by <unknown>
However, Long Yunxin was not scared of Zhou Xiaoyu.
In fact, she had been hoping that she could meet her old nemesis soon.
Excellent. I'm going to kick you out of the top hundred for what you did to me last year!
Huh?
This guy Li Yao was classified into the same group as us?
Fighting against two seed players. Today is not your lucky today, my little friend who plays the pig!
The time for the second round had come.
Long Yunxin scoffed. She clenched her fists, producing clicking sounds, and she stepped onto the teleportation array with her head held high. She instantly appeared in a new field.
Except for those of the top experts, most competitions of refining were long and dull, without many highlights in the process.
In order to attract more spectators, the organizer had spared no effort in increasing the competitiveness of the match.
In the second round, every refiner had their independent workshop, but the walls of the workshops had been built up by transparent crystals, through which one could see clearly what the other nine competitors in the group were doing.
Besides, the workshops had communication channels connecting each other. When 'old nemeses' ran into each other, they could scorn and disparage one another with trash talk so that they might influence the mental states of their opponents. When that happened, it would be like two colliding comets, thrilling and entertaining!
Hardly had Long Yunxin entered her workshop when she noticed that her old friend Zhou Xiaoyu was her next-door neighbor.
Zhou Xiaoyu was wearing a black refining uniform. He looked gentle and elegant. The corners of his eyes were higher than regular, making him more appealing and endowing him with a weird charisma.
"Yunxin, I didn't know that we were so linked. We met early again this year. Hahahaha!" Zhou Xiaoyu smiled, while he eyed Long Yunxin as if she were an innocent pet.
"Young Master Zhou, please call me 'Fellow Cultivator Long'!" replied Long Yunxin coldly, not cringing at all. She glared at Zhou Xiaoyu.
Visible flames were flowing around them and filled their respective workshops. They were like two deadly animals crouching behind fragile bars and glowering at each other.
"We are doomed! We've been classified into the same group as two seeded players!"
"If there was one, we could try our luck. But there are two of them. This is indeed a group of death!"
"With the two sharks here, we shrimps stand no chance at all!"
"We can only try our best and get to a higher place!"
The other refiners of the same group all sighed upon seeing the murderous faces of those two.
In a workshop across from the two sharks', Li Yao sat cross-legged and stared at his hands with full attention.
More exactly, he was observing his thumbs, the two fingers which didn't participate in the battle earlier and were cramping violently because of hunger.
He bent and raised his thumbs, as if he were lifting two cold butchers' cleavers.
Li Yao opened his hands in midair. The two cleavers were placed on Long Yunxin's and Zhou Xiaoyu's necks.
Pa!
The fingernails on the thumbs couldn't bear the furious fighting will anymore and exploded at the same time. Hot blood dyed the two fingers crimson like magma!
Chapter 493: Hitting the Cow Past the Mountain! |
The second round of the Skyhill Sword Seminar was to begin in one minute!
There was nothing but silence on the Thousand Edges Mountain.
Regular tourists and fans of magical equipment were everywhere on the mountain. They craned their necks to look at the giant light beam in the sky.
People of the trade from the noble families of refining and from the Cultivation sects, in the meantime, were analyzing the data nervously in the special spectating rooms inside the Thousand Edges Mountain.
Amateurs watch a game; professionals watch what is behind a game. On the light beams of the experts of the trade, other than the live stream of the match, a series of figures and lines were also displayed so that they could examine the techniques, habits, advantages, and disadvantages of each contestant in great detail.
The super experts of the three main crystal suit centers were even more focused on the top players, while they were making plans to hire qualified talents.
The staff who had been as busy as bees all morning finally got a moment of rest. They gathered in the relaxation room and watched the match via their mini crystal processors.
Most of the staff were volunteers from the two supreme universities of Heavenly Saints City. They were all young people and were chitchatting merrily.
Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya were apparently the center of their focus. Xie Anan was the only exception, who had switched her channel to Li Yao and Long Yunxin's group.
"Anan, what are you watching? Why don't you join us?" A plump girl laughed and jumped on her back. Then she exclaimed, "Ah, you are watching the match of Long Yunxin and Zhou Xiaoyu's group? The early confrontation of two seeded players must be very entertaining!"
Xie Anan blushed and said somewhat nervously, "Yes. Yes indeed."
Right then, the match officially began!
Xie Anan had no time to bother about anything else. She focused her attention on the confrontation of the 23rd group!
Long Yunxin and Zhou Xiaoyu deserved to be seeded players. They had entered their best state the moment the match started. The flames flowing out their bodies were much brighter than before, as if they were being burnt. The fire on their hands was so intense that one could not even see their fingers clearly!
Thousands of streaks of brightness darted out of their hands and surged at the materials on the ground like tides.
In the second round of the match, the structural designs were designated and not allowed to be altered. The materials given were all the most regular metals, with barely any special attributes. There were no fancy tricks to resort to at all.
But for the super refiners, they could eliminate the impurities in the ordinary materials by cleansing them with their spiritual energy so that the performance and appearance of the materials could be improved slightly.
