by <unknown>
"The roars that we are hearing are made by his hands when they are breaking the sonic barrier!
"His hand speed has surpassed all limits. He is carving a chip at a supersonic speed!"
The host shrieked, "Supersonic hands? Is that really a thing?"
The field was filled with whispers. Many audience members couldn't help but stand up and gaze at the enlarged picture in midair bewilderedly.
Inside the VIP room, the experienced refiners were dumbfounded, too.
Supersonic hands were the privilege of the refiners at the Core Formation Stage by common sense.
However, every sign in Li Yao's performance from the beginning to now suggested that he was merely around the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage. More importantly, he was only in his twenties!
What kind of horrifying training did he receive to raise his hand speed to such an extent?
The managers of the three main crystal suit centers looked at each other and suddenly retreated to a corner at the same time. They were contacting their respective human resources department asking them to draft a fat, attractive contract as soon as possible.
The manager of Red Line School was so regretful that he was almost bashing his head. Last night, they'd had an opportunity to recruit such a talent in advance, but because of a moment of hesitation, they had let the cooked duck fly away!
Seeing the beaming and greedy face of his competitors, he knew that the fight for the talent would be nothing but intense. He would have to spend quite a fortune in order to get him!
Across from Li Yao's workshop, Mo Tianshui subconsciously stopped his actions. He gazed and walked to Li Yao subconsciously and almost hit the wall.
The talented heir of the noble family found his heart pounding and his face pale.
Impossible. It's definitely impossible!
Carving a chip with supersonic hands? That's outrageous!
This is a psychological strategy!
His hands might be really fast, but how can he make an authentic chip with nothing but his bare hands? He must be tricking me!
No, I must calm down. I have crushed my opponent in every competition since the first one. Today shall be no exception!
Right then, an earsplitting warning broke out from the furnace behind him.
Mo Tianshui quickly turned around and gasped.
On the control menu, several figures had turned deep red, and one of them had even gone black!
Not good!
The batch of components that he had refined for last fifteen minutes had been wasted!
Mo Tianshui gnashed his teeth so hard that he almost crushed them.
Li Yao's hands were trembling at the top speed, while they zigzagged and bounced at a supersonic speed within the tiny distance, driving the seven cutters of mystic rays to leave clear spiritual energy circuits on the chip.
Twenty minutes later, the last line was completed. He suddenly felt his head was dizzy and almost fell over.
His hands resumed absolute stillness instantly. But they were suddenly enveloped by burning flames.
Due to the friction with the air, his hands had been heated to a very high temperature, and they were on fire like a falling star that had breached into the atmosphere.
Li Yao took a breath in relief. There was more easiness than exhaustion on his face.
Even without the protection of spiritual energy, the pain of his hands being burnt was less than one tenth the suffering from being bitten by Purple Ring Sword Ants.
He simply let his hands burn, while he stood up and stretched his arms, before he walked to a corner of his workshop slowly.
In the corner, there was a metal bucket that was filled with bright green nutrition liquids.
Since the high-intensity refining work was six hours long, it was expected that the refiners took a moment of rest every once in a while and nourish their hands with the nutrition liquids.
Li Yao stabbed his burning hands into the nutrition liquids. The flames were immediately put out.
Centered around his hands, two swirls appeared in the nutrition liquids and span quickly!
Half a minute later, Li Yao withdrew his hands. The height of the nutrition liquids dropped by one third!
"Almost one third of the nutrition liquids have been devoured by Li Yao's hands! His—his hands are like two hungry animals!"
The host's voice was somewhat coarse.
After witnessing so many unbelievable scenes, he had lost the strength to shout and scream.
Chapter 501: Edgeless Sword, Blood Dragon Tooth! |
The procedures after carving the spiritual energy circuits were much easier. Li Yao crumbled Purple Soda Leaves and Phoenix Tail Willows into powder and mixed them with Rail Flower Water at a certain ratio. After they were fully blended, he dripped the solution on the chip, which was still burning hot, in order to ensure the robustness of the spiritual energy circuits. In the end, he encapsulated the chip with Grand Heavenly Copper and baked them in the fire of 355 degrees for seventeen minutes. And everything was done!
Twenty minutes later, the prolonged match of six hours finally came to an end.
When the two refiners walked out of their workshops with their marvelous weapons, the air inside the field was rattling like the sound of cloth being torn apart.
Li Yao was carrying a battle saber packed in grey linen on his back. Coldly-shining sawteeth that looked like the tusks of a fearsome animal were on both the back of the saber and its edge. On the body, zigzagging crimson traces seemed to be dragons lurking in an abyss that were about to break free from their shackles and soar to the sky!
The blade was named 'Blood Dragon Tooth'. It was 1.3 meters long and weighed 72.5 kilograms. It could deal a lot of damage with both vibration of the edge and the revolution of the sawtooth!
The dragon-like blood stripes on the body of the saber had been stamped through the 'Blood Baptism' technique with ten drops of blood from Li Yao's fingertips to strengthen the connection between him and the weapon.
The destination of the blood stripes was his manually-made control chip!
