Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  A lot of changes had happened to the other demons, too. The half-human-half-snake demon who was on the same flying bat ray as Li Yao had a wider and larger blade limb with jagged edges. Metallic colors were vaguely shining on the limb, which almost surpassed the speed of sound when its owner only lightly waved it.

  The desire for strength was almost a natural instinct for the demon race. Sensing that their potential was flooding out like a volcanic eruption, the demons all forgot what a harsh environment they were in and could not wait to warm up their new bodies.

  However, a moment later, a lot of demons fell over in dizziness.

  The few supervisors waved their hands, and a large batch of servants brought over delicious-smelling mountains of meat.

  "You have just taken strengthening drugs that cleansed your veins and nerves and gave you a rebirth," the supervisor said naturally. "Although your body is stronger now, the process also consumed a lot of your energy. You must have food immediately. Feel at home. Eat until you are satisfied!

  "This is your first time eating after triggering your potential and the foundation for your newfound strengthening, so you must try to have enough food!

  "If you really cannot have any more meat, you can have a few fruits that are placed aside. They are helpful for digestion!"

  Most low-level demons had never enjoyed a proper meal back when they were in their hometown. On their bumpy trip to this place, to deplete their energy, they had not been granted much food, either. They were already nearly starved, and now that they had been told that they could eat however much food they liked, none of them could contain themselves any longer. A few hasty demons had already lunged close and dug into the mountains of the meat.

  Li Yao was not courteous, either. Ever since he arrived in the Blood Demon Sector, he had basically been living as a vegetarian and never had a satisfying meal. His body, after being modified by the mental devil, had a much greater consumption rate of energy than before. He was barely able to make ends meet.

  Although the food of the Skeleton Island was crudely made, there were all kinds of demon beast meat that contained a huge amount of spiritual energy. Li Yao was not the type of person to be picky about the flavor of food, either. After activating the Art of the Swallowing Whale, he simply poured all the food into his mouth as if it were a bottomless hole. A roasted whale was devoured down to the skeleton in only a few seconds before all the bones were chewed casually and swallowed.

  While he was fine without eating, now that he had the chance to be a glutton, his taste buds were stimulated, and his appetite soared. Li Yao's eyes were shining, and heave noises were echoing from his throat. He was like a prehistoric beast wandering amid the food as if nobody was around.

  Other demons looked at him as if he were a hungry ghost reincarnated. Many of them quickly moved further away and kept their distance from him, fearing that he would mistake them for food as well when he was enjoying his food too much.

  Not far away, the bull-horned muscular demons were still devouring the food in front of them. Occasionally, they raised their head and grinned at Li Yao when they saw the empty wood trays in front of him.

  The meal lasted more than an hour. There was no telling how much food they had eaten, but the bones aside were already piled up into a hill.

  The supervisor put on a delighted face, too, as he said, "You've all seen the benefits of joining the Skeleton Island as gladiators, haven't you? More furious strengthening drugs and more abundant food, which can turn you into real experts, are waiting for you!

  "However, whether you are qualified to enjoy them or not depends on your performance tomorrow!

  "Tomorrow will be your debut. Your life and death will count on yourselves!

  "A batch of information bugs will be given out to you. Every information bug contains the battle experiences of countless experts. You are permitted to use them for one night. For the sake of your own life, I hope you can try to retrieve more battle experience from them. Haha. Hahahaha!"

  A few workers pulled over more than ten large tanks that were filled with a bright green liquid in which countless objects that looked like pineapples and cocoons were soaking.

  Li Yao knew that they were the information bugs that the demon race produced with their biochemical technology. They were essentially biochemical cerebrums that could only keep or release memories. Similar to the jade chips of human beings, they could store a lot of information.

  Besides, the information bugs could be connected directly to the cranial nerves and transmit the information at a much higher efficiency than jade chips.

  Dense lines of instructions had been carved on the tanks. The workers explained that the tanks were classified according to different focuses, such as speed and strength, to the illiterate gladiators.

  For the strength-type ones such as the bull-horned muscular demons, it was more suitable for them to pick the battle experience that concentrated on physical strength.

  As for the half-human-half-snake demon, his best choice would be the battle experience that highlighted agility and speed.

  The newly-arrived gladiators, despite their illiteracy, knew that the coming battle would certainly be extremely brutal. More battle experience absorbed right now meant more chance to survive tomorrow. Therefore, nobody wasted any time and simply selected a tank that was pertinent to their advantages. They took out a few information bugs from inside and walked aside for their training.

  Li Yao's main weapon right now was the sharp claw on his left arm. He selected an information bug that focused on claw attack skills and sat cross-legged in an empty corner before he stuck the information bug to his forehead.

  He held two soft slices of flesh on the two sides of the information bug and squeezed them slightly. A few tiny tentacles that looked like the antennas of a snail immediately protruded out of the information bug and pierced into his forehead.

  Streams of information immediately flooded into his brain, forming hazy illusions.

  His soul seemed to be absorbed into a whole new world inside the information bug.