The pre-processing procedure for materials was also known as 'spiritualization'.
The magical equipment made of spiritualized materials was much stronger than that made of regular materials. But, of course, there was no agreed paradigm as to how exactly spiritualization should be carried out.
"Seeded players are indeed different from other competitors! Most refiners have turned on their furnaces, thrown in the materials and started the refinement of the components. In the meantime, the seeded players are activating their spiritual energy and spiritualizing the materials. We can zoom in on the picture later and observe the disparities between spiritualized materials and regular materials. I guarantee that they will be very different!
"Alright, other than the groups that Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya are in, we will focus more on the 23rd group in which Long Yunxin and Zhou Xiaoyu, two seeded players, are battling it out. There will definitely be sparks!
"Also, I would like to inform you that, according to the analysis of our guests, there is a dark horse in the 23rd group that deserves your attention besides the two seeded players! Please keep your eyes open, everybody. We are now switching the main picture to this mysterious contestant Li Yao! Let's see whether or not he is spiritualizing the materials as the seeded players are? Voila, this is Li Yao. We can see that…
"Well. We can see that…"
Words suddenly failed the host.
Xie Anan was dazed, too. Her mouth gradually widened in surprise.
Li Yao did not spiritualize the materials like the seeded players did, nor did he rush into refining the components like the other refiners.
He had turned on the furnace and kept it functioning at the minimum level. Then, he picked up a random hammer from the toolbox and walked to the furnace. He was now tapping
the furnace with the hammer and listening to the sound inside the furnace while he stuck his ears to the surface of it. His face was quite serious, as if he was doing something very important.
What is he doing exactly? Xie Anan was confused.
Li Yao's actions had stumped the host too. "Eh, Li Yao is acting weird here. Is there something wrong with his furnace? It can't be. All the furnaces have undergone the strictest tests before the match. Also, according to our monitoring platform, his furnace is working normally!"
Li Yao turned from tapping to batting, at a higher and higher speed. In the end, he even climbed to the top of the furnace like a giant monkey and bashed it with the hammer stormily. Very soon, there was machine oil all over his body. His face was blackened, too.
A moment later, he jumped off the furnace with a satisfied look and returned to the operation platform. He extended his fingers and shook them. More than ten maintenance tools were immediately rolled up.
BOOM!
Li Yao threw out his hammer, which heavily hit the transmission tube of the furnace, the weakest part of it.
One of the transmission tubes for the transportation of spiritual energy was stooped immediately!
Li Yao licked his lips. His eyes were completely black. His pupils turned into spreading ink and occupied the entire eyes. Taking a long breath, he started operating on the furnace quickly with dazzling movements of his hands.
"Master Dustless, what is Li Yao doing right now?"
The host had been meaning to keep the main picture on Li Yao briefly and give him a short introduction before shifting back to the top two players as soon as possible. However, Li Yao's surprising actions had rendered him speechless. He had no choice but to turn to the old professor.
There was astonishment in Master Dustless' voice, too, as he said, "He is making minor adjustments to the furnace!"
"Minor adjustments?"
"Yes, every skilled refiner has their unique habits in refining. When they are faced with an unfamiliar furnace, the first thing they do is always to make minor adjustments to the furnace in order to make it optimal for their own techniques and styles!"
The host said, "I do know such a practice. However, by operating on the light beam, he could set the parameters and command the crystal processor to do the adjustments if he wanted to create a unique refining environment of his own!"
"Of course, it is so nowadays. But long long ago, when the crystal processors were still underdeveloped, setting the parameters via the machines could not meet many special or extreme needs! Many old-fashioned refiners did not trust crystal processors. They believed what the saw, what they heard, and what they touched. Modifying a furnace with their bare hands was more to their liking.
"However, it was truly an old-fashioned tradition. The crystal processors of the Flying Star Sector are more than enough to carry out such tasks. Personally, I've never heard of any sect that has favored such a custom in the last two hundred years."
"Could it be—"
The host turned excited all of a sudden because he had finally found a highlight, "Alright. Everyone, Li Yao's profile has been presented to all of you. Contestant Li Yao is from the Great Horn Exo Society. But he was born in an ancient battlefield at the edge of the sea of stars. He is said to have been roaming among various relics and studying under an unknown, strange master! Is it a reasonable assumption that he is the sole successor of a school that was lost hundreds of years ago?"
Many spectators were excited.
"The sole successor of a school that was lost hundreds of years ago?"
"Are you kidding me? Hundreds of years ago? The hosts nowadays indeed have no standards at all!"
Some other spectators were sniffing and even protesting to the organizer via the Spiritual Nexus, demanding that the main picture be shifted back to the two geniuses. Why on earth were they watching a Mr. Nobody smashing a furnace with a hammer?
It was not until a good half hour later that Li Yao finished taking care of the furnace. The tubes of the furnace were now completely in disorder. Two units even swapped their places. Many joints of the tubes were spraying hot steams, producing frightening noises.
