Forty Millenniums of Cultivation - Chapter 450

Chapter 450: Rabid Dogs

In a dim, narrow pathway at the end of the warship…

This warship seemed to have undergone protracted head-on battles. The internal structure was on the verge of destruction. Cracks, dislocations, and broken cabins that had been sealed by strengthened foams were everywhere. In general, it was like a complicated maze which had been smashed to pieces by a giant.

Through the tiny gaps between steel beams and tubes, Li Yao slithered silently from one cabin to another like a hungry boa which had just woken up from its hibernation.

Occasionally, several space pirates would come by the pathway below him. But Li Yao didn’t attack them. Instead, he listened to what they were talking about carefully.

From the space pirates’ conversation, Li Yao discovered that the warship was actually in a very bad condition, with serious internal damage everywhere that could possibly lead to explosions. The spiritual energy of the warship was running dry, too.

Most of the soldiers had been deployed to attack Star Lord Temple. Those left on board were mostly operators and mechanics.

Finally, when a space pirate was rushing close from the pathway in front and Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts didn’t sense a second heartbeat in the surrounding dozen or so square meters, he moved out!

Like a lurking boa lunging at its prey, Li Yao darted out from the gaps among the tubes, stomping on a wall. He reached the space pirate momentarily, and his two arms slapped down like the sharpest whips, producing earsplitting noises.

Before the space pirate knew what was going on, his shoulder blades had been blown into powder as tiny as sand!

The sense of pain hadn’t yet travelled to his brain. There was still confusion in his eyes, but Li Yao had already locked his neck and kicked brutally right in his chest. His mustard suit proved to be utterly useless. His internal organs were shattered and his ribs broken. The sharp fractured bones brushed past his heart narrowly!

The space pirate finally felt the excruciating pain, but his mouth was being strangled by Li Yao so hard that his teeth were all clattering against each other.

The boa had caught a sheep. Unable to struggle, the space pirate was dragged to a long-prepared tool cabin by Li Yao, who then stickered a muting rune on the door of the cabin casually before he threw his captive to a corner.

The space pirate was cramping and vomiting in agony. Yet, he had lost the strength to scream. His eyes were darting around rapidly, which soon noticed the black crystal suit with blood-red spiritual stripes. Then, he was consumed by fear!

Li Yao took out a dose of a highly-condensed drug, flipped its cap away with his thumb, and tilted the utensil.

The thick, translucent drug with alluring aroma immediately flowed out and dripped to the ground silently.

Li Yao said calmly, “Your shoulders and ribs are all broken. Your internal organs are bleeding seriously. Depending on your capability, you will die in five to eight minutes.

“If you ingest this medication, your internal bleeding should be stopped temporarily, long enough for you to make it to the med bay.

“Now, you have three minutes to tell me the reason why you people are here, the status and personnel of your starship, and the identity and capability of your highest commander.

“Confess everything that you consider useful. I will be the one to judge whether or not your information is valuable.

“If I’m convinced that listening to you is worthwhile, I will give you the medication drug. You are not my target. I won’t waste my time on a shrimp such as yourself.

“However, make it fast. The medicinal drug will continue to pour to the floor over the three minutes. If the remaining drug is not enough for you, don’t blame me.”

While he was talking, Li Yao projected a light beam in front of him, on which a blood-red countdown in a gruesome font was manifested.

Three minutes. The countdown began!

Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds to go!

The space pirate was cramping and grimacing in the sharp pain like a loach which had been pinned to a chopper block. He was mumbling something, but there was no telling whether he was cursing or begging.

Li Yao was as peaceful as before. The countdown continued, as did the flowing medication drug.

After ten seconds, the space pirate finally realized the situation that he was in. Like a drowning man grasping the last straw, he held back his pain and moved to Li Yao’s feet, telling Li Yao everything that he knew of.

The reality was similar to what Li Yao had guessed. This starship of Storm Prison was not commanded by Fengyu Zhong, the brutal bandit in the Core Formation Stage, personally, but by his only son Fengyu Ming.

Fengyu Ming was 27 years old and in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage. But he was quite a Mr. Nobody in the ‘Spider Den’, a planet where space pirates congregated. In order to succeed his father’s enterprise, he would have to show his ruthlessness to everyone first.

This was actually Fengyu Ming’s first hunting trip by himself.

At first, everything had gone quite well. He’d captured two business starships and looted a lot of useful resources.

But very soon, during his next assault, he was noticed by the passing-by ‘Great Horn Exo Society’.

The Great Horn Exo Society were not the guards of the business starship being savaged by him nor were there any grudges between the two parties before. Their comprehensive capabilities were on par. Fengyu Ming’s side even had slight edge. Once they were engaged in a battle, there would be two losers and zero winners.

However, the Great Horn Exo Society bit Fengyu Ming like a bunch of rabid dogs and wouldn’t let him go no matter what. They drifted and fought in the sea of stars for over two months, with significant losses on both sides. Their starships were all riddled with holes and on the verge of destruction now.

Fengyu Ming had never seen such a fearless Exo Society before. He ran far away and eventually reached this far-flung area.

At this moment, his starship was collapsing. Now that he’d detected Star Lord Temple, he had planned to steal some supplies from the place.

He had thought that, after one or two barrages, the country folk down there would surrender nicely. But the defense of Star Lord Temple was much tougher than he had expected. Having no other choice, he had been forced to command the bandits to launch frontal attacks. Li Yao already knew the rest of the story.

After two months of battles, Fengyu Ming had lost most of his elite subordinates. The surviving space pirates were all exhausted if not injured, with little ammunition and spiritual energy left. That was why his attack on a small town had lasted almost an hour with little progress.

“I—I’ve told you everything. Give me the medication drug, give me…”

The space pirate’s face was pale. Blood was gurgling inside his throat. He begged anxiously and desperately.

Li Yao was deep in thought.

Great Horn Exo Society?

Exo Societies were unique organizations of Cultivators in the Flying Star Sector.

Compared with Cultivation sects, Exo Societies were burdened with less rules. The Exos with a clean history and acceptable skills could join or leave any of them free at their will.

Such loose organizations were very popular among the unaffiliated Cultivators who hated to be bounded by restrictions. Many young men from Cultivation sects preferred to join an Exo Society when they were travelling in the outside world away from their sects to gain more battle experience, make more prominent friends, and enjoy the more splendid scenery of the vast world.

Exo Societies mainly had two sources of income: to serve as guards for large business fleets or mining bases, and to hunt down space pirates and demon beasts to claim their bounties.

However, Li Yao didn’t find ‘Great Horn’ among the names of the most famous Exo Societies in the Flying Star Sector. It seemed to be a mediocre one.

Then, why would a mediocre Exo Society with no impressive capabilities hunt the space pirates of Storm Prison for more than two months without any rest? Were the bounties of the space pirates that high?

“Why have the Great Horn Exo Society been chasing you for the last two months?”

Li Yao lowered his wrist. The medication drug inside was pouring out at a higher speed. Almost half dose was about to be emptied.

Two hands seemed to be popping out from the hollowed eyes of the space pirate. Smelling the exhilarating flavor, he felt that his internal organs were all the more painful and insufferable. His lips tremored for a moment, before he finally spoke the truth.

“When Master Ming was pillaging the second business starship, to— to better spread his name, he—killed everyone from the starship after they surrendered.”

Several blood vessels inside Li Yao’s eyes suddenly burst. He nodded and handed over the medication drug. “Very good. The information you’ve provided is very valuable.”

The space pirate took a long breath in relief and picked the medication drug, shivering. Before he was able to swallow it, he suddenly felt that his chest was aching as if ten thousand iron needles had stabbed into it at the same time with tens of thousands of electric arcs. After an intense spasm, his eyes widened and froze.

Li Yao took back the medication drug and vanished in the gaps among tubes on the ceiling of the tool cabin.

…

Like a wolf who was locked in an iron cage with a broken leg, Fengyu Ming paced to and fro stumblingly, with a hideous and desperate, if not somewhat wronged, expression on his face.

“Son of a gun. When are the rabid dogs of the Great Horn Exo Society going to stop?

“It was not the cargo that you were protecting that I robbed anyway!

“This is just my first hunting trip. The bounty on my head is not even enough to pay for the fuel of your starship!

“Why? Can somebody tell me why?!”

Fengyu Ming yelled at the top of his voice and pulled on his hair incredibly violently.

The past two months had been a terrible memory for a bandit who had just started his career.

The comprehensive capability of the Great Horn Exo Society was not very impressive at all; it was even weaker than his starship.

But ‘give up’ seemed to be an entry that was missed from their dictionary. Each time he got rid of them, they would simply come back again. There was absolutely no way to ditch them!

Every time they were engaged, the Great Horn Exo Society was always determined to perish together with him. His enemy would park their starship an inch away from his own starship despite the fierce bombardment and then open fire at him. It was just like two burly thugs stabbing each other with daggers, not having the slightest fear about what might become of themselves.

Faced with such an insane foe, even the brutal bandits of Storm Prison had no other choice but to run away.

He had thought that, reaching the periphery of the Flying Star Sector after more than half a month of cruising through stone belts and cosmic storms, the rabid dogs must’ve been left behind.

But as it turned out, half a day ago, the telepathic thoughts of the Great Horn Exo Society had still been detected, which carried a piece of arrogant information written in plaintext without the shallowest disguise.

“It is the most important thing for Cultivators to keep our word. When we say we will take you down, we will take you down, even if you flee to the end of the sea of stars!”

A bunch of rabid dogs!

It never rains; it pours. The small space town in front of him was quite eccentric, too. Its powerful defense rings made him fail to conquer the settlement after almost two hours.

Fengyu Ming had a vague feeling that he was not going to be able to get supplies from this place.

Even though he could take over the town right now, there wouldn’t be enough time for them to transport the supplies to their starship, since the rabid dogs of the Great Horn Exo Society could arrive at any time.

Fengyu Ming’s facial muscles were twitching violently. He gritted his teeth and decided to abandon the fat meat right below his mouth and continue his escape as soon as possible.

Right then, the warship shivered. The giant light beam on the top of the dashboard was in ominous red, while hasty alarms were echoing nonstop.

The engine compartment had a serious explosion. 15% of the impetus was lost, and the number only continued to rise.

Fengyu Ming’s face suddenly turned taut and grave.

Chapter 451: Spare My Life, Senior!

For the space pirates of Storm Prison right now, an impetus loss of 15% was almost deadly.

Even though the power rune arrays could not be restored in time, the explosions had to be controlled so that it wouldn’t affect other areas of the warship.

If they were to lose 30% or more impetus, they would be sitting ducks, having nowhere to run.

Static noises came through the communication channel. The contact between the cockpit and the engine compartment had been cut off by the explosions.

Fengyu Ming rushed toward the engine compartment without any hesitation.

He raised his hand. A streak of redness surrounded him and gradually consolidated into a raging crystal suit.

The crystal suit named ‘Dark Fire’ was a trophy from an expert at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage that his father had killed. It had been modified by the specialists of ‘Spider Den’, the base planet of the space pirates, with additional plate armor and attack rune arrays. The formidable crystal suit was his biggest reliance on this solo hunting trip.

Despite his young age, Fengyu Ming was truly his father’s son; they were both sordid and cunning. Even though he was moving inside his own starship, he still put the crystal suit on.

Rushing through the pathway, Fengyu Ming issued commands in the communication channel, ordering the mechanics to go to the engine compartment as soon as possible.

When he was dozens of meters away from the engine compartment, he was already able to smell the burning scent. Black smoke was floating in the above of the pathway, rolling and pressing down.

At this moment, a minor explosion occurred ahead of him. A lot of smoke was coming right at him.

Fengyu Ming frowned. He was going to charge into the smoke when he suddenly had a palpitation and his brain almost froze!

Fengyu Ming screamed like an animal which was falling into a trap. He burned his soul and leaped forward, while the saber with the tusks of a demon beast in his hand drew an insidious upward curve behind him!

Inside the intense smoke behind him, an intimidating figure was rushing close, as if it were trying to collide into the tip of his saber.

Fengyu Ming’s every pore was constricting violently. The surging killing intent behind him was too immense, like an icy piton filled with magma. Sharp, fast, and rampant!

Fengyu Ming felt that he was a dead body that a vulture had got its eyes on. Even his bone marrows were freezing!

Waiting to be killed was not his style. There was no time to dodge when he sensed the incoming attack. Therefore, he simply returned an equally brutal attack so as to die together with his enemy, and he roared to send warnings through the communication channel.

But beyond his expectations—

The master of the rampant killing scent neither dodged nor backed off, but accelerated and crashed right into him!

His tusk saber cut in his opponent’s body effortlessly.

In the meantime, his internal organs were savaged by a hot stream that felt like magma, too!

Fengyu Ming’s facial expressions were completely frozen. He lowered his head in disbelief and shock, only to find that the plate armor covering his stomach had been dug through by a drill of mystic rays which was still revolving rapidly there, dragging all his internal organs into the throes of agony.

The first thing to be wrecked was his spine. Waves of spiritual energy spread out from the drill of mystic rays and tangled every part of his neural network like parasites harassing their host, making him lose control over his lower half body. The circulation of his spiritual energy was disrupted, too!

What terrified him more was that, although his saber had hit the enemy hard and sure, he did not receive the delightful feedback of a crystal suit and the flesh and blood inside of it being cut through; his saber was like a statue made of mud sinking into a deep ocean.

The spiritual energy blowing out of his saber, which was supposed to have minced the internal organs of his opponent into pieces, also vanished into thin air, as if it had been swallowed by an immeasurable swamp.

What is this guy? Why on earth is he on my starship?

What is his crystal suit made of? Why is it so eccentric that it can absorb not only the physical attack but also my spiritual energy?

It hurts! It hurts so much!

Behind Fengyu Ming, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit gradually appeared, like a wraith wandering in the human world from the deepest level of hell. His glittering tusk saber was caught in the soft defense layer refined out of the transparent body tissue of Skeleton Dragon in the middle of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit’s chest.

Li Yao had retrieved a lot of materials from Skeleton Dragon. The most precious ones had all been refined and added to the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit!

Speaking of refining techniques and framework design, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit might be well below the standard of the Flying Star Sector, but in regards of the utilization and coverage rate of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was definitely one of the most extravagant crystal suits!

With the flesh and bones of an ancient deadly demon from forty thousand years ago covering his body, Li Yao simply crushed his enemy by the overwhelming specifications without bothering to consider any tricks at all.

With the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, Li Yao was invincible against the opponents of the same level!

BOOM!

Li Yao burnt his soul. The exhaust flames of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit surged out. The drill of mystic rays was suddenly revolving much faster than before. Fengyu Ming was crying and screaming due to the excruciating pain.

It was a pity that, before he had been able to fully draw out the capability of a Cultivator in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, he had been dominated by the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit and had completely lost the ability to fight. Li Yao had got him under control.

Li Yao sneered and turned the drill into the claw. Snatching Fengyu Ming’s body, he dragged his captive into the engine compartment which was concealed by the smoke.

Li Yao waved his hand casually. Explosions took place behind him at locations that he had carefully calculated. After a moment, the pathway was blocked, the tubes dislocated, and the cabin door twisted.

The transportation between the engine compartment and the outside world had been cut off temporarily and wouldn’t be able to be broken through again for another ten to twenty minutes.

Fengyu Ming was finally back to himself from the sharp pain, only to discover that the joints all over his body had been smashed and that he was tied up by countless crystal wires and stuffed on the top of a thick tube like a rice dumpling.

Compared with the weird things that had happened to him, the agitating pain was not a big deal anymore.

In front of him was a crimson light beam, jumping nonstop like a queer lantern, on which a countdown was displayed.

The number on the light beam was 59 seconds, 58 seconds, 57 seconds…

A black crystal suit was eyeing him coldly within a gory aura that looked like black smoke, as if it were an envoy from the depths of hell.

Although the entire face had been disguised by the facial cover, it was not hard for Fengyu Ming to imagine the brutal and cruel face behind the black metal.

The stranger placed one finger on the light beam softly.

The countdown immediately stopped at 55 seconds.

“Let me explain something for you. Right now, you are sitting on the top of a tube that is used to refill the fuel of one of your crystal reactors. There are four large rune arrays of the wind class inside the tube which can generate immense attraction force to pull the fuel and catalysts into it easily.”

From the gap of the black crystal suit came a coarse, high-pitched voice, coldly and emotionlessly, as if it had been produced by scraping metal.

“Although the crystal reactor is malfunctioning somewhat, the temperature inside is still well above two thousand degrees.

“Right now, the connection between the rune arrays of the wind class and your mainframe crystal processor has been cut off by me after they were switched to the dormancy state. Instead, they have been docked to this countdown system of mine.

“When my finger is touching the light beam, the countdown will pause temporarily.

“But when my finger leaves, like this—”

Li Yao released his finger. The display shivered and continued counting. 54 seconds, 53 seconds, 52 seconds…

“The countdown will continue, and when it reaches zero, the rune arrays of the wind class will be automatically triggered, and you will be swallowed by the crystal reactor.

“As a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator, together with your ragged crystal suit, a temperature of two thousand degrees may not be able to kill you instantly. I estimate that it will take you at least fifteen seconds for you to be burnt to ashes. You must try to enjoy yourself by then.”

Li Yao words made the color of Fengyu Ming’s face change abruptly.

The quickly counting and changing countdown was stabbing at him like a death sentence.

Fengyu Ming’s mental defense line completely collapsed. He roared at the highest of his voice anxiously, “No, No! I can give you whatever you want! I can tell you everything you want to know! Just don’t kick me in! Don’t kick me in!”

Li Yao remained motionless, and despite his captive’s desperate screams, it was not until the countdown showed ’40 seconds’ that he put his finger on the light beam again.

The countdown came to a pause.

But Fengyu Ming was not in the least relieved. His head felt like exploding, his tears and snot almost jetting out.

“The first question.”

Li Yao bent over and gnashed his teeth. “Are you the scumbag who lured an Exo Society to this place?”

Fengyu Ming was dumbfounded, not having the vaguest clue what that meant.

The Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw on Li Yao’s left hand dug in his stomach again and gave him another spasm, before he cursed hatefully, “You bastard. Do you have any idea how much time I spent slaying the dogs sent by Heavenly Saints Alliance just in order to run away to such a remote place where they wouldn’t find me?

“I was intending to treat my wounds for a few months here before heading back and treating my ‘old friends’!

“But you son of a bit*h, you have attracted an Exo Society to this place!

“Let me ask you, do you think I ought to throw you into the crystal reactor and refresh you a little bit?”

Fengyu Ming trembled and suddenly realized what was going on.

Damn. He had run into a fellow pirate, and a senior one!

The guy must have been a notorious outlaw who had committed major felonies, perhaps serial murders, in Heavenly Saints City. After that, the guy had escaped and made all his way to here. But unfortunately, hardly had he taken a breath of rest when Fengyu Ming himself brought the Great Horn Exo Society to this place, which could potentially endanger the fugitive.

No wonder the guy was so pissed-off and looked for his trouble!

But since the guy didn’t kill him immediately, there was still room to negotiate. Fengyu Ming started considering the situation and making up possible plans of his survival.

“Senior, this whole thing is a misunderstanding! I’m the young master of Storm Prison. My father is Fengyu Zhong! If Senior spares my life, my father will definitely reward you!”

Li Yao scoffed and lifted his finger. The countdown started bouncing scarily again.

39 seconds… 38 seconds…

“Do you think I’m a fu*king three-year-old?”

Fengyu Ming was so frightened that his heart was palpitating. His tears and snot were all rushing out as he said hurriedly, “Senior, you can’t kill me! The Great Horn Exo Society is right behind us. If you kill me, the space pirates on board will be a heap of loose sand without a leader, and there’s no way that they will be able to resist our enemy! If so, you will be burdened by them during your runaway!

“If you can spare my life, since I’m going to fight the Great Horn Exo Society either way, you will have more time to escape during the time being!

“Of course, my father is not the most lenient man in the world, but since you didn’t reveal who you are, my father won’t be able to identify you even if he wants to avenge me!

“However angry you are about me bringing an Exo Society to this place, we are on the same boat right now. The longer I live and stall the Exo Society, the more likely you will be able to get away from here!

“Naturally, I believe you can take down the Great Horn Exo Society easily. But if your location is exposed and the elites of Heavenly Saints City track you down, your seclusion and treatment will definitely be disturbed, which won’t be in your favor. Therefore, it’s best that you avoid contact with the Exo Society if you have the option to.

“The bottom line is, sparing my life is the most beneficial option for you right now. Such a renowned hero like yourself will surely make the sensible judgement without being distracted by rage. Please do take that into consideration. Spare my life!”

Li Yao sniffed and put his finger on the light beam. The countdown was interrupted again.

At this moment, there were 33 seconds to go before Fengyu Ming was to be thrown into the crystal reactor.

Chapter 452: Ten Seconds To Go!

“You are a smart one. I’m going to ask three things of you. If you are as smart as you just were, I will be gone in five minutes.”

Li Yao asked indifferently, “Firstly, why is the Great Horn Exo Society chasing you? Is it really because you’ve slain hundreds of pigs, or is it because you killed someone you shouldn’t have killed and looted something that you shouldn’t have looted?”

“No. It was the plainest starship that I robbed!”

Fengyu Ming felt that he was wronged and exclaimed in defense, “It was an old ‘Fast Fish’-level carrier. The crew members were the most mundane farmers. Inside the cabin, there were rice and farming magical equipment and nothing much of value. It was far less rewarding than our first job!

“We didn’t kill hundreds of people. There were only ninety-eight crew members on board. At first, I only killed some ten of them in order to frighten the rest. But an old woman rushed out and tried to bite me, cursing me for killing her grandson. My crystal suit was contaminated by her saliva. That is why I killed them all!”

Li Yao’s eyes were suddenly extremely cold. “Just because of that, the Great Horn Exo Society chased you for two months?”

“Yes, indeed! Those rabid dogs!”

Fengyu Ming’s face was twisted when he talked about the Great Horn Exo Society. He said with the utmost hatred, “I did nothing except kill dozens of ordinary people who weren’t even the employers of the Great Horn Exo Society. They were just passing by the wreckage of the cargo ship. A guy seemed to still be breathing and told them everything.

“Then, they signed the contract with the fellow with a bag of rice as the price. They’ve chased and hunted me through more than ten space zones for more two months!

“Over the past two months, hundreds of Exos have been killed on both sides, including dozens of Cultivators!

“A bag of rice!

“No more than a hundred ordinary people!

“Just because of that, dozens of Cultivators have been killed!

“On our way, I sent telepathic thoughts to the Great Horn Exo Society stating that there are no grudges between our two parties and nobody would win anything if the situation went on like this. Even if they manage to kill me in the end, my father will definitely not let go of them!

“I was even willing to offer them a large sum of money, as long as they agreed to leave us and go separate ways.

“However, those rabid dogs replied that the contract had been made with a bag of rice as the price, and the bag of rice had already been cooked, eaten, digested and excreted. Even the defecation had been flushed away!

“Therefore, the contract was irretractable. They will never let go of me even if they have to pursue me to the end of the sea of stars!

“Rabid dogs! They are a bunch of out-and-out rabid dogs! You must take care, senior. You might get into trouble if you are chased by them despite your amazing abilities!”

Li Yao nodded.

“Good. Your first answer is very satisfactory. Then, the second thing. I know your father Fengyu Zhong to be one of the toughest guys in Spider Den. He must have gathered quite a fortune after dozens of years of diligent work as a space pirate.

“You are his only son. He was definitely worried about you on your first solo hunting trip. Although he didn’t come personally, he must’ve given you a huge amount of money, supplies, and magical equipment with you.

“We space pirates, of course, wouldn’t deposit money in a bank; we exchange them for the most valuable hard currency and bring them with us.

“Therefore, give me your Cosmos Rings.”

Fengyu Ming was dazed for a moment. Rolling his eyes, he gritted his teeth and said, “There is a hidden pocket on the left bottom part of the chest in my mustard suit. The Cosmos Ring is right inside the pocket. Please take it by yourself and consider it a gift from a junior to a senior.”

Li Yao smiled.

“I’m not done yet. Here are the rules about the second thing.

“Firstly, although your joints have been crushed by me, as a Cultivator in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, you can still control your muscles with your telepathic thoughts directly to move your body, as long as you can hold back the sharp pain for a while. Therefore, I won’t take it myself. You have to give it to me.

“Secondly, a clever rabbit always has more than one home. I don’t believe a guy like you just has one Cosmos Ring.

“Your father is a seasoned bandit. He must’ve taught you a lot of techniques and secret arts. We are both well aware that there are thousands of ways to hide a Cosmos Ring on one’s body which wouldn’t be found out in a short amount of time.

“I don’t want to waste mine, and I’m not interested in interrogation, either.

“Therefore, I will just assume that you brought three Cosmos Rings with you. In a moment, I will release my finger and resume the countdown, and you will give me your three Cosmos Rings promptly.

“If the countdown reaches zero and you haven’t taken out the three Cosmos Rings, you die.

“If you really only brought one or two Cosmos Rings, you die.

“If you have four Cosmos Rings with you, then you are a lucky guy. You can keep the most valuable one to yourself since I won’t find out anyway.”

While he was talking, Li Yao raised his finger and snapped, freeing Fengyu Ming’s right hand.

The countdown began ticking yet again.

33 seconds, 32 seconds, 31 seconds…

Fengyu Ming had concocted a hundred schemes to hide the most important Cosmos Ring of his. But Li Yao’s insidiousness was beyond his expectations, and he was truly caught off guard.

The quickly bouncing red figure was stabbing and burning his eyes like the scary flames of the hell. He felt that he was going to be blinded.

Fengyu Ming wriggled desperately and screamed in a voice resembling a pig which was being butchered, “Senior, I really just brought two Cosmos Rings with me. But there are a large quantity of high-purity crystals and the best medication drugs inside. I will gladly offer all of them to you. But I really just have two Cosmos Rings. Just two!”

Li Yao said suspiciously, “You really just have two Cosmos Rings?”

Fengyu Ming nodded vigorously. “Yes. Just two!”

Li Yao sighed and replied, “Then, today is not your lucky day.”

The countdown continued. 28 seconds, 27 seconds, 26 seconds…

Fengyu Ming was dumbfounded like a frozen statue. He was absolutely still for three seconds, but it felt like three days and three nights for him.

Suddenly, the frozen statue exploded. He was cramping like a shrimp on a steel sheet in a sushi restaurant and cried out, “Three! I have three Cosmos Rings! I’m giving them to you right now! Stop it! Stop it now!”

Li Yao eyed him calmly and unresponsively.

The countdown went on. There were only 21 seconds left.

Tears and snot were flooding down Fengyu Ming’s face. He held back the agony while the muscles over his body rippled like waves. A moment later, three Cosmos Rings appeared in his palm.

Only one of them was in the shape of a ring. The second one looked like a tiny button, while the third one was secretly hidden in a box of medication drug mixed with dozens of capsules.

Even if Li Yao adjusted the resolution of the crystal camera on his crystal suit to the highest setting, he couldn’t tell it was any different from a regular capsule.

If he had searched his captive’s body in person, he might have been able to locate the first two Cosmos Rings, but the third one would definitely have been overlooked.

Taking the three Cosmos Rings, Li Yao did not pause the countdown, until there were only last 15 seconds left on the light beam.

“The five additional seconds are a little warning to remind you to stop playing any tricks because my patience is limited.

“Right now, you have fifteen seconds to do the last thing that I ask you to. If everything goes well, I will be gone in three minutes, and you will go back to fight the Great Horn Exo Society.

“But if it doesn’t go well, you will take a shower in the crystal reactor, and the worst thing for me is just that my identity might be recognized. However, I don’t believe that the rabid dogs of the Great Horn Exo Society are capable of blocking me!”

“Everything is definitely going well!”

After submitting the three Cosmos Rings, Fengyu Ming cowered and trembled as if three sections of his spine had been ripped away.

Li Yao said, “I want the highest clearance on the mainframe crystal processor of your starship. I want to know all the information about the starship, especially the star maps that you have stored.

“Therefore, you will tell me the spiritual password of the highest clearance.

“Not so fast. Let me explain to you how this will be done.

“Firstly, you will tell me the spiritual password, and I will reset the countdown to three minutes.

“In the coming three minutes, I will infiltrate the local Spiritual Nexus of your starship and test the password that you are going to offer me.

“If the password you give me is true, naturally, I will have all clearances and get everything I need in three minutes. Then, I will stop the countdown and leave you alone.

“But if the password is a false one and I fail to get all clearances in three minutes, then your outcome will be the same as before. You die!”

Li Yao finished his speech and moved his finger again.

14 seconds, 13 seconds, 12 seconds…

Fengyu Ming gave up the spiritual password without any hesitation.

The three things that Li Yao demanded had been proposed progressively just in order to fully crush his mental defense line.

Now that he had surrendered the most precious Cosmos Rings, it didn’t seem a big deal to concede the clearances of the mainframe crystal processor.

After all, the Great Horn Exo Society was coming at any time. Fengyu Ming presumed that his starship was useless for a ‘senior space pirate’.

But he didn’t know that it was the highest clearance for the mainframe crystal processor that Li Yao had wanted since the very beginning.

When the countdown stopped at 10 seconds, Fengyu Ming fell over exhaustedly like a saddlebag that had been emptied.

“Senior, I’ve told you everything you want to know and given you whatever you needed. The Great Horn Exo Society is coming anytime. You should at least give me some time to prepare the defense of my starship,” Fengyu Ming said, fatigued, like half-dead fish on a dry riverbed.

But inside his brain, malicious thoughts were spinning over and over, as he was considering how to stir up chaos with the unexpected visitor after the ‘senior’ left.

Perhaps, he could reveal the existence of such a ‘senior’ to the Great Horn Exo Society directly? Such a bandit was apparently of much higher value than himself.

Or rather, he should make the best use of his time to take down the town in front of him and hold the countryfolk inside hostage?

While he was absent-minded, he heard the ‘senior’ talking. “Very well. You have been very cooperative. I believe that the spiritual password you’ve given me is real. I won’t waste my time testing it.”

Fengyu Ming was overjoyed. He was grinning merrily in his mind, while he put on an obedient expression and said, “Senior, what about—”

Before he was able to complete his sentence, the words were frozen in his throat like ice blocks.

Right in front of his violently shrinking pupils, the facial cover of the senior was being gradually opened!

Fengyu Ming’s heart was palpitating so hard that he felt like choking.

He was well aware that unveiling the true face to someone else was definitely not a signal of friendliness among space pirates, but a confident declaration that—

Everyone who saw the face would be killed!

He wants to kill me? Why? What good is there in killing me? Fengyu Ming was held by desperation and bewilderment.

The next second, when he saw Li Yao’s face, which was apparently too young for an old space pirate, a spark suddenly burst out his heart and spread to every part of his body. He started shaking beyond his control.

“It seems that you’ve realized it. I’m not a space pirate. Every word I said just now was a lie.”

Li Yao eyes were as deep and dark as ink. He drew close and stared Fengyu Ming in the eyes, enjoying the panic and confusion there, as he said, one word after another, “Your sorry life has ten seconds left.”

He gently removed his finger. The countdown of the last ten seconds started.

Chapter 453: Great Horn Exo Society!

Ten seconds.

