Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 347
"Let's put that aside. The few projects of yours all require large amounts of funding, which you must fight for against other people. If another refiner gets him as a disciple and their project produces results sooner than yours, what will you do?"
Huangpu Shiyi hesitated. "Master Su, you do have a point."
Su Jiuzhen continued his analysis. "In my opinion, this is rather a fair deal.
"Although your hands can be temporarily recovered through secret arts, they can only last a very short amount of time. If you are alone, you wouldn't be able to proceed with many large experiments or personal training sessions with your impaired hands.
"But if you have such a strong disciple as your assistant, your project will definitely be accelerated, you will be granted more funds, the speed of your Cultivation will soar, and your position in the Temple of Immortals will be much more solid, too!"
Huangpu Shiyi's eyes were flickering as he thought, before they gradually came to a halt. He thought for a while and was still concerned. "Master Su, you're right. I wasn't thinking thoroughly just now. But is this boy sincere about joining the Temple of Immortals?
"My crystal bombs and my techniques to distinguish the best points of explosion are extraordinary. If the boy learns all of them and yet has other plans, our starship might be seriously sabotaged!"
"You don't need to worry about that."
Su Jiuzhen explained, "Gold Horn has been travelling unpredictably for a while, but we've basically locked the space zone it is in, and we will capture it within half a month! Talented as this Li Yao guy may be, how much can he learn in such a short time?
"As for his sincerity and whether or not he has other trump cards… I'll take care of that and give him another test!
"If he has made up his mind to be an Immortal Cultivator, you have countless methods to tame him in the future as his master.
"If he has other cards and is planning some petty tricks, hehe, I will let him beg to be executed!"
…
Li Yao stayed in his room for only five minutes before Black Stone and White Dew came in and handed a crystal processor to him with a weird expression.
Huangpu Shiyi's helpless face appeared in the picture, as he said, "Are you willing to be my disciple as long as I teach you the crystal bomb techniques?"
Li Yao smiled. "I'll decide after the quality of the goods is determined. I'll practice when you teach for a couple of days. If you are honest and your techniques are genuine, I see no harm in being your disciple."
Huangpu Shiyi stared at him for a long time, before he took a deep breath and said, "Alright. I'm sending you an information stream. You can study it for now. As for the files of a higher level, I'll have to sort through them first. In three hours, Black Stone and White Dew will bring you to my workshop again.
"Remember, what I'm giving you is only half of what I know. Only after you become my disciple will I teach you the other half, which is more complicated."
Li Yao nodded. "I kind of like the notion of being an Immortal Cultivator now."
Li Yao tapped on the light beam and received the information. It was a notebook personally written by Huangpu Shiyi, in which the structural designs and methods of refining of 572 kinds of crystal bombs were recorded.
The crystal bombs varied from the super bombs, which could blow up a planet back in the days of the Star Ocean Imperium, to the 'assault bombs' that could be installed inside fly demon beasts for suicidal attacks, to the 'anti-crystal-suit bombs' that were only the size of fingernails and yet could penetrate through a crystal suit and kill the Cultivator inside as long as they were deployed at the right location.
The frameworks of many of the bombs had been modified, rectified, and perfected by Huangpu Shiyi. Their damage had been significantly improved.
Li Yao felt that he had received a priceless treasure and completely devoted himself to it, his hands tremoring in excitement.
Huangpu Xiaoya, hearing his conversation with Huangpu Shiyi and seeing his fascinated face, felt that her hands and feet were cold. She trembled and shouted, "Li Yao, what did Huangpu Shiyi say to you? You didn't make any deals with him, did you?"
Li Yao seemed to have heard none of it.
Huangpu Xiaoya clenched her fists and raised her voice. "Li Yao, don't be fooled! If you take the first wrong step, you will take countless wrong steps! We are Cultivators!"
There was still no response from Li Yao. His eyeballs were shivering rapidly, his hands tapping on the light beam nonstop, his mouth murmuring things that were utterly meaningless; he had apparently gone mad.
Huangpu Xiaoya was almost crying. "Li Yao, don't do that. Please, I—"
She summoned her courage and suddenly lunged at Li Yao, trying to snatch his crystal processor.
This time, Li Yao responded quickly. He raised his crystal processor high and, bending his right leg like a saber, kicked Huangpu Xiaoya right in her abdomen. She was blown away immediately.
Tears were all over Huangpu Xiaoya's face. She was cramping, in too much pain to moan.
As if possessed by a devil, Li Yao strode forward with a hideous face. He clutched Huangpu Xiaoya's hair and pulled her up to his face.
He glared at her gloomily with his bloodshot eyes until Huangpu Xiaoya couldn't bear it any longer and sobbed silently. Then he said, one word after another, "Don't bug me when I'm studying magical equipment!