Mo Tianshui deserved to be the heir of a major sword-forging family. Although awed by Li Yao's senseless show briefly, he resumed his calmness very soon after. Walking out of his workshop, antique and tranquil, he looked again like a statue that had just been unearthed.
Inside his arms was a vintage long sword enshrouded by green silk.
Although it was delicately-shaped and the rune arrays on it were quite sophisticated, there was no edge on the sword, nor were there any signs of sawtooth.
At first glance, it was just an iron stick that somebody made carelessly!
The sword was named 'Edgeless'. It was 1.51 meters long and weighed 71.44 kilograms. According to Mo Tianshui himself, it was a special model that belonged to the family of chainswords.
The two refiners' eyes collided in the air as if a blade and a saber had crashed. Many regular spectators whose metal power was relatively weak were all hearing clangs and seeing sparks!
At this moment, any words would be redundant.
Even the host, who had kept talking since the beginning, turned quiet while he watched the staff to bring the two pieces of magical equipment into the examination room.
The honeycomb-type refining center, where tens of thousands of people were seated, was now dead silent. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of racing hearts. Every pair of eyes was fixed on the giant light beam that gradually descended from the ceiling. The light beam rippled as if it could not withstand so many enthusiastic eyes.
Some spectators who were less impatient were cursing in a low voice.
The examination of the elimination matches was extremely cruel. The blades of the two players would be engaged in head-on confrontations.
Inside the examination room, their blades would be placed on special attack rune arrays which would transmit the same amount of spiritual energy to them and drive them to attack each other. Each collisi
on would be one round.
After each round, the spiritual energy inputted would be doubled, until one of the two blades was slashed apart or blown to pieces!
In the first round, one standard unit of spiritual energy would be sent in. It equaled to the spiritual energy that a Cultivator in the beginning level of the Refinement Stage could unleash when they were fully burning their soul.
The second round would be two standard units. The third round, four. After several rounds, the spiritual energy transmitted into the blades would reach a shocking extent, and the damage that the blades dealt would be devastating, too.
As the examination proceeded, one of the two blades would give in sooner than the other. It either exploded because of spiritual energy overflow or was shattered by the hostile blade.
It was the cruelest confrontation between refiners!
'Blood Dragon Tooth' versus 'Edgeless'. The examination began!
All the spectators inside the field, the experienced refiners in the VIP room, the volunteers from the two supreme universities, including Xie Anan in the relaxation room… Everyone held their breath.
Inside the spacious examination room, at two ends of a diagonal line, twenty meters away from each other, two large-scale attack rune arrays more than one meter in diameter and as complicated as a maze had been deployed.
The two rune arrays stored the fighting will and the moves of many experts. After the blades were put on them and sufficient spiritual energy was sent in, they would attack each other automatically.
Two rune arrays were now lit up, one green and one red. Edgeless and Blood Dragon Tooth floated above the rune arrays, the auras on them fluctuating.
After a buzz, the two rune arrays glittered at the same time. Dazzling spiritual energy spurted out from every rune and congregated into a raging spiritual wave that swallowed the two marvelous weapons!
In the first round, one standard unit of spiritual energy had been inputted!
Motivated by the surging spiritual energy, Li Yao's Blood Dragon Tooth started vibrating at a high frequency. The sawteeth revolved on the back and the edge of the saber vibrated crazily, producing blood-freezing noises!
Mo Tianshui's Edgeless suddenly glittered, too. Flames of brightness dashed out from the inside of the sword and adorned it with a quickly-spinning sawtooth made of mystic rays!
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Driven by the attack rune arrays, the saber and the sword turned into two streaks of brightness and crashed into each other brutally!
BOOM!
A visible blast spread out from the center of collision into thousands of waves, which then formed what seemed to be transparent feathers and fell off.
The two marvelous weapons returned to their respective corner, utterly undamaged. They were roaring wildly like two ferocious animals that had been irritated!
They seemed to be bellowing 'Not enough! Gimme more spiritual energy!'
The second round, two standard units of spiritual energy were sent in!
With double spiritual energy, the two blades were much more appalling than before. Crimson auras were raging around Blood Dragon Tooth. The dragon-like blood stripes on the body of the saber were on a rampage, too, as if they were breaking free!
Edgeless was surrounded by green fire. The air near it was compressed to the absolute minimum. A tornado seemed to be savaging inside the examination room!
Two surging waves crashed into each other, head to head. The noises they raised seemed to be enough to knock over the entire field.
The third round. Four standard units of spiritual energy were sent in!
…
It was not until the fifth around, when sixteen standard units of spiritual energy were inputted, that the first dents on the two blades appeared almost at the same time.
The host was immediately refreshed. "Blood Dragon Tooth and Edgeless are both taking damage. Their spiritual energy circulation is not as fluent now, either. It seems that they are reaching their limits! Master Dustless, which side do you think will win eventually?"
"It's hard to say. Mo Tianshui's Edgeless is very creative and not hamstrung by any dogma. But the design was improvised based on his original design because Li Yao took away his crucial materials. There are bound to be a lot of shortcomings and deficiencies. Look, the sawtooth made of mystic rays is showing early signs of collapse already.