Fengyu Ming was struggling like a fish on the chopping block. His fractured bones protruded out of his skin, soaking his body in blood, unbearable to look at.

He cried desperately at the top of his voice, “No! You can’t kill me! I can give you whatever you want! Everything you want!”

Nine seconds. Eight seconds.

“I know the coordinates of several treasuries. I have discovered the residences of ancient Cultivators on two planets. I also know three top confidential smuggling routes. I can tell you all of them, as long as you set me free!”

Seven seconds, six seconds.

“Who are you? Who are you exactly? There is no grudge between us. Why do you have to kill me? Why?”

Five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds.

“Just for those ninety ordinary people? You are crazy. You are a rabid dog, too! My father won’t let go of you. Storm Prison won’t let you get away with this! All the gangs on Spider Den will not let go of you!”

Two seconds, one second, zero.

The countdown reached zero and made a clicking sound before it suddenly bloomed into thousands of glamorous redness which blinked like fireworks and vanished very soon.

“NOOO! NOOO! NOOO!”

Fengyu Ming had totally gone crazy. He was rolling on the ground and uttering vague screams.

The rune arrays of the wind class hiding in the depths of the fuel transmission tube were provided with sufficient energy. They roared a dull sound and continued to rise.

As a result, a gradually-increasing attraction force came from inside the tube and pulled in Fengyu Ming together with his broken crystal suit.

Like a pig which was about to be sent into a mincer, Fengyu Ming struggled desperately. His right arm, which was his only working limb, clutched the wall of the tube, producing screeching noises, and left five clear traces of fingers. But it didn’t help, and he continued to be dragged deeper and deeper.

His screams became higher and higher as he was further swallowed into the tube.

Before he was fully devoured by darkness, he looked at Li Yao one last time.

Misery, desperation, hatred, rage… His countenance was so complicated that it was indescribable.

Li Yao stared back calmly, his eyelids absolutely still.

At the turn of the tube, Fengyu Ming made his last struggle.

The only result was that the immense attraction force dragged his flesh, bones, and internal organs out of his body through his wounds.

Fengyu Ming’s scream even dwarfed the roars of the four fully-functioning wind-class rune arrays.

After several seconds of stalemate, he might couldn’t hold on any longer. After a plump, his entire body was drawn to the end of the fuel transmission tube and fell into the burning crystal reactor.

The crystal reactor shook violently. Vague, intermittent moans seemed to be echoing inside it. But everything went peaceful again ten seconds later.

Li Yao checked the time.

Right now, only five minutes and thirty-two seconds had passed since he had hauled Fengyu Ming to the engine compartment.

His telepathic thoughts already sensed that a lot of crystal suits were crowding toward where he was and breaking through the blocked pathways at any cost.

Li Yao closed his facial cover. His face was replaced by three crimson crystal cameras in a triangular distribution, and he disappeared into the black smoke in the corner of the engine compartment.

Three minutes later, with an earsplitting explosion, the path to the engine compartment was finally cleared.

A bunch of space pirates immediately flooded in.

“Master Ming! Master Ming!”

“This is—”

The space pirates didn’t discover any traces of Fengyu Ming after a futile search. But they noticed that countless pieces of small magical equipment had been stuck to the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the engine compartment, which were blinking with a vague brightness now that their triggering rune arrays had been activated. It was as if the unrested souls murdered by the space pirates had opened their eyes again and were staring at their killers coldly.

Furious flames burst out of the engine compartment. An explosion ten times more intense than the previous ones crushed the rear part of the starship with the tentacles of fire like a rampant animal.

The starship lost most of its momentum. Not only did it stop moving forward and start spinning, its spiritual shield exploded like soap bubbles under the burning sunlight. Even the internal lights of the starship had stopped functioning correctly.

Countless cabins fell into darkness one by one.

Although the cockpit had its own spiritual energy source, it was also caught in a cluster of dim fluorescence.

Li Yao crouched on the top of the cockpit and blended in with the darkness nearby like a lurking bat.

The cockpit was in a mess. Although operators of the starship were mostly at the Refinement Stage and Building Foundation Stage, they were all research-type Cultivators whose main jobs were to maneuver the starship instead of participating in head-on battles.

With the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, Li Yao was confident that he could take all of them down within one minute.

Li Yao was gazing at the center of the cockpit.

Surrounded by a world of darkness, a mainframe crystal processor that looked like a giant tree was standing in the middle of the cockpit, colorful and glittering.

Thick crystal wires extended in various directions like branches and vines, reaching every corner of the starship through the tubes on the ceiling.

It was what Li Yao desired most right now.

More precisely, it was the crystal chips of the mainframe crystal processor he was after.

They must’ve stored a lot of star maps of the Flying Star Sector, perhaps even including the secret routes and the temporary supply locations that were not known by the authorities.

For the space pirates, it was their biggest reliance to avoid the hunting of the Cultivation sects and raise chaos in the sea of stars.

In Star Lord Temple, the official star map was too shabby. It only marked several major star zones and star fortresses roughly, with a precision far from enough to guide a sailing starship.

If he could steal a secret star map from a seasoned space pirate, Sparkle’s range of activity would be greatly expanded, and it would be able to travel in the Flying Star Sector by itself without worrying about getting lost!

Staring at the space pirates below him who were running here and there like headless flies, Li Yao sneered and jumped down!

The blood saber was unsheathed. The sharp claw shined. The Triple-headed Six-barrel Vulcan Machine Guns rumbled like thunder. Li Yao swept through the cockpit like a storm and destroyed everything that he saw.

…

In the depths of the space, a starship bordering on collapse was voyaging stubbornly.

The starship was not just brimming with holes, it was more like a pile of garbage picked up from an ancient battleground and assembled carelessly, after which several immense power rune arrays were stuffed on the back of the garbage without much thought. The engine of the starship was spewing giant crimson fireballs one after another as if it were farting.

Despite its poor condition, the starship was rushing forward in dirty smoke, unconcerned that it could break down any second.

Every starship had a certain style when it was manufactured.

Some of them were elegant, some mysterious; some were aggressive, some simple.

The style of this particular starship was so distinctive that it cast enough visual impressiveness for people to know the word to describe the starship even though it had been damaged to this degree.

The starship was refined in the style of ‘fury’!

Anyone who saw the starship would inevitably mistake it for an angry bull.

It seemed safe to infer that the pilot of such a starship must have a pair of angry eyes and two fuming fists!

On two sides of the head of the starship, two great horns almost a hundred meters long stuck out like two sharp bull horns. Illuminated by the dim starlight, they were emitting dark-gold brightness. Rounds of blood stripes were carved on the horns, with complicated runes in between.

There was no telling whether the two giant horns were decorative or a piece of powerful magical equipment themselves.

However, one of the horns had been broken off in the middle with pale fractures. The other horn was also dinted with a lot of bruises, like a battle saber that was full of cracks.

Below the two giant horns, in the center of the cockpit that looked like a crimson sole eye, a middle-aged muscled man over two meters tall was sitting in the captain’s seat.

He seemed to have just been pulled out from a trash can. His face was dirty, and his grey coat was full of fractures, holes, corrosion, and dried blood stains.

His eyelids were sticky with gunk, as if he hadn’t shut his eyes for ten days and ten nights. Even his pupils looked dreary. But there were two deep dimples on his haggard face, making him appear to be grinning even when his lips were closed, if they were ever closed at all.

“Finally, I’ve got you filthy sons of bit*hes!”

When Storm Prison’s starship reappeared on the top right corner of the radar light beam, a series of data and information poured down like a waterfall, and two clusters of gold brightness beamed out of the giant man’s grey eyes.

“Brothers!”

The messy muscled man jumped up from the captain’s seat. It was only then that one could notice that below the grey coat were red-and-green beach shorts!

However, the guy seemed to be totally fine with it. He bellowed, his saliva spraying everywhere, “We’ve been chasing these bastards for more than two months. Finally, they have been pressed to the bed with their trousers torn away. We can do whatever we want right now!

“I know that we are running out of supplies and strength; I know that many of us have been seriously injured and their capability greatly lost.

“But I also know that everybody has been waiting too long for this day, just to tear those human-skinned scumbags to shreds!

“We will be engaged in ten minutes. Prepare for battle!

“Our spiritual energy has been drained. Our turrets have died, too. But these are just unimportant details that we shouldn’t worry about.

“Tell those scumbags with your swords, sabers, teeth, and fists—

“that the Great Horn Exo Society has come again!”

The messy muscled man roared and yelled. Bright green flames were flowing around his body and eventually consolidated into a crystal suit the same color. The most eye-catching part about the crystal suit was the giant dent on its right shoulder.

After putting on the heavy crystal suit, the messy muscled man looked like an infuriated rhino!

Five light beams were floating in front him, displaying the scenes in the assault cabin of the starship.

Almost a hundred sturdy, barbaric men were bellowing together with him, producing earthshaking thunders so appalling that one might be suspicious that the starship would be torn open by the soundwaves in the very next second.

Right then, a weird wave came from the radar light beam. Several rows of data bounced abruptly, too.

The messy muscled man was dazed for a moment. He zoomed in on the light beam, only to discover that a dazzling fireball had exploded in the front section of Storm Prison’s starship and blossomed gradually like a colorful chrysanthemum.

“What is going on?

“Those son of bit*hes have blown up their own cockpit before I can stab into their asshole?”

Lei Dalu, captain of the Great Horn Exo Society, wiped away a cluster of his eye gunk as he stared at the light beam and exclaimed in disbelief.

Chapter 454: Noodle Man!

It was enjoyable to watch Lei Dalu to have dinner.

Or rather, there was no need to watch; the sounds that he made were enough to trigger everyone’s appetite.

He sucked in the noodles. He chewed the cloves. He chugged a large bowl of cold water. Then he burped with great satisfaction and threw the empty bowl to the heap of bowls nearby, before he slapped the table and shouted, “Boss, are you done? I need another bowl of noodles!”

It had only been a little over half an hour since they had gone into the small restaurant located in a corner of Star Lord Temple.

Yet, Lei Dalu had already devoured sixteen super-large bowls of meat noodles and eaten all the cucumbers in the restaurant.

“Old Bai, do you want a bowl of this? The soup here is not half bad!”

Lei Dalu spoke to Bai Kaixin sitting in front of him, grinning.

Bai Kaixin was the opposite of his name; he was not delighted at all.

(Bai Kaixin (白开心) can be translated as happy for nothing.)

He seemed to be a guy who hadn’t felt delighted for his entire life.

He was tall and skinny. With a height almost equal to Lei Dalu’s, he had only one third of his friend’s weight. His face was pale and yellow. Two long, white brows dangled loosely like an upside-down ‘Y’ and covered the corners of his eyes.

His countenance resembled that of the terminal patients who had just received their diagnosis. Even when he was laughing, one couldn’t help but worry that he would burst into tears in the next second.

With his melancholy countenance, Bai Kaixin stared at Lei Dalu, who was so bored that he took two garlics for snacks and ate every clove of them. Finally, he couldn’t hold it back any longer and asked, “I’m always confused about one thing. Why are you always so happy?

“Just a moment ago, ‘Gold Horn’, on which you spent your life-savings together with a bunch of loans from banks and three Cultivation sects, turned into a heap of wrecked copper and steel after sailing for only three months. Now, we are trapped in this poor ditch at the corner of the sea of stars.

“What you are eating are the crudest meat noodles. Look. Even the hair on the meat wasn’t cleaned up.

“But you give me the feeling that you have arrived at the most extravagant restaurant in Heavenly Saints City, steering a fully-armed brand-new warship, and you are enjoying a seafood dinner worth five hundred thousand Flying Star dollars with two beautiful girls on your laps and fifty billion in your pocket!”

Lei Dalu was not in the least bothered. “What else would you have me do?

“Gold Horn won’t come back to life even if I cry my eyes out, will it?

“Old Bai, I’m not judging you. But the most important thing about Cultivation is to take things as they are. Don’t pull a long face every day. Before we had Gold Horn, didn’t we still march anywhere we wanted even though we had nothing but an armed carrier?

“On the bright side, at least we have accomplished our mission and slain all those motherfu*kers, haven’t we?”

Bai Kaixin said coldly, “Don’t you talk about missions with me.

“We were preparing to bid for the guardian work of Treacherous Torrent Domain with Gold Horn that had been armed to teeth and filled with crystals cannons and magical equipment. If we’d succeeded, we wouldn’t have worried about our finances for the next couple of years.

“But now?

“The starship is almost a total-loss now. The spiritual energy is running dry. Nearly all the magical equipment is wrecked!

“True, Heavenly Saints Alliance has bounties for the space pirates of Storm Prison. But most of them are for Fengyu Zhong. It was his son who we ran into, and he was just a newbie to the business. His bounty is little to none!

“This time, we are so damned!”

Lei Dalu clicked his tongue and smiled. “Don’t you stare at me with the ‘disappointed’ look as if it was me who forced you to be heroes against your will! I remember that when we saw what happened to ‘Chicken Feather’, our great Councilor Bai was the first to jump out and declare that the bunch of space pirates must be killed. What a marvelous speech! What a daunting aura! Those who didn’t know might have thought that you were the leader of the assault team of this Exo Society. What, now it’s finally occurred to you that you are the councilor?

“And you, don’t keep silent and pretend to be an icy beauty—”

Lei Dalu turned around and grinned at a corner of the restaurant. “Ye Lingdie, you were on a rampage at the time. You almost stuffed your storm bolter into my nostril, threatening that if I refused the contract of one bag of rice, you would withdraw from the society and fight the space pirates by yourself! Those were the exact words that you said at that time, were they not? My nose is still feeling weird now!”

In a corner of the restaurant, a girl was sitting solemnly and elegantly. She was cold, calm, and utterly unapproachable.

She didn’t perform any stealth skills. But for some reason, one tended to neglect her existence. She was like a dry leaf in a forest, easily overlooked even if it was right in front of one’s eyes.

The dry-leaf-like girl, Ye Lingdie, was wiping her gun.

Countless components that were as tiny as grains of sand quickly jumped about in her slender hands and assembled into gun parts of various shapes and sizes, before they were dissected momentarily again.

She raised her eyebrow and glanced at him. Then, she lowered her head and dwelled in her own world again.

Lei Dalu’s nostrils were widened in anger as he slapped his table and shouted, “What is with your attitude? Are you not even respecting me as your captain? Boss, are the noodles ready or not? Remember, double meat and cilantro!”

Veins were bulging on Bai Kaixin’s temples. The corners of his eyes were also twitching. He tried to calm himself down and said, “Alright. The decision was made unanimously. Let’s just forget that. The question is, what do we do next?

“Fengyu Zhong only has one son, who has been blown into smithereens by us. There wasn’t even a bone of him left. He will definitely be mad when he hears the news!”

Lei Dalu spat and said, “What’s the big deal? He is a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, and I’m also a Core Formation Stage Cultivator. We can just have a duel and sort everything out. He ain’t got more balls than me!”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Bai Kaixin said coldly, “Fengyu Zhong is a tough bandit who has been hanging around with other space pirates for decades. The Heavenly Saints Alliance has targeted him multiple times and even sent a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator once, but he survived all of that. It is said that he ran into a lot of fortuitous encounters during his escape. Right now, he is probably in the high level of the Core Formation Stage. Such a brutal man is what a true ‘Gold Core’ Cultivator should look like!

“In comparison, our great Captain Lei is only in the beginning level of the Core Formation Stage. Also, you were beaten up by hundreds of people when you’d just advanced into the Core Formation Stage. You were seriously wounded, and your spiritual root was damaged. It’s taken you quite a long time to recover from your injuries, but you’ve never entirely recuperated. It’s very likely that you won’t be able to progress a step further than the beginning level of the Core Formation Stage.

“A Cultivator like you is just an ‘Iron Core’. What makes you think you are capable enough of fighting a ‘Gold Core’?

“Storm Prison is a top-twenty space pirate gang in the Flying Star Sector. Cruel men congregate there, and it boasts immense capability. Fengyu Zhong will definitely try everything he can to garrote us out of fury. We have to be very prudent when we travel in the sea of stars in the future. One step wrong and we may be butchered by the space pirates and die without a grave!”

Lei Dalu rubbed his brows hard and said seriously, “It is of paramount importance for us Cultivators to be smart. A great man can rise to the sky and also lay low when necessary. We can always hide in the protective range of Heavenly Saints City when we are back to the central star zone like a turtle with disguised faces and new identities. Our debts will be ditched, too. That’s what we call killing two birds with one stone!

“What’s more, lucky guys are always lucky. Maybe the gods are watching over me and Fengyu Zhong will die in an accident tomorrow. Then that would be like a sunny day after a storm again. Everything will be fine. Hahahaha!”

Right then, the door of the restaurant was kicked open, and someone swept in like a tornado.

It was a grey-haired, vigorous old man who had extremely wide shoulders that looked like door planks.

It wouldn’t be hard to infer that he was an obstinate, bad-tempered guy. His eyeballs were darting about, indicating that he wouldn’t mind fighting a young man to prove that he wasn’t old at all.

In front of the old man, Lei Dalu retreated his playful expression and asked politely, “Uncle Xiong, how is Gold Horn doing?”

Xiong Tao was the director of magical equipment and the chief refiner of the Great Horn Exo Society. The items on board—some small like flying swords, others large like crystal suits—were all planned and organized by him.

Xiong Tao sat on a long stool, which was squeaking under the sudden weight. He replied with a grim face, “It is not doing at all. Eighty percent of all units have been seriously damaged. Even the cockpit is riddled with holes. It can never be repaired in this godforsaken area. We’ll have to drag it to the orbit of the Thousand Sail Domain and find a factory of a large sect to repair it.

“However, the Thousand Sail Domain is thousands of kilometers from this place. Gold Horn is too wrecked to make use of the space jump system. Otherwise, both the vehicle and the crew members on board will be crushed to a pulp.

“Thankfully, we’ve captured Storm Prison’s starship. We can dismantle a lot of components from the starship for our own use. I estimate we can get going in three days, if we are lucky.

“The most critical problem right now is that we are short of hands.

“During the last exchange of fire, our spiritual shield was blown to pieces. And the barrage hit the main maintenance workshop precisely. More than half of our refiners have been killed!

“A shaking, wrecked starship with a loss of two thirds of its refiners wants to cruise in the surging ocean for more than a month to the Thousand Sail Domain? I highly doubt it.”

Lei Dalu eyed Bai Kaixin. “Old Bai, didn’t I tell you that we are in desperate need of hands and we should recruit new members right here? What, you didn’t hire any refiners?”

Before Bai Kaixin opened his mouth, Xiong Tao said, “Experienced refiners are not that easy to recruit!

“Although the residents of the poor, underdeveloped area live on the ancient relics, they can be called maintainers of the civil-level at the very best. There is still a long way for them to go before they become real refiners!”

Bai Kaixin interrupted, “Besides, you asked us to repeat that we have pissed off Storm Prison and joining the Great Horn Exo Society is a perilous, life-threatening decision. Who would dare sign up after hearing that?”

Lei Dalu said, somewhat embarrassedly, “Of course, we have to make it clear to them. We were feverish and decided to play heroes. It’s our own fault, and nobody else is to blame. None of the new members are obliged to be victims of Storm Prison’s reprisals. They would definitely feel wronged if that happened to him. The most important thing about Cultivators is that we must be frank, and we shouldn’t fool others for our own benefits.”

Bai Kaixin sighed and said, “Indeed. But after we explained everything, the only guys still willing to join us are the foolhardy young men and the old who wouldn’t be able to find a second job. It will already be exceptional if their physical strength is enough. There are really no lower limits for their skills.”

Xiong Tao sniffed. “A so-called ‘expert’ came to sign up in my place. He was young and wet behind the ears. Yet, he was bragging about himself more impressively than everyone else did, saying that he had been travelling in the remote areas of the sea of stars since he was a little kid and he had been enlightened by an eccentric expert. He went on to say that he was once hit by a falling star and that he once ate a crimson exotic fruit. In short, after countless lucky incidents, he finally awakened his spiritual root and became a super self-taught refiner!

“But when I took out a Space Gyroscope and asked him to repair it, the guy was dumbfounded and said that he hadn’t seen such an item before.

“Space Gyroscope, the most commonly-seen navigation magical equipment of the Flying Star Sector! He should’ve seen one even if he hadn’t used one himself! You guys should’ve seen the boy’s startled look. ‘Super refiner’? I’ll be damned if I believed him!”

Lei Dalu couldn’t help but smile. “Then what? Did you kick him away?”

“No.”

Xiong Tao was gnashing his teeth in discontent. “The strange boy was not entirely crowing. His spiritual root has indeed been awakened, and he is a Cultivator. The speed of his hand movement is pretty impressive. It appeared that he had truly experienced some adventures. The simple dismantling, polishing, and cleaning work can be trusted to him. Given that we are seriously short of hands, we have to make do with whatever we have!

“What I’m trying to tell you is that such a countryfolk expert was already the most proficient mechanic that we recruited in this place. With our current personnel, it all depends on luck if we want to go back to Thousand Sail Domain without crashing into anything!”

“That will do.”

A casual, carefree smile popped up on Lei Dalu’s face again, as he scratched his nose and said, “I don’t have many remarkable points, except that I’m lucky. I’m always lucky!”

Chapter 455: Joining Great Horn

Three days later, on the main deck of Great Horn, Li Yao stood silently in a corner behind almost a hundred tall, muscular men and pondered over his next step.

He was still wearing a ragged mustard suit, with patches made of strengthened cloth here and there. There was a glittering gold emblem on his chest in the shape of a blaring bull’s head whose nostrils were blowing out hot steam. Two great horns stuck out, indicating that the bull was everything but reasonable.

It was the battle emblem of the Great Horn Exo Society.

Joining the Great Horn Exo Society was the most appropriate plan that Li Yao could think of right now.

When he saw Gold Horn which had been close to a total-loss appearing in front of him, Li Yao had predicated precisely that, given the serious damage to the starship, it was impossible to get it repaired in such a poor town at the far end of the sea of stars. Instead, it had to undergo major maintenance at the professional docks in the central space zone of the Flying Star Sector.

The central space zone was exactly Li Yao’s destination.

Besides, the starship was unlikely to perform a space jump due to the shabby conditions. It had to drift slowly in the sea of stars like a snail.

The journey would take one or two months if they were lucky, and three to five months if they were not. Refiners were required during such a long journey to stand by and maintain it when needed.

Joining the Great Horn Exo Society as a refiner meant that he could learn a lot of knowledge about starship maintenance and modification and better familiarize himself with the refining techniques of the Flying Star Sector. He would be able to further modify Sparkle after he got the gist of it.

Right now, distinctive features of Skeleton Dragon were still left on Sparkle, which meant that it had to remain hidden.

Only after fully understanding the style of the Flying Star Sector could Sparkle be disguised as a carrier or a small cruiser and appear in the main routes of the Flying Star Sector like every other starship did.

After all, the main routes were the safest routes. Cosmic storms and meteoroid showers were everywhere away from these routes. Veering off the main routes and drifting randomly in the unknown space could be a perilous adventure.

On the other hand, as an Exo Society, there were bound to be a lot of real experts in the Great Horn Exo Society. The fact that they were headstrong enough to pursue Fengyu Zhong’s only son for more than two months made the fact that they had some aces on board evident.

As he expected, after the Great Horn Exo Society ported in Star Lord Temple for half a day, Li Yao heard that their leader was an expert in the Core Formation Stage!

It was definitely not a third-rate Exo Society. It might not be large in scale, but it seemed to boast abundant capability.

Li Yao’s current goal was to study the knowledge of refining in every aspect as much as possible now that he was in the Flying Star Sector. The maintenance and modification of starships, the design and refinement of crystal suits, and the brand-new techniques of operating a crystal suit. He wouldn’t mind learning any of them, but he just hoped that he could learn more.

The Great Horn Exo Society would be the best school right now.

Very soon, he was informed of the destination of the journey—Thousand Sail Space Zone.

Thousand Sail Space Zone was in the center of the Flying Star Sector, not far away from Heavenly Saints City. There were quite a few world fragments in the space zone that boasted both enjoyable landscapes and abundant spiritual energy. A lot of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures could be found there, too. Some of the world fragments even included hot springs which contained tremendous spiritual energy in liquid form. Soaking inside would be both beneficial for healing and training.

Therefore, Thousand Sail Space Zone was a favorite for the unaffiliated Cultivators and the free Exos. It was also the biggest logistic base for all Exo Societies.

Many Exo Societies liked to take a vacation and relax in the Thousand Sail Space Zone after they finished an arduous task.

During its busiest season, dense starships from various Exo Societies occupied the main route to and from the Thousand Sail Space Zone as far as one’s eyes could reach. They were like thousands of ships cruising on a surging ocean with sunlight reflected by the waves. Hence the name Thousand Sail Space Zone.

Since it was sort of a logistic base for all Exo Societies, naturally, a lot of Cultivation sects had established branches there. Some of them were even headquartered there. They provided various kinds of service for the Exo Societies and helped the Exo Societies communicate with the space towns and exchange information about possible missions. There were also countless starship refining bases, the best maintenance docks, and crystal suit centers.

The Thousand Sail Space Zone was mixed with all kinds of people, some of whom were real experts and some just pretended to be. It was often the first stop for many beginners who had just stepped into the world of Cultivation.

Many vigorous, ambitions young men who had just awakened their spiritual roots and did not have any possessions often travelled in the Thousand Sail Space Zone with nothing but their two fists and their guts. They slew space pirates, demon beasts, and demonic Cultivators, eager to spread their name in the Flying Star Sector and make their own achievements!

In light of the situation, Heavenly Saints City hosted a number of matches in the Thousand Sail Space Zone every year in order to help the six sects of Heavenly Saints Alliance, the major universities, and the renowned crystal suit centers find and recruit new geniuses.

Thousand Sail Space Zone would be a great platform to jump into Heavenly Saints City.

Li Yao planned to stay in the Great Horn Exo Society for a couple of months and train himself with the skills to maintain a starship. In the meantime, he could also secretly learn the crystal suit techniques from the Exos of the Great Horn Exo Society.

After they arrived at the Thousand Sail Space Zone, he would part with the Great Horn Exo Society and try to win a ticket to Heavenly Saints City, the central metropolis of the Flying Star Sector and the ultimate holy land of Cultivation!

After all, Exo Societies valued freedom more than anything else. It was quite convenient to join or quit. Besides, the Great Horn Exo Society had specified when they were recruiting that they were just temporarily in need of some extra hands in order to bring their starship back to the Thousand Sail Space Zone. After they arrived at the Thousand Sail Space Zone, whoever wanted to leave was free to go.

By then, Li Yao’s identity would be unfalsifiable with the Great Horn Exo Society endorsing it. Nobody would be suspicious that he was not a native of the Flying Star Sector!

Therefore, Li Yao signed up without any hesitation.

As for his identity, he decided to join the Exo Society as a pure refiner and hide his real capability as a battle-type Cultivator.

It was not because he was fond of laying low. After all, he was in desperate need of resources, and apparently, he would get none if he proved himself to be an incapable man.

The real problem was, if he was to reveal all his strength, somebody would definitely associate him with the uncanny death of Fengyu Ming.

Fengyu Zhong, Fengyu Ming’s father, was very likely to be a Cultivator in the high level of the Core Formation Stage and an unparalleled brutal bandit!

Li Yao was not ready to fight a Core Formation Stage Cultivator face-to-face yet.

Moreover, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was also his biggest secret.

He had no doubt that, once the space pirates learned of this crystal suit which had been strengthened by the flesh and blood of a deadly demon and the scraps of the ancient magical equipment from forty thousand years ago, they would definitely rush over like shark who had smelled blood. If so, he wouldn’t have a day of peace and would have to be prepared for assassinations even when he was on the toilet.

Therefore, Li Yao had positioned himself to be a self-taught expert in refining who had been born in a desolate world fragment in the corner of the Flying Star Sector, raised up by an eccentric expert, living a nomadic life among the relics of ancient battlegrounds, hit by a falling star, and eaten a crimson exotic fruit which eventually lead to the awakening of his spiritual root. Although he was not familiar with any Cultivation arts, he was talented in refining and had enormous physical strength. He was also a crazy fan of magical equipment maintenance.

After getting to know the world better, he had discovered that, perhaps because of the more abundant spiritual energy, the fortuitous incidents of the Flying Star Sector were much more frequent than those of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Many Cultivators in this sector had experienced various kinds of fortuitous incidents. Being hit by a meteor, meeting an old grandpa living inside a ring, a broken crystal suit that could talk, a super skill card mixed in with common skill cards…

His story was quite queer, but it was pretty plausible compared to what had happened to the real lucky dogs. Nobody would be jealous of him.

Keeping a low profile was never his style. Naturally, he would need to show off his skills in maintenance in order to be noticed by the Great Horn Exo Society so that he could be assigned to the real important maintenance work, thereby accumulating experience and improving his capability.

But things went against his will…

When he thought of the interview three days ago, Li Yao’s face was somehow red. He scratched his messy hair with a self-mocking smile.

He had thought the refiners of the Great Horn Exo Society would’ve definitely been greatly impressed by him after he showed a tiny bit of his skills in maintenance and modification.

But as it turned out, the interviewer simply offered him a piece of strange magical equipment that was round and carved with stripes and lines and asked him to repair it.

Judging from the interviewer’s countenance, it should be pretty common in the Flying Star Sector.

However, there was no such a thing in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, and Li Yao had never seen it before. He was greatly embarrassed, and he could tell that it was definitely not appreciation in the eyes of the interviewer.

He was going to ask the interviewer to give him a second chance by examining a piece of different magical equipment, but the angry old man whose shoulders were as wide as door planks simply waved his hands and gnashed his teeth saying that he had passed the test.

It was quite a bummer for Li Yao.

He had never expected that the Great Horn Exo Society would be in such desperate need of hands that a Mr. Nobody, or even everybody whose limbs were intact, would be recruited as long as they signed up.

Later, he learned that the bad-tempered old man was the director of magical equipment and the chief refiner of the Great Horn Exo Society.

Many a time, Li Yao was of a mind to explain to him that he was indeed an awesome refiner.

However, over the past few days, there had been quite a lot of maintenance tasks. The old man was either busy doing his job or on his way to do his job. He had no chance to talk to him at all.

Besides, Li Yao was taking an orientation for the newly recruited, too. He didn’t have much spare time himself.

Alright. Maybe I’ll just leave it behind and sort everything through after we set off.

Li Yao had figured it out himself. There was no way that a newcomer such as himself could get in touch with the real essential maintenance work. After all, it concerned the lives of hundreds of people. He had to start from the ground.

I’m only a mechanic right now. As long as I do my job well, they will realize my capability sooner or later. After all, the journey will take at least one to two months. If we are unlucky, or something goes wrong, we might not even be able to reach the Thousand Sail Space Zone in five months.

Right now, the personnel of the Great Horn Exo Society were badly distributed. Two thirds of the refining posts were empty. It wouldn’t be enough even if every refiner on board were split in two.

Li Yao believed that he would definitely have the opportunity to surprise everyone.

At this moment, all the members of the Great Horn Exo Society gathered in the ceremony for the take-off.

It was also a memorial for their sacrificed companions over the two-month hunting game.

During the two months, the Great Horn Exo Society and the space pirates of Storm Prison had collided nineteen times. 146 members of the Great Horn Exo Society had perished. It was no doubt a great loss.

