. There were not even blood stains. Everything had been eaten up without leaving the slightest trace.

“For Cultivators who have been born in the recent hundred years, including your generation, you happen to be living in an era when the Star Glory Federation is thriving. In your eyes, a peaceful environment is a matter of course.

“But we the Nascent Souls were mostly born in the wartime. We’ve seen more tragedies than one can count. When we were young, none of us were certain before we went to sleep at night that the federation would still be there when we opened eyes again the next morning.

“Therefore, it goes without saying for us that if we do not stick together and try our best, the Star Glory Federation and the human civilization in the Heaven’s Origin Sector are very likely to be wiped out. We know that after we are wiped out, there won’t be monuments left in memory of us, but manure of the demon beasts.

“Beliefs? Conflicts about the right path of Cultivation?

“Is a saber better than a sword, or is it the other way around? Is spiritual energy particles or waves? In the eyes of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators who have experienced true darkness in person, these conflicts are not conflicts at all.

“In my opinion, there is one—and only one—conflict that is worthy of noting, the conflict of the living space between mankind and foreign species in the sea of stars!

“In our case, the conflict is the life-and-death war between the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector!

“To build the Star Glory Federation into a stronger nation, to illuminate the universe with the torch of humanity. This is my beliefs and my path of Cultivation.

“If a saber can protect our nation and our civilization, I will use a saber.

“If a fist can do everything, I will use a fist.

“If guns are required, I don’t mind blowing up the heads of the demon kings and demon emperors with roaring bullets.

“Most Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators share the same beliefs as me. That’s why we were willing to burn our life and soul to condense precious spiritual seeds for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators such as you two.

“How about it? Do you still feel that there are contradictions in the beliefs you and I hold?”

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were silent for a long time. Nothing could be heard in the dark desert except their heavy breathing. Looking at each other, they replied at the same time, “Senior Yuan, we are willing to accept your spiritual seeds!”

…

At five o’clock in the morning, in the bottom level of the underground training base, Li Yao was lying on a metal bed, his arms and legs stretched out, tied up by countless spiritual wires, with six artificial arms moving rapidly nearby.

The silver wall glided open silently. The artificial arms picked out a cold crystal cylinder in which a dazzling light spot was jumping and struggling like a transparent hedgehog.

It was a spiritual seed of a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator.

An artificial arm placed the crystal cylinder on Li Yao’s forehead, while others took out quite a few metal rings and bound them together.

In the end, a piece of magical equipment which could release high-pressure air current was placed behind the cylinder.

“Li Yao, are you ready? There might be a little pain,” a gentle voice said.

Taking a long breath, Li Yao made an ‘OK’ gesture.

“Acknowledged. Spiritual seed injection engaged in five, four, three, two, one. Activate!”

“Chi!”

After a feeble sound, the spiritual seed inside the crystal cylinder was gone.

Li Yao screamed desperately. Veins all over his body were bulging out. His bloodshot eyes were wide open. His two hands left ten deep scratches on the metal bed below him!

…

At ten o’clock in the morning, in a gravity room of the underground training base…

The gravity was adjusted to one tenth of the standard gravity. A mild breeze was blowing.

Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were almost naked, except for the simple cloth covering their private parts. Their hands open, they were floating in midair.

Countless colorful jade spiders were crawling over their bodies.

While the spiders were crawling, they were also pricking Li Yao’s and Ding Lingdang’s skin, resulting in many miniature flecks. The miniature flecks were gradually connected and constituted two arcane patterns.

Sitting in front of them in the air was a plump, beautiful, middle-aged lady whose skin was covered in brilliant tattoos with barely any blank space. With a close look, even her pupils were filled with complicated spiritual tattoos, which were dancing in her eyes like countless spirits.

The middle-aged lady was drawing seals rapidly with her hands while casting spells with her mouth. Innumerable octagonal, shining runes were circling her.

Her hands seemed to be attached to thousands of spiritual threads, each linked to one jade spider which was painting on their bodies like pens.

Li Yao’s and Ding Lingdang’s eyelids were trembling violently. Biting their lips hard, they were not even able to grunt.

The spiritual seed injection just now was painful enough. They’d never expected that the pain of tattooing would be no less excruciating.

However, they were not in the least discontented. In fact, they were quite excited, because the ‘middle-aged lady’ in front of them was actually ‘Miraculous Marker’ Xie Ling, widely regarded as the best spiritual tattooist in the Star Glory Federation, who was more than 250 years old.

