Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao was like a ghost who had returned from the deepest level in the hell. The ragged crystal suit he was wearing did not seem lackluster, but full of deadly mysteries.

“Crack! Crack!”

Li Yao tore off his helmet which had become too twisted to be opened automatically. He grimaced happily with his lips curled.

To this moment, Zuo Feijing finally understood everything. His face was so gloomy that one might have thought it was going to rain at any moment. He gnashed his teeth. “There was nothing wrong with the crystal reactor of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. It was just a pretense, wasn’t it?”

Li Yao narrowed his eyes, which looked like two sharp sabers.

“Correct. Before I took part in the Magical Equipment Exposition, I spent one month refining some gadgets which I added to the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. There’s nothing special about them, except that they can block the spiritual waves coming out of the crystal reactor and make it look like that the crystal reactor is burning incompletely.

“Besides, I’ve carved a lot of radiance rune arrays on the surface of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit which can unleash dazzling brilliance and an intimidating fireball in a very short time. But in fact, they’re nothing but visual effects without any damage at all.”

“So…” Zuo Feijing bit his lips so hard that blood was flowing down from the corner of his mouth. “You clashing with me so many times just now like a lunatic and your nonsense like ‘the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit shall be known by the world even if I’m to be blown to pieces’ was all to mislead us into thinking you’d lost your mind?”

“Fighting with you the hard way was partly to demonstrate the performance of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, and partly because I need a reasonable explanation for the ostensible overloading of the crystal reactor.”

Li Yao grinned. “But of course, I was joking about the ‘blown to pieces’ part. This is just a game. We really shouldn’t go that far.”

“You!”

Speechless, Zuo Feijing, Sha Yucheng and Feng Kai was clenching their fists and gaping at Li Yao.

This was also the only thing they could do at the moment.

…

The dialogue between Li Yao and Zuo Feijing was transmitted to every corner of the convention center by the broadcasting power runes, which immediately raised a riot.

“So unscrupulous! So shameless! No one pretends that they have self-destructed.”

“Cheating! This is definitely cheating!”

Students of Deep Sea University were all shouting excitedly. Whatever sympathy and admiration they had had felt for Li Yao were completely gone now. Everyone was jumping to their feet.

Gritting their teeth, many guys were rolling up their sleeves and planning to have a nice talk with Li Yao.

Some girls even shed resentful tears for Zuo Feijing’s failure.

“Shaoyang, I am starting to know what you were feeling back then.”

Supernova Jiang Sheng was sitting peacefully. The metal ring before his eyes lost all its brightness. After a long time, vague greenish color crept out.

His lips curled, he couldn’t help but put on a self-mocking smile.

“Since the very beginning, Li Yao has successfully deluded everyone into thinking that he was on a furious rampage. Zuo Feijing, Sha Yucheng, and Feng Kai all fell into his trap and danced to his rhythm, only to be led to a ditch by him in the end.

“Everything has been within his calculation. ‘Vulture’ deserves his name.”

Many experienced Exos were also talking to each with their faces flushed red in embarrassment.

Before Li Yao walked out of the fireball, they had been fooled and failed to recognize that the self-explosion was but an act.

“Li Yao…”

Exhaling a long breath in relief, Yuan Manqiu lost all her strength and leaned against the back of the chair. She covered her face with his hand. Joyful tears flowed out from the gaps of her fingers, as her plump body was shivering.

“What happened? What on earth has happened?”

Many ordinary tourists did not understand the situation. They looked at each other in confusion and dragged those around them asking for explanation.

“Breaking news! In the competitive test of the 21 MP crystal suit models, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, the cheapest of all, defeated the high and mighty Tiger King Battlesuit of Deep Sea University and laughed last!”

“With his dumbfounding performance, Vulture Li Yao has blown the horn in the war against the Refining Department of Deep Sea University.”

“After this Flying Crystal race, no one will dare to look down upon the Refining Department of the Grand Desolate War Institution anymore!”

The reporters were thrilled, too. Countless articles were written on their light beams with telepathic thoughts and spread through the Spiritual Nexus out to every corner of the Star Glory Federation and the Cultivation world.

…

Half of an hour later, inside a med bay, Li Yao was soaking in a pool that had been filled with bright green recovery liquid.

Wounds and bruises could be found in every part of his body.

The game just now had not been as easy as he showed everyone to be.

Out of pursuit of a lower cost, the buffer and defense systems of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit were far from those of Tiger King, Sword Torrent, and Mournful Mist.

The high-intensity collision left many wounds that were deep to the bones.

However, as he recalled the moment when he returned from the inferno to the racetrack and accepted the homage that the audience on the spot paid to him, he felt from the bottom of his heart that the pain was worth it.

The Soul Condensing Pendant before his chest shivered with his breath.