Yet, the ambiance in the memorial ceremony was not very solemn. Everybody was quite relaxed. Some of them were even wearing carefree smiles.

Lei Dalu, their captain, was jumping up and down, his hands waving and his legs kicking like a giant dancing monkey.

Seeing that he brayed and sprayed his saliva everywhere without the least concern of his image, Li Yao was greatly baffled.

Is this sloppy, messy uncle really an expert in the Core Formation Stage?

Chapter 456: Rudimental Work

Lei Dalu was talking so loudly that the air could be felt vibrating.

“Sixty-seven days ago, when we set off on the hunting trip, who would’ve thought we could really annihilate that flock of space pirates on Storm Prison?

“Their starship was larger than ours, their turrets had more firepower than ours, and there were more Exos on their side, too!

“Who could’ve known at that time that we would chase them for over two months through thirteen space zones and twenty-seven world fragments and eventually slay all the human-skinned scumbags, leaving none behind at a distance edge of the sea of stars?

“Right now, we are going to set off on a new journey, one that is going to be more arduous and dangerous than the previous two months.

“Our enemy is no longer the brutal and hideous space pirates, but the sea of stars itself that is hundreds of times more brutal and hideous than those pirates!

“Our starship was almost entirely destroyed. Our crew members are seriously insufficient. We have barely enough fuel and supplies, and even after they are refilled in this small town, the best they can do is sustain us for thirty to fifty days.

“What we are going to be faced with are cosmic storms, stone belts, raging meteoroid showers, and even the reprisal of Storm Prison. The likelihood of us returning to the Thousand Sail Zone successfully is less than ten percent.

“However, we are definitely going to make it, because we are—”

“GREAT HORN!”

“GREAT HORN!”

Countless muscled men were roaring crazily. Their soundwaves interweaved into a blowing wind which rippled out.

Lei Dalu grinned and pressed his hands. Then he continued, “After two months of fierce battles, 146 brothers have left us early and perished.

“But what’s the big deal with death? They are just a step ahead of us to drink with the Heavenly Lord of Primordial Beginning[1] and dine with the Ancestor of the Great Balance!

“Now, please cheer up, everyone! Let’s see our brothers off and ask them to pave a brilliant way for us!”

Lei Dalu waved his hands. A giant light beam appeared behind him, in which a universe of darkness that was devoid of the slightest trace of stars was displayed.

BOOM!

After an earsplitting sound, a small light spot appeared in the darkness and exploded into a glamorous rainbow that shined brilliantly like an aurora.

Li Yao was aware that space burial was the most common method of funeral in the Flying Star Sector.

Residents of the Flying Star Sector mostly lived in space towns where room was limited. It was difficult for the deceased to be inhumed. Keeping their cremains under the earth was not easy, either.

After thousands of years, the human beings of the Flying Star Sector had got used to refining the ashes into special cannonballs before launching them into the space. The ceremony had been known as ‘space burial’.

Cultivators would often leave a telepathic thought in advance, which would be refined into their ashes when they passed away so that they could burst out the most brilliant colors in the vast darkness at the end of their life.

As cannonballs of ashes were launched one after another, the space in front of Gold Horn was illuminated by mingled rainbows, which looked like a road to the heaven built up by thousands of heroic souls, extending into the endless darkness.

“Gold Horn, set off!”

The beggar-like starship which was riddled with holes and patches glided out of the port and stumbled forward.

Hundreds of ropes made of super alloys ejected out of the rear part of Gold Horn. Spiritual energy was circling the ropes, making them look like hundreds of lasers. They dragged the remnant of Storm Prison’s starship. The twin starships moved forward slowly and gradually left Star Lord Temple.

Three days was not enough time to fully dismantle Storm Prison’s starship. They could only carry it away in such away.

During the long journey to come, Storm Prison’s starship would be dismantled step by step and the materials would be used to repair Gold Horn against the surging tides in the sea of stars.

Li Yao found the frenzy of his fellows hard to understand.

In the Heaven’s Origin Sector, Cultivators equally despised death. But when their companions perished, they were always grave and wouldn’t be half as merry as the guys he was currently with.

Perhaps, this was also a unique tradition of the Flying Star Sector?

“Do you feel that we seem to be indifferent about the sacrifices of our comrades?”

A tall, thin man walked close with his hands in his back and smiled casually.

But unresolvable sorrow seemed to be behind the sunny smile.

Li Yao recognized that it was Bai Kaixin, councilor and deputy captain of the Exo Society who was in charge of daily operations, as well as an admin-type Cultivator at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

“Manager Bai,” greeted Li Yao hurriedly.

Watching the quickly dimming and dispersing rainbows like thousands of souls that were gone with the wind on the light beam, Bai Kaixin was silent for a long time before he spoke again. “You have just joined the Society. Although you have taken a simple orientation, you are not familiar with the history of the Great Horn Exo Society yet.

“Different from other Exo Societies, the Great Horn Exo Society has hardly ever recruited outsiders. We would not have recruited any if we weren’t in such desperate need of hands and did not have a second choice.

“The Great Horn Exo Society used to be a coalition of several Cultivation sects who had been massacred by space pirates.

“Most of the members of the Society loathe the space pirates.

“For some of them, their hometowns were destroyed by space pirates; for some, their families were slain; some others are orphans and survivors of space pirates’ slaughters, who were rescued by us in various operations and grew up in the Exo Society, having nowhere else to go to.

“Our tears dried up a long, long time ago.

“Since the moment we joined the Great Horn Exo Society, we lost the ability to cry. We can only laugh, so hard that our heads fall off.

“If anybody is crying, it is going to be our enemies, those human-skinned scumbags.

“Whenever we run into them, we will make those bastards wonder why they were born into this world in the first place. They will cry so hard that their blood and urine will spurt out of their eyes!”

Li Yao raised his eyebrow.

No wonder the Great Horn Exo Society was so persistent about the space pirates and hunted them down for nothing but a bag of rice.

Bai Kaixin patted his shoulder and smiled. “But none of the above matters for you.

“I know the reason why young men such as yourself joined the Great Horn Exo Society at the risk of the reprisals of the space pirates is that you want to learn more stuff so that you can make a living in the central space zone one day.

“You should be clear about the situation of our Society now. In regard of money, we won’t be able to offer you much.

“However, since you are willing to help us in the time of difficulties, the Great Horn Exo Society will definitely not wrong you.

“There are many public Cultivation arts in the Society. Most of the training facilities are open to all the members of the Society.

“After you finish your daily work, you are free to come by if you want to learn more. I will try to arrange suitable teachers for you. Those gorillas may look fearsome, but they actually aren’t bad. Many other young men are studying then, too. You can join the group.

“It will be your reward for your work in the Exo Society.

“After we work together and make it to the Thousand Sail Zone successfully, it’s totally fine if you have other plans. I can introduce you to new jobs if you are interested.”

Li Yao thought for a moment and asked, “What’s my job here?”

Bai Kaixin hesitated. “Master Xiong was supposed to designate work for you. But you know that we have just set off and a lot of faults are still occurring. Master Xiong has been so occupied over the past few days that he’s barely slept. He really did not have the time to talk to you and the other newcomers in person. Therefore, I have arranged some rudimental work for you so that you can familiarize yourself with the starship first. After we enter the cruising state and there are fewer problems, he will come in person and tell you what to do.”

Li Yao nodded. It was quite understandable.

He actually quite admired Master Xiong Tao.

Within three days, the man had restored the sailing ability of a dilapidated starship. Although the journey was not smooth, it was already a remarkable achievement.

Li Yao had a vague feeling that this Master Xiong Tao might be the real best expert of the Great Horn Exo Society.

Bai Kaixin coughed and continued, “Your job in the coming few days is to enter Storm Prison’s starship and clean up the debris inside.

“Storm Prison’s starship experienced a serious internal explosion. Most of the magical equipment was seriously wrecked. But there must be components that are still usable.

“We still have a long way ahead of us with barely any supplies. Every usable component that can be recycled is of great value for us.

“Since you’ve been wandering in the remains of the ancient battlegrounds your entire life, it shouldn’t be hard for you to dismantle the debris and locate the functional components, right?

“Of course, if you can’t tell if a component is usable or not, just collect them all. The experienced refiners of our Society will examine them later.”

Li Yao nodded.

Dismantling the debris of magical equipment and recycling the usable components was indeed a very rudimental job. It was also something that he could even do with his eyes closed because he had been doing since he was a little kid.

He was not bothered that he was handed over such a simple job. He agreed frankly, “Okay.”

Bai Kaixin was a little bit surprised at his calmness. He took out a jade chip and said, “I’m told that Master Xiong was not particularly friendly to you a few days ago. But please don’t feel offended. He is just a straightforward man. Even Captain Lei and I are sometimes berated by him.

“Considering that you’ve never received any formal education in refining, it is a remarkable achievement that you awakened your spiritual root and improved your hand movement to such a speed by studying everything on your own in such a remote area!

“This jade chip contains a complete maintenance manual of Gold Horn, as well as the structure designs and spiritual energy flowcharts of more than 1,300 kinds of commonly-seen magical equipment. Master Xiong asked me to give it to you. You can study them if you have spare time after you finish your daily work.

“But please note that there are nine levels from easy to hard. You only need to try the first three levels. It will be best if you can grasp the first level. That way, you will definitely contribute a lot in the voyage to come.

“The fourth level and beyond are not prepared for you. They are extremely esoteric. It will be a waste of your time even if you read them. So, don’t.

“Try to settle yourself in, finish your daily work and train yourself. In a few days’ time, when Master Xiong has more time, he will hold a new test for you. If you can pass it, he will definitely place you in a more fitting position where you will be responsible for the more important maintenance work.”

[1] The two names are two great divinities in the Dao religion.

Chapter 457: Dominator of Darkness

Half a day later, in the center of Storm Prison’s starship…

This starship named ‘Ghost Jail’ had indeed become a place of ghosts haunted by cold wind and queer shadows.

Collapsed pathways were everywhere. Twisted tubes, units that were riddled with holes, and some of the corpses of the space pirates together with their shattered crystal suits were lurking in every corner of the darkness.

The center of this starship was originally the training area for the space pirates.

For Cultivators, training was the most important thing of all. Therefore, training areas on starships prepared for Cultivators were definitely the largest, most extravagant places with the most magical equipment.

However, this area had been blown to smithereens after hundreds of explosions, like the debris of a sand-made temple savaged by a hurricane.

The area which looked like a broken maze was in dead silence. The illumination rune arrays emitted flickering greenish glows, as if many fireflies were wandering in the air, making the room all the more dark and creepy.

Standing in the middle of the darkness, Li Yao was very satisfied with his working environment.

Right now, the Great Horn Exo Society was seriously short of hands. Most of the refiners were occupied on Gold Horn. Those who were assigned to Ghost Jail to clear the debris were the ordinary mechanics and the beginners.

Ghost Jail was more than a thousand meters long. Its inside was quite spacious. Therefore, the scavengers had been very widely scattered, with each of them taking charge of a fairly large working area independently. No one would disturb anyone else.

The training area was Li Yao’s responsibility.

He was the dominator of this world of darkness.

“Let’s begin!”

Li Yao warmed up his fingers neither too quickly nor too slowly. His ten fingers were extending and shrinking weirdly like vipers, with cracking sounds coming from the joints. Eagerness beamed out of his eyes while he mumbled, “I haven’t played such a game for a long time. I wonder, have my skills declined or not?”

In front of him was a bucket of detergent for magical equipment that was very commonly seen in the Flying Star Sector.

Such detergent was usually stored in the form of powder. When someone wanted to use it, the only thing that needed to be done was to pour clean water into it and stir the solution. Then, the detergent would become liquid that contained feeble spiritual energy. It was remarkably effective when it came to cleaning the magical equipment and restoring its functions.

Although it was still far from the maintenance oil that Li Yao created with the ancient techniques, it was acceptable for today’s work.

Li Yao glanced around. Clusters of starry brilliance burst out of his deep, dark eyes. His computational ability soared like a surging tide, allowing him to analyze every remnant in the corner of the darkness.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao stabbed his hands into the detergent. His pupils constricted to the size of the tip of a needle, while thousands of veins bulged out of his arms and extended to his fingers like furious serpents, before they pierced into the detergent brutally.

Countless small bubbles were rolling on the surface of the scarlet detergent which looked like a boiling lake. A lot of bright red mist was popping up from the liquid.

With the high-frequency vibration of his hands, Li Yao vaporized the detergent instantly!

Li Yao withdrew his hands, both of which were now wreathed in a ball of bright red mist. He snapped his fingers and unleashed hundreds of spiritual threads, splitting the ball into countless parts and driving them to his surroundings. A huge amount of magical equipment debris was swept over and taken back.

Li Yao brought his computational ability to its maximum while he meditated. He continued unleashing more spiritual threads into the cluster of bright red mist, dissecting, studying, and cleaning each and every piece of wasted magical equipment.

Some of them which were beyond repair were tossed away to a corner on his left precisely.

But for the debris which was of value, Li Yao had polished them carefully with the detergent to remove the impurities and restore their performance and hardness.

Half a minute later, Li Yao waved his hand. The bright red mist vanished.

126 brand new components that looked like they’d just been picked up from a refining furnace were floating in front of him!

“1.4 seconds longer than I expected! The magical equipment components of the Flying Star Sector are indeed subtly different from those of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.”

Li Yao smiled. “It’s not bad. Through this rudimental job, I can get in touch with a lot of the basic components of the Flying Star Sector, which will allow me to be familiar with the magical equipment of this Sector in the shortest amount of time possible.”

He snapped his fingers again. The hundred components were classified neatly into seven heaps according to their attributes and purposes, which were then transferred gently to an empty spot at the back of the training area that Li Yao had just cleared up.

Li Yao stabbed his hands into the detergent again. His eyes shined as he said, “The second batch begins now!

“I’m going to finish it within thirty seconds!”

After two hours of high-intensity labor, the entire bucket of detergent had been pulverized and drained. Li Yao’s hands were shivering, and his skin was as red as a lobster’s, but he was greatly relieved and sat in the middle of the 27,255 components that had just been taken restored.

Like an ambitions king inspecting his unstoppable troops, Li Yao enjoyed the sweet sense of achievement.

He took out a cold bun which had been stickered with a rune of the fire class. The rune was then torn open, immediately triggering a hot spiritual wave. The bun was heated and emanated a delicious aroma.

Li Yao devoured the meat buns while whistling tunes merrily.

Ghost Jail had lost all its impetus. The two starships were bound together with spiritual chains. It was impossible to go back to Gold Horn from Ghost Jail directly.

Therefore, the scavengers such as himself had all brought enough supplies and would stay and work on Ghost Jail for a couple of days in order to bring sufficient assets back.

During the time when they were on the foreign starship, they were quite free.

Cleaning more than two hundred thousand components was a workload that would take a couple of days for a regular mechanic to complete. Li Yao did not hurry to tear down the entire training area. After eating twenty meat buns, he sat on the ground comfortably and took out the jade chip that Bai Kaixin had given him.

Judging from the appearance, the jade chip was quite an old one. It must’ve witnessed a lot of events.

But its master had kept it in good working order. Even the tiniest stroke on the rune arrays of the jade chip was clear and distinguishable. Vague spiritual energy was flowing slowly on the jade chip, enveloping it in an air of warmth and delicacy.

On the bottom of the jade chip was carved ‘Xiong’.

“It appears that the maintenance manual was written by Xiong Tao, chief refiner of the Exo Society, in person. He has been using this jade chip personally for many years, too.

“Such a maintenance manual is definitely much more elaborative than the general maintenance manuals issued by the authorities. He must’ve put a lot of his own experience into it and wouldn’t lend it out easily.

“But since the Exo Society is short of hands and in desperate need to repair the starship, I became the lucky guy to take the advantage of it.”

Li Yao inserted the jade chip into the crystal processor and adjusted the reading speed to the highest level.

At this level, the information stored inside the jade chip would surge out like an intimidating tide at the speed of more than fifty-five thousand telepathic thoughts per second. Only the best Cultivators could resort to such a reading pattern.

Beep! Beep!

For a moment, the crystal processor on Li Yao’s wrist started shaking violently, as it was overloading and transforming the telepathic thoughts into images and text.

Shua!

The mini crystal processor projected six bright gold light beams which span around Li Yao’s head rapidly.

The images inside the light beams changed while they were swirling, displaying the details of the structure designs of the starship at 120 pictures per second.

Li Yao gazed at the light beams and studied them carefully.

Back when he was in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, his main research field was personal magical equipment, and the subject that he’d been working on was crystal suits. His dream had been to become an Armadominus who could create a crystal suit independently.

But now that he had arrived in the Flying Star Sector, where most residents and Cultivators lived in the space, starships were definitely something that he had to learn more about.

Everyone’s time and energy were limited. Even with the enhancement of Ou Yezi’s soul, Li Yao didn’t believe that he could become a master both in crystal suits and in starships.

His goal was still to become an Armadominus who could manufacture crystal suits on his own. As for starships, it would be good enough if he could perform the simple maintenance and modification tasks.

In that case, this particular book, ‘Maintenance Manual for Gold Horn’, was a perfect introduction for him.

“So, this is how it works. The sealing structure of this starship is entirely different from that employed by the crystal warships of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. Even when 70% of the cabins are blown up, the starship will still maintain almost half of its combat ability. Impressive! Its likelihood of survival is so much higher than that for the crystal warships of the Heaven’s Origin Sector!

“The engine compartment design is remarkable too. Other than the main engine compartment at the rear of the starship, there is also an auxiliary engine compartment at the front of the starship. If so, the starship will be much swifter when executing dodging movements! But how are the two engine compartments coordinated? Huh. The telepathic thoughts are transmitted through this tube? This design…

“The twelve turrets on board, with the computations and assistance of the crystal processors, can be set in seven different attack modes. In the worst-case scenario, even a Refinement Stage Cultivator would be able to maneuver them single-handedly. A lot of manpower can be saved. What an advanced system! Such a firing control system can be implemented to Sparkle someday. We are seriously short of hands, too!”

Li Yao completed buried himself in the maintenance manual, his eyes glittering.

The maintenance manual had indeed been compiled by Xiong Tao based on the documentations when the starship was transferred to them. It included a lot of his personal notes and reflections. Many tricks about magical equipment maintenance written in the manual were very practical.

Studying the maintenance manual carefully, Li Yao felt that he was watching two top experts in martial arts practicing in slow motion. Their every delicate move was captured so that he could see them more clearly. Many questions that had bothered him for a long time were resolved instantly. He couldn’t help but exclaim in exhilaration.

Soon, the files that had been marked as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 had been cleaned up by Li Yao, who felt that he hadn’t enjoyed enough of the delicious wine.

What followed was the files marked as Level 4.

According to Bai Kaixin, files marked as Level 4 or beyond were prepared for the real professionals. Green hands such as Li Yao didn’t need to study them because they wouldn’t comprehend them even if they did and it would only be a waste of their time.

When Xiong Tao tested them a few days later, he wouldn’t pick on them with the problems beyond Level 3, either.

But Li Yao grinned and opened the Level 4 files without any hesitation. Another race of reading had begun!

Chapter 458: Appalling Expert!

While Li Yao was reveling in the vast world of starship maintenance, the top meeting room of Gold Horn was tense. Even Lei Dalu’s smile was a bit rigid today.

In front of him and Bai Kaixin were three crystal suits, or whatever was left of them, as well as many components whose purposes no one could tell.

Sitting across them, Xiong Tao said emotionlessly, “When I saw the explosion of the cockpit of Ghost Jail a few days ago, I felt that something was not right. Therefore, other than repairing Gold Horn, I’ve also spent some time over the past few days searching for and collecting the debris in the critical parts of Ghost Jail.

“And once they are put together, a soul-stirring discovery is revealed.

“Firstly, look at the scrap of a chest-protecting plate refined out of titanium alloys.

“Titanium is a rarely-seen, special-purpose metal that is of high value. Judging from the defense rune arrays carved on the plate, it should’ve been made by ‘Yin Feng’, a seasoned Armadominus of Spider Den.

“Although Yin Feng always hangs around with space pirates, his expertise in refining is well acknowledged among the refiners of the Flying Star Sector. He is one of the best in the trade.

“He is a respected man on Spider Den and doesn’t have the habit of serving small fries. Only the most brutal and barbaric space pirates have the privilege of wearing one of the crystal suits crafted by Yin Feng.

“As far as I know, among the space pirates of Storm Prison that we pursued, only one of them was wearing a crystal suit that had been installed with a titanium-alloy chest-protecting plate. Fengyu Ming and his ‘Dark Fire Battlesuit’!”

Bai Kaixin observed, “The chest-protecting plate is the most important defense magical equipment on a crystal suit. Finding that means finding Fengyu Ming. Uncle Xiong, where did you locate this scrap?”

Xiong Tao replied, still emotionlessly, “Among the residues in the bottom of a crystal reactor.”

Bai Kaixin was dazed.

Lei Dalu’s brows, which were as thick as brooms, shot up.

Xiong Tao continued, “I found quite a few other scraps that seemed to belong to a crystal suit. But most of them are as undistinguishable as mud. Only the few materials that boasted resistance against extremely high temperatures managed to maintain their basic form. Judging from the number and ratio of the scraps, there should’ve been a complete Dark Fire Battlesuit.”

Bai Kaixin frowned and mumbled, “Did Fengyu Ming throw his own crystal suit into the crystal reactor to destroy it?”

Xiong Tao shook his head. “I also found a fuel transmission tube on which there were clearly traces of struggling and scratching. Many broken bones and a lot of blood stains were found, too.”

Bai Kaixin was silent for a moment, but his eyes grew wider and wider. He remarked, “Therefore, Fengyu Ming was stuffed into the fuel transmission tube in his crystal suit by brute force, tossed into the crystal reactor, and burned to ash alive?”

Xiong Tao nodded. “It is the only plausible explanation.”

Bai Kaixin and Lei Dalu looked at each other and both noticed the bewilderment in their eyes.

Fengyu Ming was indeed not a renowned expert. But the ‘Dark Fire Battlesuit’ that he’d been wearing was a powerful crystal suit modified and strengthened multiple times. Who was it that snuck into Ghost Jail without alarming anyone and stuffed him into a crystal reactor?

Xiong Tao said solemnly, “There’s more to the story.

“As Fengyu Zhong’s only son, Fengyu Ming must’ve carried a few Cosmos Rings with him on his first solo hunting trip in case he ever needed anything.

“Cosmos Rings are extremely durable. They are often made of materials that are even solider than what jade chips are made of. Generally speaking, even a temperature of almost ten thousand degrees is not enough to obliterate them.

“Besides, most people carry their Cosmos Rings with them. For suspicious space pirates who didn’t trust anyone, like Fengyu Ming, it’s simply impossible that he kept his Cosmos Rings elsewhere, at least not all of them.

“However, I didn’t find a single Cosmos Ring among the residue.

“The only possibility is that the mysterious murderer took his Cosmos Rings away after killing him.

“Fengyu Ming was thrown into the crystal reactor alive. Therefore, his Cosmos Rings were taken away before he was killed. At that time, there was still a horde of space pirates outside. There was definitely not much time for an interrogation. Ten minutes, tops.

“Fengyu Ming should’ve known that he was dead for sure after he was captured. Then, here comes the billion-dollar question.

“If it were any of us, would we have been confident to make a space pirate who was clear of his fate surrender all his Cosmos Rings nicely?”

Cold sweat was appearing on Bai Kaixin’s and Lei Dalu’s foreheads. Both of them had slain countless space pirates and were well aware of the difficulty of handling the evil, malicious, and cunning foxes.

It might not be hard to kill them, but it was a whole different matter to make them submit their secrets, magical equipment, and Cosmos Rings.

It was especially so when it came to Cosmos Rings, which were small, hard, and easily concealable. The experienced space pirates had ten thousand ways to hide them.

Moreover, a lot of assets and even magical equipment could be stored inside a Cosmos Ring, which might be the only hope for the space pirate to reverse the situation. There was no way that they could hand it over until they were tortured to an unbearable point.

How did the mysterious man get them within several minutes?

Bai Kaixin and Lei Dalu both felt that a chill run down their spines. They seemed able to envision that, in a dark, gloomy engine compartment, an obscure phantom was tormenting Fengyu Ming in ways that they couldn’t fathom and made the guy succumb within several minutes.

“Let’s put Fengyu Ming aside for a moment and check these three crystal suits.”

Xiong Tao turned to another three wrecked crystal suits. He pointed to the damage on them and said, “Iron Tiger Battlesuits are best known for the plate armor on the front. There are two small launchers that can send out flying swords in its chest. But someone has torn open the crystal suit in one attack with a piece of claw-shaped magical equipment, avoiding all the solid structures. The heart of the Exo inside was ruined on the spot.

“This Gold Eagle Battlesuit was slashed open from the left shoulder to the ribs on the right. All the joints in between have been cut through, even including the plate armor on the back. Of course, the Exo inside couldn’t be more dead.

“As for this Phantom Spider Battlesuit, its helmet now looks more like a honeycomb. We found part of a broken shell and yet failed to determine what it was made of after all the thorough analysis!

“Those clean, straightforward wounds give me that feeling that it was not a fight, not even a massacre, but a… dissection!

“Yes. A dissection. Those brutal space pirates were no better than corpses on the slab faced with a sharp scalpel when they confronted the mysterious man!

“My conclusion is—

“Firstly, the mysterious man is particularly good at melee combat. It’s likely that he hasn’t advanced into the Core Formation Stage yet, but his abundant battle experience made up for that. His attacks were deadly and effective.

“Moreover, he has a far deeper understanding of crystal suits than common Exos do. Or rather, it may be a natural gift of his. Like a shark that can smell blood hundreds of kilometers away, he can perceive the gaps and weaknesses of every crystal suit precisely!

“But the knowledge alone was not enough to inflict such perfect wounds.

“He should also be in possession of several pieces of extremely powerful magical equipment, or even a super crystal suit made of magical equipment that has been refined out of materials beyond our recognition. Even I can’t evaluate the level of such a crystal suit.

“If I am to give a summary of the guy, he is… extremely dangerous!”

Bai Kaixin took a long breath and asked, “Anything else?”

“Yes!”

Xiong Tao nodded and projected dozens of holographs from his mini crystal processor. “These are pictures of the explosion scenes on Ghost Jail that I took. I have located thirty-three points of explosion so far.

“Blowing up a starship, even from the inside, is not an easy task. Starships have been built to withstand explosions. The fast-response filling foams can suppress an explosion and the resulting fire, too.

“The points of explosions were not randomly selected but carefully calculated. The most critical places were chosen so that the most damage could be done with the fewest crystal bombs. The guy even took the distribution of crystal tubes into consideration so that more enemies would be affected by the explosions.

“Proficient! He was definitely a proficient explosion expert!”

Bai Kaixin’s white eyebrows suddenly moved although there was no wind. He extended three fingers and said calmly, “So, there was an interrogation expert, a melee expert wearing a super crystal suit, and an explosion expert who worked together to take down Fengyu Ming and sabotage Ghost Jail before we were able to do so?”

Lei Dalu grinned and said, half smiling, “Maybe, it was not three of them, but one. The mainframe crystal processor of Ghost Jail must’ve stored the surveillance footage of the entire starship. Even if it was damaged by the explosions, I believe Uncle Xiong must have methods to recover the information inside. Let’s dig it out and there are bound to be traces of this mysterious man.”

Xiong Tao squinted and said coldly, “And here comes the most important point.”

What appeared in the light beam was the broken mainframe crystal processor of Ghost Jail. It had been cleaned up preliminarily, but there was a shocking hole in the center of it.

Xiong Tao pointed at the hole and said, “Look. The information storage chip group of the mainframe crystal processor is supposed to be in this place. But right now, the place has been messed up. It seems somebody stabbed their hands in and uprooted the entire chip group by force.”

Lei Dalu’s eyebrows almost flew off, yet he even had the mood to whistle.

Xiong Tao sighed and said, “But that is still not the most surprising part.

“The most surprising part for me is what happened to the alarm system. Nineteen alarm rune arrays, sixteen in plain sight and three hidden, were deployed in the mainframe crystal processor of Ghost Jail.

“The alarm rune arrays are kept in the hibernation state during the peacetime. When somebody attacks the mainframe crystal processor, they automatically trigger and erase all the critical data inside it.

“But as it turns out, although the chip group was uprooted forcefully, none of the rune arrays were activated.

“Do you understand? It’s like a crazy, brawny man slashed you two hundred times with a rusted blade recklessly, but none of the attacks reached the critical parts of your body. Not half of your veins or nerves were injured!

“This is a real expert in magical equipment who has a profound understanding of the internal structure of the mainframe crystal processor. Impressive. Very impressive!”

Lei Dalu grinned. “Is he even more skilled than Uncle Xiong?”

Xiong Tao shook his head and said, “It’s not comparable.

“The world of magical equipment has too many crossroads, each of which lead to an unknown destination. Even the best refiners can’t boast that they are experts in every kind of magical equipment.

“My research field is super large magical equipment, and I’ve been working on starships. In regard to refinement, maintenance and modification of starships, I’m confident that I’m as good as anyone.

“This mysterious man, on the other hand, must’ve focused more on personal magical equipment, namely flying swords, battle sabers, firearms, and crystal suits. He is an expert in these regards.

“In our Great Horn Exo Society, Old Jie and Little Mai can both be call crystal suit experts. But sadly, they were both killed in the big explosion last time.

“As for me, I’m truly uncertain whether or not I can beat this guy in the field of crystal suits.”

Both Lei Dalu and Bai Kaixin were greatly shocked.

Only those who were well aware of Xiong Tao’s background knew what a high evaluation he had just given!

Chapter 459: Stormy Sword, Cut Your Throat!

After a tiny cracking noise as if a few strings inside his brain broke off, Li Yao’s eyes were filled with blood, and the world was swirling around him, giving him a strong sense of nausea.

Not good. My computational ability ran too high. The cerebrovascular vessels were broken again.

And not one of them, but many. I’m going to be paralyzed!

Li Yao hurriedly stopped contemplating. His boiling brain cells gradually calmed down. He quickly picked out a few drugs from the myriad of medications beside him. Half of the drugs were taken orally, while the other half were smeared on his temples.

The drugs spread throughout his brain and fixed his cerebrovascular vessels, which were as wide as a spider’s web, together with his thousands of spiritual threads.

Three minutes later, more than ten lackluster pearls of blood popped up on Li Yao’s forehead. The internal bleeding inside his brain had been drained.

The blood-red in Li Yao’s eyes gradually disappeared. He felt refreshed and took a long, relieved breath.

This was the seventeenth brain bleeding for him in two days.

It could not be helped. A side effect of bringing up his brain activity and computational ability exponentially in the Super Perceptive State was that the burden for the cerebrovascular vessels would greatly increase, too. The blood would be flowing hundreds of times faster inside the brain.

Veins and nerves were the body parts that were the hardest to be trained. When they were functioning at hundreds of times their capacity, naturally, they would explode from time to time.

I have to find a few Cultivation arts that focus on the training of cerebrovascular vessels some day in order to improve the toughness of my cerebrovascular vessels. Without a large enough blood supply, my computational ability can barely do me any good.

