Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“You know about ‘Cultivators’, too?”

Xiahou Wuxin was even more curious about Li Yao’s origins, but he did not pursue it any further. Sorting through his mind, he said, “The so-called ‘Judgment Day’ was in fact a destructive attack initiated by the Immortal Cultivators against the Cultivators in the Martial Meritocrats Sector. In the world-shaking war, the entire planet was burnt to the ground, almost all the cities were razed, and the resistance warriors of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were slaughtered.

“However, according to legend, a tiny proportion of warriors still persisted in resistance. They either regrouped into unpredictable guerilla teams among the broken builds and the enormous underground cities or seized the Immortal Cultivators’ warships and escaped into the depths of the universe beyond the Martial Meritocrats Sector, dealing with the Immortal Cultivators on a vaster battlefield.

“Because the Heavenly Rails and Manjusaka were not established yet at that time, and the super barriers that blocked the sky of the entire planet did not exist, it was relatively easy to escape.

“The survivors of the Martial Meritocrats Sector who ran to the sea of stars called themselves ‘Starlight’. It is said that they have been contacting other comrades in the universe who are against the Immortal Cultivators, trying to overthrow the Immortal Cultivators’ reign with the cooperation of the resisters who stayed in the Martial Meritocrats Sector. At the very least, they want to destroy Manjusaka and liberate the entire planet!

“I speculated that you are from Starlight, Senior Fiend Star, because you were so familiar with the magical equipment of the Martial Meritocrats Sector as if you had used it a long time ago.”

Xin Xiaoqi bulged her eyes and looked at Xiahou Wuxin and Li Yao. She mumbled, “Cultivators? Immortal Cultivators?”

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other and exclaimed in joy, too. “So, Cultivators do exist, and they have a fairly large resistance organization!”

Li Yao smiled in his heart and almost could not wait to tell them that there was not just a ‘fairly large resistance organization’ but also a very powerful country!

After pondering for a moment, he asked, “Are you certain of Starlight’s existence?”

“I am.” Xiahou Wuxin nodded. “Of all the instructions given by Manjusaka, the most important one is to investigate the whereabouts of ‘Starlight’ and ‘Cultivators’. The intelligence about them is always the top priority, and they must be dealt with before any mutated beasts or test subjects. I imagine that Starlight must have caused a lot of problems for the Immortal Cultivators and is still fighting to this day.”

“Then, have you ever met anyone from ‘Starlight’?” Li Yao asked.

“Not exactly,” Xiahou Wuxin said. “Most of the intelligence about ‘Starlight’ was gathered in secret by me. I have never seen a living Cultivator before. On second thought, the organization has existed in the Land of Sins and the space zones nearby for hundreds of years without being completely annihilated by the Immortal Cultivators. So, it must be highly secret. How could a nobody like myself have discovered them?

“However, I’m told that they tried to sabotage a few other Elysian Worlds. Perhaps, they intended to sneak into the City in the Sky through the towers in those Elysian Worlds. But all their attempts failed. After the organization suffered several serious strikes, it became even more taciturn and dangerous.

“Right. A few years ago, I received a notification from Manjusaka that ‘Starlight’ was very likely planning an unprecedented sabotage operation. All the Elysian Worlds were asked to raise our wariness and increase the defenses.”

“An unprecedented sabotage operation?” Li Yao’s man-made eyes glittered with interest. He became even more excited. “This is indeed a world-changing moment!”

“Then, do you know how to sneak into the City in the Sky?” the Fist King asked coldly.

“More or less, including part of the structure of the internal areas of the City in the Sky.” Xiahou Wuxin’s lips curled into a weird smile.

“How did you learn that?” Li Yao asked. “It’s not like Wei Xiaotian and his pals would inform you of such critical intelligence, right?”

“The Immortal Cultivators only treated me like a dog. Naturally, they would not tell me anything important about ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’.” Xiahou Wuxin grinned hideously. “However, the ‘trial-takers’ and the ‘experimenters’ had quite a high death rate during their activities in the Land of Sins. Some of them were even dragged by mutated beasts into their nests, never to be seen again. The Immortal Cultivators barely wasted their time searching for the bodies of the victims.

“Part of the bodies whose brains were not rotten and the victims who were heavily wounded by the mutated beasts but not entirely dead yet fell into my hands. In the darkness several hundred meters below the ground where all communications were blocked, whatever happened couldn’t have been seen by Manjusaka.”

The graveness in his voice made everybody shudder after looking at each other.

After a sniff, Xiahou Wuxin went on. “I knew that the day would come when I was killed because I was no longer of any value. Should I simply wait for the day to come and do nothing? Of course not. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Since the Immortal Cultivators treated the sinners in the Land of Sins as test subjects, I performed all the methods I learned from them back on them. It was indeed karma!”

