Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  Li Yao declared resolutely, "I believe that even if Leader Gu Zhengyang were here, he would definitely second my choice too. Perhaps he is trying to gather resources to build a starship and break through the sky at exactly this moment!"

  Han Te and Liu Li thought carefully for a moment, before they looked Li Yao in the eyes and confirmed again, "But we will definitely be back, right?"

  "Yes."

  Li Yao smiled and extended his hand through the crammed crowd, holding the young man's hand. He said warmly but firmly, "We will certainly be back. When we return to the Land of Sins, it will not be so simple as blowing up a tiny 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky'.

  "Do you still remember what I said?

  "This world is wrong.

  "So, when we return to the Land of Sins, we will rectify the entire world!"

  Han Te and Liu Li took a deep, deep breath. Looking at each other, they nodded their heads determinedly. "Understood, Grandpa Yao. We will fight side by side with you, Master Fist King, and Sister Yun!"

  Li Yao smiled and patted the young man's hand. Then, he moved his eyes to the Fist King. "How are you planning to leave?"

  "A lot of broken pieces of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky' have been scattered at the coast area. We are planning to try our luck there and see if we can find remnants and fuel that are of use."

  The Fist King knocked his own head and said, "Don't forget that I am a reasonably good refiner myself. With abundant remnants, it is absolutely possible for me to assemble a small starship or a space shuttle.

  "As long as we have a small starship, a space shuttle, or a crystal suit, there will be hope for us to fly beyond the atmosphere and reach out to the space branch of Starlight. It will be even possible to take over one of the Immortal Cultivators' starships and perform a space jump. This is about the original plan."

  "No, it is too risky."

  Li Yao shook his head. "Although the Immortal Cultivators are stuck in brief chaos, their main fleet did not suffer major damage despite the loss of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky'. It is impossible for you to take control over a warship easily.

  "How about this. A lot of civil carriers were docked on the spaceports of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky'. They also boasted the ability of space jump. I estimate that the spaceports that were well-structured with anti-gravity facilities couldn't have been all destroyed in the crash.

  "I have detected the place where the main body of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky' collapsed on my way here. I'll give you a pair of coordinates. Let's try our luck there and see if we can find an intact civil carrier.

  "However, even if we can find a civil carrier, it will still be a major problem to find the crew members that are capable of piloting it. Forget it. Let's just find one first."

  The earthly dragon shifted the direction and rushed toward the coordinates given by Li Yao.

  At this moment, almost everybody on the Land of Sins was coming to the coast area in a hurry with all kinds of magical equipment. It was like the most lively "Bliss Ceremony".

  Some were working together to dig out the burning remnants from the ground. Some tough bandits whose nature could not be changed were fighting each other hard. Some were engaged with the Immortal Cultivators who escaped from "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" in the fiercest battles.

  Fire and smoke were everywhere. The entire coast area was now a battlefield. The situation couldn't have been more chaotic.

  However, faced with the gargantuan remnants that were as magnificent as mountains, as enormous as cities and as complicated as mazes, all the sinners of the Land of Sins felt the urge to worship them and forgot the competition among them for a while.

  Even the smallest of the remnants were almost a hundred meters in diameter, as if they were an amalgamation of skyscrapers.

  The largest of them were more than a thousand meters in diameter. They were like a city of the giants standing on the ground abruptly.

  It could be clearly seen that the structure of a lot of remnants was rather intact. They were not torn apart by the brute force but were dismantled voluntarily under the control of the "forced landing program", in order to minimize the blow of the crash.

  Therefore, it was very possible that the persons, assets, and even the escape capsules and small starships inside were still kept intact.

  Chapter 2121: Mountain Moving! |

  "Wait!"

  When they passed a hill of broken remnants that looked like wasted metals, Li Yao suddenly called stop.

  At this moment, the entire coast area had been enshrouded in fire and smoke. Yells, screams, and gunshots were everywhere. The weird dust was even soaring to the sky and tearing it apart.

  Dozens of starships of the Immortal Cultivators had broken into the atmosphere from the sky in the middle of the tidal, fiery clouds, trying to get the chaotic situation back under control.

  However, faced with the enormous planet which was more than twenty thousand kilometers in diameter and had a main continent of more than fifty million square kilometers, even the comprehensive supply starships, which could be more than five kilometers long, qualified to be called "super starships", were nothing more than grains of dust. Based on what could they suppress everybody on the ground immediately?

  The sinners on the Land of Sins were the most ferocious and fearless creatures. When they were too hungry, they would not hesitate to jump at the most invincible deity or devil in the universe just in order to figure out what their meat tasted like.

  It was true that the Immortal Cultivators maintained absolute governance over the Land of Sins in the past. Many sinners were full of reverence for the high and mighty "angels".

  But that was because "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" was hanging on the firmament and suppressing everyone tightly.