Li Yao was gazing at the light beams in the midair on which hundreds of structural designs were still glittering. But due to his plummeting computational ability after exiting the Super Perceptive State, he couldn’t even understand any of them.

These were the files whose difficulty had been classified as Level 6.

Over the past two days, Li Yao had grasped the files up to Level 5, but he was somehow stuck in Level 6.

Everyone knows best what they are good at. His research field had been small magical equipment and crystal suits. As for super-large comprehensive systems like a starship, he had hardly touched upon them before, and his knowledge about them was little to none.

The first five levels of the maintenance manual had basically covered all the common faults that may happen to a starship and their corresponding solutions. A lot of articles were on the modifications of a starship for a specified environment. After he understood them, the basic maintenance and modification work would be no trouble for him.

Starting from Level 6, the truly mysterious and sophisticated core units were involved. Many theories that Li Yao had never heard of popped up, too.

Two months, or even two years, of devotion to them without the enlightenment of a master might not be enough to comprehend all of them, not to mention that he only had two days.

Li Yao was well aware of the limitlessness of the world of magical equipment. He had never intended to become a starship specialist, either. Therefore, he simply turned off the light beam and unplugged the jade chip.

The structural designs and spiritual energy flowcharts of hundreds of commonly-seen magical equipment of the Flying Star Sector stored inside the jade chip, on the other hand, had been analyzed and processed without much trouble.

Most of the magical equipment fell into the category of middle- or small-scale magical equipment, which was precisely what Li Yao was good at. Many kinds of magical equipment shared a lot of similarities with their counterparts of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. Therefore, it didn’t take long before Li Yao grasped all of them.

With the scattered components of the training area, Li Yao assembled twelve inconspicuous alarms to monitor the pathways around him.

Once everyone approached the area, the alarms would not ring out, but send a telepathic thought to an iron scrap that Li Yao wore close to his body. A feeble buzz would be triggered so that he would know somebody was coming.

Over the past two days, Li Yao had examined every corner of the training area and made sure that there was no surveillance magical equipment.

Together with these alarms, the training area would be his own kingdom.

Extending twelve spiritual threads to ensure that the alarms were functioning normally, Li Yao smiled and took out the three Cosmos Rings that he looted from Fengyu Ming.

During the two days, other than cleaning up the debris and studying the starship maintenance manual, Li Yao had also spent some time examining two of the Cosmos Rings.

The first Cosmos Ring contained a lot of high-nutrition food and clean water, both of which were not very worthy. But they had been preserved in the best storage rune arrays and wouldn’t go sour even if they were kept in the Cosmos Ring for decades. Even a gluttonous Cultivator would be able to feed themself up for several years with the supplies inside.

Inside the second Cosmos Ring was a huge amount of Flying Star dollars, gold, diamonds, crystals, and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that were much more valuable than cash and jewelry.

By his preliminary estimation, Li Yao had come to the conclusion that the load of money was enough to buy quite a few decent crystal suits or even a small second-hand carrier with a few crew members who preferred money to life.

As for the third Cosmos Ring, which was the most discreet and had been refined into the appearance of a capsule…

Li Yao casually retrieved all the objects inside the Cosmos Ring and placed them on the ground, before he stared at them in great interest.

Miscellaneous magical equipment of various kinds was lying in front of him. Li Yao tried for a long time to figure out what they were for.

These gadgets were all magical equipment for disguise and escape.

There was a capsule that, once crumbled and smeared on the body, would change one’s skin miraculously from a young man of twenty years old to a dry, crappy old man within several seconds.

There was also a piece soft magical equipment made of unknown materials that had the color and feeling of flesh. A muscular man could turn into a young girl with alluring curves after sticking the magical equipment to his body.

Altogether, there were four sets of such camouflage magical equipment, with compatible clothes and identity certifications. One could pretend to be an old man, two young men with one taller and the other short, and a young girl whose face was plain but had an amazing figure very easily.

Every one of them had background files that were tens of thousands of words long. Even the residences and professions of their remote relatives were listed clearly.

These items almost awed Li Yao.

Fengyu Zhong truly deserved to be known as a seasoned space pirate. No wonder he could escape from Heavenly Saints City’s siege multiple times. The things that he prepared for his only son were evident enough of his cunningness.

If Fengyu Ming had decided to abandon the starship and sneak into Star Lord Temple with that magical equipment, he really might have been able to get away.

It was a pity that, although Fengyu Zhong had prepared quite a lot of contingency plans, he must’ve never anticipated that somebody would play a decapitation move on his only son inside his own starship, and that the guy would coerce his son to surrender all the Cosmos Rings with both carrots and sticks.

What is this?

Other than disguise magical equipment, there were quite a lot of sordid, malicious weapons.

For example, a needle launcher that could be hidden below the tongue and would eject poisoned needles when activated.

Li Yao also discovered three blades that were thin, transparent, and barely recognizable unless one were to touch them with one’s own hands.

For a Cultivator that had studied ‘Thousand Finger Soft Bone Technique’ and boasted an amazing hand speed such as himself, the three blades couldn’t be more useful.

The last thing that he found was a ragged jade chip.

What kind of files are stored inside the jade chip to make it qualified to be kept together with Fengyu Ming’s tools for his last escape?

Li Yao’s curiosity was aroused. He inserted the jade chip into the crystal processor.

Appearing on the light beam first was an intimidating declaration. ‘Stormy Sword, Cut Your Throat!’.

“This is—”

Just browsing through the table of contents was enough to let Li Yao’s eyes bulge wide open and his eyebrows fly over his head. He couldn’t help but exclaim in disbelief.

The ‘Stormy Sword’ was written by the great bandit Fengyu Zhong in person based on his decades of experience as a space pirate. To put it more simply, it was… an introduction to robbery!

This notebook might as well be called ‘A Practical Handbook for You To Become A Super Space Pirate in 100 days’!

I understand it now. Fengyu Zhong wrote this for his only son to study in order to prepare him to succeed Storm Prison someday.

This notebook is so detailed. If one could learn all of it, they would definitely be qualified to be a super space pirate.

I’m the captain of Sparkle, which is currently wandering like a lone wolf in the Flying Star Sector. It’s hardly likely that I will cooperate with any organizations here.

In that sense, the strategies that Sparkle should employ are quite similar to the space pirates’!

This notebook is definitely worth properly studying!

‘Stormy Sword’ included all the procedures for a space pirate robbery.

The choice of routes in the sea of stars, the defense against natural disasters, the art of hiding, the tactics of scouting, how to determine the value and the capability of the prey, how to avoid being hunted by the Cultivators who represented justice, how to assault, how to disguise, how to breach onto a hostile starship, how to interrogate the captives… Everything one could imagine was all elaborated on.

Li Yao studied the encyclopedia of bloody hunting as vast as ocean wholeheartedly for a good hour, only to find that he hadn’t even finished 1% of it.

Robbery is indeed an art in the sea of stars. Li Yao couldn’t help but observe.

It was also true that Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage were all remarkable. Although Fengyu Zhong was a notorious space pirate, he had truly got something in his hands, which must’ve been the reason why he could be such a famous space pirate for decades without being captured.

Many tactics about camouflage and assault would leave the impression that he had some sort of military background and perhaps was an expert in guerilla warfare in the sea of stars.

But when it came to the psychological knowledge employed in the interrogation of ‘prey’, one would doubt that he was actually an erudite university professor.

As for the management of subordinate space pirates, the control of morale, and the award and punishment system, it was enough to qualify him to be the leader of a major sect.

In one word, professional!

What Li Yao liked most was the section named ‘Architecture of Common Starships’.

This section took up half of the notebook.

During a robbery, it was inevitable for the space pirates to trespass on the preys’ starship and fight in close-quarters combat. The decapitation strategy was often utilized, too, which made it all the more important to know the structure of the prey’s starship, including the specific locations of crucial cabins such as the engine compartment and the cockpit.

Therefore, ‘Stormy Sword’ had recorded the approximate structure designs of hundreds of starships.

What almost moved Li Yao to tears was that, in each structure design, very detailed notes and marks had been left to illustrate dozens of ways of infiltrating and attacking as well as hundreds of accidents that might occur during an infiltration and the pertaining emergency plans.

Xiong Tao’s maintenance manual taught Li Yao how to protect and repair a starship to maintain its basic functions during a fierce battle, but this ‘Stormy Sword’ expounded on the simplest, roughest and most effective ways to destroy a starship and cut its throat in the shortest amount of time possible!

Chapter 460: Game of Spear and Shield

It was always easier to destruct than to construct.

‘Stormy Sword’ was a robbery tutorial that Fengyu Zhong had written for his only son. Naturally, not many sophisticated theories were involved. Just understanding the phenomena and how to act in response would be good enough.

For Li Yao, who had barely any background knowledge about starships, ‘Stormy Sword’ was apparently much more suitable than Level 6 and beyond of the starship maintenance manual offered by Xiong Tao.

Therefore, in the following few days, after finishing the debris cleaning work during the day, instead of resting, Li Yao dedicated most of his spare time to ‘Stormy Sword’.

While he memorized the basic structures of starships of hundreds of models, he also learnt thousands of sneaking and sabotaging strategies to deal with them.

Later, he even came up with a very interesting mind game that combined both mauling and maintenance.

Li Yao split his telepathic thoughts into two sides, both having equal computational ability.

Part of his telepathic thoughts would stand from the perspective of the guardians of a starship and try to defend and maintain it with the knowledge he had learnt from the starship maintenance manual.

The other part of his telepathic thoughts would be intruders trying to breach into the starship and destroy it in the shortest amount of time possible.

Attacking one’s shield with one’s own spear. Li Yao dwelled in the ‘self-brutalizing’ mind game and greatly enjoyed it.

Every starship of a different model would be a brand new ‘game map’.

In less than five days, Li Yao had played thirty-four such ‘maps’ in a row.

Most of the time, the ‘intruders’ won the game and demolished the imaginary starship in his brain successfully.

But as he played more, his understanding of the structures of different starships grew deeper. Gradually, he was able to repair the starship at a crazy speed while under the bombardment of the ‘intruders’ and defend the starship during the designated time.

Li Yao buried himself in the fascinating game and completely forgot the passage of time.

Without him knowing it, he had stayed in the remnant of Ghost Jail for seven days.

Gold Horn had drifted into the depths of the sea of stars and entered the cruising state.

…

For every refiner on Gold Horn, the past seven days had been more miserable than death.

Master Xiong Tao’s mood seemed to be getting worse with every passing second.

His bloodshot eyes were apparently as enlarged as humanly possible. But when he noticed a few minor problems with the magical equipment, they could always be widened even further.

Like two nail guns, his eyes were shooting nails carved with freezing rune arrays and pierced thousands of holes in the refiners and mechanics.

In the beginning, the old man sometimes yelled and burst out in fury several times. No one felt too bad at the time.

But lately, several major problems happened to the starship. Ever since two very important units had been declared total losses, the old man’s dry lips had been kept shut. Every day he was thinner than the previous day, as if his vitality had been sucked up by Gold Horn.

Whenever a fault occurred, he would always gaze in utter silence at those responsible with his bull eyes that were almost jumping out of his head.

When the refiners who were gazed at by the old man in such a way gathered and talked, they all agreed that they would rather put on a maintenance crystal suit to repair the broken shell of the starship in the bleak, dark space than to be stared at by the chief refiner.

Xiong Tao was very anxious.

Gold Horn’s status was much worse than he had expected.

They had only just set off, and they had already met with serious faults. A lot of standby components had been consumed with barely any left.

There was still a long way ahead. Quite a few parts of the route were very dangerous. Cosmic storms and stone belts were almost inevitable.

The thought of sailing into the most threatening stone belts of the Flying Star Sector in a starship bordering on destruction made Xiong Tao’s blood freeze and his back prick.

However, they had no other options.

To return to the central space zone through the safest route meant travelling triple the distance, with seven additional world fragments and five space zones to go through.

Those places were all relatively barren. Some of the world fragments were even uninhabited. They wouldn’t be able to get enough supplies.

In order to come back to the center of the Flying Star Sector before their supplies ran out, they had to take the shortcut even though it was much more dangerous.

In devastation, Xiong Tao thought of the newcomers who were working on the remnant of Ghost Jail.

Those newcomers were either young apprentices raised in the Great Horn Exo Society who were still in lacking expertise, or the civil mechanics recruited in Star Lord with unclear backgrounds who knew a thing or two about maintenance but had never received professional training.

Xiong Tao demanded that they clear the debris and collect assets not because he didn’t trust them, but because he wanted to know more about their personalities and capabilities.

Xiong Tao always believed that such rudimental work was the best mirror to reflect the characteristics of a refiner.

Rash or sloppy, careless or prudent, and what kind of posts they were most suitable for could all be seen through by how they polished a small component of magical equipment.

One week had passed. The newcomers must’ve cleaned up enough components for him to inspect.

If some of them did have the potential, Xiong Tao would definitely hand over the more important tasks to them without any hesitation.

After all, Gold Horn had too many vacancies for maintainers!

Thinking of that, Xiong Tao summoned several experienced refiners and asked them to dock the asset transmission tube of Gold Horn to Ghost Jail in order to transport the components.

Half an hour later, a folded soft tube more than ten meters in diameter stuck out from the tail of Gold Horn and gradually expanded to the front end of Ghost Jail. Attracted by the electromagnetic force, it was attached to the head of Ghost Jail like a giant, gaping mouth.

Several refiners walked through the sealed tube in maintenance crystal suits and replaced the shell of Ghost Jail with a trapdoor that could automatically open or close.

The asset transmission tube was thus completed.

An hour later, standard storage boxes were transported to the main maintenance workshop of Gold Horn through the tube one after another.

Xiong Tao and four other experienced refiners opened the boxes of components and started evaluating.

“The first two boxes of components were collected and polished by ‘Lan An’. Not bad. He has gathered more than 37,500 components. The quantity is remarkable, the quality is very acceptable, with barely any flawed ones.

“Lan An is an apprentice raised in the Great Horn Exo Society, is he not? I remember that his spiritual root has awakened, too. He is at the third level of the Refinement Stage.

“He is quite talented, but he is a little careless. Look. The corners of the runes are still stained. He didn’t finish the job well.”

“However, he is good enough to be responsible for the maintenance of the regular magical equipment of the living zones. Let him take charge of the living zones and reassign the previous refiners there to more important posts.”

Xiong Tao picked up almost a hundred components from the box and glanced at them shortly before making the conclusion.

The other four refiners had no objections, including the mentor of the apprentice ‘Lan An’. Everybody agreed that Master Xiong Tao had made the most appropriate arrangement.

“Miao Fei was a newly-recruited refiner from Star Lord Temple. He is eighty-eight with abundant experience in the trade. The area between the No. 1 turret zone and the No. 4 turret zone of Ghost Jail was cleaned up by him.

“The components collected by him are immaculate without the slightest trace of explosions or flaws. They could be applied to other magical equipment without any further processing. Indeed, not bad.

“However, he only sorted out about 17,300 components in one week. The speed is not very satisfactory. It appears that this refiner is a perfectionist who favors quality over quantity.

“I think that we can ask him to maintain the artificial gravity system. After all, the artificial gravity system is in the center of the starship. Normally, there won’t be unexpected accidents. The most important thing about the job is carefulness. It does not demand quick wits.”

Half an hour later, Xiong Tao had neatly distributed dozens of newcomers to appropriate posts, so that the skilled, experienced refiners originally doing the jobs could be spared to manage the more important tasks. He was finally greatly relieved.

There were only three newcomers left.

But the components of the next newcomer startled Xiong Tao, whose brush-like eyebrows scrunched up into two clusters.

“Li Yao, who was in charge of cleaning up the training zone of Ghost Jail, has gathered 137,455 components?

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Most of the components were broken after they were dug out from debris. Their strength and hardness were both greatly compromised. Some of them were seriously corroded by acids and explosions and could only be put to use after thorough refurbishment.

One only had limited time and energy. Cleaning a component was an extremely arduous task.

There could only be one explanation for collecting more than one hundred thousand components within one short week: that this guy, Li Yao, had not polished any components judiciously. It was even possible that he didn’t even bother to distinguish the damage level of the components and had taken in a lot of scraps that were too twisted to be repaired!

Xiong Tao thought of the young man named ‘Li Yao’ again.

His first impression of the guy was not very good.

He always believed that the best personality for a refiner was honesty and integrity.

The young man named ‘Li Yao’ might indeed be somewhat talented and had experienced some fortuitous incidents, but the fact that he didn’t recognize the simplest Space Gyroscope despite his claim to be an expert in magical equipment maintenance had given Xiong Tao the feeling that he was a haughty, immodest man.

However, since they were seriously short of hands, and the young man had a pair of extremely fast hands and an awakened spiritual root as a Cultivator, Xiong Tao decided to let him stay anyway.

After that, he specially asked Bai Kaixin to encourage the young man and even lent his own starship maintenance manual to him because he wanted to give the guy a second chance to fully demonstrate his potential.

Maybe he was truly talented in maintenance and had wasted his time in the desolate border of the sea of stars.

If he indeed had the gifts to be a better man, Xiong Tao wouldn’t hesitate to give him a hand.

But he didn’t anticipate that Li Yao would still be so short-tempered!

Had he thought that, the more components he offered, the better they would think of him?

Xiong Tao sighed and opened Li Yao’s storage box while holding back his disappointment.

Chapter 461: Simulated Test

Xiong Tao was speechless for half a minute. His eyes were frozen, and weird expressions surfaced on his face.

“What’s going on? The old man is dazed?”

“How crappy must Li Yao’s components be for the old man to not know what to say?”

The other refiners were whispering to each other.

But they were all stunned and put on weird expressions, too, when Xiong Tao silently opened the storage box fully, the walls of which then collapsed to the ground revealing everything contained inside.

Putting the quality of the components that Li Yao had recycled aside, the way they were stored was different from the usual ones.

Others’ components were mostly piled up in a mess. The best thing they could do was to sort the components into several boxes according to their general purpose.

In comparison, Li Yao had built up many three-dimensional districts inside the storage box with thin metal plates, rune arrays of the wind class, and anti-gravity rune arrays, which on one hand increased the utilization efficiency of the storage box, and on the other hand differentiated each and every component clearly.

Now, they were lying neatly inside the box like a well-trained troop waiting to be inspected by their king.

Moreover…

Components of different categories were all placed in different areas with an implicit logic. Generally speaking, the areas that were close to each other had components for a certain kind of magical equipment. Therefore, it was very handy if someone was going to put the components to use.

The few refiners blinked their eyes, which were pricked by the glittering light reflected by the components. They picked up several of them from the shelves inside the box and examined them carefully.

They found that, not only were the components as bright as newly-made ones and even the tiniest rune in the most inconspicuous corner had been polished perfectly without the slightest stain, the components also felt as smooth as silk because they were covered in a protective layer that seemed like an oily membrane so that their longevity in extreme environments could be significantly improved.

Illuminated by the lights, colorful glimmers rippled out on the surface of the components appealingly. Even the most ordinary metals looked like Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and captivated one’s eyes, making them unable to look away.

“Hum. Hum. Hum Hum…”

One of the refiners blew onto the components and put them beside his ear to analyze the sound of the vibrations as if he were listening to the most marvelous music. He mumbled, “The hardness inside the components is as good as the brand-new ones. If the hundred thousand components are all as perfect as the samples, it will be too unbelievable!

“The guy’s speed is terrifying, too. He has restored more than a hundred components from the debris resulting from serious explosions to such an extent within only seven days! In my opinion, even many experts working in maintenance within Heavenly Saints City are not proficient enough to do that.

“Was everything he said actually true? Did he really grow up in an ancient space battleground and start recycling garbage when his mother was still breastfeeding him?

“If that is case, we have got a real talent!”

The refiners were all excited.

A young man with such fluent hands and solid knowledge about magical equipment was the best assistant that every one of them had dreamed for!

But Xiong Tao was still frowning. He mumbled something to himself as Li Yao’s performance was beyond his expectations.

Judging from what had happened, it was very likely that he had been telling the truth.

However, the guy claimed that he wandered in various ancient space battlegrounds for many years and yet he had never seen a Space Gyroscope? That did not sound right.

The young man must’ve had spent the entire week cleaning the debris trying to prove himself without any rest after being scolded by him.

If that was what had happened, how much time had he devoted to the maintenance manual?

Xiong Tao secretly felt regretful.

Such a talented young man shouldn’t be just trained as a magical equipment mechanic or a refiner’s assistant. He should be allowed to climb higher mountains!

“Contact this guy Li Yao for me. I have a few questions for him,” said Xiong Tao emotionlessly and expressionlessly.

The young man showing up on the light beam somewhat surprised Xiong Tao.

Because of the long time of confinement inside a starship without any contact with lights, Li Yao’s skin was apparently fairer than before, but his eyes, in which sparks seemed to be bursting from time to time, were even deeper and darker. No one would be able to tell what kind of things were buried behind the ink-like eyes.

Besides…

Staying inside a starship remnant that was filled with darkness for an entire week was usually an unbearable thing. Many people would cry to return to the company of their companions after one or two days. Even the most determined people would be somewhat agitated after a week of solitude.

But Li Yao was perfectly peaceful without the slightest sign of discomfort; he seemed to be enjoying the loneliness.

Xiong Tao appreciated such a quality.

Refining was an art of loneliness. For most of the time, a refiner had to keep themselves alone in a refining workshop.

In order to find the most suitable materials for a certain kind of magical equipment, they would often have to try thousands of times tirelessly, without any confidence that they could succeed at last.

When the sword Cultivators rode their swords, flying in the air and enjoying the reverence of thousands of people, refiners were walking on the path of turning unknown into known.

Those who could not bear loneliness were definitely not made to be refiners.

Those who could bear loneliness yet couldn’t enjoy it would never become excellent refiners.

Only those who found fun in loneliness and even built a world of their own with which they entertained themselves could become the real experts in the art of refining!

Seeing Li Yao’s appearance, Xiong Tao had totally believed what he said. The chief refiner asked straightforwardly, “How much of the Level 1 of ‘Starship Maintenance Manual’ have you grasped? 80%?”

If Li Yao’s progress had reached 80%, Xiong Tao would put Li Yao in charge of several unimportant areas by himself for further observation.

Li Yao pondered for a moment about whether or not he should conceal part of his capability.

But very soon, he made up his mind because he had to seize every second and every opportunity to improve his capability in order to learn the best skills in the holy land of Cultivation of the Flying Star Sector, refine the strongest magical equipment, and find his way home!

Even if he could conceal part of capability right now, it would definitely still be exposed later in his training. By that time, his disguise right now would inevitably raise a lot of suspicion.

Therefore, he might as well show them his true abilities from the start!

Figuring the logic out, Li Yao stared Xiong Tao in eye and said, “I’ve fully grasped the first three levels, and I grasped 79.5% of the first five levels. Level 6, 33.2%. As for the files beyond Level 6, I haven’t touched them yet.”

Xiong Tao was speechless for three seconds.

The other four refiners were dumbfounded.

Three seconds later, Xiong Tao took a deep breath and replied calmly, “Alright. Please wait a moment.”

The communication was cut off. The four refiners’ doubtful exclamations echoed nonstop.

“Within only seven days, not only did he finish cleaning up so many components, he also managed to learn half of the ‘Starship Maintenance Manual’?

“Impossible. It’s simply impossible. At best, he skimmed through it. How on earth could he grasp it?”

“Stop arguing!”

Xiong Tao glared at them and said, “I’m going to prepare a special examination for him, with all the faults that happened to Gold Horn in the past seven days as the questions. Now, let’s gather the major malfunctions and the minor ones in your respective areas from over the past week.”

“In my area, a spiritual energy transmission tube was jammed once, resulting in a power rune array overloading and eventually exploding. Also, two power rune arrays interfered with each other and the spiritual pressure plunged. This fault is very rare. We spent thirty minutes ruling out all the other possibilities before we finally located the problem,” said the refiner who was in charge of the engine compartment.

“In my place, the artificial gravity disappeared abruptly twice, and four kinds of magical equipment whose units were sensitive to gravity were flying everywhere inside them. Because the gravity was only away very briefly, we failed to find the source of the problem until we dug deep.”

“It’s needless to say too much about the turret zone. Although the few turrets have been repaired for emergencies, small problems are occurring to them every day, and big ones are happening to them every other day! There’s not a single hour that it functions without error!”

The four refiners all spoke enthusiastically. Very soon, more than a hundred faults of various sorts were gathered.

Together with the three zones that Xiong Tao himself was in charge of, 182 faults were collected and transmitted to Li Yao’s mini crystal processor as a special examination paper.

Looking at the dense, transparent illustrations spinning around his head, Li Yao couldn’t be more thrilled. His face was red while he breathed heavily.

The questions on the paper was not in the least pedantic but associated with a lot of real-life situations. They were all comprehensive questions that could potentially affect the entire starship.

The paper is a finely-made one. The questions are very realistic!

For an expert in refining such as Li Yao, nothing excited him more than a finely-made exam.

Li Yao licked his lips. He stuffed almost twenty meat buns into his mouth in a row and washed them down with high-nutrition liquid in order to replenish his energy.

Then, he put a neat iron ring on his head.

The iron ring was a piece of self-made magical equipment of Li Yao’s. It was an upgraded version of the ‘Freezing Ring’ that he had used back in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Other than the freezing rune arrays carved on the ring that could cool down the brain, it could also monitor the circulation of blood inside the head and automatically inject medication drugs.

When the blood inside his head was flowing too fast, the iron ring would promptly inject the medication drugs to bring up the hardness of cerebrovascular vessels and reduce their odds of fracture. If the situation was too bad, it would send warnings so that Li Yao could lower his brain cell activity and avoid the fate of mental derangement.

Let’s begin!

Li Yao rubbed his fists and grinned hideously. He lunged at the paper like a hungry wolf charging at a lamb.

Chapter 462: Spiritual Shield Generator

Xiong Tao looked at his watch when Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts that were as vast as ocean were fully transmitted.

It was only 3 hours, 42 minutes and 57 seconds after they sent the paper over.

Li Yao’s lightning-like speed caused the maintenance workshop to fall into a weird silence again.

All the refiners looked at each other in bewilderment, but they did not dare jump to any conclusions.

With crisp ‘beep’ sounds, light beams blossomed one after another like petals. The five refiners divided Li Yao’s answers according to the fields they were good at and reviewed the content passionately.

“Correct. Correct. And still correct.”

“His ideas about how to cope with the faults are very clear. The measures are resolute, too, without any indecision.”

“Huh. He thought of a different solution to the No. 44 fault which employed three new algorithms. Let me see… Hiss. It’s workable and 4.8 seconds faster than my solution!”

Exclamations echoed nonstop like the croaking frogs in a pond.

Of the 182 faults, Li Yao perfectly resolved 74 and located the critical parts of the problem of another 38.

As for the remaining 70 questions, they were left completely blank.

Everybody was greatly relieved to see this.

They discovered that all the faults Li Yao had worked out had been provided with clear and simple solutions, some of which were even more practical than what they had employed in reality.

As for the faults that he didn’t fully work out, the elaborations about the source of the faults were very neat and precise.

It equaled to saying that the correction rate of the questions he had answered was 100%!

With that in mind, the seasoned refiners would start doubting how this young monster was born and where he came from if he could solve all 182 faults flawlessly!

Thankfully, there were still questions that he didn’t understand. Overall… he was still an ‘acceptable’ genius!

But one thing was bothering them. Based on Li Yao’s knowledge, he definitely had something to say about the questions that had been left blank. But why did he choose to not write anything about them?

Xiong Tao pondered for a moment and turned on the communication channel again.

Li Yao appeared in the light beam again, with the thinking iron ring on his head. Under the dual effects of the freezing rune arrays and the medications drugs, a lot of hazy mist popped up from his head and wrapped him, making him look both eccentric and mysterious.

Xiong Tao was briefly dazed because he failed to see what the iron ring was meant for. But he didn’t let the details bother him and asked straightforwardly, “I have two questions for you. Firstly, according to your solutions to the No. 14 fault and the No. 45 fault, the maintainer would be kept in an environment with a temperature higher than eight hundred degrees for three minutes. Is there anyone capable of doing that in a real-life scenario?”

“There is.” Li Yao nodded.

Seeing his confident face and his unwavering eyes, Xiong Tao was almost convinced.

“The second question. Why did you not propose any solutions to the faults whose origins you had located?”

“Because I don’t know any,” replied Li Yao in a matter-of-fact way.

Xiong Tao’s bull eyes narrowed as he said, “According to your ideas and answers to other questions, you can at least write something about them. The possible plans, for example. Why did you decide to abandon them completely?”

“Because it is a waste of time.”

Li Yao answered calmly, “Everyone has the field that they are best at. It’s impossible for a refiner to specialize in the maintenance and modification of all kinds of magical equipment. The starship is too large and boasts too many pieces of magical equipment. Everyone should focus on some of them.

“It’s unnecessary, and impossible, for me to know all the fields. The only I need to do is to be adept at the field that I work on.

“If I am really faced with faults that are beyond my knowledge, I will ask the specialists of the fields to fix them instead of blindly coming up with ideas.

“Yes. I can try my best and write something on the paper. If I’m really lucky, they might even be correct.

“But it is going to waste a lot of my time and distract me from the field that I’m best at. More often than not, my ill-considered suggestions may even mislead other people and cause greater damage.

“Time is precious. I don’t want to waste any of it. That’s it.”

His reply greatly interested Xiong Tao, whose lips curled in a vague smile.

Li Yao’s talent in refining was already surprising enough. But what was more surprising was his awareness of self-control.

He was not like the regular ‘geniuses’ who did things randomly based on their immense natural gift.

The best steel should be used to craft the edge of a blade. For a Cultivator, the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and the myriad of Cultivation arts were of course good steel, but the most important resource of all for them was ‘time’!

A sensible Cultivator would always make the best use of each and every second by calculating carefully in the most frugal way. They understood which area they should devote their time to so that they could improve themselves to the ultimate level of Cultivation after days and years.

Xiong Tao had originally planned to ask Li Yao to take over several unimportant zones. But right now, he changed his mind.

He was of a mind to assign Li Yao to some important areas by himself. But since Li Yao was apparently too young, his backgrounds not entirely clear, and the important zones concerned the fate of the starship, Xiong Tao hesitated to make a decision.

Pondering for a moment, Xiong Tao finally made up his mind and said, “When you joined the Great Horn Exo Society, Manager Bai should’ve told you that, as long as you proved yourself to be capable enough, you would be responsible for the more important posts.

“Now, I’m thinking of asking you to work as Master Bai Ze’s assistant and help him to ensure the normal functioning of the spiritual shield generator. Are you willing to take the offer?”

Li Yao blinked his eyes, but his mind was brimming with ecstasy.

Of course, he was willing to!

The spiritual shield generator was one of the most crucial pieces of magical equipment on a starship. It was even more important than the engine compartment and the mainframe crystal processor!

If the power rune arrays broke down, the starship could always drift slowly in the sea of stars, waiting for them to be repaired.

However, if the spiritual shield generator exploded because of a cosmic storm or the bombardment of a hostile starship, the spiritual shield of the starship would collapse.

If so, the shell of the starship would take the full blow of the enemy’s attacks.

Even the most solid shell wouldn’t be able to stand for long against such attacks.