After watching the files and combat videos of all the Orb Patrollers, Xie Ling decided to draw spiritual tattoos on five of them, including Li Yao and Ding Lingdang!

The powerful spiritual tattoos created by spiritual tattooists were not bearable for every Cultivator.

It was especially so in the case of the spiritual tattoos produced by a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator such as Xie Ling. Common Cultivators would find it impossible to withstand her work at all.

It was also one of the most important reasons why body practitioners continued to exist.

Many incredible spiritual tattoos were only useful for and could only be utilized by body practitioners.

Li Yao’s astonishing defense ability and unparalleled body toughness had earned him a spiritual tattoo to be crafted by Xie Ling herself.

As for other Orb Patrollers who were not qualified to get the spiritual tattoos, they were allowed to pick one or two invaluable treasures at their will from Occult Orbs Fellowship’s treasury.

As Xie Ling’s hands moved faster and faster, the jade spiders’ movement speed increased. Two ultimate spiritual tattoos whose ink was refined out of thousands of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures gradually took shape.

Ding Lingdang’s body was covered in a nine-headed dragon condensed in flames from her chest to her back. As she breathed, the dragon seemed to be rushing and roaring in clouds.

On Li Yao’s body, it was a vintage crimson phoenix which was extending its wings, ready to chase wind and lightning. Its extremely long tails spread to his four limbs like nine chains of blood.

“Cha!” Xie Ling bellowed. All the jade spiders jumped off their bodies and returned to her Cosmos Ring.

The grand spiritual tattoos, after glittering momentarily, vanished and sank into their flesh and blood.

At first look, their skin was as smooth and clean as before. There were no traces of the tattoos at all.

This was due to the ‘Ink Burying’ skill. The spiritual tattoos would be hidden inside the flesh and blood normally, which would neither affect their daily training nor be seen through by the enemy easily.

Only during fierce combat, when the spiritual energy was bursting out, would the spiritual tattoos reveal themselves.

The two tattoos were tailor-made by Xie Ling after studying their files and combat videos repetitively according to their respective specialties. There wouldn’t be a second tattoo like them in the entire world.

Ding Lingdang’s spiritual tattoo was called ‘Blazing Hydra’. It would be triggered based on her rage. The angrier she became, the more it would bring up the efficiency of her fiery spiritual energy.

In her most furious state, the spiritual tattoo could improve her combat ability by more than 30%.

Li Yao’s spiritual tattoo was named ‘Immortal Phoenix’, which would be triggered by his blood. The more he bled, the better his spiritual tattoo would work, and the higher his combat ability would become.

In other words, with this spiritual tattoo, he would be the strongest when he was the most seriously wounded.

Of course, both ‘Blazing Hydra’ and ‘Immortal Phoenix’ boiled down to the stimulation of central nerves and brain cells in order to activate the body’s hidden potential. It equaled to burning their own life.

But as Cultivators, was their purpose not to ignite themselves and illuminate the entire universe?

It was 1:32 p.m. at this moment.

There were five days until the first launch of Heaven’s Artillery.

Chapter 399: Hometown

The following morning, at a Special Waste Treatment Plant near Lake Rusty in Floating Spear City known as the magical equipment graveyard…

Li Yao had grown up in this place.

During the three years that he was away, countless scavengers were still making their living by recycling the abandoned magical equipment.

Although it was merely dawn, countless scavengers were already searching every piece of magical equipment that was still usable on the shaking garbage hill while holding back the pungent smells.

On the eastside of the magical equipment graveyard, two gangs were confronting each other.

Each gang had around fifty people. Some of them were clenching iron tubes wreathed in steel thorns, while some others were waving coldly-shining, sharp blades.

The leader of one of the gangs was thin and somewhat hunched with a brown skin. Cunningness and cruelness beamed out from his triangular eyes, making him look like a hungry hellion.

The other leader, in comparison, was tall and brawny. His muscles were tearing his clothes apart. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked a furious bear.

The triangular-eyed man said coldly, a dagger folded in his hand, “Fatty Leung, we all make our living in the magical equipment graveyard. Conflict is inevitable. But you didn’t have to be so brutal. Just for a wrecked shuttle, you beat up two of my brothers terribly. Do you think that my temper has died down now that I’m older?”