"Every second in the coming ten days is of paramount importance to me. If you hinder me again, I will slay you before Black Stone and White Dew interrupt. Do you understand?"
Li Yao threw Huangpu Xiaoya away as if she was a ragged bag and did not bother to look at her again. He returned to his crystal processor and concentrated his attention on the structures of hundreds of crystal bombs again.
In a corner of the room, an inconspicuous crystal camera he had never seen before captured everything that had happened dutifully.
In their cabin, Huangpu Shiyi and Su Jiuzhen were monitoring them on the light beam.
"What a brutal and coldhearted young man!"
"A natural-born Immortal Cultivator!"
Huangpu Shiyi and Su Jiuzhen looked at each other and smiled.
"However, the tests we have to run cannot be saved. To this moment, we cannot rule out the possibility that he has been acting."
In the coming few days, Li Yao dedicated himself to the training of the techniques of crystal bomb refining.
To be an explosions expert, techniques in two regards must be studied.
Firstly, the creation of explosion magical equipment.
Not only must the refiner be familiar with the classic crystal bombs in history and their variations, they must also know what natural materials would lead to explosions when they were combined.
The experts of the trade could mix dozens of daily materials that were extremely stable and in no way explosive into powerful bombs.
But if they stopped there, they could only be called top explosions experts.
The really super explosions experts must have deeper understanding about the structure of the object to be bombed.
Every super explosions expert had a pair of sharp eyes that could allow them to see through the surface of an object and perceive the deepest structure of it, so that they could find the balance point of the object.
Once the balance was ruined, the entirely object would collapse!
Huangpu Shiyi was such an expert.
Back in the Skyhill, he had paralyzed twelve anti-gravity rune arrays of a floating mountain with only two regular crystal bombs.
Chapter 512: Great Bargain |
The technique through which Huangpu Shiyi trained his eyes was named 'Phantom Breaker'. It allowed the user to concentrate the spiritual energy in the eyes and meld one's spiritual threads into one's eyesight. Wherever one's eyes reached, the spiritual threads would penetrate into the target and sense the tiniest structures of the object that were unperceivable to eyes.
When cultivated to the highest level, 'Phantom Breaker' would not only make the user see through the deepest structures of an object but also allow them to sense the weakest part of them instantly.
By that time, with a quick glance, the heavily protected target would become a clear, detailed skeleton, and the weakest part of the 'skeleton' would emit vague red brightness. One would know where to attack without thinking, just by looking at it.
This was only for the deployment of one or two crystal bombs.
When it came to the serial explosions that required three or more bombs, more factors would be involved that would interfere with each other, and the demand on the computational ability of the bomber would soar, too. Countless theories would have to be applied, such as chaos theory, turbulence model, butterfly effect, uncertainty principle… The mysterious and complicated theories dazzled Li Yao and made him greatly enjoy himself.
To study so many theories at the same time required much more than a few days.
Thankfully, there was a mysterious zone of memories inside Li Yao's brain. By staying in the Heaven's Refining Tower, the virtual time could be significantly lengthened.
Li Yao sank his consciousness into the deepest part of his brain and dedicated himself to training hard with the extended time inside the Heaven's Refining Tower.
At first, Huangpu Shiyi was not entirely open-minded.
Although he said that he had given Li Yao half of what he knew, he had only offered less than thirty percent of his knowledge, which also contained the most sophisticated theories.
By Huangpu Shiyi's estimation, with the computational ability of a Building Foundation Cultivator, it would take Li Yao three to five months to memorize all the theories, and much longer to understand and grasp them.
Also, theories couldn't be readily applied to real battles, and they were barely of any help to the improvement of one's capability.
But what he didn't know was that Li Yao was an experienced bomber who wouldn't have defeated enemies multiple times stronger than himself in the dangerous battles without the traps made of crystal bombs!
In the subject of explosions, Li Yao had set up as many bombs as Huangpu Shiyi had. It was just that he had learned everything by himself and was lacking the support of systematic theories.
Therefore, the theories that Huangpu Shiyi had offered him were, to him, what a pillow was to a drowsy man. He couldn't feel more satisfied!
During the prolonged time inside the Heavenly Refining Tower, Li Yao studied the theories that Huangpu Shiyi had given him and compared Huangpu Shiyi's bombs with his self-made crystal bombs in the past.
He made new discoveries almost every second and new understandings every minute. His capability was improving at a higher speed than an exploding crystal bomb!
Only three days had passed in reality. But Li Yao had generally memorized all theories and totally grasped the structural designs of hundreds of Huangpu Shiyi's crystal bombs.