Therefore, the spiritual shield was always outside of the shell to absorb the damage when the starship was cruising through a cosmic storm or engaged in a battle.

The spiritual energy generator, on the other hand, was always faced with great pressure. In fierce battles, it was almost certain that some faults would occur in the spiritual shield generator, sometimes even continuously. All the faults had to be quickly identified and attended to!

To master such a spiritual shield generator required sharp senses, fast hands, and resolute decisions, and none of the qualities were optional!

On a starship, the refiner responsible for the spiritual shield generator was usually the most skilled, experienced, and respected one.

Sometimes, they were only secondary to the chief refiner; sometimes, the chief refiner would manage the spiritual shield generator personally.

For the crew members of a starship, they often respected the refiner in charge of the generator even more than the chief refiner, since it was their lives that were in the hands of the refiner.

On Gold Horn, Master Bai Ze, who was in charge of the spiritual shield generator, was an expert in refining only inferior to Xiong Tao in the Great Horn Exo Society, as well as a creation-type Cultivator in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage!

…

Li Yao followed Bai Ze somewhat anxiously into the cabin where the spiritual shield generator was located.

There were bigger spiritual shields and there were smaller ones. A Cultivator could form a natural spiritual shield by triggering their own spiritual energy. Small-scale spiritual shield generators were also core units only lesser to the crystal reactor on crystal suits.

For the most part, the middle- and small-scale spiritual shields could only be expanded to one to two meters away and cover one or two people.

In comparison, the spiritual shield on a starship had to be enlarged to more than a thousand meters in order to protect the entire starship.

It was not hard to imagine the scale and complexity of the spiritual shield generator behind that.

In front of Li Yao were sixteen black metal plates more than five meters long embedded with countless crystals and carved with immeasurable rune arrays.

The metal plates were distributed in a circle and placed in a giant ball-shaped zone more than fifty meters in diameter.

Other than the main maintenance workshop, the engine compartment, and the cockpit, this should be the largest independent space on the starship. It protruded slightly out of the starship. Looking from the outside, it looked like a lump on the back of the starship.

The generator was emitting a huge amount of heat continuously. To better transmit the heat, most of the generator was soaking in special deep-blue cooling liquids. It was revolving slowly around a thick axis.

This super-large system was made of more than a thousand units and hundreds of thousands of components. It was large, majestic, and solemn.

For a refiner such as Li Yao, walking into this place almost equaled to walking into a splendid palace. He found it hard to breathe.

The spiritual shield generator could produce double defenses.

The first defense was one purely made of spiritual energy, which could offset the hostile energy attacks.

The second defense was the twisted force field, which would cause the materials that were rushing close, such as meteoroids and cannonballs, to deviate from their trajectories.

Such strong defenses were why it was nearly impossible for a starship to be blown up by remote attacks before it ran out of spiritual energy.

It was also one of the reasons crystal suits were so popular in the Flying Star Sector and were even one of the most important weapons on a space battleground.

This was a world where ‘shields’ were stronger than ‘spears’. Only crystal suits could infiltrate the spiritual shield without being stopped and intrude into the interior of the enemy’s defense circle so that the battle could be finished inside the starship.

Over the two months of hunting, the spiritual shield generator of Gold Horn had suffered too many adversities to work normally any longer. It was already on the verge of collapse.

In order to maintain the normal coverage of the spiritual shield, Bai Ze had dedicated all that he had. He was almost planning to jump into the generator and burn his own soul to provide more energy for the spiritual shield.

Li Yao’s arrival had come at the right time.

In the following half month, Li Yao learnt to repair Gold Horn’s spiritual shield generator with the assets collected from Ghost Jail.

Faced with such a comprehensive, complicated system, even Li Yao felt dizzy and exhausted despite his capability in refining.

He spent almost all his time on the maintenance work; he was so busy that he didn’t even have the time to read ‘Starship Maintenance Manual’ and ‘Stormy Sword’.

His understanding of spiritual shields grew deeper and deeper during the crazy maintenance work, too.

He had to make the best use of every second, because three days later, the spiritual shield of Gold Horn would be going through a harsh examination.

They were going to sail through the life-blighting ‘Dim Flame Belt’, better known as ‘Wraiths’ Wrath’, of the Flying Star Sector!

Chapter 463: Dim Flame Belt

“The Dim Flame Belt is not an ordinary stone belt. It was one of the main battlegrounds in the Armageddon Rebellion ten thousand years ago. The battle was so intense that the Flying Star Sector was even torn apart.

“You may think of the Dim Flame Belt as a wound of the Flying Star Sector or an extremely large crack.

“Over the past ten thousand years, countless small planets, meteoroid showers, and world fragments have been attracted into the crack. They collided, crushed, and eventually reassembled. Thousands of streams of spiritual energy gathered together, resulting in countless mysterious reactions. Eventually, the Dim Flame Belt was formed.

“The meteoroids inside the Dim Flame Belt all carry immense spiritual energy of the fire class. They are hundreds of times more damaging than common meteoroids. Some of the wreckages of the war ten thousand years ago still have attack rune arrays that were not activated and are still functioning. They are like ticking time bombs that will set off randomly.

“Entering the Dim Flame Belt is like entering a surging river haunted by infuriated ghosts. Therefore, experienced sailors call the place ‘Wraiths’ Wrath’. None of them ever enter the Dim Flame Belt unless it is absolutely necessary.

“We have no other choice. The Dim Flame Belt has absorbed the materials and spiritual energy of the few space zones nearby and turned them into bleak, desolate uninhabited areas.

“If we bypass the Dim Flame Belt, we will have to sail for at least two to three months before we can find a depot world fragment.

“With our current supplies and the status of the starship, there is no way that we can go for such a long time. Once the spiritual energy runs dry, even our own training will become a big problem.

“Cruising through the Dim Flame Belt, on the other hand, will take only three days, if the journey is smooth.

“After that, we will arrive in the Angry Serpent Domain within the following ten days. The Angry Serpent Domain is a fairly large world fragment. Many Cultivation sects have established branches in the area. There is also a middle-sized dock where we can take a brief rest and buy a lot of supplies.

“Going forward from the Angry Serpent Domain, we will be entering the center of the Flying Star Sector. There will be more world fragments and space towns that are guarded by Cultivation sects along the way. The transportation is convenient and safe, too. We can get abundant supplies very easily.

“Therefore, it is a necessity that we pass through the Dim Flame Belt.”

Bai Ze explained to Li Yao, pointing at the star map on the light beam, “Going through the Dim Flame Belt is a great test for our spiritual shield. Have you completed the task that I entrusted to you yesterday? What is the status of the No. 7 unit now?”

“The spiritual pressure stabilizer had a short circuit, resulting in the abrupt increase of spiritual pressure, which damaged the nineteen defense rune arrays nearby. I’ve replaced it with a stabilizer of a higher level and carved the nineteen defense rune arrays once again. Besides, I’ve optimized the alarms, so that they will emit green light when the spiritual pressure reaches 80% of the limit, red when 90%, and they will buzz when it reaches 95% of the limit. With such a system in place, we will know if there’s an anomaly with the spiritual pressure in advance,” Li Yao replied in a hurry.

He actually quite respected Bai Ze.

Although Bai Ze was merely in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, similar to himself, and his comprehensive capability in refining might even be higher than Bai Ze’s, Bai Ze had dedicated dozens of years’ time to the study of defense rune arrays and spiritual shields. He had made remarkable achievements both in theories and in practice and was a well-regarded specialist in spiritual shields.

What Li Yao had learned was rather jumbled. Speaking of the study of defense rune arrays and spiritual shields, he was absolutely no match for Bai Ze.

One could always learn from one’s fellows. Li Yao had always respected the real specialists. He would’ve humbly asked for the enlightenment of a refiner with abundant experience who had spent more than half of his life studying spiritual shields even if the refiner was in the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage. Now that Bai Ze’s Cultivation level was even higher than his, there was no reason he shouldn’t learn from him.

Over the past two weeks, Li Yao had indeed learned a lot of things from Bai Ze.

Putting aside everything else, just the nineteen-seven brand new spiritual shield models were more than enough for him to digest for a year and a half. His future would benefit a lot from them.

Li Yao was also greatly inspired by the spiritual shield generator. He had devised quite a few pieces of small-scale magical equipment that he could put into the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit to increase its defense ability when he had the opportunity to.

“Excellent. We have three days to go. During these three days, we will reexamine all the working units. I will also ask Master Xiong to have the useable components of the spiritual shield generator on Ghost Jail delivered to this place.

“A storm is coming!”

…

Three days later, Gold Horn dived into the Dim Flame Belt.

Li Yao observed the magnificent scenes through the panoramic light beam quietly.

Watched from afar, the Dim Flame Belt was a river of magma raging in the boundless space. Countless burning, red meteoroids were creaking, colliding, crumbling, and condensing. The boiling magma tossed up thousands of waves, each of which were even more splendid than the prominence of the sun.

Wraiths’ Wrath truly deserved its name. Even the divinities would be frightened if they came to this place.

Li Yao felt that his palms were sweating.

It was not going to be an easy task to break through such a dangerous stone belt.

As Gold Horn fully entered the Dim Flame Belt, the scenes inside the light beam changed.

Most of the red meteoroids were actually still far away from the starship, but the furious light and heat that they emitted blew at Gold Horn like crimson hurricanes.

Half an hour after they entered the Dim Flame Belt, the temperature around Gold Horn had surpassed 1,500 degrees.

The originally bright gold spiritual shield gradually turned a deep shade of red as it was resisting the high temperature nearby.

“Attention! We are entering an extremely hot environment. Set the spiritual shield into anti-heat pattern. Activate the cooling rune arrays to cool down the shell and the engine compartment. Activate the rune arrays of the wind class to blow away the streams of heat!”

Under Bai Ze’s command, the light beam in front of Li Yao suddenly changed from the view of the universe to a series of runes the size of the head of a fly, which poured down from the top of the light beam.

Emotionlessly, Li Yao turned his two hands into two clusters of grey mist. The grey mist then surrounded him and started operating on the circular light beam.

With Li Yao’s lightning-like movements, countless runes were jumping on the sixteen metal plates that constituted the spiritual shield generator. The brightness they emitted was interweaving into new patterns.

Around the generator, the cooling liquids were roaring. A lot of bubbles were popping up as it was in an extremely high temperature.

“Alright. The temperature of the plate armor of the starship is steady at 850 degrees, which is bearable for us. Keep the general spiritual pressure stable and make sure that the twisted force field is functioning normally in the high temperature. The meteoroids of this area are very chaotic without any distinguishable pattern. Beware of the collision of meteoroids.”

Bai Ze had only just finished his sentence when dangerous redness popped up in the light beam.

A burning meteoroid more than five hundred meters in diameter emitting weird redness was rushing at Gold Horn straightforwardly at an unbelievable speed!

According to its trajectory, there were thirteen seconds before it hit Gold Horn!

The chaotic, heated environment of the Dim Flame Belt interfered with the probe magical equipment of the Gold Horn, which was why they failed to detect it earlier.

Bai Ze was greatly alarmed. He was planning to take over the operation panel, when he noticed that Li Yao did not even blink his eyes. Li Yao’s previous storm-like movements suddenly turned gentle, as if he were trimming the hair of a sleeping cat. His narrow and long fingers slid on the light beam softly and fluently and finished the adjustment and activation of the twisted force field within five seconds.

“Hu…”

Jammed by the twisted field, the rushing meteoroid altered its trajectory slightly and brushed past Gold Horn.

The shortest distance between them was only 99 meters!

Due to the interference of the spiritual energy contained inside the meteoroid, Gold Horn shivered. Blood red flakes and waves appeared in the light beam.

Bai Ze was so shocked that cold sweat was appearing on his forehead.

On the other hand, Li Yao was still emotionless. However, there was delight in his eyes. He even licked his lips, showing that he had greatly enjoyed himself.

Travelling in the dangerous Dim Flame Belt seemed to be just an interesting game for Li Yao.

Bai Ze took a long breath in relief.

“Job well done. You switched promptly between the ‘Twisted Force Field’ mode and the ‘Energy Mediation’ mode. The shell of the starship was not heated much even when the meteoroid was brushing past us. It is indeed very impressive!

“However, the temperature will only get higher, and there will only be more meteoroids. Let’s take a look and input several other processing modes!”

Bai Ze had completely forgotten that Li Yao was a newcomer who had only been on board for one month and simply treated him as an equal working partner. The two of them started discussing excitedly.

…

“The No. 337 unit is broken. Change it to a new one!”

“A meteoroid shower is coming at us. There are more than ten meteoroids that are greater than three hundred meters in diameter! Alter their trajectories immediately with the twisted force field now! As for those beyond our influence, ask the pilot to blow them up with the turrets!”

“The plate armor’s temperature is more than 1,300 degrees. Part of it is more than 1,900 degrees! No. 16 zone is about to be melted through. Brief the circumstances to the cockpit and inform the crew members in the No. 16 zone to put on their crystal suits. Let the emergency team stand by and prepare to mend the hole!”

Two days later, the cabin of the spiritual shield generator had greatly changed.

The spiritual shield had experienced four minor explosions. The whole cabin was in a mess, with a vague odor of empyema. The units which used to be glittering were now dark like wet paint. Both Li Yao and Bai Ze had topsy-turvy hair, bloodshot eyes, ragged clothes, and faces that had been soaked in oil.

But the two of them couldn’t care less about their appearances. They were bellowing at each other every once in a while, like two angry gorillas, before they started operating crazily again.

The same scene was happening in the cockpit, in the engine compartment, and in every other cabin.

With the efforts of all the crew members, they were about to complete an impossible mission: leaping out of the Dim Flame Belt with a dilapidated starship!

“Keep it up, guys! Another three hours, and we will be out of Wraiths’ Wrath!”

“By then, we will have performed the biggest miracle of the Flying Star Sector!”

“Abandon all the zones that are beyond repair and wait until we are out of Wraths’ Wrath!”

“We made it. We are going to make it!”

Li Yao and Bai Ze were screaming hoarsely, cheering up each other as well as themselves.

Because of the prolonged, high-intensity operations, their souls had been burnt to their limits. They were now over-exhausted and would crumple like a rotten tree if they were to ease themselves for one second.

Right then—

Gold Horn trembled violently. A blood-freezing noise of metal fracturing occurred deep below their feet!

Both of the two fell to the ground.

Countless components were dancing in midair as if blossoming.

It felt like an invisible hand had extended from Wraiths’ Wrath, snatched Gold Horn, and pulled it toward the depths of the immense crack brutally!

Chapter 464: True Fusion, Space Swirl!

On the operation light beam, the parameters representing the external and internal temperature of the starship and the performance of the spiritual shield, as if stimulated by strengthening drugs, exceeded the warning line almost instantly and continued soaring!

The sea of stars had put on an entirely different face.

When Gold Horn was about to break out of the Dim Flame Belt, Wraiths’ Wrath finally decided to drop its mask and demonstrate its fury by extending thousands of limbs of flames.

Before, the universe, as deep and dark as ink, could still be seen through the gaps of the broken space.

But right now, the light beam had been consumed by thousands of shades of red.

Meteoroids, starship remnants, and even the vacuum of the universe itself all seemed to be on fire!

Behind Gold Horn, countless meteoroids and streams of flames were spinning toward the same location faster and faster, and gradually formed a magnificent crimson swirl that was even more eye-catching than a nebula.

In the deepest part of the funnel-shaped swirl, there was a dazzling light ball that looked like a supernova outbreak.

The nebula-like swirl grew larger and larger like the snowball rolling down a cliff by absorbing the meteoroids and spiritual energy nearby. It was quickly expanding at a macroscopic speed.

Like a bloody mouth opening in the universe, it bared its fangs at Gold Horn; the streams of flames were its saliva!

“True Fusion, Space Swirl!”

The faces of Li Yao and Bai Ze both blanched.

True Fusion was one of the most terrible natural disasters in the universe.

Ever since Cultivators recognized that mysterious ‘spiritual energy’ existed everywhere, both in the living worlds and in the vast sea of stars, and that it could be used for their own training in various ways, countless wise Cultivators had pondered the essence of spiritual energy.

Even to this day, it had not been confirmed whether spiritual energy was particles or waves.

On the other hand, many Cultivators had shifted the direction and explored different fields.

Some Cultivators reflected on what would happen by splitting a portion of spiritual energy into unbreakable constituents.

Some other Cultivators considered what would happen if countless portions of spiritual energy were collected, compressed and condensed.

Studies in the two directions had been ongoing for ten thousand years. It was one of the most essential questions of the modern Cultivation world.

Although the ultimate answer hadn’t been found yet, the wise predecessors had discovered that, once the fission and fusion of spiritual energy reached a certain level, immense damage would be unleashed instantly that could potentially deal much more damage than spiritual energy of the same amount could under normal circumstances!

This discovery also provided a reasonable explanation for the Cultivators’ world-shaking strength.

The fission and fusion of spiritual energy could be applied to astronomy to explain many fantastic phenomena.

In places such as the Dim Flame Belt, infinite kinds of furious spiritual energy had been trapped in the small crack. They attracted, crushed, and swallowed each other. During their billions of interactions, once a certain mysterious condition was met, there was a slim chance that ‘True Fusion’ might occur.

Once a True Fusion took place, there would be a chain reaction allowing more spiritual energy nearby to join the event. In the blink of an eye, the spiritual energy accumulated for hundreds of years would all be consumed, thereby unleashing tremendous damage!

If the spiritual energy and materials nearby passed a certain threshold, a True Fusion could even produce a new star!

If there were not enough spiritual energy and materials, just like what Gold Horn was facing right now, a space swirl with immense attraction force and intimidating damage would be born after a True Fusion!

The center of the swirl was the nucleus of the True Fusion, which was hauling and absorbing all the materials and energy around. It was condensing, condensing, and still condensing, trying to break the threshold and become a star!

It was perhaps one of the most fabulous splendors in the sea of stars.

Just like moths darting into candlelight, billions of furious flames were sprinting toward the swirl and piercing into the cluster of brightness at the deepest part of the swirl crazily.

Each of the flames was hundreds of kilometers long, but after they pierced into the light ball, they could only turn into a long, narrow red thread, before they completely vanished without leaving the slightest trace.

The light ball, in the meantime, would expand a little bit. Its halo dispersed and spread over hundreds of thousands of kilometers, as if it were the best expert in martial arts in the universe.

Of course, it was impossible for anyone inside Gold Horn to hear the sound of the True Fusion.

However, the cracking noises of the shell and the explosions of the units deep below Li Yao’s and Bai Ze’s feet gave them the feeling that a devil of fire was gloating.

Gold Horn struggled helplessly for a moment before it was captured by the invisible attraction force and pulled backward.

Gold Horn was being dragged into the swirl.

The surging exhaust flames behind Gold Horn was lackluster and insignificant compared with the streams of flames of the True Fusion. They were like the feeble cries of a bleeding lamb which had been mauled by a tiger.

The remnant of Ghost Jail attached to the back of the starship was like a dry leaf in a storm, shaking and scattering.

Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa!

The chains that locked Ghost Jail to Gold Horn were cut off promptly so that the starship would not be burdened to doom together with the remnant.

Ghost Jail was immediately trawled by the swirl.

As if tangled by countless invisible tentacles, it was drawn deep into the swirl.

When it was some ten thousand meters away from the center of the swirl, it was crushed to powder by meteoroids and fire and turned into a spark on one of the raging streams of flames.

Everyone was aghast to see the finale of Ghost Jail.

“Activate the power rune arrays at maximum. We have to try our best to get out of the swirl while we still can!

“If we fall into the swirl, we won’t stand a chance. Even if our impetus is strong enough to compete with the attraction force of the True Fusion, the starship will be torn apart because of the insufficient hardness of the shell!”

“Hurry up. Everyone, put on your crystal suit and prepare to enter the vacuum!”

“Hardness of the spiritual shield is dropping fast. Fix it! Fix it right now!”

Exclamations and screams echoed nonstop in the communication channel.

Of all the voices, one was extraordinarily shrill shout. “A meteoroid shower! An unprecedented meteoroid shower is appearing in front of us!”

On the light beam, a storm of dense red light spots were dashing toward Gold Horn.

The meteor shower was originally moving on a trajectory that was far from Gold Horn and wouldn’t have collided with the starship.

However, it was also pulled in by the True Fusion and swallowed by the blood mouth.

The speed of the meteoroid shower was much higher than Gold Horn’s. The two parties collided heavily.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Ten thousand explosions erupted outside and inside of Gold Horn at the same time.

Just like a tiny boat on a raging ocean, Gold Horn was now tossed into a wave, thousands of meters high, now pressed hundreds of meters beneath the surface.

The crew members were now experiencing ten times gravity, having to move with much effort inside the cabin.

Thankfully, everybody had put on their crystal suits in time. If an ordinary person was standing there without a crystal suit, they probably would have died from brain compression and vessel fractures.

The spiritual shield suddenly shined in hundreds of brilliant colors.

After each color, the hardness of the spiritual shield would drop a little bit.

Continuous explosions were taking place inside the generator. Several metal plates carved with rune arrays had collapsed. The cooling liquids were boiling!

Li Yao and Bai Ze gritted their teeth like two maniacs as they appeared at several places of the cabin at the same time, trying their best to repair the generator with whatever was left of the supply components.

However, the density and intensity of this meteoroid shower were too high. The spiritual shield was not able to bear the bombardment. A few horrendous giant holes appeared in the front of the shield as if melted ice.

The distance was too close, and the speed was too high. The direction of the meteoroid shower could barely be altered even though the twisted force field was operating at maximum.

Many meteoroids had been heated to thousands of degrees because of the friction resulting from the high speed. They hit Gold Horn’s shell like fireballs!

The shell of Gold Horn was immediately riddled with holes, resembling a beetle that had been gnawed clean by an army of ants.

Countless cabins were torn open. A huge number of scraps were tossed to the space, forming a drape of glittering scales around Gold Horn.

The cabin Li Yao was in was the first to take the blow.

Because of the mechanism of the spiritual shield generator, this cabin could only be deployed at the outmost layer of the starship.

In less than half a minute, tremendous meteorites had struck the shell brutally. All seven layers of plate armor, together with the defense rune arrays in between, were ripped to pieces!

Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa!

Countless meteorites were on a rampage inside the cabin with deep red flames behind them. Not only did they stab through a lot of the units inside the cabin, one of them even hit Bai Ze precisely!

Fortunately, Bai Ze was wearing a crystal suit. Also, as an expert at spiritual shields, he had condensed three layers of nested spiritual shields around himself as soon as he sensed that something bad was going to happen.

BOOM!

Bai Ze was blown away through a metal wall and ended up in debris with his limbs all stretched out. There was no telling whether he was killed or still alive.

Li Yao was still wearing the maintenance crystal suit ‘Rockman’. Illuminated by the dim red lights inside the helmet, he found that cold sweat was popping up on his forehead uncontrollably, despite trying to calm himself down.

Gritting his lips, he jumped forward and activated the automatic repair system to fix the starship’s shell. Then he found his way through the gaps of the meteorites to Bai Ze after tedious efforts.

The chest of Bai Ze’s crystal suit was shattered, with a clear red round dent. He was cramping and showed no reaction to Li Yao’s shouts.

However, Li Yao did sense a very feeble heartbeat and shallow breathing from him, indicating that he should’ve just passed out because his soul was disturbed by the chaotic spiritual energy mixed with the meteorites.

Li Yao frowned and cursed in a low voice.

Under such circumstances, Bai Ze wouldn’t be able to conduct the maintenance work, even if he woke up later, until his damaged was soul recovered.

One minute later, the meteoroid shower finally passed.

But Gold Horn had almost been turned upside down. Many cabins had exploded. A lot of pathways had been blocked. Some crucial units had stopped functioning, too.

What was more fatal was that, due to a disastrous explosion in the engine compartment, two main power rune arrays had completely been wrecked.

In the chaos, Gold Horn had been entirely swallowed by the space swirl and had fallen to the core of the True Fusion.

Chapter 465: Leopard Jumping at the Sun!

The cockpit had been consumed by the furious flames. Damaged magical equipment was flying everywhere.

Fortunately, those qualified to stay in the cockpit were all seasoned warriors, and they’d experienced quite a lot of scenarios where the cockpit had been hit by hostile firepower directly. Therefore, after a moment of chaos, the fire was put out and the damage was repaired.

“What is our status right now?” bellowed Lei Dalu in the communication channel.

“The mainframe crystal processor lost 5% of its computational ability. An explosion took place inside the engine compartment, and two power rune arrays were wasted. But Master Xiong is working on it right now, and the impetus decline has been halted! The cabin of the spiritual shield generator suffered worst. It was hit by the meteoroid shower directly. The cabins nearby were all torn apart, the pathways to it were blocked, and it is surrounded by severe spiritual energy interference, too!”

Bai Kaixin’s face was pale and cold as he spoke fast. “The communication between the spiritual shield generator cabin and us has been cut off. We can’t reach out to Bai Ze. Given the blockage of the pathways and the shortness of hands, we need at least half an hour to break our way into it!

“The hardness of our spiritual shield has dropped to 52% and is still declining. If it keeps the current trend, we will completely lose our spiritual shield in the next fifteen minutes. By then, we will have to resist the foreign intrusions by our plate armor. It will be a miracle if we can survive three minutes!

“The most terrible thing is that we have been fully captured by the gravity sphere of the True Fusion!

“Our speed is now too low to compete with its attraction force. We will only gradually fall into its nucleus and end up as a small spark just like Ghost Jail did!

“The force of the True Fusion is too immense. We wouldn’t be fast enough to get rid of its attraction even if the power rune arrays were fully functioning, not to mention that two of them have already exploded!”

Bai Kaixin’s words cast the communication channel into weird silence. The only thing that could be heard were desperate breaths and stumping heartbeats.

Lei Dalu was quiet for a long time. Then he suddenly started chuckling, in a way that almost frightened his companions who were listening to it, before he commanded, “Go forward.”

“What?”

Bai Kaixin’s eyes were wide open, as he thought that his ears deceived him.

“I said, go forward! Activate the power rune arrays to maximum and go forward at full speed in the same direction as the swirl of the True Fusion!”

Lei Dalu’s voice was shivering, half out of fear and half excitement. “We have barely any spiritual energy left. The structure of the starship is frail, too. We wouldn’t stand a chance against the attraction of the True Fusion even if we go back at full speed!

“In that case, our final outcome would either be that the starship is ripped into shreds due to the over-stretching or that it is slowly dragged into the swirl after we run out of spiritual energy and all the power rune arrays break down!

“Now that there is no way that we can turn back, we might just as well take our chances!

“This space swirl must be more than a million kilometers in diameter. Right now, we are still at its edge. Its attraction force is not very strong here and now.

“In the meantime, it is revolving rapidly. All the materials and spiritual energy devoured by it will be accelerated and sent to its center in spirals.

“If we go forward at a full speed, we will be able to draw an arc and accelerated to a higher speed!

“When our speed reaches a point that is enough to fight against the attraction force, we will alter our direction and thus have the opportunity to rush out of the swirl!”

Bai Kaixin was dazed for a moment. The blood all over his body was flowing toward his head. Even his two white eyebrows were vaguely red now. He gritted his teeth and said, “Yes, yes. The space swirl can indeed accelerate us. It might be our only chance!

“However, we have but one time to try!

“While our speed soars as we are moving helically inside the swirl, we will be dragged deeper and deeper in the space swirl and bound by stronger and stronger attraction force!

“Therefore, we must seize the best time window to alter our direction. If it is too early, we won’t be able to get enough speed; if it’s too late, the attraction force will be too huge even if we have enough speed, and the most likely ending for us is that the starship will be blown to smithereens after a period of deadlock!

“Besides, the plan has an extremely high demand on both the engine compartment and the spiritual shield generator cabin!

“The importance of the engine compartment is self-explanatory.

“Our spiritual shield will be going through harsh tests, too! Its current hardness is far from enough to withstand the tearing force and the collisions of more meteoroid showers deep inside the space swirl!”

Lei Dalu breathed heavily for a moment and said firmly, “I believe in everyone, and I believe we are going to make it!

“Now, stop backing off. Forward, forward! Go forward at full speed toward the core of the space swirl and the True Fusion itself!”

…

Inside the spiritual shield generator cabin, Li Yao fixed Bai Ze and his crystal suit onto a wall with a big magnet and installed a defense rune array around him before he went back and prepared to clean up the mess.

On the dome, the twisted tubes sprayed a lot of foams which consolidated into solid grey matter and managed to block the countless holes in the shell.

The crazily dancing scraps of magical equipment finally went peaceful and fell to the ground with rattling noises.

Seeing the muddle in front of him, Li Yao felt that somebody had stuffed a handful of freezing rune arrays into his groin. Coldness was rising up from his abdomen, flowing all through his body, and calcifying all his nerves.

The sixteen metal plates that constituted the spiritual shield generators were all awry. Many of them had been blown up by the meteoroids. A lot of scorching stones were still embedded in them, damaging the defense rune arrays there.

The few spare components Li Yao had prepared had already been thrown to the vacuum. Whatever was left had also blown into a clutter and scattered in every corner of the cabin.

The main axis in the center of the generator was emitting ominous mystic rays and revolving at a lower and lower speed.

Li Yao cursed silently.

The main axis was the core of the cooling pool. By spinning the sixteen metal plates, it could make them fully cooled down inside the cooling pool.

Once the main axis was broken, the cooling liquids around the sixteen metal plates would boil and vaporize very quickly, which not bring the temperature down.

In a few minutes, the metal plates would start melting, and the stability of the spiritual shield would hit rock bottom!

Li Yao tried to contact the cockpit in the communication channel, only to receive nothing but background noise.

Most of the light beams were either black or showing nonsense.

For the light beams that were still working, their connection to the mainframe crystal processor had been cut off, too.

He had completely lost all forms of communication with the cockpit.

The starship was slowly turning around in the space swirl toward the depths of it.

Doom seemed to be the inevitable outcome.

Li Yao took a deep, deep breath. His lips curled into a crazy smile that was exactly the same as the one that Lei Dalu was wearing right now.

I am still alive at this moment.

Even if I might be destroyed in a second, I’m still alive right now!

To live means to fight! One more second of survival should be one more second of struggling! I must not abandon myself until the last bit of my soul is burnt to ashes!

Ding Lingdang is waiting for me; the Star Glory Federation is waiting for me; the Heaven’s Origin Sector is waiting for me! I cannot die from an insignificant True Fusion in such a wretched place!

I have slain lightning, I have executed tornadoes, and it’s time that I blow up a space swirl!

Li Yao bit his lips so hard that they were bleeding. His soaring fighting will was almost burning his eyes through.

He took out a lot of strengthening drugs from his Cosmos Ring.

The strengthening drugs had been prepared for Fengyu Ming by his father Fengyu Zhong. The total quantity was enough for several years’ use.

Without even blinking, Li Yao chugged a portion of them that was sufficient for a common Cultivator to use for almost half a year.

A series of explosions immediately erupted in his stomach. His skin was chapping, and magma was raging inside his veins!

His spiritual energy had run dry. Right now, he needed power, the most intimidating, furious power!

“Art of the Swallowing Whale, activate!”

Like a crazy devil, Li Yao tried his best to absorb the spiritual energy contained inside the strengthening drugs with Art of the Swallowing Whale, a rudimental Cultivation art of the Hundred Smelting Sect forty thousand years ago.