Li Yao sensed that the power inside the Soul Condensing Pendant was significantly greater than before the Flying Crystal race.

Maybe, it wouldn’t take long before the Phantom Entities hiding in it broke out of the cocoon and returned to reality.

Right then, a middle-aged man, wearing a colonel shoulder board, strode into the med bay.

He was wearing a badge on his chest. It was made of a cracked skull with crossed red lightning bolts in the background, which looked cold and cruel.

The middle-aged man stopped beside the pool.

The dreadful injuries on Li Yao’s body made the corner of his eyes twitch. Shock and appreciation appeared in his eyes.

“It seems that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit does not protect the Exo as well as it should,” Colonel Guan Chao, captain of ‘Red Lightning’, observed unemotionally.

Although unaware of who he was, Li Yao had guessed that he must have something to do with the military order. He stated, “Maybe. But I stood to the end and I won.”

Guan Chao squinted and said, “Your performance in the Flying Crystal race was indeed an eye-opener. However, the key to your victory was not free of cunning tricks.

“In a match, you can pretend that your crystal reactor has exploded by taking advantage of the inattentive blindness of your opponents, which can buy you the most crucial ten seconds for your victory. It’s completely understandable.

“But what significance does this approach have in a real battle?

“What the military need is not a crystal suit that can win a Flying Crystal race with fancy disguises, but a killing machine that can slaughter the enemies in a battlefield!”

Li Yao smiled, his sharp teeth glaring. He tried to lift one of his fingers as he said, “Firstly, since the high-level demons are as intelligent as human beings, if Zuo Feijing and the other two Exos are fooled, the high-level demons might be fooled by the trick, too. In a real battle, if a high-level demon gets distracted by the idea that the crystal reactor of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit is going to explode, maybe for a single second, it will be the opportunity for the Exo to reverse victory and failure, or even life and death!”

Guan Chao remarked coldly, “Such deception can only be used once. You won’t fool anyone a second time.”

Li Yao slowly lifted a second finger.

“The second point, and also the more important point, which I didn’t tell Zuo Feijing just now because he might be scared, is that this is not deception.

“The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit can truly set itself off if I really want to.”

Guan Chao’s pupils constricted violently. “What did you say?”

Li Yao said, “The crystal reactor of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit is devoid of any Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, which makes it the most unstable crystal reactor of all the crystal reactors in the federation.

“The high-pressure valve is far from enough to fix the issue thoroughly.

“After all, the valve might malfunction or even break down in a ferocious battlefield.

“My ability is too limited for me to change that. So, on second thought, I added a detonator power rune array on the crystal reactor.

“With a telepathic thought, the crystal reactor can be turned into a massive crystal bomb and unleash the power that equals to the explosion of a hundred Hellfire-Lightnings.

“So, don’t presume that I was deceiving them just now.

“If I wanted, I had countless opportunities to die with Tiger King just now.

“In front of a world-shaking big bang, the performance gap between the two crystal suits is negligible.

“Of course, it’s just my personal modification.

“But the modification process is not complicated and does not require any Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. The self-destruction system can be added to the standard Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit easily.”

Guan Chao was dazed for a long time. He stared at Li Yao in a perplex way, before he opened his mouth after a long time. “Do you think it’s necessary to include the self-destruction system in the standard Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit?”

Li Yao nodded.

“If a final war between human beings and the demon clan is to break out, I believe a self-destruction system is of paramount importance for every crystal suit.

“I don’t know about other people, but for me, I would prefer dying with my enemies than being captured by the demons and tortured to death.”

Guan Chao didn’t reply. He stared at Li Yao deeply before he walked out of the room without saying anything.

Li Yao was ill at ease, wondering whether or not his answers had satisfied the mysterious colonel.

Five minutes later, Yuan Manqiu walked inside, her eyes reddish.

“We’ve received the official invitation from the military to join with Tiger King, Sword Torrent, and Mournful Mist in a special bidding meeting for the order of standard crystal suits.”

Yuan Manqiu briefly paused after every word, trying to calm herself down.

But Li Yao was able to hear the passion that his professor had been burying under the tranquility for twenty years.

“The military thinks highly of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. The final competition will be between Mystic Skeleton and Tiger King. Mournful Mist and Sword Torrent would serve as supplementary equipment because they are too lopsided in their performance. The military will most likely buy some of them for special forces. But they will not be purchased as the standard crystal suit to equip the federal army.”

Yuan Manqiu couldn’t control herself anymore. Her voice was shaking in anxiety and excitement.

“However, the challenge that you will be faced with in the bidding meeting will be hundreds of times more difficult than the Flying Crystal racing.

“Your opponents are not just the Tiger King, Sword Torrent, and Mournful Mist.

“A crystal warship on active service in the federal army will be your enemy, too!”