  He was now a swift wolf demon on a desolate battlefield fighting an intense battle against a tiger demon.

  The two front claws of the wolf demon were particularly thick. The talons were like shining sabers and even triggering vague auras that extended to a meter away with earsplitting noises.

  Other than that, the battle was rather boring. Both the wolf demon and the tiger demon were at the level of demon general. Naturally, their combat was full of flaws in Li Yao's eyes.

  But Li Yao greatly enjoyed the battle nonetheless.

  As the saying goes, if three men are walking together, one of them is bound to be good enough to be my teacher. Li Yao did not know much about the combat skills of the demon race. Those mediocre demons were all performing the most fundamental attacks. It was a great chance for Li Yao to learn.

  Li Yao never overlooked the importance of the fundamental knowledge. Between two points, a straight line was always the shortest. It had always been Li Yao's belief that the core of a successful fight was to exert the most force across the shortest distance with the minimum interface in the shortest amount of time, which was why he preferred simple weapons such as drills to the fancier moves.

  The simple fighting between the wolf demon and the tiger demon gave him a great opportunity to study the most fundamental attack skills between such demons.

  As he watched, Li Yao's computational ability soared. The wolf demon and the tiger demon seemed to have both become a series of data. By analyzing the speed and angle of their attacks, Li Yao rectified their moves and corrected the flaws that they showed while he summarized the useful points of their combat. He gained endless experience from the process!

  Half an hour later, Li Yao took off the information bug and smiled in great satisfaction.

  He had fully absorbed the battle experience of the wolf demon and the tiger demon. Right now, he could perform exactly the same moves that the tw
o demons did in an even sharper, faster, and more flawless way!

  Li Yao threw the information bug back and picked up a second information bug, continuing his studies.

  At that moment, other demons were still groping and struggling in the world of the first information bug.

  Li Yao could understand the battle experience stored inside the information bugs within a breath. But for the rest of the demons, it was like a boundless ocean. It was possible that they would not be able to grasp one information bug until quite a few hours later.

  Time flew while they were training. Without them knowing, it was already late at night. The workers provided plenty of food for the newly-arrived gladiators, who were allowed to enjoy it at any time. There was even a vacant training field nearby where they could put the battle experience they had just learned into practice.

  Li Yao absorbed the battle experience contained in more than thirty information bugs greedily. Besides learning tremendous fundamental moves of attack of the demon race, Li Yao made an interesting discovery.

  It is rather odd that all the stored battles are between demons. Some of them are even between bronze-blood demons and silver-blood demons!

  On second thought, this is rather weird. Back in the Heaven's Origin Sector, human beings train themselves with the method of 'virtual combat', too. However, the opponents in the virtual battles were mostly demon beasts and demons. They rarely attack each other.

  By the same logic, since the Blood Demon Sector's major enemy right now is the Heaven's Origin Sector, shouldn't they set human beings as the targets in the virtual battles?

  However, if the Skeleton Island has always been a secret boot camp of the Blade of Chaos, then everything will make sense.

  For the low-level demons such as the chaotic-blood demons and the black-blood demons, they must be full of reverence for the high-level demons such as the silver-blood demons after thousands of years of brainwashing. Even if they do burst into fury, it is unlikely that they will attack the silver-blood demons.

  But right now, through the information bugs, they will discover that the silver-blood demons are made of flesh and blood just like themselves. The silver-blood demons will bleed, scream, and die miserably, too!

  They can even 'slay' a silver-blood demon with their own hands in the virtual combat!

  Such an experience could disrupt their veneration for the silver-blood demons and the bronze-demons completely!

  Chapter 871: Lightning Dungeon |

  Li Yao was certain that the methods through which the Skeleton Island trained the gladiators were unusual. Normal arenas could never afford so many strengthening drugs and so much demon beast meat in order to improve the capability of the gladiators. Furthermore, they would never teach mere gladiators such lethal techniques.

  However, was the matter related to Yuchi Ba, the owner of the Skeleton Island, or were there actually more secrets to it?

  He would have to wait and crack the problems patiently.

  After all, he could absorb abundant strengthening drugs and battle experience, not to mention the endless, free food that he could refill his energy with. He would not mind at all if he had to stay for a while longer.

  During the night, Li Yao snatched almost a hundred information bugs to absorb the battle experience inside.

  Naturally, the number was much higher than what the other demons took.

  However, in the past, some of the gladiators were ambitious and unwilling to take their time to learn new things. They thought that they could absorb enough battle experience and become an invincible expert overnight.

  The supervisors naturally considered Li Yao to be one of such ignorant fools, but they were too lazy to remind or stop him.

  After all, all the gladiators were the bottom-level expendables, being shipped to the Skeleton Island on a daily basis. The vast majority of them would be killed in their very first battle. Why would the supervisors waste their precious time on the gladiators?

  …

  At noon in the next day, after a sleepless night, the newly-arrived gladiators all knew that a great test was coming close. They were all pacing back and forth anxiously. The bull-horned muscular demons were even breathing out white steam in their excitement.

