by <unknown>
He was somewhat absent-minded. He went to the front of the Bloody Blade Battlesuit distractedly and traced his stubby fingers over the slightly rough texture, showing an inexplicable expression.
Over a couple decades ago, Mao Feng had also been a trainee in the Thunder Training Camp.
This Bloody Blade Battlesuit was his comrade and partner in the training camp.
Until the last training, when they headed deep into the Wasteland for real combat but encountered a huge beast tide, during which they killed and killed for a day and night.
Although they luckily escaped, the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was completely scrapped and was sent to the crystal suit graveyard.
Mao Feng remembered very clearly that the Bloody Blade Battlesuit had sustained corrosion from seven and eight demon beast acid attacks and had rusted to the point that it was barely recognizable.
However, he had never imagined that its past elegance could still be recovered!
Apart from some holes due to having been completely corroded, a vast majority of the places had a faint bloody hue lingering around, and every array glyph engraved on the crystal suit was so clear that he could feel the minutest details even with the slightest touch. The array glyphs were in such a good condition that the spiritual energy would flow very smoothly for sure!
"I didn't expect that you would see the light of day again!" Mao Feng muttered to himself with a complex mood.
The feelings between Exos and their crystal suits were somewhere between comrades in arms and a pet.
Although this Bloody Blade Battlesuit had not accompanied him for a long time, it had saved his life; its very existence had a very special meaning for him.
While Mao Feng was silently wallowing in emotions, the two refiners were gazing at six crystal suit fragments placed on the ground with a very appreciative gaze at a corner.
These six crystal suits had suffered the most corrosion, and their various components could barely hold together by relying on the rusted layer.
Li Yao had just broken their rusted layer and as such the six crystal suits completely fell apart.
Having lost the most crucial components, it was simply impossible to assemble their scattered components.
All Li Yao could do was place their scattered components on the ground in accordance with their approximate locations, gathering the components to try and give the six crystal suits humanoid appearances.
The problem was that he had arranged the components a bit too accurately!
Whether it was the gap or the angle between the components, it was just as it was denoted in the blueprints; it was as if a complete three-dimensional diagram was spread out meticulously on the ground and scaled up to real life version.
This level was absolutely professional to the extreme in the eyes of the two refiners.
After half a minute, the four had come to a conclusion with an incomparably complex mood.
"These one hundred and forty-six scrapped crystal suits have indeed been maintained fairly well, even their smallest gap has not been let off.
"And this was all completed while wearing that Balance Breaker!
"This kid is a freak, out and out!"
Mao Feng's beard quivered as he looked at Li Yao.
Only to discover Li Yao lying flat on his back at the center of the warehouse, having been fast asleep for some time, even lightly snoring.
Having been up for five days and five nights without so much as an ounce of rest and completely under a high concentration, his spirit had been exhausted to the extreme. This was almost the fiercest 'combustion of the soul' he had undergone since he became a cultivator!
He truly could not hold it back anymore and fell into the wonderland of his dream.
In his dream, a new world made up of thousands upon thousands of crystal suits bloomed slowly just like a flower bud.
"Mr. Xu..."
The chief instructor and the trainer went to a corner and whispered to each other, "Is this freak's potential still insufficient for you to personally create a training plan for him?"
"No!"
Mr. Xu shook his head and said, smiling wryly, "I found that the training plan I drew up for him a few days ago was too conservative, I still need to make it a bit crazier!"
...
When Li Yao woke up from his sweet dreams, the first thing he saw was Chief Instructor Mao Feng with a malicious look covering his face.
"Now, can I take part in the normal training with the other trainees?" Li Yao asked, fidgeting.
"Theoretically, you can!"
Mao Feng burst into a grim laughter, "However, all the instructors have been conducting training for five days; the other trainees have also completed their basic training and begun charging into the higher-level training! If a rookie like you joined them, wouldn't you be dragging everyone down?
"Therefore, count yourself lucky as this instructor has decided to personally train you!
"Of course, if you think that this is just an excuse, and in fact, this instructor wants to take this opportunity to torture you, ravage you, torment you, and look for an opportunity to eliminate you...
"Congratulations, you are right!
"Don't glare me like that, I'm still not finished. Aren't you good at doing maintenance on these crystal suits? So, from now one, you will have to take out extra five hours every night to maintain crystal suits!
"The crystal suits you are going to maintain this time are not the ones that were scrapped a few decades ago, but the crystal suits which are being used by all the trainees in the outer camp. Whether it's their crystal processor, their reactor, or their offensive magical equipment, you have to do maintenance on everything!
"It's ten times more difficult to maintain them than the scrapped crystal suits!
"I have arranged two refiners to oversee you. You have to especially report to them. No matter how messy or tired you are, everything will be left for you to complete!
"If you can't finish it, you have to continue during the day, also there is no need for you learn crystal suit tactics, you won't understand anyway!"