"Meanwhile, Li Yao's Blood Dragon Tooth is based on his long-prepared design. Its framework is much more stable. The two forms of damage from revolution and vibration have increased the destructiveness of the blade by multiple times.
"But he, too, has a fatal problem.
"Will the 'Iron-Knight-II' control chip, which he made with his bare hands just now, keep stable after so many insane collisions while being stimulated by more than sixteen standard units of spiritual energy?
"If the control chip loses control, the two spiritual energy circuits inside the blade will start conflicting. The blade will break down by itself."
"Therefore, the key to the confrontation is the 'Iron-Knight-II' control chip.
"If the chip is stable, Edgeless will lose soul!
"If the chip breaks apart, Blood Dragon Tooth will shed blood!"
Hardly had Master Dustless finished his comment when the two weapons that had been injected with sixty-four standard units of spiritual energy collided heavily for the seventh time!
A weird thing happened!
The tremendous momentum did not raise any sound. The saber and the sword were stuck to each other as if they were attracted by something invisible!
The host exclaimed, "Oh! Spiritual entanglement!"
Spiritual entanglement was not an unusual phenomenon during the confrontation of magical equipment. The immense spiritual energy triggered by two pieces of magical equipment sometimes would be attracted and melted, thereby forming an enormous force field of spiritual energy.
In such cases, the confrontation would be entirely dependent on the strength of the blades. Tricks wouldn't matter at all. They would not part again until one of them was broken or battered!
The winner would be revealed in several seconds!
Li Yao and Mo Tianshui clenched their fists at the same time.
The auras surrounding Blood Dragon Tooth and Edgeless diminished compared to a moment earlier, but the intimidating strength unleashed from the inside of the magical equipment was soaring exponentially!
The auras from the saber attacked those from the sword, and the sawtooth of the sword bit that of the saber. Two ferocious animals bit into each other's throat at the same time and couldn't let it go at all. They could only try to keep on mauling each other until one of them died!
Crack!
Crack!
Cracks that looked like spider nets appeared on the saber and the sword and quickly spread out.
But the cracks on Blood Dragon Tooth approached the control chip faster!
Bo!
Under the 'attack' of the cracks, the control chip suddenly glowed, before it exploded. Blood Dragon Tool finally couldn't bear it any longer and broke down into thousands of pieces!
"Master Dustless's prophecy has come true! Blood Dragon Tooth's control chip was seriously affected and lost the ability to coordinate the two spiritual energy circulations, which ended up attacking each other.
"Edgeless took the opportunity and blew up Blood Dragon Tooth!"
"Ha!"
Mo Tianshui, who had always been as calm as dry wood, suddenly turned into someone else. He grinned, his every tooth shining. Ecstasy that solely belonged to young men beamed out of his face, while he jumped high like a monkey and waved his fist in the air!
Inside the VIP room, many experts from the Mo family were dazed.
Were their eyes deceiving him?
Was this guy the Mo Tianshui who they were familiar with?
It was well known that Mo Tianshui had never smiled after a victory ever since he was twelve.
For him,
victories were as abundant as air. What was there to be excited about when breathing air?
"Blood Dragon Tooth exploded?"
The spectators were in chaos. Some were shouting.
However, in the very next second, while Mo Tianshui's exultant smile was still spreading on his face, twelve dazzling lightings burst out, one after another, in the center of the thousands of pieces that used to be Blood Dragon Tooth.
Amid rumbling noises, the hundreds of electric arcs blossomed and connected all the pieces of Blood Dragon Tooth into a saber of lighting more than three meters long!
It was as if Edgeless had helped Blood Dragon Tooth break its seal.
This was the true form of Blood Dragon Tooth!
Chapter 502: Critical Strike! |
Lightning was crackling. Scraps were flying. Every piece of the saber was like a sharp tooth, which was revolving fast and swallowing 'Edgeless' as if a ferocious animal made of electric arcs had opened its bloody mouth!
Edgeless had been improvised and refined in a hurry in the first place. Its internal structure was not stable. Breaking the first form of Blood Dragon Tooth was already the best it could do. Right now, it had tiny damages inside and out, and was unable to bear the ruthless tearing of the electric arcs and the scraps.
Blood Dragon was gloating; Edgeless was screaming before it broke apart a moment later!
That was not the end of it!
Edgeless' thousands of pieces were captured by the raging electric arcs as well and became part of Blood Dragon Tooth!
It appeared that the sword had been devoured from skin to bones!
After absorbing Edgeless' pieces, Blood Dragon Tooth quickly expanded to more than five meters long. Electric arcs were coiled around it. Scraps from the two blades gathered into an iron tide and crashed into the wall of the examination room brutally!
BOOM!
The transparent wall made of super-hard crystals and engraved with multiple defense rune arrays was added with a deep, terrifying trace by the attack. After an earsplitting sound, thousands of cracks spread across the entire wall!
This attack apparently drained Blood Dragon Tooth. One second later, the lightning and the force field both perished. Thousands of pieces fell down to the ground.