  The supervisors brought buckets of strengthening drugs to them again. By Li Yao's analysis, most of the drugs were for the purpose of mending the body. The Skeleton Island must have been trying to restore their bodies as much as possible after a night of crazy training.

  After an earsplitting whistle outside, they were brought to fully-enclosed tanks that had sharp thorns on the outside. The vehicles seemed to be combinations of hedgehogs and tortoises and were quite awe-inspiring when other people looked at it.

  Through the ventilation tubes of the tanks, the overwhelming roars not far away could vaguely be heard.

  Li Yao knew that it was an arena of the Skeleton Island.

  After a bumpy, ten-minute ride, they were driven off the vehicles by the guards of the Skeleton Island, only to find themselves in a stenchful arsenal.

  Rusted weapons were hanging on the walls on the two sides. There were not only bone blades, bone spears, and acid launchers, which were the demons' favorites, but also chainswords, vibration sabers, and heated axes from the Heaven's Origin Sector.

  However, the weapons of human beings were mostly deformed to the point of destruction, with stains of blood on them. They were possibly trophies that the demons captured during the countless battles.

  Li Yao thought for a moment and picked three short, tiny bone spears. He hid them inside his palm as if they were light, sharp daggers.

  Huala!

  At the front, a bronze gate on which the scenes of countess demons fighting with demon beasts was opened. The first thing to greet the new gladiators were the screams and yells full of brutality and bloodthirst that were surging toward them like tides. Then, stinky smells of blood bashed everybody like iron hammers.

  The noises and the stench patrolled inside the narrow arsenal like two invisible beasts.

  Li Yao sensed that the legs of many chaotic-blood demons were already shaking.

  "Let's go! Let's go!"

  Behind everybody, the fully-armed guards of the Skeleton Island yelled maliciously, with acid guns in their hands.

  The gladiators looked at each other in bewilderment and hesitated. Li Yao was the first to stride out of the room with his head held high.

  He narrowed his eyes and observed the arena casually.

  It was more than five hundred meters long and three hundred meters wide, similar to a standard crystal ball arena. The stands on the two sides were of different levels and all made of obsidian. Right now, there was not a vacant seat, and everybody was shouting and cheering.

  The west side was the stand for ordinary spectators, where the bizarre-looking, hideous bronze-blood demons were seated. As the warrior class of the demon race, the only significance of their life was to fight. Watching and participating in a game in an arena was almost their sole entertainment.

  On the east side, the obsidian seats were replaced by the Gold Stream Stones, which were embedded with golden threads, and the open auditorium turned into independent luxury box with telescopes consisting of more than ten lenses and decorated by glamorous metals and gems.

  In the sky of the arena, countless enormous eyeballs that had grown wings were flying. Known as 'Flying Spirit Eyes', they would send the pictures that they captured directly to every box while they flew randomly on the field in rattling noises. Such unnecessary devices were actually only meant to demonstrate the superiority of their users—the silver-blood demons who had come to Void Turmoil City for slave trading and drug deals.

  Li Yao grinned as an absurd idea suddenly occurred to him. How many silver-blood demons could he kill before he ran out of his strength if he went on a killing spree without bothering about anything?

  Very soon, Li Yao's eyes stopped at the center of the VIP auditorium.

  It was
a platform that was slightly protruded, like the tongue of a devil that was stuck out of the mouth.

  It was the place where the most honorable seats were arranged.

  Right now, a muscular demon more than four meters tall was sitting majestically on the glitzy silk seat. He was like a rhino that was wearing a bright golden armor, and his face were entirely covered up by a horn that pointed high into the sky.

  He was Yuchi Ba, the owner of the Skeleton Island!

  Around Yuchi Ba, almost ten demons with cold eyes were standing. They were all his bodyguards who used to be gladiators as black-blood demons and the chaotic-blood demons.

  Is Yuchi Ba the leader of the Blade of Chaos?

  However, according to the intelligence, he is an out-and-out silver-blood demon, a noble. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been authorized to establish such a huge arena at all!

  A pure silver-blood demon has ended up being the leader of the Blade of Chaos? What is he up to exactly?

  While Li Yao was deep in thought, shining electric arcs were suddenly triggered on the black, bloodstained ground of the arena. Amid spluttering noises, the electric arcs interweaved with each other into bushes of thorns.

  "Lightning Dungeon! Lightning Dungeon! Lightning Dungeon!"

  Meatballs riddled with holes were floating everywhere in the area up and down like balloons. Right now, the holes blew out intense air currents along with sharp, earsplitting noises.

  Incited by the meatballs, the bronze-blood demons who were sitting on the west tide were all shouting and yelling crazily.

  The silver-blood demons sitting on the east side, on the other hand, were silent and did not bother to even open their mouths.

  According to Jin Xinyue's introduction, the arena on the Skeleton Island was not a simple field of fighting but installed with a lot of traps and rune arrays.

  The so-called 'Lightning Dungeon' meant that electric arcs would be released in the entire arena.

  Naturally, the electric arcs would not be too powerful, and the victims would only be paralyzed briefly when they were touched.