Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 170
"Zhou Zhenghao was correct. The universe is a big training camp in which I need to polish myself, train myself, and fight against the universe.
"Even if I must die, I'll kill this damn dust storm first!"
Li Yao's eyes blazed and he roared like a beast.
Instead of running, he boosted the power rune arrays to maximum in the same direction as the swirling of the tornado. At a speed faster than ever, he continued charging forward!
He was not taking the trip passively, but slashing everything aggressively in his way!
"Hu!"
A giant stone was thrown at Li Yao by a tornado.
For a moment, the saber demonstration that Long Wenhui had left woke up in Li Yao's brain and streamed into his limbs and organs like shooting stars after an explosion.
"Shua!"
In the storm of death and the swirl of various colors, Li Yao slashed the giant stone into pieces in the most overwhelming way.
"Ouch! Ouch!"
A flying demon beast was drawn into the swirl, too. It dashed towards him while it was trying to maintain its balance.
Li Yao bellowed. He tilted the power rune arrays to change his direction and rushed towards the beast in wind and thunder.
In an almost perfect arc, his crescent saber slashed the high-level demon soldier into two halves.
"BOOM! BOOM BOOM!"
A violet tornado moved at Li Yao in the most formidable way.
Li Yao roared again. His soul was burning so ferociously that the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was covered in crimson, as if the crystal suit had become a 7-meter tall red giant. The spiritual energy on his saber was extended by more than ten meters and flared devilishly.
"Ho!"
Meaningless, random noises rolled out of Li Yao's mouth.
They were the war cries deeply buried in the blood which had been uttered when ancestors of human beings were faced with natural disasters and animal assaults before they learnt how to speak.
Li Yao went for the tornado.
The crescent saber, in a sky-tearing brilliance, hit in the middle of the tornado.
His violent spiritual energy had ripped a giant hole on the tornado which he dashed right through.
Then, the tornado dissipated into countless clusters of wind, before they were absorbed by other tornadoes and completely vanished.
The tornado was killed by Li Yao!
Chapter 245: Second Match, Begin! |
Just like that, Li Yao waved and slashed the saber in the dust storm like a devil.
Stones, demon beasts… Whatever stood in his way was immediately cut into pieces.
Time seemed to have stopped. The only thing that could be seen was the crimson twinkles of his saber.
He didn't know how long it had been, but the dust storm eventually came to an end.
In the colorful tornadoes, the lightning bolts as thick as dragons shrank into the size of boas, then the size of earthworms, before they completely vanished.
With the dispersion of tornadoes, billions of tons of sand started falling. The prehistoric beast had died and decayed.
Li Yao regained control over his body. After several bursts from the Bloody Blade Battlesuit, he ripped a small hole in the dust and ran out through it.
"BOOM!"
After he was out of the dust storm, Li Yao finally couldn't bear it any longer. He flew in the sky at a low altitude, then he landed and staggered forward; ultimately, he lost balance and fell over, raking a deep fissure behind him.
At the end of the fissure, he tried to turn his body around. Stretching his arms and legs, he lay on the ground and looked at the sky.
It was late at night. The dust storm had cleared all the clouds, making the starry sky all the more brilliant. Watching through the crystal camera, every star had a different halo, as if many fireflies were dancing and singing.
Li Yao grinned.
Only after one faced the terror of death could one appreciate the beauty of life.
"Shua!"
Li Yao waved his hands casually. Spiritual energy ejected from his palm and formed a light blade of over three meters, which flew forward with the wind and thunder for more than ten meters.
Saber Aura!
It's the real Saber Aura that could destroy the enemy from a long distance away!
"While I was in the dust storm, cutting the tornadoes and slashing the lightning, I was able to blend the Desert Storm Saber Technique with the saber demonstrations from Long Wenhui. Now, I have a basic understanding of Saber Aura.
"But this is just the beginning. There is still a long way to go before I can use Saber Aura in real combat.
"As my very first Saber Aura, it is different from the Desert Storm Saber Technique as well as Long Wenhui's saber art. Moreover, it is endowed with the feeling of tornadoes and thunder from back in the dust storm. I shall call it 'Thunderous Tornado Saber Art'!
"For the next 20 days, my primary task will be to fully embed the Thunderous Tornado Saber Art into the crystal suit, and create my unique crystal suit technique."
Li Yao thought about something. He opened the map that covered 500 square kilometers around the Thunder Training Camp in his crystal processor.
The Grand Desolate Plateau was a place of perils. There were forbidden zones everywhere because of the disorder of natural spiritual energies.
Some of them, due to the special terrains and the fluctuation of natural spiritual energies, were extremely likely to be struck by dust storms. They were also known as the Dust Storm Area, which were specially marked with a skeleton pattern on the map.
Li Yao found a particular Dust Storm Area named Wuthering Canyon.
The place was not far away from the Thunder Training Camp. Since dust storms were blowing there all year around which consumed much of the natural spiritual energy, the intensity of the storms was not very high. Most of them were only level 10 or level 9. It was a very stable Dust Storm Area.