At the same time, more than ten pleasant-smelling little flowers appeared in his palm.

Heart Locking Flowers, secret treasures retrieved from Boneyard, could stabilize the soul of a Cultivator and maintain the tranquility of their brain. However dangerous the situation was, the Cultivator wouldn’t suffer from mental derangement with the help of Heart Locking Flowers.

They were Li Yao’s biggest reason for drinking dozens of times of the ordinary dosage of strengthen drugs.

Otherwise, even though his body might be sturdy enough to withstand the effect because of the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique, his brain would definitely be boiled and wrecked under the blast of the overloading spiritual energy. He would become a moron if so!

Without further calculations, Li Yao gulped down the twenty or so Heart Locking Flowers and finally suppressed his burning brain. He entered the Super Perceptive Stage again!

His brain cell activity soared to maximum!

“Hoooo!”

The huge amount of spiritual energy stored inside the strengthening drugs exploded and spread out like dozens of invisible tentacles around Li Yao. They snatched all the useable components inside the debris and turned them into a rampant storm of metal!

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao turned into a streak of greyness and jumped into the cooling pool which was about to boil.

…

Inside the cockpit, all the light beams were displaying the horrifying scenes at the nucleus of the True Fusion.

Gold Horn had entirely shifted its direction. It was accelerating and turning into a leopard that was jumping at the sun!

The performance parameters on the light beams suggested that the hardness of the spiritual shield was still dropping. Many parts of the shell were blown up by the meteoroids again. Countless other areas were sending warnings.

“This is bad. The spiritual shield only has 40% left, but the temperature around us is continuing on the rise! The spiritual energy of the fire class is growing more and more intense! We won’t be able to persist for another three minutes!” shouted Bai Kaixin.

Lei Dalu gnashed his teeth. “Keep moving forward. Bai Ze is going to take care of the spiritual shield.”

“But there is no time! We only have three minutes left! The hardness of the spiritual shield has dropped to 38%!” Bai Kaixin screamed so hard that his voice was hoarse.

“Forward, keep moving forward, at full speed!”

Lei Dalu closed his eyes and stopped looking at the crazily bouncing figure. Wearing a vague smile, he declared, one word after another, “The most important thing about us Cultivators is trust! The Great Horn Exo Society would never have achieved what we have achieved today without trust!

“I trust each and every one of you. I believe that Uncle Xiong will adjust the power rune arrays to the best state; I believe that Xiong Ze will fix the spiritual shield generator up; I believe that every brother in the cockpit here will calculate the perfect and precise route; I believe that the rest of our crew members will try their best to mend every broken hole on the starship so that Gold Horn is solid enough to crush over all the surging tides!

“And you, you’ve also trusted me and every crazy decision that I have made.

“Therefore, keep moving forward and charge at the True Fusion. We are either dying or rising from ashes!”

Bai Kaixin was speechless for quite a while, but he suddenly noticed the minor change of a figure on the light beam.

He bulged his eyes and looked at it again. He was not hallucinating!

The hardness of the spiritual shield had been increased by 1%, returning from 38% to 39% stubbornly!

Chapter 466: Quenching Thirst with Poison, Breakthrough in the Space Swirl!

40%!

41%!

45%!

“The durability of the spiritual shield is rebounding. Bai Ze has indeed resolved the faults!” mumbled Bai Kaixin in disbelief.

“Just as I expected. Bai Ze is the best refiner in our society except Uncle Xiong. Of course, he is going to fix everything!” Lei Dalu laughed happily.

“This is good. Enhanced by the space swirl, our velocity is higher and higher and is about to surpass the speed limit of Gold Horn!”

Bai Kaixin regained his professionalism instantly. He quickly operated the circular light beam as he said, “But we are going deeper and deeper into the swirl, too. The attraction force is getting stronger. We have to seize the crucial moment to switch our direction!”

Gold Horn rushed at the center of the space swirl at a higher and higher speed in a graceful arc like an arrow released from a bow, until it turned into a streak of gold brightness!

Tremendous space garbage and meteoroids were striking the spiritual shield of Gold Horn. Terrible ripples were spreading out, as if countless giant hands were trying to tear it open.

The figure representing the hardness of the spiritual shield was unsteady. Now, it was soaring; now, it was plunging. It struggled to stay around 50%.

“Prepare to alter our route. The spiritual shield is not going to stand for long,” suggested Bai Kaixin, who swallowed anxiously.

“Wait a moment!”

Lei Dalu’s giant face was almost separated into completely opposite parts.

He was still wearing a crazy smile, yet his eyes were bloodshot as they were gazing at the ever-changing data on the light beam without even blinking. He gnashed his teeth. “Our remaining spiritual energy and the frailty of the starship mean that we can only try once. If we cannot escape once, we will never escape!

“Our speed right now is insufficient. We need to be fast, still faster!”

Bai Kaixin said hurriedly, “The faster we are, the higher pressure the spiritual shield will suffer. If it explodes at some point, we will be screwed!”

While they were talking, the hardness of the spiritual shield was improved by 2% and stopped at 53% tediously.

Lei Dalu grinned, his white teeth glimmering. He stopped talking and sat on the captain seat cross-legged, while he fixed his eyes on the light beam without moving as if he were a burning statue.

…

Inside the cabin of spiritual shield generator, Li Yao spat a mouthful of black blood and dived into the cooling pool with abundant components for the ninth time.

His telepathic thoughts spread out like ripples into every rune array and every component. They even flowed to the outside of the starship along the generator, making Li Yao feel that he was the spiritual shield of Gold Horn itself resisting the meteoroid showers and the space garbage.

Every time the spiritual shield took a blow, all the defense rune arrays on the generator would shine abruptly, and Li Yao would feel like somebody had smashed his head with a burning hammer. He was grimacing in the excruciating pain every time.

Zigzagged streams of blood were flowing out his eyes, ears, and nose. Some of them dried, only to be replaced by new ones a moment later. In the end, his face seemed to be covered in an eccentric tattoo.

His skin was breaking and healing time and time again. His muscles had all withered. He was merely struggling with the stimulation from the overdose of strengthening drugs and the Heart Locking Flowers.

Quenching thirst with poison. What Li Yao was doing was truly quenching thirst with poison!

Had his body and soul not been far sturdier than those of the common Cultivators, he would’ve exploded into nothingness a long time ago!

Under the continuous scourge of the space swirl, Li Yao found it hard to hold on.

His limbs were burning at first, then numb, and beyond any perception eventually. If he couldn’t see his limbs with his own eyes, he would start doubting whether or not his soul had been pulled away from his body and captured by the space swirl, which had then stretched it into a spiral, hundreds of thousands of meters long. He kept falling, falling, and falling toward the nucleus of the True Fusion…

It was not pain that he felt. The insufferable ache was replaced by cozy warmth at some point; he didn’t know when. A thought was jumping inside his brain like an alluring spark, tempting him to let go of everything and be embraced by the True Fusion.

In a trance, Li Yao saw a vigorous face in front of him.

Ding Lingdang was smiling at him, with obvious contempt on her face, as if she were saying, “You can’t get yourself up from such a minor setback? What a loser!”

But her scarlet eyes were emitting brightness that was more glamorous than stars, which seemed to be saying, “Stand up now! I don’t believe that you can be put down so easily. Let’s fight one more time!”

They were expressions that he had always seen during his competitions with Ding Lingdang.

And every time, however painful and exhausted, he had gritted his teeth and stood up again, turning Ding Lingdang’s pretended disdain into genuine disbelief!

It was the moment that he felt most content.

“One second, one more second! Everything might change in the next second!

“I will definitely return to the Heaven’s Origin Sector and to Ding Lingdang’s side. Some small space swirl is not going to stop me!”

…

In the north of the Grand Desolate Plateau of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, at a starless night, after a fierce battle.

There was nothing but dead bodies on the ground. Blood was flowing like rivers. The once overwhelming beast tides had all turned into broken limbs which had been piled up in horrifying piles.

“She—she is not dead yet!”

“The Inferno Witch is still alive!”

“How could it be! An entire night, and three beast tides, including seven high-level demon generals!”

“She, she—”

A team of soldiers approached the highest hill which was made up by the corpses of several biochemical beasts that were almost twenty meters tall. On the skull of the biochemical beast at the top of the hill was a shattered yet nonetheless intimidating crystal suit, which was enveloped by seven serpents that were as red as blood and as furious as fire!

The arms of this particular crystal suit, after being strengthened on purpose, were even thicker than the waists of commonly-seen crystal suits. Countless stripes of flames were carved on the arms and interweaved into two blossoming red lotuses on the fists.

The soldiers all held their breath and reverently watched the master of the crystal suit, the Inferno Witch, who had risen up to fame miraculously like a volcano eruption and was respected as the craziest Building Foundation Stage Cultivator of the Heaven’s Origin Sector!

Huala!

Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, the crimson crystal suit trembled and crumpled.

“Are you alright?”

The soldiers were quite shocked. Two medics hurried to step forward and dismantle the facial cover of the crystal suit while preparing the medication drugs.

Behind the facial cover, Ding Lingdang was pale, her breath feeble. But she was staring at the deep night sky, and, as if noticing a glimmer in the infinite darkness, beamed with a vague smile.

“I’m fine.”

Ding Lingdang shut his eyes and grinned. “I am waiting for a certain someone to return from the sea of stars. Until then, I’m always fine!”

…

Inside the cooling pool, Li Yao failed to count how many ‘one second’s he had persisted through. His crystal suit had been battered a long time ago, yet its scraps were attached to his body by the attraction of his spiritual energy. Some of them were even embedded in his flesh because of the high temperature.

Enough strengthening drugs for a common Cultivator to use for an entire year had been guzzled by him.

The Heart Locking Flowers to stabilize the soul had been eaten up, too.

The muscles all over his body had withered. Thick veins and nerves bulged out of his skin, shrinking and expanding hideously.

At this moment, a stream of flames almost ten thousand kilometers long together with billions of meteoroids extended from the deepest part of the True Fusion and burst out the energy that resembled a solar flare.

Although the stream was thousands of kilometers away from Gold Horn, the flames at the front had already slapped at Gold Horn like an unstoppable giant hand!

BOOM!

For a moment, Gold Horn’s spiritual shield was tremoring like soap bubbles under the sunlight and was about to crumble.

Li Yao felt that he had been hit by lightning. His crystal suit exploded abruptly into thousands of glittering pieces, revealing a dry, thin body.

However, deep down the blue and purple veins, streaks of gold brightness were flowing vaguely at a higher and higher speed.

During the battle against Skeleton Dragon, Li Yao had absorbed a huge amount of Flowing Brightness Crystals without caring about the consequences.

Only a small proportion of them were really digested by him on the spot. The majority of the residues had sunk inside his internal organs.

Flowing Brightness Crystals were the marrow crystals of marrows crystals and contained enormous spiritual energy. Through the normal methods of training, he might not be able to completely digest the residues in ten or even twenty years.

Bur right now, under the tremendous pressure of the True Fusion, at the critical moment, Li Yao’s every cell was driven by their survival instincts and started biting and chewing the residues of the Flowing Brightness Crystals!

Li Yao seemed to be in the middle of two top experts’ attacks, with the furious space swirl in the outside and the continuous exploding Flowing Brightness Crystals inside his body. The two torrents of energy intertwined and savaged his internal organs, stretching, enlarging, and strengthening his veins and nerves. Eventually, they congregated into oceans of spiritual energy in liquid form, flooding upward to his brain.

For a moment, Li Yao’s brain seemed to be soaked in a hot spring with abundant spiritual energy. The endless suffering was all gone. His every brain cell was reborn and rejoiced.

Advancement!

I have advanced into the high level of the Building Foundation Stage at such a moment!

Li Yao was overjoyed.

The biggest difference between Building Foundation Stage Cultivators and Refinement Stage Cultivators was that Building Foundation Stage Cultivators could compress their spiritual energy into the liquid form to nourish their own bodies.

In the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage, the spiritual energy could only be used to nourish the muscles and bones.

In the middle level, the spiritual energy could nourish the veins and nerves, which was also one of the reasons Li Yao was not scared of internal bleeding in his brain.

As for the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, the spiritual energy could be transmitted into the brain and nourish the brain cells directly, making the Cultivator’s mind clearer, their senses sharper, and their computational ability stronger, thus laying a solid foundation for their future Cultivation. It was also the true meaning of ‘Building Foundation Stage’.

No. No. Not the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, but—

Li Yao felt that the spiritual energy from his body had amazing interactions with his brain cells after it surged into his brain. His every brain cell was revolving slowly like a minor universe. The spiritual energy span around his brain cells, surged out again, and slid downwards along his spine. His coccyx felt itching and lumpy.

It was a sign that he had reached the peak of the Building Foundation Stage!

Under the high pressure of the space swirl and the Flowing Brightness Crystals, not only did Li Yao made an advancement to the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, he had also touched the threshold of the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

The itching coccyx indicated that a new organ was maturing at the end of his spine. It was the second brain of a human!

Once the second brain started growing, it would mean the legendary Core Formation Stage. The so-called ‘Core’ was actually the second brain!

After the second brain fully took shape, the primeval force hidden inside the cells of human beings for billions of years would be awakened. It would be the ultimate harbinger of the Nascent Soul Stage!

‘Nascent’ had two meanings. On one hand, it represented the earliest ancestral force; on the other hand, it meant that, since the second brain had just awakened, the second brain was still not very keen, like that of a new-born baby!

Chapter 467: Cultivator or Immortal Cultivator?

“Hoooo!”

Sensing that the residue of the Flowing Brightness Crystals had mostly turned into the purest spiritual energy absorbed by his every cell, Li Yao had a strong sense of gratification and felt that his body had become a small universe itself.

A mysterious understanding suddenly popped up in Li Yao’s mind.

Revolution. Incessant revolution. The sea of stars was a continuum of revolution!

When he slayed a tornado in the depths of a dust storm that day, he had perceived the Thunderous Sound Saber Art inspired by the revolution of the tornadoes.

In the bloody battle against Skeleton Dragon, it was with the high-speed revolution of the drill of mystic rays that he dug through the ancient deadly demon from forty thousand years ago.

Right now, the True Fusion had shown him to a whole new level in the form of a space swirl!

Li Yao’s head seemed to have been pierced through by a streak of gold brightness. The space swirl had been devoured by his eyes and created an inexplicable environment inside his body. Newly-arrived spiritual energy interweaved with his powerful soul. They revolved rapidly, like a tornado and an invisible drill, and protruded out along his spiritual root!

BOOM! BOOM BOOM!

Three earth-shaking thunders rumbled inside Li Yao’s brain.

His spiritual shield was multiple times thicker than previously, like a mushroom after a rain, with gold, helical stripes mixed onto it.

The spiritual shield of Gold Horn had been on the verge of collapse, but now, it successfully held off the blast, however narrowly, after trembling for a moment.

In the meantime, inside the cockpit…

Lei Dalu jumped up. The blood streaks inside his eyes hit everyone like red lightning as he bellowed, “Alter our trajectory and escape at full speed!”

Dazzling brilliance burst out from the right side of Gold Horn, accelerating it again and leaving a streak of gold brightness hundreds of kilometers long behind.

Countless pieces of strengthened plated armor on the shell of the starship crumbled and formed a scattered, glittering gold scale belt behind the starship.

Gold Horn did not back off. Instead, it moved forward and sprinted, rushing away from the True Fusion’s control at a tangent.

Countless streams of flames were unleashed from the space swirl, as if the hungry devil was not willing to let go of the prey that had been fed to its mouth.

However, Gold Horn had been granted enough speed. The final result of the competition between the attraction force and the ship’s acceleration was that a portion of the starship on the right at the rear was torn off.

Like a dragon that had broken free from its shackles, Gold Horn tried everything it could to run as high and far away as possible, even at the cost of one of its limbs!

Gold Horn finally got rid of the space swirl and survived!

“We made it!”

“We have run away from the True Fusion!”

“We are alive! We are still alive!”

The cockpit was filled with hoorays, and so was every cabin that had been riddled with holes and every broken, blocked pathway!

Everyone was hugging their companions next to them so hard that their crystal suits were clattering.

Taking a long breath in relief, Lei Dalu collapsed in the captain seat as if somebody had plucked all his nerves. He grinned at Bai Kaixin and said, “What did I say about the most important thing for us Cultivators?”

A smile that indicated the heavy load had been relieved appeared on Bai Kaixin’s face, too. “Trust!”

“No. The most important thing for us Cultivators is fu*king luck!”

Lei Dalu laughed so hard that he was almost choking himself. “I know that the Great Horn Exo Society has always been lucky!”

Right then, rattling noises came from the communication channel.

“The pathway to the spiritual shield generator cabin had been broken through!”

“Let’s go!”

Both Lei Dalu and Bai Kaixin jumped up. “Bai Ze is the biggest contributor to our victory. He managed to maintain such a battered spiritual shield to this moment. He deserves to be commended!”

Very soon, the light beam manifested the scenes inside the spiritual shield generator cabin.

However, the true view inside the cabin dumbfounded Lei Dalu, Bai Kaixin, Xiong Tao, and everyone else who saw it in person. They wouldn’t be able to forget it for the rest of their lives!

…

Ten seconds later, in an old port inside the Angry Serpent Domain.

“Good heavens! What in the world is this?”

Watching the scruffy starship slowly drifting close on the light beam, an experienced Cultivator rubbed his eyes and exclaimed in shock uncontrollably.

Had he not seen the occasional exhaust flames behind the starship, he would’ve thought that it was a ghost ship in urban tales.

Half an hour later, Gold Horn was docked at the port of the Angry Dragon Domain.

Within half a day, all the Cultivators and ordinary people of the Angry Dragon Domain learned the existence of such an Exo Society and such a starship, who were hired by an ordinary person at the price of a bag of rice and hunted a bunch of cruel and desperate space pirates through dozens of space zones and world fragments until they slaughtered all the outlaws, leaving none alive at the edge of the world.

Then, they broke into Wraiths’ Wrath with their ragged starship through winds and tides fighting against a space swirl and a True Fusion. Eventually, the heroes arrived successfully!

Three days later, legends about the Great Horn Exo Society spread to the Flying Star Sector like tides along the Spiritual Nexus.

The originally small, unknown Exo Society rose to fame and surprised the entire Flying Star Sector after the battle!

…

Ten thousand years ago, Spider Den had once been the most resourceful planet in the Flying Star Sector that boasted tremendous Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. It was built into the most important refining center in the Flying Star Sector by the Star Ocean Imperium.

Starships and magical equipment produced in this place had been shipped to the entire Flying Star Sector and other worlds nearby.

After hundreds of years of over-exploitation, everything on Spider Den had been consumed.

High and mighty mountains were cut open. Underground mines were constructed one after another and almost completely emptied the entire planet. The sky was enveloped by furious spiritual storms. The ocean was corrupted by venom and acid, dyed various glamorous colors.

There was not the slightest hint of natural scenery as far as one’s eyes could reach. Gargantuan honeycomb-like buildings made of steels were everywhere on the foul planet.

These buildings either pierced up into the sky or deep down into the ground. They eroded the vitality of the planet like cold canner cells. Eventually, the Star Ocean Imperium abandoned the place, leaving it barren, desolate, and uninhabited.

However, ten thousand years after the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium, the dark side of the planet was reborn.

Over thousands of years, countless space pirates gradually arrived here. The magical equipment refining centers and starship modification bases that used to manufacture the deadliest weapons were put to use again, spraying dense black smoke and venomous fog. The new visitors had also found a lot of heavy weapons left by the predecessors in the warehouses deep below the ground!

If Heavenly Saints City was the center of light in the Flying Star Sector, Spider Den would be the soul of all the shadows of the Flying Star Sector.

It was the home base of most space pirates.

The criminals who had betrayed the doctrines of Cultivators and embraced evilness gathered in this place.

Deep below Spider Den, below the interweaving, labyrinth-like tubes and honeycomb buildings, inside a dark prison cell, Fengyu Zhong walked toward three Cultivators slowly.

The brutal bandit who had been wandering on Spider Den for dozens of years and broken through multiple sieges looked fair, plump, and gentle. He was more like a knowledgeable university professor.

Compared with him, the Cultivators crouching on three rune arrays in front of him, whose spines had been locked, were messy, dirty, and even somewhat obscene.

Wearing a sunny smile, Fengyu Zhong asked slowly, “For the last time, are you willing to be an Immortal Cultivator?”

The first Cultivator took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He shook his head and replied, “I am a Cultivator, and I always will be.”

“Alright.”

Fengyu Zhong nodded his head. His eyes glimmered. Suddenly, the rune array below the Cultivator spurted out purple flames which burnt him to ash immediately!

“Cultivator or Immortal Cultivator?”

Fengyu Zhong turned to the second Cultivator, his voice equally calm.

The second Cultivator gritted his teeth to stop himself from roaring. Struggling for a while, he gnashed his teeth.

“Cultivator!”

Fengyu Zhong sighed. The second wave of flames was summoned and set ablaze the Cultivator as well as his soul!

“How foolish you are!

“Since the moment our spiritual root is awakened, we have become a totally different species from mankind!

“We have surpassed the creatures that are as humble as ants; we have become omniscient and omnipotent divinities!

“Our path is to seek greater power and longer lives. Our destiny is the endless mysteries of the universe and a far more brilliant civilization!”

Fengyu Zhong looked the last Cultivator in the eyes and extended his chubby hands. He said earnestly, “There is still time for you to turn back. Recognize who you are!

“You are not a human being! Ever since your spiritual root awakened, you have not been a human being! Why would you let yourself be bound by such a ridiculous identity on your way to holiness?

“Come with me and become an Immortal Cultivator. Let’s set off on the journey to the heavens and chase after the true Dao and an ultimate, eternal life!”

The third Cultivator was swallowing, his eyeballs shaking fast.

Fengyu Zhong sniffed. “Don’t presume that Heavenly Saints City is indestructible.

“When the Immortal Cultivators show our true strength, you will soon realize how vulnerable you idiotic Cultivators are!

“Don’t compare the demons to the Immortal Cultivators. The so-called demons are just dogs domesticated by us Immortal Cultivators!

“Let me ask you one last time. Immortal Cultivator or Cultivator?”

The third Cultivator hesitated for a long time.

Two dirty tears even dripped from the corners of his eyes.

He stared at the two heaps of ashes, from which smoke was still billowing up. In the end, he shook his head and said in a feeble voice that resembled the humming of a mosquito, “I am a human. I am… a Cultivator!”

Before the last syllable was uttered, the purple flames had wreathed him.

The Cultivator put on a relieved smile the moment before he became ashes.

Fengyu Zhong’s eyes were cold and gloomy. He gazed at the three heaps of ashes silently.

Right then, his mini crystal processor buzzed.

Chapter 468: Fengyu Zhong’s Fury

The gloom inside Fengyu Zhong’s eyes turned into delight. He raised his eyebrows and mumbled to himself, “News about Ah Ming!”

He turned on the crystal processor. Appearing in the light beam was a fat, middle-aged woman with a plain face. In the crowd, she was as inconspicuous as a drop of water in the ocean.

The middle-aged woman was Pang Wushuang. She was Fengyu Zhong’s wife, as well the daughter of the leader of ‘Black Spider Tower’, a mysterious organization on Spider.

Black Spider Tower was an evil organization focusing on intelligence and assassination.

To complete a successful robbery, the space pirates had to know every detail of their prey. They would have to know which world fragment was sending valuable goods to which star fortress, at what time, and with how many guards before they started their jobs.

Without enough intelligence, it was very likely that they would kick a steel plank. Suppose a fleet was accompanied by several Core Formation Stage Cultivators, they would never ask for its trouble.

When the space pirates were faced with the massive sieges of the righteous sects, the intelligence work was all the more crucial because it concerned their own lives.

Black Spider Tower was an organization of the space pirates that gradually came into being after thousands of years of life of shadow. Countless spies had been trained and tasked with infiltrating the righteous sects, partly to gather the latest information, and partly to stir chaos within the sects. The assassins had also been deployed to decapitate the active supporters of space pirate clearing.

Although her personal strength was not very impressive, as the daughter of the leader of Black Spider Tower, Pang Wushuang had many people under her command.

It was based on the intelligence of Black Spider Tower that Fengyu Zhong had run away from the sieges of the righteous sects time after time.

At this moment, Pang Wushuang’s face was even more horrifying than that of a devil. Every muscle on it was trembling. Black flames seemed to be bursting out from her hollowed eyes.

Fengyu Zhong’s smile was frozen. His face color changed as he asked hurriedly, “How is Ah Ming?”

“Ah Ming is dead! Our only son is dead!”

Pang Wushuang screamed desperately, “He was hunted by the Great Horn Exo Society for more than two months and eventually caught at the edge of the sea of stars. They tormented and slayed him!

“He was thrown into the crystal reactor of Ghost Jail and burned alive. Not even a piece of his bones was left! What remained were only scraps of ‘Dark Fire’!

“I’ve watched the video. It was indeed Dark Fire. The scraps of Dark Fire!”

CRACK!

Centered at Fengyu Zhong’s feet, the ground of the entire prison cell was shattered. Spider-web-like cracks quickly spread across the around, rose up the walls, and eventually climbed to the ceiling!

Thousands of stripes immediately appeared on the ceiling!

The dim illumination rune arrays exploded one after another.

The prison cell was immediately enveloped in endless darkness. The only thing that could be heard was Fengyu Zhong’s heavy breathing that resembled a wounded beast; the only thing that could be seen was a pair of eyes in which a storm was brewing!

“That’s impossible! I gave Ah Ming three Cosmos Rings. Even if Ghost Jail was blown into pieces, the items inside the Cosmos Rings should have been enough for him to escape!

“Ah Ming wouldn’t be so unwise as to not abandon Ghost Jail when he had to. I’ve told him again and again that he should not bother about other people and just run at the earliest chance if anything went wrong!

“How come he was stuffed into the crystal reactor of Ghost Jail? How could that happen? How could that happen!”

Fengyu Zhong went crazy. Weird purple flames covered him, attracting the pebbles and stones falling from the ceiling before burning them all to powder!

“It’s true! The spies of Black Spider Tower have ascertained that Ah Ming was killed, very miserably!” exclaimed Pang Wushuang who held her chest in agony.

Fengyu Zhong was furious. He gnashed his teeth. “Who exactly was it that killed him? The Great Horn Exo Society? I don’t buy it! What kind of bullsh*t is the Great Horn Exo Society? A second-rate Exo Society, with only one starship, a few hundred Exos, of whom barely any can be called experts. How on earth were they capable enough of killing my son!

“Investigate. Start investigating immediately. A true murderer must be hiding behind the Great Horn Exo Society!

“Find him! Find him even if we have to dig the entire Flying Star Sector upside down!

“The Great Horn Exo Society cannot be let go of, either. Ah Ming died because of their pursuit. Now that they’ve admitted it… they can go to hell, too!”

Pang Wushuang’s face was twisted. She said shrilly, “There are indeed a lot of suspicious parts about the matter. I’ve urged all the manpower of Black Spider Tower to investigate it. When we find the true murderer, he will regret ever being born into this world!

“As for the Great Horn Exo Society, of course, they will be annihilated. They will be sacrifices for our son!”

Taking a deep breath, Fengyu Zhong narrowed his eyes and said, one word after another, “This event must’ve spread to every corner of the Flying Star Sector. If everybody knows that my only son died because of the Great Horn Exo Society and I don’t launch any reprisals, how am I going to walk around on the Spider Den in the future?

“Release the message. Tell everyone on the Spider Den and every assassin of Black Spider Tower that I want the Great Horn Exo Society to be wiped out!

“I will provide a bounty of five million for every member of the Great Horn Exo Society! If they are experts above the Building Foundation Stage, the bounty will be multiplied according to their level!

“Whoever finds the murderer of my son, dead or alive, will be offered a ‘Tiger Shark’-level crystal warship!”

Very soon, black torrents flooded to every corner of the Spider Den via the Spiritual Nexus.

All the space pirates were frenzied!

Five million did not seem very much, but it was the price for a single member.

It was impossible that every member of the Exo Society was above the Building Foundation Stage. A lot of them were low-level Cultivators, ordinary fighters, and even logistic workers.

Killing a refiner who was mediocre in fighting would mean being rewarded with five million. It was a bargain that couldn’t be more desirable.

And those who found the true murderer of Fengyu Ming would be given a ‘Tiger Shark’-level crystal warship?

All the space pirates were trembling in excitement and craziness beyond their control.

‘Tiger Shark’-level starships were the most advanced crystal warships that Spider could produce and possessed amazing firepower. More importantly, their power rune arrays could provide extraordinary momentum!

Owning a ‘Tiger Shark’-level warship was the ultimate dream of almost every space pirate!

They were not afraid that Fengyu Zhong would take back his words.

There were certain rules that all the space pirates abided by on Spider Den. Publicly-declared promises such as Fengyu Zhong’s had hardly ever gone unfulfilled.

This was the home base of most space pirates. If their reputation was ruined in this place, they would have nowhere to run to when they were hunted by the righteous sects and could only wait to be captured.

Countless space pirates, assassins, and brutal bandits who heard the news all started their own investigations.

They were curious, too. What was the real background of the Great Horn Exo Society? Who was it that took down Fengyu Zhong’s only son?

…

At the edge of the Flying Star Sector, a cluster of battleground remains were drifting silently and motionlessly.

Suddenly, a large pile of metal garbage shivered and sprayed a wave of feeble brightness through the gaps among the debris, altering the direction of the garbage toward the stone belt ahead.

Soon, the pile of metal garbage entered the stone belt and slowed down, as if it were searching for something.

It searched patiently for seven days, and finally found its target.

Its target was a plain-looking metal remnant, perhaps originating from the surface of a starship. There were not many scratches on the remnant, which appeared to have been left there not long ago.

Two arms extended from the heap of garbage to the remnant. The claws in the front snatched the remnant and pulled it in.

Deep inside the metal garbage, Sparkle was lurking.

In the beginning, they had stalked Gold Horn. But after Gold Horn dived into the Dim Flame Belt, they had stopped at the outside.

After all, none of the crew members of Sparkle were alive. The resources and spiritual energy were abundant, too. There was no need to take the risk. They could bypass the Dim Flame Belt, although it would take a few additional months.

The remnant had been thrown away on purpose when Li Yao was recycling the components on Ghost Jail.

He had left a piece of special magical equipment on the remnant which could release spiritual waves at a certain frequency. Those who received them would only consider them to be part of the spiritual turbulence in the sea of stars.

Only Sparkle was able to decrypt the hidden coordinates contained inside the spiritual waves and locate the remnant.

Li Yao had hidden the information storage chip group of Ghost Jail’s mainframe crystal processor within the remnant.

He had also copied ‘Gold Horn Maintenance Manual’ and ‘Stormy Sword’, as well as the latest progress about himself, to a jade chip and concealed it inside.

Half a day later, Ghost Jail’s chip group was connected the mainframe crystal processor of Sparkle. After the spiritual password of the highest clearance was typed in, enormous information was transmitted over unstoppably.