  Today, even "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" had been shot down. As the saying goes, "a phoenix that has lost all its feathers is no better-looking than a hen". After the sinners realized that the Immortal Cultivators had their side of weakness, the fear hidden deep inside the blood of the sinners was immediately replaced by brutality.

  They were not scared of anyone. If the Immortal Cultivators dare to come down, they would not hesitate to fight back!

  In many places, the fleet of the Immortal Cultivators under Li Lingfeng's command was already engaged in small-scale battles with the sinners, but the suppression did not go so well.

  The main purpose of Li Lingfeng's operation was to annihilate the space fleet of Starlight. He did not think too much of the puppets and chess pieces on the Land of Sins.

  Therefore, the fleet that he brought was the type that was more suitable for space battles in the zero-gravity vacuum.

  In the words of the Star Glory Federation, it was a standard "deep-sky fleet".

  Battles in the space environment of zero gravity were completely different from battles within the atmosphere where the gravity was normal or high.

  It was not unusual that a magnificent starship specifically produced for the battle environment in space did not dare to cut in the gravity sphere or the atmosphere of a planet. Should it approach, the anti-gravity rune arrays of the starships would be wasted. Many of such starships had not even installed anti-gravity rune arrays. Their internal structure that was slightly vulnerable was not adapted to gravity either, and they would collapse because of their own weight before the engagement of fire.

  After all, according to their design, they would be floating in the zero-gravity space for their entire life. Why would they bother to install the redundancies such as "anti-gravity units"?

  It was like the murderous whales that were almighty in the deep ocean; once stranded on the beach out of the buoyancy of the high-density seawater, the whales would not be able to move at all. They would be choked by their own weight and even explode from inside to outside.

  There was in fact a batch of planet attack warships that were designed for the assaults and landing battles within the atmosphere under Li Lingfeng's c
ommand.

  But it was a shame that the planet attack warships had been docked in the spaceports of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" and collapsed to the surface of the planet together with the enormous space fortress.

  Chances were that some of them had fallen into the hands of the sinners.

  Therefore, the Immortal Cultivators were now caught in a dilemma where they had abundant huge starships but could barely march into the atmosphere for a battle. They were too anxious to bother the existence of Li Yao and the rest of them.

  Li Yao had planned to bring Han Te, Liu Li, the Fist King, and the rest of them to the remnants of the few spaceports that he had locked onto.

  But from what he could see, they were already one step late.

  Many gangs who were active at the coast area already got their eyes on the gargantuan remnants. They had invaded the facilities and were collecting resources skillfully. Some of them were even fighting each other over the trophies.

  If Li Yao, the Fist King, Xiahou Wuxin, and their companions were to loot the items without caring about anything, naturally, none of the bandits would be a match for them.

  However, it would certainly cause great noises, which would likely be detected by the Immortal Cultivators.

  As it happened, Li Yao sensed intense metal reactions more than thirty kilometers to the east of the earthly dragon. Releasing his telepathic thoughts to scan its contour, Li Yao discovered that it was like an enormous starship which no gangs had discovered yet. He made the call immediately and asked Zuo Jingyun and the Fist King to move to the east!

  "This is—"

  Passing through a mountainous area, they discovered the ragged knoll of metals in a small basin. They found it hard to believe that it was a starship.

  Everybody rubbed their eyes for a long time before they finally managed to realize that it seemed to be a broken starship that had crashed deeply into "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", only to fall together with the space fortress and dismember into enormous remnants because it was unable to move itself out of the space fortress.

  Can this starship still be activated? Can it fly out of the atmosphere and even perform a space jump?

  Everybody looked at Li Yao suspiciously.

  Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao did not say anything but released his telepathic thoughts deep into the debris, scanning the structure of the starship carefully.

  To his surprise, he discovered that the starship was truly as sturdy as a rhino and as solid as a weight. Although the shell was seriously broken and twisted, its main structure was still intact despite such a massive blow!

  Moreover, there were still feeble life reactions inside!

  Li Yao stopped hesitating. He slightly opened his legs and extended his toes into the ground, before he stretched out his arms and opened his fingers, aiming at the wasted metals that had dug into the ground deeply.

  Everybody else was preparing to excavate and explore and did not know what Li Yao was going to do, but they did sense the flames of spiritual energy rising from his body like a tsunami. Gasping hard, they couldn't help but step back nonstop.

  Some of the resistance warriors were still mumbling a moment ago. They wondered if Li Yao was the legendary Cultivator who had been lost for a thousand years, and if "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" was poked down by him at all, after they saw his "awe-inspiring" style.

  After seeing what happened next, everybody whose jaw had hit the back of their feet hard did not have any doubt for Li Yao anymore!

  "Ho!"

  Li Yao bellowed. The veins all over his body immediately protruded from his skin, entangling his extremely sturdy body like a hundred dragons.

  His skin turned crimson in the blink of an eye. Translucent pearls of blood leaked out of his pores, only to be vaporized into intense red mists around him by his spiritual energy.

  It was almost like a five-meter-tall bloody giant had jumped out of his body!

