by <unknown>
If they had not seen it with their own eyes, they would never have believed that there was such a monster in the world who could accomplish such a 'miracle' in only three minutes!
Xiahou Wuxin looked at Li Yao not only in confusion and admiration now but also in deep fear. He was even more frightened than when he saw the Immortal Cultivator Wei Xiaotian.
The Fist King's man-made eyes, on the other hand, spurted out scorching sparks. His database was simmering like a tank of burning oil.
"There are no furnaces here. It's impossible to hone and polish the tiny components in order to completely renew them. Besides, due to the limited time, I cannot study the features of this particular maintenance platform carefully. So, I guess we'll have to make do with this now. Next time, if I'm available, I'll build a new body for you," Li Yao said sincerely.
As a refiner, he would not make an imperfect work unless he was absolutely left with no choice. So, he apologized very genuinely. "However, I have dismantled all the computation chips inside the crystal processors of the spiritual puppets and redesigned a kit inside the chest of the new puppet to enhance computational ability. It should be able to improve the computational ability of your core crystal processor, especially your determination of traces and trajectories. Do you want to transfer your core crystal processor over yourself, or do you want me to do it?"
The Fist King's man-made eyes glittered. "If it isn't too much trouble for you, Master Fiend Star."
The breastplate of the brand-new spiritual puppet glided open to two sides without a sound. The shockproof and heatproof layers inside also dispersed spirally like petals, revealing a metal nest that was in perfect size.
Li Yao was waving cold, lifeless mechanical arms, but his movement was as gentle as the hair of a girl. Taking the Fist King's core crystal processor that held the database and logical thinking circuits from the old body, he installed it into the metal nest meticulously. It fitted the nest precisely, and there was not even a gap for a single hair.
As the breastplate closed again, in the flowing sounds of spiritual energy, ripples slowly spread out from the spiritual puppet that was sitting in midair. Stepping on invisible stairs, he walked to the ground from midair. Looking at the opening and closing of his metal hands at the ends of his four arms, he moaned in great satisfaction.
Although his body was even smaller than the smallest form that he had demonstrated on the battlefield previously, everybody including Xiahou Wuxin felt that the Fist King seemed more condensed, more energetic, and stronger than half a day ago!
"I observed your combat pattern carefully," Li Yao said casually. "Although the enormous iron fortress was known as your 'strongest form', it was too large a target, its movements were too clumsy, it consumed astronomical crystals every second, and the enemies could easily crawl into your body to sabotage it. It was a 'suicidal fortress', not a strong body.
"The third form that you later presented was small and agile, with a minimal consumption of crystals. That is very suitable for our coming battle.
"So, warm up your body and see how this body works. It has been devised according to your combat pattern and your pace, but let me know if there is anything that requires adjustment. I do not want to leave an obviously flawed work to run amok outside."
In the new body, the Fist King made several movements that were so bizarre that he essentially twisted himself into a knotted earthworm.
Then, his knotted body loosened immediately, and his fist punched out. A series of blurred shadows were triggered in the air. The entire secret warehouse was shaking because of the punch. Centered at the landing point of the punch, dazzling electric arcs dashed out on the wall.
"This is… perfect!"
The Fist King's voice that was cold and mechanical was mixed with the excitement of a human being.
"Every joint and every bearing inside this body seems to have been crafted for a certain entry of data inside my battle database. It is even stronger than the iron body that I crafted for myself!"
"Of course!" Han Te and Liu Li held their heads proudly. "Our 'Grandpa Yao' is always most awesome!"
Li Yao smiled. "Consider it a reward for the many interesting stories that you told me."
While talking, he moved his dozens of crystal cameras to Xiahou Wuxin. "Leader Xiahou, if you also tell me some interesting stories, or exchange certain interesting goods with me, I can also help you build a few more advanced crystal suits, which I guarantee will be much better than what Wei Xiaotian was equipped with. The truth is, I am not very good at the upgrade and modification of spiritual puppets and artificial bodies. My specialty is actually crystal suits."
Xiahou Wuxin and Xin Xiaoqi's jaws both hit the back of their feet.