Facing the roars of the chief instructor, Li Yao didn't ever dare to shake his eyelashes and said seriously, nodding, "I understand, let's get started!"
Listening to him, Mao Feng was somewhat shocked as he said, knitting his brows, "You don't have anything to say?"
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "Actually, I do!"
"Speak!"
"Can the five hours of extra maintenance at night be changed to six hours, and can I also get some extra work as well? I can make do with sleeping one less hour!"
"..."
Just like that, the crazy training began.
During the day, Li Yao was ruthlessly tortured by Mao Feng.
In the evening, he carefully carried out maintenance on all the crystal suits used by the trainees.
Even in his sleep, he would study crystal suit blueprints and maintenance manuals with joy!
The Thunder Training Camp truly followed a completely closed training mode. The trainees could not contact the outside world, all the information sent out had to go through the training camp.
Every three days, Li Yao would give himself five minutes at night and write a bit about his training and sent it to his friend at Grand Desolate War Institution.
This was the only time he relaxed.
And the 'friend at Grand Desolate War Institution' referred to only one person.
Ding Lingdang.
"Sister Ling, today is my eighth day at the camp, it's also the third day since my training began.
"The training camp has specially modified a training crystal suit for me, it has five times more propulsion array glyphs than an ordinary crystal suit, spread front to back, left to right, top to bottom all over the crystal suit.
"The worst thing is that the rights to control these propulsion array glyphs are not on me, they are remotely controlled by a crystal processor and would randomly fire powerful jet stream.<
br />
"It's like countless transparent ropes pulling me ruthlessly any time, and I would then tumble to the ground.
"And I have to maintain balance under these random jet streams, and also finished a few set of highly difficult training as well.
"For instance, in the first training, I need to grab a hundred mini puppets the size of a fly that are randomly flying under a minute.
"I am busy for almost all of the day, and my best score is catching nine puppets in one minute.
"My performance has shocked Chief Instructor Mao Feng so much that he stared at me for a long time before he stated that he had never seen a stupid trainee like me. Others could capture twenty to thirty puppet beasts when they first started.
"It does not matter, I pay no heed to his words.
"In any case, I will not give up!"
Chapter 239: Stars Falling on My Head |
"Sister Ling, today is my 11th day in the training camp.
"After three days of hard training, I can catch 23 miniature beast puppets in the air in one minute.
"In fact, the game is not as boring as it sounds. Although I'm exhausted and my head feels like exploding after each training session, I consistently catch one more miniature beast puppet than the previous time.
"It feels good knowing that I'm getting the hang of it, one step after another.
"You're crazy at training, too. So, you must know what I'm trying to say, right?
"Then, the chief instructor Mao Feng probably discovered that I was happier than I was miserable after training. Therefore, he increased the difficulty of the game.
"Now, among the hundred miniature beast puppets that I need to capture within one minute, there are 5 different puppets called 'Bombers'. Once I touch them, they will unleash strong electricity that often overpowers me.
"I have to observe and distinguish the five Bombers from the rest of the miniature beast puppets in order to avoid them!
"It's really hard!
"But why am I so excited?"
…
"Sister Ling, today is my 17th day in the camp.
"I finished my first agility training session this afternoon. In a crystal suit with a power system which was in disarray, I caught a hundred fleeing miniature beast puppets and avoided 21 Bombers!
"The feeling of being king of the world couldn't be more fantastic. All the sweats, pains, and passion in the past half month all paid off!
"You must've felt the same when you grasped a new skill due to hard work and perseverance, didn't you?
"So, you definitely understand how I feel.
"This is just the beginning. There are dozens of other training subjects in agility training. Many of them look interesting. The more I learn, the more excited I get. Sometimes, too excited to even sleep.
"Besides agility training, I also started strength training.
"In strength training, I was asked to use a specially modified crystal suit.
"Crystal suits can double the abilities of the Exos, or even enhance them three times.
"But this damn crystal suit for strength training, on the contrary, sealed my strength and suppressed it to 30%.
"Even if I punched with my full strength and soul, I'd only deal 30% percent of the damage that I would've before.
"What's more, many ballast modules were added to this crystal suit, which are basically useless iron balls. They made the weight of the suit to over seven tons.
"Since the anti-gravity rune array and the power rune array are both greatly diminished, I basically need to carry most of the seven tons by myself. It's more like I am wearing a giant, super-heavy battlesuit.
"And I need to complete almost 100 training exercises, including deep squat, dead lift, sprint, and so on, in such a strength training crystal suit.
"It sounds… amazing!"
…
"Sister Ling, today is my 23rd day in the training camp.
"In the day, I train my strength, agility, and speed.
"During my training, video clips of the experts of the Thunder Training Camp fighting demon beasts are played in the crystal processor, which are brilliant!