  The hard ground was as vulnerable as tofu when his legs stabbed into it deeply. Ripples surfaced on the ground into giant concentric circles.

  Every resistance warrior felt the violent quakes from below their feet, as if ten thousand ferocious beasts were breaking out of the crust!

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Before their eyes, the metal remnants that looked like a hill were disintegrating and falling apart, as if they were being dismantled by countless pairs of giant hands. However, on a closer look, everybody noticed that the starship that was deeply embedded into the remnants was not damaged at all. What was removed was only the garbage that it was wreathed in.

  In the next moment, the scene that made countless people's hearts race and their breath stop took place!

  Li Yao's flames of spiritual energy burst out as he pressed his soul. Performing the technique of "remote manipulation" to the maximum, he actually "plucked" the enormous starships that had been deeply buried into the ground and moved it horizontally for hundreds of meters, before he laid it on the ground slowly!

  Looking at the crater left on the ground that was almost a thousand meters in diameter, and then at the starship that was as huge as a mountain, everybody felt that they were in a dream, unable to control their pounding heart at all.

  Such a mountain-moving technique was more like a method of the gods. It was too strong even for them to imagine!

  "How can there be such a strong person in the world?"

  "Is—Is he really a human being at all?"

  "Don't be silly. This is the Cultivator that has been lost for a thousand years. It—It is only natural!"

  At this moment, no matter how Li Yao denied it, all the resistance warriors had already reached the same unquestionable answer in their heart. Li Yao was their legend, their hope, and the long-expected Cultivator that had been lost for a thousand years!

  At the moment, everybody felt that the dark clouds in the sky were all gone. They were all able to see the glittering paths in the sea of stars!

  "Great. The starship was extremely sturdy in structure in the first place. Besides, it had penetrated deeply into 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky', and the assortment of buildings in the space fortress served as the best buffer for it during the crash. So, the main body of the starship is still intact. Most of the crew members in it are still alive too."

  Li Yao retreated his spiritual energy and grinned. "Judging from the shape, it should've been modified based on a civil mining starship, and there are no marks of the lightning trident of the Imperium or Li Lingfeng's emblem on the shell of the starship. Everything suggests that it is a starship of Starlight. Let's rescue them!"

  …

  Half an hour later, the crew members in the civil mining starship were all rescued by the resistance warriors.

  Li Yao's guess was correct. It was an armed mining starship named "Great Mountain", which belonged to the coalition fleet of Starlight. It went too hard when it charged at "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" and drilled deeply through the shell of the space fortress. As a result, there was no time to get out of the place in time. So, it simply went deeper and accelerated at full strength, hoping to buy more time for the retreat of the comrades. Eventually, it fell together with the space fortress.

  The remnants of the space fortress absorbed most of the blast. Most of the crew members of the "Great Mountain" did not suffer critical injuries. They were still lightheaded, but it would be better after they took a brief rest.

  After learning that their life-savers were the fellow Cultivators they almost dreamed about and the offspring of the "authentic" Starlight from the underworld of the Land of Sins, Gao Kangda and all the crew members were naturally overjoyed. They were almost roaring in ecstasy.

  But there was little Li Yao could do when they whispered to each about the tales of the Cultivator who had been lost for a thousand years while they were performing full maintenance on Great Mountain.

  Chapter 2122: Hearts of Machine |

  Li Yao was having a secret conversation with the Fist King
far away from the crowd.

  He had a rather self-contradictory attitude toward the Fist King, an artificial intelligence with automatic learning functions.

  Li Yao had thought that he would be highly vigilant and strongly nauseated of the notions such as "virtual life" or "artificial intelligent" after experiencing the turmoil caused by the extraterrestrial devils in the Star Glory Federation, where the artificial intelligence almost went out of control and completely infiltrated the Spiritual Nexus.

  But for some reason, when he was faced with the Fist King, an "auto-learning" artificial intelligence, he did not have the same feeling at all. Instead, he had an uncanny sense of warmth when he talked with the guy.

  Perhaps, it was because he recognized deeper secrets regarding artificial intelligence and virtual lives in the "Virtual Spirits Sector", the collapsed virtual world. The remark of "virtual virus from a higher-dimension universe" was still echoing in his ears.

  Or maybe, the hideous and foul scoundrels among human beings were enough for him to loathe, and there were simply too many enemies in the boundless universe. The Pangu Clan, the extraterrestrial devils, the alien species… All of them boasted the potential to destroy the civilization of mankind.

  He really did not have additional vigor to hate an artificial intelligence that did not show the sign of "life" yet.

  In any case, the Fist King had fulfilled his part of the deal dutifully by helping him keep the safety of Han Te and Liu Li.

  Li Yao did not want to violate his promise, although he was faced with only a cold machine.

  "Grab this!"

  Li Yao threw over a Cosmos Ring and sent an opening password to the Fist King's crystal processor.

  The Fist King snatched it and observed it for a while in his hand before he asked, "What's this?"