Fatty Leung was brawny, but it did not mean that he lacked brains. He rebutted unnervingly as he laughed peculiarly.

“Wild Wolf, don’t presume that I do not know what you did. Last week, when three of my brothers were doing their job, the garbage hill collapsed suddenly. Four broken legs. That was all your doing!”

Wild Wolf and Fatty Leung were representatives of the two largest scavenger gangs in the magical equipment graveyard. As their gangs flourished more and more, unrest continued to grow. A fight seemed to be unavoidable.

The vibe grew more and more intense. A tiny spark could set the scene ablaze.

Somebody was tying their wrists with cloth quietly in case their hands slipped during the upcoming fight because of sticky blood; somebody was preparing exhilarant drugs to stimulate them.

Suddenly, an earsplitting shriek burst out in the sky, as if a falling star was coming, or a giant bird was diving down.

Shocked by the shriek, everyone flinched. An earthquake seemed to be taking place.

Many scraps of magical equipment were rolling down from the garbage hills nearby.

The color of Fatty Leung’s and Ye Long’s faces changed. They were unable to command their subordinates anymore, because their shouts were dwarfed by the overwhelming noise.

Every scavenger gazed at the sky, stunned, as if they had been frozen by some spell.

A round, jade-like shuttle, which one could tell was as lavish as any shuttle could be, flew past the sky of the magical equipment graveyard while glittering brightly.

It appeared that the extravagant shuttle was arriving at its destination, because it was slowing down and preparing to land. Spiritual waves rippled in the air, spreading out and diminishing, until they broke into thousands of butterfly-like light spots and vanished in the air.

“This is…”

As scavengers, Fatty Leung and Wild Wolf had never taken real extravagant shuttles in person. But they’d both seen them a lot in magazines and on the Nexus. They could tell whether a piece of magical equipment was valuable or not when they saw it.

Although Wild Wolf always considered himself to be a knowledgeable man, he had never seen a shuttle as beautiful before. It was so shockingly splendid that it did not even seem to belong to the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

“There is nothing but scum and low-rent residential areas around the Lake Rusty except for the magical equipment graveyard. Why would such an advanced shuttle land here?”

“Is this really happening? I’ve seen the vehicles of the mayor of Floating Spear City and the leaders of the major sects in the city. Even their shuttles are not as good as this one!”

“Who’s on the shuttle? What is it doing in this place?”

An unimaginable big shot appearing unexpectedly could not mean anything good. These scavengers that had been working in the grey area of the law were the most sensitive to danger.

Exchanging a look, Fatty Leung and Wild Wolf both put the upcoming fight aside.

“Look, the shuttle is landing in ‘Morning Sun Village’!”

“Morning Sun Village? Does that mean the guy on the shuttle is… Vulture Li Yao?”

Everyone was greatly shocked.

Morning Sun Village was the cheapest and the least frequented low-rent residential community. Even scavengers such as themselves wouldn’t live there as long as they had a few coins in their pockets. Nothing interesting had happened in that place since it was built dozens of years ago.

Until three years ago, a celebrity from that place rose to fame, Vulture Li Yao!

As an orphan growing up in the magical equipment graveyard, he had become a Cultivator at the Building Foundation Stage before he was 25. Even in the five hundred years the Star Glory Federation’s history, he was also one of the few legends who achieved that!

Fiend Blade Peng Hai, who had been quite a superstar in Floating Spear City a few years ago, was eclipsed by Vulture Li Yao’s brilliance.

Cultivation in the Heaven’s Origin Sector was never easy. A Cultivator at the Building Foundation Stage was qualified to be a professor in a university, an Elder in a sect, or a commander of a military legion. In the eyes of the insignificant scavengers, he was one of the super big shots living in a different world.

“Vulture Li Yao has his days now! He could buy the magical equipment graveyard with part of the shell of such an extravagant shuttle!”

“In the old days, I even fought him before. It’s really scaring to think that I used to fight against a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator!”

“I was even kicked by him once! Well well well. My life is fulfilled now, knowing that I had such an encounter with a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator!”

Scavengers such as Fatty Leung and Wild Wolf were not in much of a friendly relationship with Li Yao, who might not even bother to sort everything out with them now that he was a high and mighty Cultivator. But if they continued on fighting and caused a riot, who could say for sure that it would not trigger some bad memories for Li Yao?