The most detailed star maps of the Flying Star Sector based on Fengyu Zhong’s dozens of years’ experience—including the coordinates of many secret supply points, the strategies and the structural designs of the space pirates recorded in ‘Stormy Sword’, together with ‘Gold Horn Maintenance Manual’—gave the five spectral Cultivators on Sparkle a deeper understanding of the starship refinement principles within the Flying Star Sector.

“The starship technology of the Flying Star Sector is indeed much more advanced than that of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. They could even create star fortresses on their own!”

“The distribution of this power rune array is new. We can increase Sparkle’s speed by another 5% if it is employed!”

“Turrets! We need more, and bigger turrets! I want to install a hundred turrets on Sparkle!”

“Modification! A full upgrade of Sparkle is a necessity! I can’t wait for it!”

The Four Kings chatted with each other enthusiastically.

Mo Xuan pondered for a moment and said, “Li Yao said that he went to the central space zone of the Flying Star Sector, and that he might have pissed off the space pirates of Strom Prison whose retaliation is very likely to be on the way.

“We are still too weak at this moment. He said that we don’t have to join him in the central space zone any time soon. It would be better if we stay in the periphery, search for materials and spiritual energy, and perform a full upgrade on Sparkle.

“After we finish the upgrades and grasp the strategies recorded in ‘Stormy Sword’, it will be time we set off to find him in the central space zone.

“He has left twelve ways to contact us. By then, we will be able to connect to the Spiritual Nexus and leave messages for him directly.

“Let’s get down to business! Our time is limited, and we have to make every second count!

“With this secret star map, the entire Flying Star Sector will be our oyster. We will examine all the debris on our way, absorb it, and use it for our own modification!

“Like I said before, if we can’t find a piece of stellar magical equipment, we will refine Sparkle into one!”

Chapter 469: The Weakest

“I’m totally recovered now!”

Li Yao jumped up from his sickbed. Within several breaths, the thick medication drugs around his body had been absorbed by his skin. His body was clean and comfortable, his skin as smooth as jade.

It had been an entire month since they had broken out of the Dim Flame Belt. After gathering enough supplies in the Angry Serpent Domain, they continued marching toward the Thousand Sail Space Zone.

When they had learned that it was Li Yao who had repaired the spiritual shield crazily in the space swirl, the entire Exo Society had been shocked.

Li Yao was considered a big hero and a great contributor. He received the best treatment and spent an hour each day on rehabilitation procedures in the med bay. After absorbing abundant expensive medication drugs for a month, he had finally recovered from his wounds!

Right now, Li Yao felt refreshed and energetic. His body was still thin, and his skin somewhat pale. But they had been made so on purpose.

With the sharp senses, Li Yao discovered that the total length of his nerve fibers was five times that of a Refinement Stage Cultivator and more fifty times that of an ordinary fighter!

Veins and nerves constituted an interweaving water system inside his body. Surging spiritual energy was flooding in them.

Li Yao had no doubt that he could attack with the strength of a Cultivator in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage effortlessly. When he burned his life and soul, he was even able to reach the peak of the Building Foundation Stage and stay there briefly!

Besides, the residue of the Flowing Brightness Crystals hadn’t been fully digested yet. A lot of them had been blown apart by the force of the True Fusion. They were turning into microconstituents and nourishing his body cells every second, making him feel stronger each minute!

Li Yao believed that it wouldn’t be long before he fully absorbed the Flowing Brightness Crystals. By then, not just reaching the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, it was even possible that he could break into the Core Formation Stage!

A year ago, I was just an insignificant Refinement Stage Cultivator. Never did I expect that I would be so close to the Core Formation Stage only one year later! The arrangement of fate is indeed marvelous.

The speed of my advancement has reached the limits. It couldn’t be any faster.

Next, I will have to study the skills and abilities that befit my current level. Without sufficient skills, I can’t perform at 100% of my combat ability despite my level!

During the struggle against the space swirl of the True Fusion, I came to a vague, mysterious understanding which might be able to inspire me to create a brand-new skill. However, I need to reflect on it more carefully. The space swirl is too deep and abstruse, after all. I won’t be able to fully comprehend it in a short period of time!

Li Yao thought of his future plans and was ready to leave the med bay, when a sinewy and short young man barged in. The intruder was apparently less than twenty and looked rather boyish. To fake his matureness, he had specially kept a moustache around his lips, which was quite hilarious.

“Brother Yao!”

The young man was quite respectful toward Li Yao, if not obsequious.

“Zhao Nuo, you want me to sharpen your blade again?”

Li Yao smiled.

The sinewy young man was named Zhao Nuo. He belonged to the ‘Tiger Killer Camp’ of the Great Horn Exo Society.

Different from common Exo Societies, the Great Horn Exo Society had been established by avengers whose families had been destroyed by space pirates, and it had adopted a lot of homeless orphans when it was carrying out its missions.

The orphans were raised up and educated in the Great Horn Exo Society. The experts of the Society taught them methods of training. When they grew up, many of them joined the Great Horn Exo Society as official members.

It was also one of the reasons the Great Horn Exo Society could be so united during their two months of hunting in such a long, tedious journey.

If it were another Exo Society, the members might’ve had second thoughts. Some of them had joined the Society to gain more life experience, while some of them were merely there for money. Of course, they wouldn’t have been so persistent about the space pirates.

The orphans had been grouped into ‘Tiger Killer Camp’, inspired by the idiom ‘a new-born calf is fearless of a tiger’. They were considered the reserves of the Great Horn Exo Society.

At the real critical moment, all the members of the Tiger Killer Camp above the age of 16 would join the fight, too. Over the past two months of fierce battles, many of them had shed their blood in the sea of stars just like the official members of the Society had.

After the starship left the Angry Dragon Domain, the route in the front had become peaceful. They had also passed by a lot of space towns and world fragments where they had received enormous supplies. Therefore, the maintenance work of the starship was getting easier and easier.

The refiners in the Society had shifted their attention onto the maintenance of crystal suits.

Right now, they were still short of hands. The first to be maintained were naturally the crystal suits and magical equipment of the official members of the Society.

As for the young warriors of the Tiger Killer Camp, they would have to deal with it and wait in line nicely.

Magical equipment was equivalent to a Cultivator’s own life. Some young men in the Tiger Killer Camp had almost reached adulthood and boasted extraordinary abilities. They’d been taught and polished by the bloody battles over the past two months, too. But right now, they could only watch other people whose crystal suits had been repaired doing their daily training, while they had no other choice but to slash their broken swords and sabers. Naturally, they were all eager to get their equipment back in working order.

Before, in light of Li Yao’s heavy wounds, Xiong Tao didn’t assign any maintenance tasks for him and simply asked him to rest.

As a training maniac, the last thing Li Yao needed was a rest. He met Zhao Nuo by accident when they were in the same med bay.

Zhao Nuo knew that he was an excellent refiner and inquired whether or not he could repair personal magical equipment.

Li Yao definitely wouldn’t say no. Maintaining a crystal suit was a big job that required large, professional workshops. But as for regular magical equipment, he could repair anything with nothing but a refining furnace due to his amazing skills.

Less than half a day later, Li Yao had burnished and sharpened Zhao Nuo’s battle saber. Not only was it now as good as a new one, Li Yao had also carved two rune arrays of the thunder class according to Zhao Nuo’s specialties and thus significantly increased the damage of the saber. Zhao Nuo was so excited that he was almost drooling.

News quickly spread; the entire Tiger Killer Camp was excited. All the young warriors brought their magical equipment to Li Yao for maintenance. Li Yao seemed to have become the designated refiner of the Tiger Killer Camp. Also, his valiant deeds of jumping into a boiling cooling pool and keeping the normal functions of the generator on his own had earned the sincerest respect of the young men.

Zhao Nuo scratched his scruffy moustache and grinned. “No. Uncle Captain asked me to find you. He said that he has something important to discuss with you and wants to meet you in the No. 1 training room.”

There was admiration in his eyes when he said the words ‘Uncle Captain’.

Li Yao was dazed for a moment, not having the first clue why Lei Dalu wanted to talk to him.

During the one month of his treatment, Lei Dalu had visited him a couple of times and ordered a huge amount of medication drugs for his recovery despite the shortage of funding of the Society. Li Yao was quite moved.

However, he always felt that his captain was hippie and glib and that the guy looked like a monkey wearing a hat when he sat on the captain’s seat.

Although many Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were free-willed fellows who despised social conventions, Lei Dalu’s style and character still barely befitted a Cultivator of such a high level.

“There’s a question that I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time. As I can see, the members of the Tiger Killer Camp are definitely not the most obedient young men. Take you, Zhao Nuo, for example. Usually, you are always trying to challenge those who are said to be better than yourself. But why do you admire your captain so much? Although he is a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, he is merely in the beginning level. I don’t think his capability is very impressive in the world of Cultivators, which is crammed with experts, is it?”

Li Yao scratched his head, having finally asked the question that had been bothering him.

“What, you’ve never heard about it before, Brother Yao?”

Zhao Nuo’s eyes were shining as he replied excitedly, “You’re right. In regard of capability, Uncle Captain is definitely not among the best ones. Or, if we are being completely honest, it’s not exaggerating to say that he is the weakest Core Formation Stage Cultivator in the entire Flying Star Sector!

“Besides, his spiritual root was wounded before, which resulted in the stagnation of his Cultivation. It’s unlikely that he would ever enter the middle level of the Core Formation Stage in his entire life.

“To be more exact, for any Core Formation Stage Cultivator, their capability will be higher than Uncle Captain’s the moment they formed their core!

“However, if you know how Uncle Captain’s spiritual root got wounded, you will admire him as much as I do!

“Twenty years, no, about thirty years ago, Uncle Captain was still young back then. Actually, he was one of the youngest Core Formation Stage Cultivators of the Flying Star Sector. Young, promising, and needless to say, handsome!

“The six sects and all the crystal suit centers of Heavenly Saints City were desperate to hire him. His future was nothing but bright. Everybody said that he was very likely to advance into the Nascent Soul Stage within the next thirty years and thus become the youngest Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator of the Flying Star Sector!

“However, half a month after he just formed his core, he was engaged with a bunch of assaulting space pirates by accident when he was passing by a space town.

“At the time, he was with a pack of ordinary people gaining more understanding of life and consolidating his core. Therefore, he was not accompanied by any other Cultivators.

“But on the space pirates’ side, there was a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, more than ten Cultivators in the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, hundreds of other fighters, together with a crystal warship!

“With Uncle Captain’s Cultivation, it was not a problem at all to either hide or run away quietly.

“However, in order to protect the small town which had a population of several thousand, Uncle Captain charged at a crystal warship and a fully-armed space pirate gang with himself, his crystal suit, his saber, and nothing else!

“The final outcome was that Uncle Captain went on a killing spree on the starship and slaughtered his way in and out for almost ten times. The leader of the space pirates was executed by him in one attack. He delayed the enemies for an entire day and night until the reinforcements arrived and annihilated the rest of the space pirates!

“Uncle Captain was seriously wounded during the battle and was almost disabled. It took him years before he gradually recovered.

“But an unhealable crack appeared on his spiritual root. His Cultivation has been suppressed to the beginning level of the Core Formation Stage forever. He degenerated from a rising new star to ‘the weakest Core Formation Stage Cultivator of the Flying Star Sector’!

“It sounds foolish, does it not?

“Uncle Captain has always been such a fool over the past thirty years. Just like this time, he waged a total war against Storm Prison and hunted them for more than two months just for a bag of rice.

“However, it was because of the follies that he made and the survivors that he saved from the space pirates that so many people gathered under his banner and finally created the Great Horn Exo Society!

“Several orphans from the very space town that Uncle Captain wasted his spiritual root on joined the Great Horn Exo Society and are now the pillars of it!

“For our captain, it is absolutely not a big deal that he is the weakest Core Formation Stage Cultivator of the Flying Star Sector. We would still adore him even if he was the weakest Refinement Stage Cultivator!”

Chapter 470: Transfer System

Sitting on a metal stool cross-legged inside the No. 1 training room, Lei Dalu was clearing his ear in boredom with a green grass in his hand.

Li Yao tried to convince himself for a long time, yet he still failed to associate the guy in front of him with the young warrior who had slayed hundreds of pirates with ‘his saber, his crystal suit, himself, and nothing else’.

However, Li Yao’s attention was soon attracted to something else.

A brand-new crystal suit was standing right beside Lei Dalu. It was streamlined and glittering in silver brightness. The joints of the suit were decorated with gold stripes, making it both nimble and elegant.

Other than the two normal arms, six auxiliary arms that could be manipulated by telepathic thoughts extended from the back, fitted with various maintenance tools.

“Ah Yao[1], you are here!”

Lei Dalu put the grass back carefully and then said in a somewhat bragging tone, “How about it? This crystal suit is not half bad, is it? It is called ‘Eight Arm’, a masterpiece of ‘Silver Heart Stream’, one of the best crystal suit refining sects in Heavenly Saints City. It is both a professional maintenance crystal suit and one that boasts amazing combat ability!

“I noticed that you’ve added two artificial arms to your ‘Rockman’ as maintenance arms. You must be very good at controlling machines with your telepathic thoughts. This ‘Eight Arm’ is very suitable for you!”

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. “It’s a gift for me?”

Lei Dalu nodded his head. His mouth grinned even wider and as he laughed. “Of course!

“You are the biggest contributor to our escape from the Dim Flame Belt, and you should be properly rewarded! Besides, your talent in magical equipment maintenance is really amazing! Uncle Xiong has been complaining to me that you are a monster-level genius he’s never seen before, and that you are harassing him every day like an octopus and are about to finish copying whatever there is inside his head!

“A Rockman is beneath a prodigy such as yourself. This ‘Eight Arm’ is more suitable more you. Come on and try it!”

Li Yao was greatly touched.

With his expertise, he could see the extraordinariness of this eight-armed maintenance crystal suit just from its appearance.

Judging from the colors that it reflected under the light, a lot of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures must’ve been added when it was refined.

Also, on the six auxiliary arms on the back of the crystal suit, many kinds of advanced maintenance tools could be found. There were bound to be more that had been embedded inside.

Such a crystal suit was definitely worth a fortune. The Exo Society was short of money at present, and yet they had purchased such an expensive crystal suit as a gift for him?

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao finally said after much consideration, “Captain, as I said when I accepted the offer of the Society, I wouldn’t stay here for long.

“My target has always been to enter Heavenly Saints City where I will learn the more mysterious arts of refining and become a master refiner!

“Therefore, after we reach the Thousand Sails Space Zone, I will leave the Great Horn and dedicate myself to my purpose. Please note that, captain.”

Lei Dalu scratched his nose and smiled. “I’ve been aware of that for a long time. It is exactly the reason we are giving you this crystal suit!”

Lei Dalu said, “The Thousand Sails Space Zone has always been the assembly of young heroes of the Flying Star Sector. The major forces of Heavenly Saints City will hold various kinds of matches in that place to recruit new blood.

“It is not difficult for a man of your capability to enter Heavenly Saints City.

“However, I’m afraid that you do not know how magnificent your potential is! It will be too wasteful if you simply join a random second-rate organization in Heavenly Saints City!

“Everyone walking out of our Great Horn should be ambitious. When we are not going to Heavenly Saints City, it’s fine; but if we are, we will definitely join the strongest organization and study the most advanced arts of refining!

“It’s going to be much more difficult to achieve that. You are doubtlessly a genius, but geniuses are what the Flying Star Sector is never in lack of. I don’t know how many hungry monsters are out there in the Thousand Sails Space Zone waiting to crush you to pieces!

“I don’t know the first thing about refining, so I can’t help you there. What I can do is to offer you a maintenance crystal suit. This is the best I can do!

“Also, I’ve discussed with Uncle Xiong. Given our tortoise-like speed, it will take quite a few months for us to arrive in the Thousand Sails Space Zone. Your maintenance assignments will be reduced during the time so that you will have more free time to train yourself. Uncle Xiong will try his best to teach you, too!

“When we reach the Thousand Sails Space Zone, you are going to look for the strongest organization and the most challenging matches and win them. You will definitely rise to fame soon. Hahahaha!”

This time, Li Yao was truly dumbfounded. He scratched his head and said, “Captain, you don’t mind that I will be leaving you?”

Li Yao had thought that they would definitely persuade him to stay in the Society now that he had shown astonishing talent.

However, not only did the captain see through his determination to leave, he had even made plans for him and seemed to be worrying that he might not be able to fly high enough.

“What is there to mind? It’s great that somebody can jump to a higher platform than the Great Horn Exo Society.”

Lei Dalu explained with a smile, “Ah Yao, since you’ve been living in the remote areas of the sea of stars, you might not be familiar with the conventions of the Cultivators.

“A long time ago, there were strict rules and laws about loyalty among Cultivators. Quitting an organization and joining another one was a taboo.

“However, there is a motivation for every decision. If some Cultivators want to switch to a different organization, they must have good reasons for that. For example, their life in their current organization is unpleasant, or they have new ambitions now.

“The outcome of suppressing their will back then was that those Cultivators would often dawdle along, which was a better-case scenario.

“Sometimes, the conflicts went public, and the sect sometimes even split apart. In the more violent cases, some Cultivators even conspired with space pirates and led them to attack the sect. These were real tragedies.

“Even if the uprisings were suppressed successfully, other people in the sect might feel unsafe and became unwilling to contribute.

“After such tragedies repeated themselves for hundreds of years, finally, everyone figured it out. Those who are forced are always the least motivated. What good is there if one’s heart is somewhere else even though their body is present?

“Therefore, the transfer system has been established in the world of Cultivators. The process of a Cultivator quitting one organization and joining another one is known as ‘transferring’. The organization accepting them must compensate their old sect with a sum of money according to a public standard with consideration of capability, potential, background, etc. In such a way, everybody involved is happy and satisfied!

“Hehe. When the transfer system was first put into use, some fogies didn’t believe in the advantages of the system. But after hundreds of years of experimenting, everybody has come to realize that there are greater benefits in the system other than the monetary compensation.

“You also know that most people in our Flying Star Sector live on lone islands in the sea of stars. They are far away from each other and barely ever communicate. It is not uncommon for people to never visit their neighbors a few space zones away.

“But for Cultivators, the last thing they need is solitude. If everybody is hiding their own techniques, their techniques will be passed on to no one. Communication is compulsory!

“Before, people had no channels of communication, nor did they know each other’s details. They had to tread lightly and reservedly when they got in touch with other people.

“But after the transfer system was established, the communication between Cultivators significantly increased.

“For example, in the past, if a certain brilliant genius from Sect A decided to quit and join Sect B. The two sects would definitely quarrel, if not waging a war at each other, would they not?

“But under the transfer system, Sect A would receive a large sum of compensation which could be used to train newcomers, purchase Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, and refine more powerful magical equipment. Of course, Sect A’s attitude would be different, and they would definitely bid the brilliant genius a warm farewell and welcome him to come back to visit at any time.

“Let’s say the brilliant genius grew up in Sect A. Sect A would be his hometown. It is very likely that his family and fellows all stay in the place. If his departure with the old sect is not ugly, he would definitely feel somewhat guilty and cherish his ‘mother sect’.

“When the brilliant genius does well and makes his way into the leadership of Sect B, naturally, he wouldn’t hesitate to converse with Sect A more. With the more frequent exchange of persons and Cultivation arts, the relationship between the two sects will be all the more intimate.

“It was not until the transfer system was established that Cultivators of the Flying Star Sector, who had used to shut their doors and mind their own business, were truly integrated. It is also the reason our Cultivation civilization soared exponentially!

“Ah Yao, with your talents, if you stay in Great Horn, without the enlightenment of more masters and without seeing a bigger world, the best hope for you is to become a second Xiong Tao.

“But if we help you move a step forward to the crystal suit centers of Heavenly Saints City or other top organizations such as the six major sects, who knows what you will grow into in a few years’ time?

“By then, if the organization you are in intends to hire an Exo Society, won’t you think of the Great Horn?

“Isn’t helping each other how Cultivators should make friends and build new connections?

“Therefore, just take the crystal suit and train with it. There is nothing to be concerned about. Put your endeavors in the Dim Flame Belt aside. Just consider it a favor that can always be returned if you still bear the Great Horn Exo Society in mind when you rise to fame and fortune in the future!”

Lei Dalu’s words rendered Li Yao speechless.

Although Lei Dalu was trying to help him, the guy had been talking in a way that it seemed to be a fair deal, if not one where he was talking advantage of Li Yao.

However, he found no solid rebuttals. He felt that his heart was hot and comfortable.

Li Yao finally realized why the defiant young men of the Tiger Killer Camp all supported and worshipped their messy ‘Uncle Captain’.

On second thought, the system did make sense. The most thing about Cultivation was indeed communication.

Back in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, all the Cultivation sects were on the same continent of the same planet, united against a common enemy. The communication between them had never been a problem.

However, in the Flying Star Sector, everybody drifted in the sea of stars like lonely boats. They wandered in darkness aimlessly. Without sufficient communication, it was not impossible that a sect in isolation would decay and perish within dozens of years.

In such a vast world, the transfer system was a necessity to ensure that the Cultivation civilization as a whole did not retrograde.

“Captain, thank you, thank Uncle Xiong and everyone else in the Society. Wherever I go in the future, I will declare proudly that I come from Great Horn,” Li Yao said solemnly.

Li Yao meant what he said.

At first, his sole purpose of staying in the Great Horn Exo Society temporarily was to study secret arts, add credibility to his backstory, and also take a free ride.

However, after sailing together in the same starship for more than a month and surviving the perils of the Dim Flame Belt, Li Yao gradually fell in love with this group of people that were somewhat special.

All the muscular, hideous-looking men were actually kind and frank, despite their intimidating looks.

The refiners in the Society never kept anything to themselves, either. They taught him all their knowledge without keeping anything from him.

The vigorous young men of the Tiger Kill Camp reminded him of his days in the Grand Desolate War Institution, too.

Li Yao felt that he was extremely lucky to make his first step in an alien world with such a unique team.

Lei Dalu patted his shoulder and smiled. “Let’s cut the nonsense. The most important thing about us Cultivators is candor! Come and test the ‘Eight Arm’!”

Li Yao himself was eager to try it, too. He rubbed his hands and dashed to the Eight Arm Maintenance Suit.

[1] ‘Ah’ has been used in previous chapters, but for those who haven’t had it explained before, ‘Ah’ doesn’t mean anything in particular, it’s just an affectionate way of addressing someone.

Chapter 471: Different Ideologies

This was the first time that Li Yao had put on an advanced crystal suit made in the Flying Star Sector.

His previous Rockman was just a piece of civil magical equipment aimed at ordinary people that boasted little combat ability despite his strengthening and modification. The Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures it employed and the computational ability it possessed were nothing special, either.

This Eight Arm, on the other hand, was a luxury from Heavenly Saints City. The moment he put on it, he felt that a warm spring was soaking his skin. There was not the slightest hinderance or rigidness. The crystal suit seemed to have become his second skin.

Countless streams of information flooded into his brain. His nerves were completely docked to the wires of the crystal suit.

This is awesome. The advantages of a battle suit and a maintenance suit have been combined into one crystal suit. Not only does it carry sixteen groups of cutter models, there are also seven kinds of spray guns that can spew spiritual energy of various attributes. Together with the crystal microscopes that can enlarge the picture by 120 thousand times and the micro craver made of hard crystals, I can carve a hundred rune arrays in a square inch!

This Eight Arm is indeed an extraordinary maintenance suit. Except for the lack of a refining furnace, almost all the tools required for a maintenance task can be found on it!

It’s equal to a walking refining workshop!

The structure design of the crystal suit, the magical equipment it carried, as well as a lot of other information, poured down. Li Yao was fascinated as he read them. His lips curled up in excitement.

However, when he performed the most basic movements inside the training room wearing the Eight Arm Suit, he found that it was extremely odd.

The Eight Arm Suit did not inform him of everything that it had sensed. Instead, the mainframe crystal processor of the suit filtered the enormous and complicated information by itself and calculated dozens of plans according to the actual situation.

All he had to do was to pick the best plan from the list offered.

For example, when he was going to sprint forward, if he was wearing the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, he would have to extend his spiritual thread into every power rune array and control the direction of every spurt, sometimes requiring an angle at the accuracy of two decimal points.

However, now that he was wearing Eight Arm, all he needed to do was to think of ‘move forward’ and pick one of the ninety-seven patterns of moving forward. The activated level of the power rune arrays and the micro adjustments of the spurts would all be handled by the crystal processor.

In such a case, the operations of the crystal suit would be much more convenient. It would be more agile during combat, too. However, the independency of the Exo was greatly diminished.

Li Yao did not like the feeling. He thought that the crystal suit was taking over duties that it shouldn’t.

Li Yao preferred to supervise every rune array and every component on the crystal suit in person. The crystal suit was just a platform of magical equipment and, above all, a tool. He had to be responsible for every detail of the combat personally.

In such a case, there would be much more information that he needed to deal with, but it was much freer, too. He could fight at his will without being bound by anything.

The ideology of the crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector has been on a different path from that of the Heaven’s Origin Sector since the very beginning. People here attach much more importance to the performance of the crystal processor. When the crystal processor has enough computational ability, it can promptly assess the information, devise tactic plans, and optimize the movements of the Exo!

As a result, combat becomes easy and straightforward. Everybody will know what they are doing without any trouble. Even ordinary people can wear crystal suits with ease. Together with the ‘skill cards’ which store the skills of the real experts, the crystal suit will have both common strategies and ultimate ones. Its potential damage can be quite impressive, too!

This must be because of the special environment of the Flying Star Sector.

War debris is everywhere in the Flying Star Sector. There are countless different kinds of advanced magical equipment and crystal processors. Therefore, the Cultivators of this Sector were bestowed with crystal processors possessing amazing computational ability from the very beginning. It’s not unusual that they focus their attention on crystal processors!

However, in such a mode, there is barely any room for an Exo to perform at will. They would be like puppets hiding in crystal suits without any creativity. All they need to do is to select different tactics in the proper order and release the skills when the timing is appropriate.

It’s indeed convenient. However, the strategies optimized by the crystal processor must have certain patterns. If the opponent sees through the patterns, it will be a disaster!

All roads lead to the heavens. Li Yao wouldn’t say that the ideology of the Flying Star Sector was wrong, but he was not particularly fond of it, either.

As a man growing up in a magical equipment graveyard, Li Yao valued versatility more than anything during combat. Even the same skill would be adjusted according to the conditions of different environments and enemies.

Before he came here, Li Yao had hardly used fixed moves.

The ‘Thunderous Tornado Saber Art’ of his own invention was just a state of mind. As to exactly how the saber should be slashed out at a particular moment, it would be dependent on the actual situation.

Therefore, Li Yao, who was manipulated by ‘Eight Arm’ in this place, was always going against the crystal suit’s choices and tried to walk in the way he thought was the best.

In Lei Dalu’s eyes, Li Yao was stumbling unnaturally in the new crystal suit.

Lei Dalu didn’t see anything wrong about it. On the contrary, he thought that it was quite normal.

The Eight Arm Suit was an advanced model even in Heavenly Saints City. It was only logical that Li Yao failed to grasp it in such a short amount of time.

Lei Dalu smiled. “Ah Yao, I also bought you three skill cards. They’ve been inserted into the crystal processor. Have a try!”

Li Yao nodded. He glanced at the bottom-left corner of the light beam and was dazed for a moment. “One gold card and two silver cards?”

Skill cards were classified into regular, silver, gold, and platinum.

Regular cards stored the skills and telepathic thoughts of the Refinement Stage Cultivators and allowed the user to carry out the moves of the Refinement Stage.

Silver cards were made of Building Foundation Stage Cultivators and entailed the abilities of the Building Foundation Stage.

Gold cards were refined by Core Formation Stage Cultivators and contained their moves, which could be quite destructive when they were carried out!

As for the platinum cards, they were the ultimate devices produced by the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. When they were inserted into a crystal suit, the Exo would be able to wield the skills of the Nascent Soul Stage!

Of course, to wield a certain skill card, one’s own capability must not be too low. The gap between the Exo and the producer of the skill card could not be too wide.

Ordinary people could only use regular cards; Refinement Stage Cultivators could use silver cards; Building Foundation Stage Cultivators could bring out the damage of the gold cards; only the Core Formation Stage Cultivators were capable enough of utilizing platinum cards at will.

But now, Lei Dalu had prepared three skill cards, one gold and the other two silver!

If the Eight Arm Suit was a reward for Li Yao’s contribution to fixing the spiritual shield generator and helping Gold Horn run away from the Dim Flame Belt, the three skill cards would be too big a favor for him to return.

Li Yao selected a move named ‘Morning Glow Saber Art’ from a silver card and activated it.

The Eight Arm Suit immediately sped up. Hundreds of rune arrays glittered suddenly. Circles of brightness crowded around his right arm in spirals and formed a dazzling saber in front of his fingertip. Then, it rushed out and hit a metal target in front of the room brutally, leaving a deep crack on it.

Li Yao secretly frowned, not very satisfied about the result.

It was for the same reason. As a seasoned Exo who had abundant experience in fighting, he had his own styles and principles and detested the notion of being commanded by a crystal suit. Therefore, when the crystal suit was activated, his body resisted the enforced movements subconsciously, making the movements not as perfect as they were supposed to be.

Li Yao did not see eye to eye with skill cards, either.

In his opinion, to bring out the maximum damage of a skill, one must really comprehend the inspiration and mysteries of the skill, analyze its spiritual energy circulation and triggering models, and reconstruct them in the most suitable way for oneself.

Only by learning a skill in such a way could one really grasp it!

Otherwise, one would only be mimicking the experts. Their movements might be alike, but the true essence of the skills had been lost.

It seems that the fighting pattern of the Flying Star Sector’s crystal suits is not agreeable with me.

But it doesn’t matter. I’m a refiner myself anyway. I can always modify the crystal suit and redistribute the computation ability of the crystal processor. The filtering procedure can be canceled, too. That way, it will be the same as the crystal suits of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

As for skill cards, I can use them to sense the profoundness of the top experts during my daily training. But in real combat, I think it’s still best to rely on myself, Li Yao thought.

In the communication channel came Lei Dalu’s voice that seemed to indicate he was having a toothache. “Ah Yao, it seems that you are not gifted at wearing a crystal suit. According to my calculation just now, the sync rate between you and the crystal suit is only 37%. It is… quite low actually.”

Sync rate was a very important measurement when it came to Cultivators and crystal suits in the Flying Star Sector.

Since the crystal suits of this Sector all boasted very high independent combat ability, the most determinative factor about the professionalism of an Exo was usually the coordination and cooperation between them and their crystal suits.

A high sync rate suggested that the body of the Exo had melded with the crystal suit and their head had integrated into the crystal processor. Naturally, they could bring out the full potential of the crystal suit.

Li Yao’s beliefs were the complete opposite to those of the Flying Star Sector’s Cultivators. He was like an unreasonable tyrant who insisted on controlling every detail of the crystal suit. The crystal processor was having conflicts with him all the time. It would be a miracle if his sync rate was high!

A sync rate of 37% could not even be counted as third-rate in the Flying Star Sector. Most of the experts of the Sector had sync rates higher than 60%. Those of the top experts were sometimes even higher than 90%!

Lei Dalu smiled. “Fortunately, your dream is to become a master of refining. Maintenance suits are different from battle suits and do not have a high demand on the sync rate. Do not let it bother you too much.”