Such amazing spiritual puppet modification skills were something that he was not good at?
Then, how strong were his modification crystal suit skills, which he called his 'specialty'?
As if he had just swallowed an iron caltrop, Xiahou Wuxin's throat rolled hard. Thinking for a moment, he said, "I don't know what kind of stories you want to hear, Senior Fiend Star. If we are talking about the intelligence of Manjusaka, I will certainly tell everything that I know. Besides that, if you mean the things about refining, please take a look at them."
He drew a complicated sign on the metal wall on one side of the warehouse. The wall immediately turned from a smooth mirror into a pile of soft gels. Then, the silver gels faded in all directions, revealing another warehouse that was smaller, in which a hill of ragged, rusty debris of magical equipment and incomplete tools was piled.
"These remnants were all discovered by me when I explored the underground world," Xiahou Wuxin explained. "They were all the relics of the Martial Meritocrats Civilization before 'Judgment Day'. But they were too complicated in structure and too seriously damaged. I could barely recognize what they were built for, much less using, dismantling, or maintaining them. So, they have all been left in this place. If you're interested, it's possible that you may find something useful inside."
Li Yao's interest was aroused. His soul darted into the hill of magical equipment remnants through thousands of spiritual threads.
Those remnants were truly magnitudes more precise and complicated than the other magical equipment in the warehouse, exactly as Xiahou Wuxin said.
For the same reason, they had been more damaged because of the wars and the corrosion of time. They were nothing more than garbage right now.
Not just the sinners in the Land of Sins like Xiahou Wuxin, even the experts among the Immortal Cultivators might not be able to repair them.
But for Li Yao…
Wait, what's this?
Li Yao's soul released ripples of excitement. His spiritual threads flowed into a piece of magical equipment that was enshrouded in a shell of rust, examining the device from inside to outside carefully.
It was a very advanced flaw detector.
The mechanism of the device was to release a type of special, highly-penetrative ray into metals or other materials to search for the gaps inside them that were invisible for the naked eye.
Because it was rather advanced, the flaw detector boasted the function of 'high-molecular layer-by-layer scanning'. Even the internal damage of the molecular level could be scanned clearly.
Although there is no 'high-molecular layer-by-layer scanning magical equipment' here, this flaw detector boasts similar functions. If I can repair it, together with the magical equipment such as 'microscopic carver', won't I still do the same things?
Of course, such a piece of maintenance magical equipment will be huge after it is assembled. But does it matter? I have already retrieved a Cosmos Ring that is of paramount importance from Wei Xiaotian's broken arm!
Li Yao immediately got excited.
Sensing Li Yao's soul waves, Xiahou Wuxin asked, "If I may, senior, do you come from Starlight?"
Li Yao was slightly dazed. He was even more overjoyed and asked, "What did you say? You know Starlight?
Why do you think that I am from Starlight?"
Xiahou Wuxin did not expect Li Yao to be so thrilled. He hesitated for a moment and did not know what to say.
Li Yao realized that he was being too excited, too. After calming down for a moment, he said, "I am not from Starlight. However, I am indeed very interested in Starlight. Tell me everything you know about Starlight. It doesn't matter even if they are just groundless tales."
"Regarding Starlight, there is nothing but groundless tales," Xiahou Wuxin said with a bitter smile. "Rumor has it that they were the people who escaped from the Martial Meritocrats Sector before Judgment Day."
"What?" Han Te and Liu Li both grew excited. "Some people escaped from the Martial Meritocrats Sector?"
"That is what the rumors say."
After a little hesitation, Xiahou Wuxin said, "The truth of the so-called Judgment Day is not a civil war of the people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector, as we have always believed, but very likely to have been a destructive strike launched by the angels, or the Immortal Cultivators, on the Martial Meritocrats Sector."
"Huh?"
It was the first time that Xin Xiaoqi had heard such a theory. She could not help but exclaim in shock.
Li Yao, however, glanced at the Fist King and said, "We know that very clearly, as well as the existence of 'Cultivators'. You don't need to say much about them. Just get to the point."
Chapter 2042: Break Out of Liberty City! |
"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 confiden
t 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.