Fatty Leung and Wild Wolf looked at each other and retreated with their respective gang silently, thinking jealousy and complicated thoughts.

Seeing Vulture Li Yao who used to be searching for abandoned magical equipment in garbage hills like themselves turning into an influential Cultivator and owning such an expensive shuttle, they somehow lost all drive to fight anymore.

Fate was such an erratic thing!

In Morning Sun Village, Li Yao could have parked the shuttle that he borrowed from Occult Orbs Fellowship in midair beside the window, so that he would be able to enter his room directly.

Yet, he still chose to land the shuttle on the ground and walk slowly into his room through the dark and muggy stairs.

There were four days left before the trip to Ultimacy.

An expedition to ten thousand lightyears away was hundreds of times more dangerous than adventures in common Occult Orbs.

Many of the thirty Orb Patrollers of the first echelon were core disciples of major families and sects, or descendants of renowned Cultivators. They had to take care of their personal affairs first.

Therefore, for the last few days, Occult Orbs Fellowship didn’t arrange further training missions for them but gave them some time to reunite with their family and friends and bid farewell to them properly.

Li Yao had no family now. But Floating Spear City was the place where he grew up after all. He felt he was somewhat rooted in this place.

He didn’t feel that his hometown was anything unusual before. But when he realized that he was going ten thousand lightyears away through the sea of stars, he suddenly had the impetus to take a tour around Floating Spear City.

Just now, he lowered the altitude of the shuttle and slowed it down on purpose, just in order to see the place he grew up in one more time.

Although that part of his life was filled with difficulty, suffering, and street fights, he found that what he remembered most were the warmth and wonders.

The spotted walls of Morning Sun Village as well as the colorful graffiti suddenly pulled himself back to years ago.

“It’s been three years since I last came to this place. Last time I returned to Floating Spear City, I left in a hurry after meeting Senior Brother Peng Hai, and there was no time for me to come back.

“Now that I’m finally here, everything is exactly the same as when I left.

“The only thing that has changed is myself!

“From a little scavenger struggling in the ditch and garbage hills of the magical equipment graveyard, to a middle-level Building Foundation Stage Cultivator who is about to fight for my nation and for myself ten thousand lightyears away!”

Li Yao stopped in front of the door of his home.

The blemished iron door was covered entirely in spider nets. The lock was rusted over, too.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao pressed his hands on the lock and knocked it off with his spiritual energy. Then he pushed the door open and walked in.

Most of the precious files that his adoptive father left for him had been packed up and sent to the Grand Desolate War Institution a long time ago.

But many magical equipment scraps were still in the corners of the room.

There were also many antique crystal processors dangling from the ceiling, which were shaken by the breeze and pealed like wind-chimes.

This place was very close to the magical equipment graveyard, and therefore had an extremely low rent. But few people still resided here. After Li Yao went to college, he kept renewing the lease on the house which he considered to be his home.

On his way to the Grand Desolate War Institution, his spiritual root was awakened, allowing him to become a Cultivator. When the news reached Floating Spear City, everybody was greatly shocked. The magical equipment graveyard was never short of thieves, but none of them dared to trespass on his household when they learned that it belonged to a Cultivator.

Therefore, three years later, except for a thick layer of dust on everything, there was barely anything different about his home.

Li Yao glanced over every corner of the room and was somewhat surprised that his home was much smaller than he remembered it to be. It was like two pigeon cages.

But in his memories, this room had been his entire world where so many beautiful things happened.

Old scenes flooded back one by one.

It was in these very rooms that his adoptive father taught him the skills of magical equipment maintenance as well as all kinds of eccentric knowledge.

From the repulse at the beginning, to the ecstasy of reading a maintenance manual of a crystal warship in the end. Too many traces of his growth had been left in these two rooms.

Li Yao sighed slightly. He was planning to pack everything away with his Cosmos Ring, but on second thought, he decided to keep them where they were. In the end, he merely picked up a ‘Ghost Fire IV’, a crystal processor refined by Blue Flame Sect 124 years ago, from the antique crystal processor collection.

The performance of the crystal processor was mediocre. Yet, it was weirdly designed into the form of a skeleton head, which added to its value as a collectable.

Li Yao stored it inside his Cosmos Ring as a memento of his past.

Closing the door gently, he jumped out of the window. The extravagant shuttle was already waiting for him outside.

Li Yao set off to Floating Spear City’s downtown area!