Li Yao was, of course, not in the least bothered by it. He had his own beliefs and wouldn’t care even if his sync rate was 0.1%. He smiled and said earnestly, “Thank you very much, captain!”

Lei Dalu took out a smaller metal box, which had been carved with sophisticated spiritual stripes on its four facets. Then he continued, “Uncle Xiong told me that it was not the modification and maintenance of large-scale magical equipment that you are best at, but personal magical equipment? You’ve even repaired a lot of the young ones’ magical equipment of the Tiger Killer Camp.

“That brat Zhao Guo even went to challenge Liao Meng of the assault team the other day. When their sabers collided, Liao Meng’s weapon was dented by the heavy blow while Zhao Meng’s was fine!

“Liao Meng’s battle saber was made of Heavenly Stream Steel and Black Gold Rock and had just been polished by a refiner. It was the sharpest of all and he cherished it more than his life. No one had anticipated such an outcome. The fury on his face!

“Even Uncle Xiong was quite surprised when he came and checked it. It seems that everybody still underestimated you when they thought they overestimated you!

“Uncle Xiong said that he was best at the maintenance and modification of starships and that he had little to teach you about personal magical equipment, especially crystal suits. There was not much he could do except to offer you this. Try to put this to good use.”

“This is—”

Four giant, blood-freezing words engraved on the metal box made Li Yao’s pupils shrink suddenly. “World of Crystal Suits!”

Chapter 472: World of Crystal Suits

The human civilization of the Flying Star Sector was based in space. It was troublesome for people to communicate with each other. Therefore, Cultivators of this Sector had focused much attention on the development of the Great Illusionary Land and the Spiritual Nexus.

Cultivators of the Flying Star Sector had refined countless Spiritual Towers that could absorb the spiritual energy in the universe automatically and launched them into the sea of stars over the past thousands of years.

With the Spiritual Towers in space as nodes, the Spiritual Nexus gradually expanded and covered most of the Flying Star Sector. All the people were finally linked.

For the Cultivators of the Flying Star Sector, they had developed countless Great Illusionary Lands on the Spiritual Nexus as platforms where they could talk with each other about training.

Sword Cultivators had their own platforms, and so did Spiritual Tattooists, Grand Illusionists, and any other professions.

The World of Crystal Suits was the largest, most professional Great Illusionary Land of all. It was a platform about crystal suits for high-end users.

From the refinement, maintenance, and modification of crystal suits to the utilization, combat skills, and cooperation tactics, and from civil suits to battle suits, from farming suits to maintenance suits, every topic could be studied and discussed on the platform.

A refiner could chat with fellow refiners in the World of Crystal Suits about technical problems that were baffling them.

An Exo could play simulation games and exchange their experiences with fellow Cultivators dozens of space zones away on the matching platform secondary to the World of Crystal Suits.

The World of Crystal Suits was divided into two zones. The regular zone targeted ordinary fighters and the juveniles. The simulation rate was not very high. It was almost considered a super large video game. The sole purpose of this zone was to promote the products and to arouse the interest of the adolescents.

In the meantime, the professional zone was a perfect simulation of the real world. The virtualized crystal suit in the Great Illusionary Land there had identical components with identical details to those on the real crystal suits.

To achieve such an effect, not only was a powerful, stable interspace Spiritual Nexus required, a special crystal processor was mandatory, too. Otherwise, when the scenes inside the World of Crystal Suits became too hectic, the surging information would definitely collapse the crystal processor that was handling it.

The World of Crystal Suits was the training center of the Flying Star Sector, created by Great Illusionary Groups, a joint company of the six major sects of Heavenly Saints City.

The metal box that Lei Dalu had given Li Yao just now contained a streamlined, bright gold helmet with ‘Great Illusionary’ carved into the back in a vintage style.

It was the latest version of the special crystal processor for the World of Crystal Suits that Great Illusionary Groups had released. More than three thousand techniques had been embedded into the helmet, which was equivalent to a large simulation cabin despite its small size!

Li Yao had been meaning to experience the World of Crystal Suits since the moment he’d discovered such a thing existed. However, the computational ability of his crystal processor was not high enough to meet the entry standard. Besides, he had been busy performing the maintenance tasks and barely had any time to study anything. Therefore, he’d been postponing it for a long time.

He didn’t expect that Lei Dalu would be giving him so many precious gifts in succession today. He was so thrilled that he could barely talk.

“This is Uncle Xiong’s gift for you. You should thank him! But in my opinion, the best way to express your gratitude is to train yourself well and to make a big name for yourself among the refiners of the Flying Star Sector! Enjoy yourself. I’m leaving!”

Lei Dalu waved his hand and left the No. 1 training room, grinning.

Li Yao took off ‘Eight Arm’ and calmed himself down. He read the documents from the jade chip near the helmet and filled in enough crystals according to the instructions before he put on the helmet softly.

With a telepathic thought, coolness crowded into his temples, and silver brightness shined in front of his eyes.

Streams of bright gold liquid flowed out from the bottom of the helmet and covered the skin all over Li Yao’s body without leaving the tiniest gap.

From the outside, it looked like that he had been enveloped in a neat, gold cocoon!

His nerves seemed to have been stimulated by something. They extended and integrated with the gold brightness through his pores.

Shua!

A boundless Great Illusionary Land was unfolding in front of Li Yao’s eyes. It was the deep sea of stars where countless starships were engaged in a fierce battle. In the distance was a glamorously exploding star fortress.

With them as the background, countless Cultivators were raging and fighting against each other furiously in their crystal suits. The dazzling sparks resulting from the collisions of magical equipment even eclipsed the shining stars.

A crystal suit wreathed in burning flames rushed close like a shooting star covering thousands of kilometers within a breath. It stopped above Li Yao and gazed at him without any movement, with two curved snake-shaped swords in its hands.

Although he was aware that it was a Great Illusionary Land and that the crystal suit was nothing but a virtualized telepathic thought of the crystal processor, Li Yao still felt tremendous oppression.

Streams of information gushed into Li Yao’s brain.

The crystal suit opened its mouth and said, “I am Jing, your guide. I will answer all your questions about the World of Crystal Suits.”

Li Yao said, “Give me a brief introduction to the World of Crystal Suits.”

Behind the crystal suit, dozens of different celestial bodies immediately popped up, including planets, satellites, asteroids, nebulas, world fragments, and stone belts.

Every celestial body was an entrance to a different zone.

According to the introduction of the guide, the World of Crystal Suits was mainly divided into two zones.

One was the refining zone prepared for refiners in which all the questions about the refinement of crystal suits could be discussed.

The other part was naturally the Exo zone. Exos could talk to each other about tactics of crystal suits or fight against each other in virtual arenas.

In either of the zones, there were subdivisions for socializing and for actual operations.

Every Cultivator logging into the World of Crystal Suits would be granted with independent space and was free to turn it into a refining workshop or a training room at their will.

Li Yao thought to himself, It appears that the World of Crystal Suits is similar to the Cultivators’ Nexus of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. They are both platforms where newcomers can pick up knowledge quickly and the experts can exchange their newest ideas. But this platform looks much more advanced than the Cultivators’ Nexus!

The guide also told him that the World of Crystal Suits was constructed by the six major sects to defend the human civilization of the Flying Star Sector in return for the support of the general public. Most of the fees of the operation had been covered by the six major sects. Therefore, except for the expense of the special crystal processors to enter the World of Crystal Suits, most of the fundamental subjects inside were free of charge.

However, if one had certain special demands, such as expanding their independent space or utilizing and studying the latest model of a certain crystal suit, they would have to pay for a designated amount of ‘crystal coins’.

Crystal coins were easy to get by contributing one’s knowledge and skills.

The World of Crystal Suits was such a place where Cultivators could find a bigger world and exchange others’ knowledge, skills, and techniques with their own. Eventually, the civilization as a whole would make progress, and the Flying Star Sector would be a more developed and prosperous place!

“You’ve logged in for the first time. You can enter the World of Crystal Suits as a visitor, but the clearance for visitors is limited. You will not be able to enter the advanced forums or watch the combat videos of the top experts.”

The guide continued, “You may also register your account now with a username. With the most advanced ‘Chaos Algorithm’ that the Great Illusionary Groups holds, your identity would be kept confidential. Nobody will be able to trace your account back to you through the Spiritual Nexus!”

According to explanations of the guide, many big shots in the real world, such as the elders of the major sects in Heavenly Saints City, the renowned university professors, and the project managers of the crystal suit centers, were all fond of chatting and communicating in the World of Crystal Suits.

Some of them often came up with groundbreaking theories, and some others would argue with them in disagreement. Sometimes, things turned pretty ugly when they were lambasting each other about a theory.

All the users were well-respected celebrities in reality. The opinions they expressed carried a lot of weight. Naturally, they wanted to leave what happened inside the World of Crystal Suits within the World of Crystal Suits.

The ‘Chaos Algorithm’ developed by the Great Illusionary Groups could fully encrypt every user’s address on the Spiritual Nexus via a virtual ‘chaotizing pool’. Nobody would be able to find out who the users really were. Therefore, everybody was free to say and do whatever they wanted to in the Great Illusionary Land.

Of course, as the influence of the World of Crystal Suits grew bigger and bigger, many celebrities of the real world decided to appear with their true identities in order to better promote themselves.

Whether or not to expose who they were would be entirely determined by the users.

Li Yao was craving to learn the advanced techniques of the Flying Star Sector’s crystal suits. Naturally, he wouldn’t select the visitor mode. He registered a new account.

“My username is… Fiend Star.”

All the optional fields were left blank. As to what aspects he was best at, Li Yao pondered for a moment and typed in three items:

“Maintenance and modification of battlesuits.

“Refinement of melee magical equipment, especially saber-type equipment.

“Classical refining theories.”

The guide continued, “Fiend Star has been successfully registered. Now, a test will be held to determine your level.”

All the users in the World of Crystal Suits were divided into six levels. Some advanced forums were only open to users above a certain level. It would be quite a bummer if several outsiders continued jumping in when two university professors were discussing esoteric problems about rune arrays, would it not?

The bottom level was ‘Unclassified’, which referred to ordinary people and the outsiders of the trade.

The second level was ‘Apprentice’. It referred to the students of a certain field.

The third level was ‘Elite’. This title meant that the user had profound knowledge about a certain field and was adept at some problems. They were qualified to enlighten the newcomers and the apprentices.

The fourth level was ‘Specialist’. It was already a very high standard.

The fifth level was ‘Master’, and the highest level was ‘Grand Master’. As their names suggested, only the most renowned and the unquestionable leaders of a trade could be granted such titles!

Gold streams of information rushed down like a meteor shower.

“Name at least twelve uses of Bitter Heart Grasses according to the classical refining theories.”

“What is the relationship between the radian of the blade and its damage? In this illustration, rune arrays of the thunder class have been carved on both sides of the saber. How should the rune arrays be altered if the radian of the blade is one degree more obtuse?”

“Summarize the anti-corrosion procedure for the chest plate of a crystal suit and make a preliminary anti-corrosion coating in the most precise ratio with the seven materials provided here.”

“Has aerodynamics been mentioned in the classical refining theories? What are the similarities and differences between ancient flying swords and modern ones in regard of swooping? Propose three reasons why ancient flying swords are better than modern ones.”

Chapter 473: Glimmers

The guide raised hundreds of questions within a breath. Most of them were comprehensive conundrums focusing on the maintenance and modification of crystal suits, the refinement of saber-type magical equipment, and classical refining theories. They were extremely difficult.

Despite the immensity of Li Yao’s soul, he still felt exhausted after answering all of them.

The guide was silent for a long time. The gaps in its crystal suit were glittering, suggesting that it was analyzing Li Yao’s answers with a lot of computational ability.

In the end, the guide replied in a commending tone, “Your answers are complete and precise, not to mention that your speed was amazingly high, too. It is evident that you have a deep understanding about the three categories in question. You are now classified into the ‘Specialist’ level.

“Especially regarding classical refining theories, your answers are indeed impressive!

“However, the Great Illusionary Groups do not have deeper studies about classical refining theories, and we can’t run an inclusive assessment on your capability in classical ways of refining.

“All in all, you are now classified as ‘Specialist’. It is the third level only secondary to Master and Grand Master. Of all the users of the World of Crystal Suits, Specialists are ranked in the top 10%. You are now free to join the forums for professionals where you can communicate with other experts.

“If you want to advance into the Master level, you can try to earn more crystal coins by answering questions, holding open lectures, and publishing videos on the latest theories of refining. Then, you can trade the crystal coins for new skills and theories which you can study to improve your capability. When you think that your capability has surpassed the threshold of ‘Master’, you can demand a new assessment at any time.

“The system has marked the three fields that you are best at below your username. When other users come up with questions in these categories, reminders will be sent to your virtual independent space. You can reply to them if you think you know the correct answer.

“Enjoy the World of Crystal Suits, Specialist Fiend Star!”

The guide bowed and cleared the path leading to different zones.

Li Yao smiled. The Specialist level was not half bad. It should be enough for him to make use of most of the zones inside the World of Crystal Suits.

However, Li Yao was confident that, when it came to classical refining, he was far beyond the Specialist level.

It was just that there seemed to be barely any real experts adept at classical refining theories in the World of Crystal Suits, or rather, the entire Flying Star Sector.

In other words, the refiners in this place were not qualified to evaluate him at all.

He was the real Master when it came to classical refining!

Li Yao’s consciousness turned into a streak of brightness and darted toward a dazzling nebula.

The World of Crystal Suits was divided into different zones including forums, Q&A, lectures, and debates among a few others.

The moment Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts arrived, the latest and the most heated information of all zones rushed at him like billions of stars.

The first things that he perceived were the trending questions in the Q&A zone.

“How does it feel to be engaged in a combat wearing a super-fast crystal suit with more than 160 power rune arrays?”

“What are some accessories below fifty thousand Flying Star dollars that can significantly improve the combat ability of a crystal suit when they are installed?”

“I am a Cultivator in the middle of the Refinement Stage, and I’m already 36 years old. My life so far has been a mess. Right now, I want to change myself and become an excellent Exo. Is there any hope for me?”

“What are some skills that are of great help in combat and can be learned within three days?”

“What are some skills that you regret you didn’t know earlier and want to recommend to young people?”

“Which newly-refined crystal suits from the past thirty years can be considered state-of-the-art?”

“Of the three major crystal suit centers, what are the differences in styles of ‘Ice School’ and ‘Silver Heart School’? Which of the two is more suitable for the Cultivators who have advantages in physical strength?”

Trending questions, such as the above, all had more than five hundred answers. The most heated answers all had more than a hundred thousand upvotes.

Wow…

Like a mouse that had wandered into a rice shop, Li Yao was thrilled. He opened the first question ‘how does it feel to wear a super-fast crystal suit’ and started browsing.

The most upvoted answer was written by ‘Long Feihu’, a user who went by his real-life name.

His personal information indicated that he was a Core Formation Stage Cultivator with more than seventy years of experience in crystal suits and that he was on a 96-match winning streak in the Heavenly Sword Arena.

Li Yao vaguely remembered that he had seen the name of Long Feihu somewhere else.

The most popular form of entertainment and sport in the Flying Star Sector was crystal suit competitions.

Through crystal suit competitions, not only would the young people be encouraged to improve their skills, the professional crystal suit techniques would be disseminated, too. The top experts might become inspired by each other and invent stronger skills and skill cards so that the combat ability of the civilization as whole could be increased.

Therefore, crystal suit competitions were not just about entertainment or sport, but concerned the survival of the entire civilization.

As a result, all the Exos who participated in crystal suit competitions were all highly respected in the Flying Star Sector. The champions of the five major arenas each had millions of fans. Their influence was even higher than that of the leaders of some major sects.

Long Feihu was the champion of the Heavenly Sword Arena, one of the five major arenas. He had been a professional player for more than forty years, and in that time, his win-rate had been kept above 85%. It was said that he had achieved a breakthrough recently. Therefore, he had made a remarkable achievement by securing 96 victories continuously, and the number was still counting!

No wonder his answer was on top and upvoted by so many people!

Speed is a very important factor in my combat strategies, too. Let me see if I can learn anything from Long Feihu, ‘King of Heavenly Sword’!

Li Yao focused his attention and continued reading Long Feihu’s answer.

“Thanks for the question. I am Long Feihu. I believe many friends here have watched my combat videos and know that agility, speed, and deadliness are my thing. So, I think I’m qualified to offer my opinions on the question…”

Long Feihu elaborated on topics ranging from aerodynamics to illusions, from the commonly-seen crystal suits that focused on speed to the modifications of their respective power rune arrays, and from the training methods that Exos who wanted to improve their speed should adopt to the treatment of common injuries during the training sessions. The article was detailed and included a lot of 3D structure designs and videos. It was solid and convincing.

This expert of the Flying Star Sector deserves his name. It’s hardcore knowledge that he’s talking about!

If such experts are willing to provide everything they have learned in their lives for the younger generations, I don’t know how many newcomers will benefit from his enlightenment, and how many people will be ignited by the spark and embark on the path of Cultivation, taking him as a role model!

This is the most valuable point of the World of Crystal Suits and the secret to the prosperity of the human civilization in the Flying Star Sector!

Li Yao was deep in thought. Although the people of the Flying Star Sector were lost in the sea of stars and far away from each other, their attitude toward Cultivation was much more open and with much less reserve than the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

If one was to think about it more carefully, it had a lot to do with their different living environments.

The major sects of the Flying Star Sector were all scattered in the sea of stars. Li Yao could totally imagine that, thousands of years ago, when the fire of war had just died down and the Spiritual Nexus hadn’t been established, a Cultivation sect on a starship would have been wandering in the endless darkness for dozens or even hundreds of years. What a lonely journey it must’ve been.

Yes, loneliness. Mankind was a gregarious species after all. A few starships and a sect with a few hundred thousand people were not going to pass the civilization on.

When a sect drifted in the sea of stars, resisted demon beasts and demonic Cultivators for hundreds of years, and was decaying due to the loss of manpower, suddenly, it ran into another sect that was fighting side by side with it. The feeling of ‘I’m not alone in the universe’ could easily be translated into the passion of communication.

After all, the universe was too dark a place. Human beings were too insignificant, like a slight glimmer when they were separated. Only when they gathered together could the glimmers be congregated into blazing fire to drive away the darkness and illuminate the sea of stars!

The Cultivation sects who kept everything to themselves and refused to communicate with other sects must have been devoured by the darkness and disappeared in the river of time.

However, why did the humans of the Flying Star Sector not live on the planets?

Li Yao had studied the files of the Flying Star Sector before and was aware that quite a few planets had breathable air. Although the environments on the surface of such planets were not very favorable, considering that the technology in the Sector was advanced enough to empty and rebuild an asteroid, it shouldn’t be a problem to reshape some areas on the planets and establish settlements there.

Many files simply said that the planets were inhabited by barbarians who were extremely hostile to the residents of space.

Then, where did the barbarians come from? How come they were hostile to the space residents even though they were both human beings? Were there Cultivators among the barbarians? How was the center of the civilization moved from the planets to space in the first place?

It appeared that there were a lot of buried secrets in the history of the Flying Star Sector that wouldn’t be found out easily.

Li Yao concentrated his attention and left his suspicions behind. Then he upvoted Long Feihu’s answer.

In the World of Crystal Suits, users could express their opinions about an answer by upvoting or downvoting it.

However, although the first upvoting or downvoting was free, additional upvoting or downvoting cost one crystal coin each time.

In such a way, the more valuable answers would pop to the top very easily. The jibber-jabbers would sink down automatically when there were many downvotes and stop wasting everybody’s time.

Li Yao focused his attention and read another dozens of questions. He exclaimed in joy, like a man who was offered a bucket of clean water after struggling in a desert for an entire week.

After he left the Q&A zone, he found that the other zones were quite interesting in their own way as well.

In the lecture zone, the experts were introducing their latest theories. Since Li Yao was already marked as a specialist, he could hold his own lecture regarding the refinement of the saber-type magical equipment or classical refining theories. Every user joining the lecture would have to pay a crystal coin on entry.

In the debate zone, countless users were accusing and attacking each other. Invisible smoke seemed to be popping up from their battlefield.

The most interesting one was the battle between the debate team of Flying Star University and that of Heavenly Saint Institute on the well-discussed topic of ‘is remote magical equipment stronger than melee magical equipment or is it the other way around?’.

Such an impractical question had been argued by countless Cultivators for hundreds of years. It was clear that there was not a right answer. Yet, it was often picked as a topic for the young students in order to build up their critical thinking ability.

Flying Star University and Heavenly Saint Institute were the two best academical establishments of the Flying Star Sector.

Flying Star University mainly recruited the young geniuses from all over the Flying Star Sector and outside of Heavenly Saints City and valued popularization more; Heavenly Saint Institution only recruited the descendants of the Cultivators inside Heavenly Saints City and focused more on meritocracy.

The two colleges had competed against each other for hundreds of years with no obvious winner, but they had left all the other universities hundreds of lightyears behind.

Li Yao glanced at the introduction and noticed that the rules of the debate were quite special. There were two consecutive games.

In the first game, Flying Star University was on the pro side of melee magical equipment.

But after an hour of fierce debating and ten minutes of rest, the same team with the same members would be supporting remote magical equipment in the second game!

The two parties have to expound from both perspectives. Such a rule is indeed tricky, but I like it!

Li Yao was greatly interested and walked in to watch the game.

As a ‘Specialist’, he was considered sort of an ‘inspector’ when he came to watch such a debate game among college students, and therefore did not have to pay anything.

Chapter 474: Flying Sword Expert

Surrounded by the life-like Grand Illusionary Land, Li Yao felt that he was truly seated in the middle of a splendid hall watching eight college students debating with each other. Although their understanding about many theories was immature, the bold imagination that solely belonged to young men still surprised Li Yao and taught him many new perspectives of thinking.

Flying Star University, Heavenly Saint Institute?

The academic level of the two colleges left a deep impression on Li Yao.

If he was able to enter one of the top two colleges, his future training would definitely benefit a lot.

Of course, with his current position in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage, he wouldn’t be joining them as a student.

Li Yao believed that his capability was more than enough to earn him a place as a teacher in either of the two colleges.

However, teachers usually had tedious teaching tasks and might not be able to get in touch with the latest Cultivation philosophies. It would take many years for a teacher to climb up one step after another; Li Yao didn’t have the time to dawdle along.

I need to think carefully about what I should do next, Li Yao thought to himself.

Over the following seven days, Li Yao spent all his time in the World of Crystal Suits with barely any rest or sleep and skimmed through all of the top five thousand trending questions and their answers.

Due to the restriction of the Spiritual Nexus, the questions could not go very deep into the details. But for Li Yao, they were enough to give him a general picture of the Flying Star Sector’s theories of refining.

Those theories melded with classical refining theories and theories of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. Mysterious reactions were triggered. Many problems that had been bugging Li Yao for a long time were now easily resolved with the new mindset.

Now that he had grasped enough fundamental theories, Li Yao was ready to modify his crystal suits.

Right now, he had three crystal suits: Rockman, Eight Arm, and Mystic Skeleton.

Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was the most amazing of all, but it had been added with too much of the Skeleton Dragon’s body tissue and the scraps of the ancient magical equipment. It was not a good idea to wear it in broad daylight.

Rockman was convenient to maneuver, but it was too shabby. Also, as a piece of civil magical equipment, its combat ability was too low.

The problem with the Eight Arm Suit was that its crystal processor always meddled in and was incompatible with Li Yao’s combat style.

Therefore, Li Yao prepared to rent a professional workshop for crystal suit modification the moment he arrived in Thousand Sail Space Zone and perform a full upgrade on Eight Arm. It was meant partly to improve its combat ability, and partly to drop its preset fighting patters.

This was the first time that he had ever modified an advanced crystal suit of the Flying Star Sector. To avoid unnecessary risks, he decided to have a simulation in the World of Crystal Suits first.

Since he was classified as a ‘Specialist’ after the assessment, the system had credited 10,000 crystal coins to him when he entered The World of Crystal Suits. He had spent all of that decorating his independent space into a maintenance workshop as well as purchasing a virtual Eight Arm Suit.

Just as he was about to dismantle the virtual Eight Arm, he received a private message. Somebody was inviting him to answer a question.

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. Although he had been classified as a ‘Specialist’, he had never answered any questions before. Nobody should even know of his existence. Why would anyone invite him to answer a question?

He opened the question and realize the reason.

The question was as followed: ‘Why were the ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago fond of stepping on their flying swords and riding them? Is it not against the principles of aerodynamics? Compared to modern flying swords, what are the shortcomings of the ancient flying swords?’

As it turned out, it was a question that involved classical refining theories.

In the Flying Star Sector, there were not many experts who focused on classical refining theories, and there were ever fewer who revealed their identities in the World of Crystal Suits.

Li Yao’s profile showed that he was an expert in classical refining theories approved by the system.

Li Yao assumed that the guy who proposed the question had searched and sent invitations to all the users who were marked as experts in classical refining theories.

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao thought that it wouldn’t be decent if he lurked and looted the generosities of the Flying Star Sector for seven days without returning anything. He should contribute his ideas and discuss them with his fellows.

Therefore, he opened the question and started reading.

There were already almost a hundred answers below the description of the question. The few answers at the top were all thorough and concrete with a lot of pictures. Their arguments were quite valid, too. Many fellow Cultivators were commenting on these answers in heated discussions. The ambience was quite good.

Li Yao scanned through the answers. Then he frowned, as he thought that some of the answers were too biased.

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao started writing his own answer.

“Thanks for the invitation.

“I am just a fan of classical refining theories, but I have to say that I don’t agree with the answer that ranks at the top for the time being.

“When we Cultivators are challenged with a question, we should always make sure that the question is itself a legitimate question before we answer it. For example, this question is apparently a troll. Not all ancient Cultivators ‘ride’ their flying swords. There were many ways of manipulating a flying sword for ancient Cultivators. Three of them were most common.

“What’s more, the ancient flying swords, of course, have disadvantages compared with modern flying swords. However, they have their own advantages, too. I even believe that modern Cultivators are too condescending to dig out the full potential of the traditional magical equipment yet, of which ancient flying swords are a good example. We’ve been underestimating the wisdom of our predecessors.

“Let’s talk about ways to manipulate a flying sword first. Stepping on a flying sword and riding on it is just one of them. Except that, the ancient Cultivators could also embed themselves into their sword. That way, a dazzling sword would be all there was. The best sword Cultivators could even keep themselves and their swords in one place while killing someone thousands of kilometers away with their telepathic thoughts and their sword aura. Their swords were faster than any modern flying sword could ever be.

“Below are a few simple illustrations of the three ways of manipulating a flying sword that I just talked about.

“Let’s focus on riding a flying sword for a moment. It seems a little bit silly and completely against the principles of aerodynamics. Its speed is nothing impressive, either.

“However, there are three great benefits to it.

“Firstly, the agility of the Cultivator is tremendously increased. They would be able to perform small-scale dodging movements within a tiny area. Hovering in the middle of furious winds is no longer a problem.

“Secondly, the Cultivator has a keener sense of the spiritual waves in the air when their skin is exposed. It is easier for them to detect traces of their enemy, too.

“Thirdly, the Cultivator can summon their magical equipment conveniently when they are engaged with enemies!

“We are all clear that a difference of 0.1 seconds is enough to determine the life and death between two top experts. With the three advantages, it is not completely unacceptable that the absolute speed of the flying sword is relatively low.

“The techniques employed by the ancient flying swords have actually passed on to this day and evolved into three different kinds of magical equipment.

“Firstly, the shuttles, which replace the flying swords as vehicles.

“Secondly, bullets and one-off mini flying swords, which apparently originated from the ejection of the ancient flying swords.

“Thirdly, handy swords and sabers such as chainsword, which were inspired by the melee techniques and the aura-trigger techniques of the ancient flying swords, too.

“Cultivators today have gone deeper and deeper on the fractionization of magical equipment. The three aspects have been divided and developed respectively. Significant improvements have been made to shuttles, bullets, and melee blades. Complete and thorough industry chains have been established, too.

“But we should never forget that the three industry chains could never have been built without the adequate development of our Cultivation civilization and the logistic, researching, and manufacturing facilities that it entails.

“Contemporary Cultivators can easily buy suitable shuttles, flying swords, guns, and bullets in a magical equipment store. The items can be maintained without any trouble when they are broken. The loss is insignificant even if we just throw them away.

“However, in ancient times, when a Cultivator was walking in wilderness, they had no access to any supplies, nor did they have a place where they can repair their magical equipment.

“If they were driving a shuttle with chainswords and guns in hand, their firepower would definitely have been much higher. But what if they were broken?

“Therefore, the ancient Cultivators could only meld all the useful techniques into one flying sword and try to simplify them to the point that the sword looked crude and shabby. But as long as the flying swords were solid, sturdy, and convenient, it would suffice for an ancient Cultivator who was on a tedious journey in wilderness.

“We modern Cultivators are quite lucky. We have a stable society, open-minded Cultivation sects, fellow Cultivators who share the same beliefs, professional magical equipment manufacturers, and a ubiquitous Spiritual Nexus. Therefore, our flying swords, as well as other magical equipment, can evolve, evolve, and evolve.

“Ancient Cultivators had none of this. Most of the time, they were like the lone sailors on a surging ocean. In order to meet their demand for survival, their flying swords were destined to be more primitive.

“Even so, there are still quite a lot of extraordinary designs in ancient flying swords that call for our attention.

“For example, ‘Demon Biter’, a sword refined by the Blood Wolf Sect, adopted an interesting three-edged design. I’ve hardly ever seen a similar design in the modern flying swords. This is a simple illustration of ‘Demon Biter’. Take a look at it if you are interested…”

Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts raced like galloping stallions. He found it hard to stop when he started writing, and it was not until more than half an hour later, when he had written hundreds of thousands of words describing more than ten ancient flying swords and drawn more than thirty ancient rune arrays, that he finished the task and felt gratified.

He took a long breath in satisfaction and submitted the answer. Then, he put it to the back of his mind and entered his personal space to modify the Eight Arm Suit.

…

“Cao Le, Cao Le! Get up already! Your face has been smacked! Aya, this answer is indeed reasonable and persuasive. You’ve been berated and burnt! Hahahaha. I feel sorry for your cheeks!”

Inside a dormitory of the Flying Sword Department of Flying Star University, one of the two best colleges of the Flying Star Sector, a fat boy was grimacing at his roommate on the bed.

Cao Le yawned and took off the head-worn special crystal processor. He blinked his bloodshot eyes and replied, not very happily, “Fatty Sun, don’t make a fuss. I’m watching a game. Long Feihu has secured a 97th victory. How awesome!”

Cao Le was a model student of Flying Star Sector and considered himself to be an expert in flying swords. Since Long Feihu, champion of the Heavenly Sword Arena, had always used a super-large flying sword as his weapon, he had been a crazy fan of his and wouldn’t miss any of his matches.

“You are still in the mood for a live stream?” The fatty winked. “You call yourself a flying sword expert, yet the answer you published on the Nexus yesterday, the one drawing a comparison between ancient flying swords and modern ones, has been beaten to a pulp! Man, I’ve never seen a more humiliating failure!”

“What?!”

Cao Le’s eyes were wide open. The redness inside his eyes was all gone. He jumped up like a flying sword just unsheathed.