"Wuthering Canyon will be my personal training ground!"
Li Yao had made up his mind.
From that day on, Li Yao went to the Wuthering Canyon to practice his aviation skill as well as his saber art alone after he finished his designated, daily training.
Mao Feng thought that he was out of his mind. However, the training camp did not ban students from training in the way that they deemed most suitable for themselves. After all, since Li Yao escaped from the dust storm, he seemed to have broken through his bottleneck and started climbing towards a higher peak.
Therefore, after discussing with Mr. Xu, Mao Feng didn't reject the plan. Instead, he arranged a modified shuttle to send him to the Wuthering Canyon every day.
A deep sleep capsule was installed to the shuttle, in which Li Yao could take a good rest on his way to the Wuthering Canyon or back, so that he could make use of every minute of the day in training.
The only problem was that the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was breaking down due to the high intensity of training.
Every time, after a crazy training session, the Bloody Blade Battlesuit would be seriously damaged, with some power rune arrays set off and some components distorted.
It was lucky that Li Yao was a refiner himself. He brought the issue to the other two refiners respectfully from whom he learnt many basic crystal suit repairing tricks.
It also happened that the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was a simple and easy-to-modify crystal suit. Based on his modification experiences and the performance of the Bloody Blade Battlesuit in the tornadoes, he made some minor revisions during the repair to make the suit better fit his own combat style.
Technically speaking, the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was the Thunder Training Camp's possession. Li Yao had no right to modify it.
However, the Bloody Blade Battlesuit was so antique that few students ever used it. In fact, it had been idling in the corner all the time before Li Yao wore it. Besides, Li Yao claimed that he was only repairing the suit, and after everything was completed, the performance of the suit was above standard.
Therefore, after consulting with the two refiners, Mao Feng didn't interfere. He was curious, too, as to how far Li Yao could go.
His position was highly dependent on his students. If he could bring up a strong student, his position would be more stable, too.
Days came and went.
Every day, from dawn to afternoon, Li Yao would receive the harshest training in the training camp.
At 3:30 pm, he would go to the Wuthering Canyon in deep sleep in the shuttle, where he would practice the saber art in the dust storm.
At 9:30 pm, after he returned to the Thunder Training Camp, he would head to the crystal suit warehouse and maintain the crystal suits for all the students. Then he would handle his Bloody Blade Battlesuit and learn to repair and modify it.
Every second was fully occupied. The letters to Ding Lingdang were quickly reduced to several lines.
20 days had passed.
In the Wuthering Canyon, the sky was so clear that it seemed to have been washed. Stars were blinking in delight. It was a peaceful night after a dust storm.
Li Yao relieved himself from the Bloody Blade Battlesuit and sat down beside it. He played with the stone that Long Wenhui had left for him in his hands.
Suddenly, Li Yao crumbled the stone with a cracking sound.
All the saber demonstrations on the stone had been learnt by heart. When he closed his eyes, he could see every detail of Long Wenhui's movements with the saber in front of him.
Although he couldn't comprehend all of them, he no longer needed the help of the stone. Every movement of the saber had been carved in his brain. He could study them at any moment.
Li Yao brushed off the stone powder in his palms and took out the second item that Long Wenhui had offered him.
The mysterious card.
Now that his spiritual energy was stronger than before, he could 'summon' the stars in the card at his will.
A starry sky in the card.
A starry sky over the head.
The two skies flickered against each other. They were equally splendid, magnificent and quiet.
Li Yao held his breath and appreciated the beauty of the universe in silence.
Hundreds of spiritual threads from his spiritual root crowded towards the mysterious card.
Ripples appeared on the surface of the card. All the spiritual threads were absorbed in.
Li Yao had long discovered that the card seemed to be a two-dimensional thin paper. But inside the card, there was a vast, complicated, three-dimensional labyrinth.
His hundreds of spiritual threads were at the entrances of the labyrinth. But no matter how he tried to extend his spiritual threads, he never reached the end of the labyrinth. His spiritual threads were not even able to meet one another in the labyrinth.
The labyrinth in the thin card was boundless. It was indicative of a professional space folding technique, as shown in the proverb 'hide the world in a seed' and 'in a small sand contains three thousand universes'. It far exceeded the limitation of all the techniques in the Heaven's Origin Sector as well as Li Yao's imagination.
"It's really a vast world.
"There are countless mysterious worlds waiting to be explored beyond the Heaven's Origin Sector. There is countless magical equipment waiting to be studied!"
Li Yao sank all his attention into the card labyrinth.
He was satisfied, for he explored the labyrinth further than he did yesterday.
He believed that he would unravel the labyrinth and reveal the secret behind the card one day with persistence.
But his priority currently was the 20-out-of-50 elimination match the next day.
The 20 students who passed the match and entered the third phase of training, led by their instructors, would embark on a journey to the depths of the Grand Desolate Plateau, a real battlefield!