“Master,” Xin Xiaoqi mumbled, “I’ve been wrong about you all the time…”

“Not exactly,” Xiahou Wuxin said in a bitter smile. “Although I was planning in secret the whole time, I did not have the courage to completely break apart from Manjusaka. The more intelligence I gathered from those guys, the more deeply I feared the enemy that I was faced with. Even if I could blow up Manjusaka, how should we deal with the Imperium of True Human Beings behind it? That is why I have been hesitating and wavering to this day!”

“I don’t know what the Imperium of True Human Beings is exactly,” the Fist King said calmly. “However, if it stands on my path to becoming the strongest, I will give my all to blow it up, too! It is not important whether I win or lose, and it is not worthwhile to waste computational ability on that question, either.”

Xiahou Wuxin’s eyes became bloodshot again when he looked at Xin Xiaoqi, Han Te, and Liu Li, whose faces were nothing but stubbornness, and then at Li Yao and the Fist King. He said in a low voice, “Perhaps you are right. I have been a dog for fifty years. I never knew until today how gratifying it was to hold your head high and be a real man!

“Whatever the outcome may be, we should try our best and fight for a bright future. Even if we truly die without burial, we will at least be confident to meet those who passed away a long time ago!”

“Rest assured.” Li Yao’s voice was filled with absolute confidence, and furious flames that could burn through the crust and stab into the sky were released from his soul. “As long as I am here, it will not be us who die without burial but our mutual enemy! Leader Xiahou, bring out all the magical equipment in this place and let me think carefully for a moment on how to turn them into the most suitable gear for all of you!”

Li Yao seized every second in the next three hours, not wasting a single moment. He was completely soaked in the world of modification and upgrades of the magical equipment.

Three hours later, when all the mechanical arms of the multipurpose maintenance platform were worn out by him, his work was finally completed!

Pertaining to Xiahou Wuxin’s specialty in flying swords, Li Yao modified a crystal suit named ‘Endless Swords’ for him. The thousand tiny flying swords on the crystal suit had all been polished by his soul, and every rune array was renewed by his spiritual threads. The speed and damage of the crystal suit were more than doubled!

In the meantime, Xiahou Wuxin had been recuperating inside a medical cabin, and his wounds were more or less cured. After he put on the unbelievably aggressive ‘Endless Swords’, he was like a completely different person from the heavily wounded patient a moment ago!

Xin Xiaoqi had always focused on speed, agility, and even stealth. So, Li Yao performed a full upgrade on the propulsion magical equipment on her hands and feet and embedded it into a high-speed scout crystal suit, transforming Xin Xiaoqi into an unbridled wildcat and making her exclaim in excitement.

As for Han Te and Liu Li, they had never learned the arts of the manipulation of crystal suits before. If they put on crystal suits recklessly, their combat ability would not be enhanced at all, and the gear would only become burdens.

Therefore, Li Yao selected two power combat suits with muscle enhancement functions for them. He then added nine layers of defense rune arrays on their armor, ensuring that the two little fellows could be safe on a fierce battlefield and provide fire support with the guns that were thicker than their thighs.

As for Li Yao himself, he had made other plans.

Now that he had found a piece of ‘high-molecular layer-by-layer scanning magical equipment’ and a Cosmos Ring to ship it out, his main focus was leaving the planet as soon as possible and rejoining his fleshly body.

If he stayed on the planet, he would be under the surveillance of the sky the whole time. Hiding below the ground forever would not work out.

Therefore, after he was completely melded with his fleshly body and consolidated in the Divinity Transformation Stage, he would be able to find an opportunity to sneak into the City in the Sky from space. That would be the best approach to completely destroy it.

The tracked spiritual puppet was too cumbersome and too obvious a target. It was even possible that the Immortal Cultivators had already locked onto it.

Therefore, Li Yao built a small, delicate spiritual puppet in the form of a spider for himself with the remaining materials in the warehouse. It was somewhat similar to the ‘Tarantula’ that he crafted years ago when he took the test for the refiner’s certificate.

Then, Li Yao installed a crystal processor that could be remotely controlled inside the heavy tracked spiritual puppet, allowing the five pairs of bogie wheels to roll over the enemies as before. But his own soul was actually hiding inside the Tarantula, pretending to be a beast puppet.

In that case, even if the Immortal Cultivators traced back to the Village of Peace according to the video files captured on the battlefield and eventually locked onto the ‘tracked spiritual puppet for cleaning and maintenance purposes’, they would not be able to find the real Li Yao!

“Are you all ready?”

Li Yao’s soul released ripples of excitement and glanced at everybody as they touched their brand-new magical equipment in joy.

“If you are, let’s break out of Liberty City right now and give the Immortal Cultivators a big surprise!”