"I have to multitask. While I'm training, I'll need to understand the combat videos and analyze the tactics employed in them because I need to submit a battle analysis report later.
"At night, I'm summoned to the crystal suit warehouse of the Outer Camp and maintain the hundred or so crystal suits under the guidance of two experienced Refiners.
"Although they're not the latest models, the crystal suits are still functioning well under the discreet maintenance and modification of the Thunder Training Camp. Crystal processors, crystal reactors, core magical equipment… everything's there. The precision of these crystal suits are ten times higher than the wrecked ones that I talked about before.
"In the beginning, I was so dumb that I couldn't even reintegrate a single crystal suit over an entire night. My fingers were worn down so much that I could see my bones.
"But the world of crystal suits is too amazing for me to care the abrasions.
"The Thunder Training Camp has very advanced medical equipment. Together with my secret ointment, the injuries can be completely healed within a couple of minutes.
"When my fingers are worn out, I use the medical equipment and the secret ointment to accelerate the healing. Worn out again, healed again. After about a hundred times of repetition, my speed of reintegrating a crystal suit is getting faster and faster and almost equal to the speed of the two experienced Refiners.
"Right now, they view me as a supernatural.
"I also gained an additional benefit from this incident.
"Since my fingers were broken and fixed so many times, the skin on them is much more tender than before, which has significantly improved my sensitivity.
"With a single touch, I am able to tell whether or not the curve of a component is precise and absolutely smooth. Even a 0.01 millimeter flaw can't escape my attention.
"That's about everything. I'm going to the warehouse now.
"Maybe because my performance during the maintenance of the crystal suits was so crazy and the two experienced refiners were so shocked, they decided to hand over some simple repair work to me.
"Repairing the crystal suits!
"Even though they're antique models from a hundred years ago, even though the problems are the simplest of all, it is still an arduous and challenging job for me!
"My blood is boiling. The path of a future Armadominus commences now!"
…
"Sister Ling, today is my 29th day in the training camp.
"First, I'd like to tell you something super awesome.
"I have advanced to another level!
"At four o'clock this morning, I went out in the training crystal suit to do some overtime because I felt that the training subjects that Mao Feng set up were too easy and not satisfactory enough.
"But the moment I was exhausted and on the verge of crumbling, I sensed something mysterious and fascinating.
"It was the boundary of night and day, the grand finale of the darkness before dawn.
"Over my head, most parts of the sky were black, with galaxies glaring and stars shining. But the horizon to the east were blooming in red.
"For a moment, it seemed that all the stars in the sky were raining upon my head before they crushed my body from the top of my skull.
"In the meantime, the morning glow embraced me like ribbons.
"The sky, the earth, stars, and clouds reverberated with my blood, muscles, nerves, organs, and soul, cheering for me and encouraging me!
"I've finally reached the 7th level of the Refinement Stage!
"Hahaha. But you might not be as glad as I am, because the gap between us is smaller by a little bit now. It won't be long before I surpass you!
"The first elimination match of the Thunder Training Camp will be held tomorrow. Of the hundred students, only fifty will stay.
"Other students have been training cra
zily, too.
"Although I never saw it with my own eyes, I know that none of them will be easy to deal with, based on the scratches on their crystal suits.
"Besides, their abilities were higher than me before. Many of them are in the 10th level of the Refinement Stage or even higher.
"If we are equally skilled at driving crystal suits which give us equal enhancements, they'll be stronger than me!
"If I want to stay, there is only one way—do the best of my best!"
…
"BANG!"
"BANG! BANG!"
Two crystal suits, one in red and the other in black, were both moving fast, locked in brutal combat over a moor full of toxic smog.
The collision of the spiritual shields triggered strong blast waves that twisted the rays of light within the hundred square meters, making everything look like a scene from a movie.
Suddenly, after an irritating noise of metal being torn apart, the red crystal suit exploded and fell down into the moor with a big splash like a kite whose string had been cut off.
Some instructors who were watching close immediately rushed over in their crystal suits. They rescued the student in the moor and took him to the mobile med bay.
"No. 57 wins!
"No. 39 fails. Eliminated!"
Excited screams came from the black crystal suit.
This was the first elimination match of the Thunder Training Camp.
The hundred students were divided into two groups according to their ranks.
Those whose rank were above fifty would draw lots and select a student whose rank was below fifty randomly. The two of them would fight until one was defeated.
Winners would be able to stay in the Thunder Training Camp, receive more strict training, and learn more about the arts of crystal suits.
Losers would have to pack up and leave.
But before they were dismissed, the training camp would provide a detailed analysis report, compiled by the formidable Training Planners according to their performance over the past month, on their advantages and disadvantages, as well as a future training plan.
The analysis report and the training plan alone were worth the expensive tuition fees.
It was also one of the reasons why the Thunder Training Camp had been popular over the decades and praised by so many Exos.