Although the ventilation rune arrays on the ceiling had been activated to their maximum, they could not drive away the surging mist inside the workshop. Enshrouded by the obscure steam, Li Yao was unpredictable as if he were in the middle of clouds.
Long Yunxin and Zhou Xiaoyu's competition had entered the most intense stage. They had both finished the spiritualization of materials and started the refining process. Continuous data was replacing one another on the light beams, making them too occupied to notice anything else.
Occasionally, Long Yunxin raised her head and noticed that Li Yao's workshop was smoldering as if he were trying to ignite coal.
She couldn't help but snort, before she was dedicated to her own operations again.
Xie Anan was so anxious that her big eyes were jumping out. She was of a mind to dive into the light beam and blow away the steam so that she could see what was going on more clearly.
In the fuzziness, she could only see that Li Yao had picked up dozens of kinds of materials without spiritualizing them.
What is happening? Why are the materials left unspiritualized? This is the boundary between the super experts and the top exerts! With your capability, you should know better than that!
Xie Anan was jumping on her feet impatiently.
Li Yao poured the first batch of materials, 27 kinds in total, into the feed-in tunnel of the furnace one by one. He then pointed casually on the operation menu, as if he were setting the refining environment randomly. In the end, he walked to the furnace, opened his hands, and pinned them to the surface of the furnace.
BOOM!
Suddenly, thunder broke out under his palms and drove away the steam inside the room completely, like two furious hurricanes!
Ci!
The elastic refining uniform of Li Yao's had been elevated up by his muscles that jerked like dragons. Li Yao's size seemed to have doubled within the moment. The muscles on his back interweaved into the brutal face of a roaring tiger!
The rumbling thunder inside the mini crystal processor was too shocking. Xie Anan felt that she was going lightheaded.
All the relaxation room was silent. Her fellow workers were all looking at her in surprise. "Anan, what is that noise?"
Inside the room of the live stream, although the main picture had been switching between Mo Tianshui and Huangpu Xiaoya, the two guests observed Li Yao's progress through a small monitoring light beam nearby.
The earsplitting noise almost scattered Master Dustless' eyebrows. His face color changed while he said, "Hitting the Cow Past the Mountain!
"Li Yao is spiritualizing the materials directly inside the furnace by blowing the spiritual energy into the furnace through the thick wall with the 'Hitting the Cow Past the Mountain' technique!"
Chapter 494: Sweet and Satisfying! |
The host was dazed. "He can do that? Why is he doing that?"
"He is trying to buy himself more time!"
Bi Luoling did not conceal the appreciation in her eyes. She continued, "Li Yao has wasted too much time in modifying the furnace in the traditional way at the beginning.
"We all know that, when it comes to the art of refining, capability does not necessarily equal to speed.
"Take the Iron Vine Flower for example. In order to retrieve its essence, you'll have to bake it in the flames of 3,352 degrees for 55 minutes and 43 seconds. One degree higher won't do, and one second shorter won't do, either!
"Even if a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator arrives and improves the temperature of the fire to five thousand degrees instantly, they cannot reduce the amount of time required by even half a second!
"Li Yao wasted a good half hour earlier. Generally speaking, that means he has abandoned the game on his side!
"In order to make up for the time he has lost, he is employing the method of refining and spi
ritualizing the materials at the same time!
"Spiritualizing materials against the blockage of the thick-walled furnace and under the high temperature and pressure has a high requirement on the perception, spiritual energy quantity, and the model construction ability of the refiner. Even inside the Red Line School, only a handful of experienced experts can perform such operations. But their failure rate is quite high, too. More importantly, they don't have to do it most of the time."
Master Dustless then continued the explanation. "It appears that Li Yao is quite confident in his skills. He believes that he won't fail and that he can catch up with the other contestants! I'm more curious about him than ever. It is said that he has experienced a lot of fortuitous incidents. I suppose the rumors are true. The world of Cultivators is indeed a vast place where amazing things happen. His performance is truly an eye-opener today!"
Inside the workshop, Li Yao stuck his hands to the furnace. Strings of spiritual energy were unleashed from the depths of his cells and gathered into waves like tidal bores. They surged out and fed back every slight vibration on the wall of the furnace so that Li Yao could sense the changes that were happening to the materials inside it.
For more than an hour, except for the time when he delivered new materials to the furnace, he had maintained the same posture. His muscles rose up time and time again as he exploited his physical strength and the power of his soul.
The high temperature curled his hair. His eyebrow was nearly burnt up. His lips were dry, with cracks on them. But he couldn't care less about all that.
His soul seemed to have penetrated into the dense wall of the furnace. It was compressed by the high temperature and pressure inside the furnace and mixed up with the metal materials.
The materials melded with each other and were rolled over and over, as if they were mud, by the immense pressure released by the hundreds of rune arrays inside the furnace after they were activated. The runes emitted brilliant mystic rays which pierced into the depths of the liquid metals and incurred inexplicable changes to their innermost structures. The core of the metal compounds gradually evolved and turned into new alloys!