Strong demon beasts would be waiting for them there!
There would be invaluable Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. An inconspicuous flower might be worth billions!
If anyone was fortunate enough to discover a new mother lode, their fame would soar and they would be a powerful person in the world of Cultivators!
Li Yao rose, put on the Bloody Blade Battlesuit, and strode out of the Wuthering Canyon.
…
"Swoosh! Boom!"
A firecracker exploded in the sky, dyeing it into various colors.
The second round of the elimination match would commence in five minutes.
The 20-out-of-50 elimination match was to be held in a special world fragment.
This world fragment had a coverage of around 50 square kilometers. Tall trees over a hundred meters tall were all over the place. Even if one entered the fragment in a crystal suit, one could still feel freezing chills blowing nonstop.
Therefore, this world fragment was named "Dark Wood World"!
Deep in the gloomy, creepy forest, two hundred light spots were randomly scattered, which were all miniature beast puppets that would sent out special spiritual energy waves.
The light spots that looked like fireflies were the targets for every student.
Everyone who collected more than ten light spots and held them for more than ten minutes would be considered a winner.
The more light spots one student had, the more waves would be sent out from them.
Other students could detect the waves easily and attacked the student to grab their light spots.
There were two hundred light spots in total, which meant there would be only twenty winners at most. As the match went on, the unclaimed light spots would be fewer and fewer, and the competition would be fiercer and fiercer!
Chapter 246: Double Hunting |
In the Dark Wood World, there were no demon beasts. But there were many demoniac plants.
The most notorious one of them was the 'Dry Snake Vine' that often clung to the trees, which could be as long as hundreds of meters and as thick as a python. The bumps on its skin contained corrosive sap, too. It could be really tricky if one was caught.
Fifty students were all in their crystal suits now. They were doing final checks on their suits.
Li Yao observed his opponents carefully.
After two months of hard training, everyone had advanced greatly. They were riding their crystal suits so naturally that the suits seemed to be part of their bodies.
Most of the students were already in the high levels of the Refinement Stage. With the enhancement of the crystal suits, the air around them indicated that they were as powerful as the Building Foundation Stage Cultivators.
It was going to be a brutal battle!
While Li Yao was observing the others, he was being observed, too.
He'd chosen the Bloody Blade Battlesuit that he was familiar with, with camouflage patterns painted on the skin. It was striped with yellowish and greenish colors and did not look very attractive.
But no one dared to look down upon it.
If someone could take down Zhou Zhenghao, the 'steel man', they would be definitely stronger than they currently looked.
Long Qianyue and Yuan Yeshi were scanning and detecting the characteristics of Li Yao's crystal suit carefully. They each had their own plans on how to deal with him.
After a moment, the screen inside everyone's crystal suit displayed a countdown.
Three, two, one!
The second round of the elimination match had begun!
50 crystal suits, unleashing intensive exhaust flames, dashed into the dark, primitive forest from all directions.
The moment he entered the forest, Li Yao turned the power rune arrays down to minimum and switched to stealth mode. He moved in the forest quietly.
Instead of searching for the light spots scattered in the forest immediately, he decided to get familiar with the territory and figure out a forest combat strategy first.
"Swish!"
A Dry Snake Vine lunged at him ruthlessly.
"Shua!"
After a flash of the saber, the vine was cut into two slices.
The corrosive sap from the fracture almost reached Li Yao when he shunned it hurriedly. The sap fell to the ground and emitted terrible smell.
Li Yao observed his surroundings carefully. All the plants in the Dark Wood World were larger than normal. The thorns were thicker than his thigh. None of the trees here were lower than a hundred meters, forming a cage that locked everything inside.
He stayed in the forest for quite a while, and it was not until cries and explosions were echoing not far from him that he shifted his attention to the map.
Two hundred light spots were glimmering in the map.
Some of the light spots had been gathered together, releasing a brightness that was even more distinctive than fireflies at night.
They were the ones that were already claimed by some students. There were not many unclaimed light spots now.
Under the guidance of the map, he leaped forward from tree to tree like an agile ape.
Very soon, he found a light spot floating in the air among twigs.
The shining miniature beast puppet flew upwards the moment it felt a crystal suit was drawing near.
Li Yao stomped on the tree and followed it like an arrow just unleashed from the bow. He caught the light spot in his hand.
His spiritual threads crowded into the miniature beast puppet and activated the control program.
The miniature beast puppet stopped moving and stayed over his head.
The first light spot had been collected!
Soon, the second and third light spots were dancing over Li Yao's head, too.
However, just like he could see the light spots on the map, so could everybody else.
As more and more light spots were claimed, there was too little meat for so many wolves. Conflicts were brewing.
Under the fourth light spot, Li Yao came across another student, who already had four light spots over his head.
The two of them stood and stared at each other quietly.
All added together, there were only eight light spots here in total, which was not enough for either of them to win.
Therefore, they didn't start fighting immediately.