His speed stunned Huangpu Shiyi, who was vigilant and made up his mind not to teach him the rest of his techniques easily. Otherwise, even if the guy was willing to join the Temple of Immortals in the end, he might not enjoy many benefits from it personally. It was not unusual that a master was starved after they taught everything they knew to their disciples in the Temple of Immortals!
But he didn't expect that Li Yao wasn't just a consumer. After getting part of Huangpu Shiyi's knowledge, the guy seemed to be quite satisfied. His attitude toward Huangpu Shiyi had changed significantly. Not only did he often go and discuss esoteric problems about crystal bombs with Huangpu Shiyi, the guy even revealed part of his own techniques and skills of refining!
This time, Huangpu Shiyi was both surprised and amazed.
Ever since his hands had been destroyed by lightning due to his crazy training more than twenty years ago, he had basically abandoned the path of a sword-forger.
Later, on his way to the Million Star Space Zone in search of an elixir to cure his hands, he encountered a space storm and was almost killed. But the accident proved to be a turning point for him. After his narrow escape, he found the heritage of a long-deceased senior by luck, including 'Phantom Breaker' and half of a manual on the craft of crystal bombs.
Since then, Huangpu Shiyi had been mostly focused on the refinement of explosive magical equipment.
In the circle of refiners, this research field was not as popular as melee weapons, guns, or starships. There were not many such experts in the Temple of Immortals, either.
He barely had the opportunity to communicate with specialists who had equal expertise to himself. After a long time of practicing in solitude, he found it hard to improve after he had reached his bottleneck.
The questions that Li Yao raised had precisely hit the points he was unsure about. After several deep discussions, not only was Li Yao greatly enlightened, Huangpu Shiyi had sorted out many problems that had baffled him and made great progress, too.
He had tested Li Yao several times, but Li Yao did not care at all and shared many secret techniques with him nonetheless.
With Huangpu Shiyi's sharp eyes, he could easily tell that much of the information Li Yao had provided was invaluable. Some of it had been lost a long time ago!
If the guy was not determined to join the Temple of Immortals, he would definitely not share such top confidential arts with him!
This time, Huangpu Shiyi was really confused.
"What is this guy, Li Yao, exactly? Is he stupid? But the tricks and responses he took in the beginning were very excellent, and he seized the opportunity to ask for more benefits greedily and right in time, too.
"Is he smart? But he did not keep anything to himself at all and brought out so many ultimate skills promptly and honestly. Even I have never heard of some of the refining methods and tricks. They are definitely top secrets of top secrets. Why did he tell me all of them so easily? Does he really consider me his Master?"
Huangpu Shiyi and Su Jiuzhen had discussed with each other for a long time. Their conclusion was: "Li Yao lived alone in the periphery of the sea of stars for more than twenty years. He was naturally quick to respond due to the suffering of the harsh environment.
"However, the number of people he got in touch with was too limited after all. He is too young, too simple, and sometimes naive.
"For such an arrogant young man who thinks too highly of himself, the only thing we need to give him is flattery and compliments. He is not afraid of sticks, but he cannot resist carrots. With some adulation, he will be so ecstatic that he won't know who or where he is, and he will confess all the secrets that he knows about!"
After he figured out Li Yao's personality, he was even kinder and friendlier toward Li Yao when they were together, and his tutelage gradually turned both thorough and detailed.
But, of course, he had calculated everything through.
He had concluded that, for each technique or skill that he taught Li Yao, Li Yao had returned at least two. Although they were not as good as his, but there was a great number of them!
Huangpu Shiyi was a talented genius, too. After receiving Li Yao's techniques and Cultivation methods, he had been training crazily for several days, and his capability in refining had soared, to the extent that he felt that a breakthrough was coming near. He was so happy that he was almost crying.
At first, he recruited Li Yao as his disciple purely for the purpose of getting more skills. But gradually, he changed his thoughts. Since the boy had a simple mind despite his sharp tongue, he was quite easy to be manipulated as long as one knew how to deal with him, that is to say, how to flatter him and talk to him nicely.
It did not seem a bad idea to really treat the guy as his disciple. He could be asked to perform dangerous experiments in the future so that Huangpu Shiyi wouldn't have to do them personally.
Besides, the guy had indeed got something in his head. He was throwing out tricks that Huangpu Shiyi didn't know about every day. Huangpu Shiyi was completely hooked by them. To maintain the friendship, he had to trade his own techniques for them continuously.
After all, it was quite a fair deal. It couldn't be more in his favor with a ratio of 1:2 during the barters.
Just like that, the relationship between the 'master' and the 'disciple' was getting better day after day. In the end, they really looked like a devoted teacher and a loyal student.
However, Su Jiuzhen didn't let loose of monitoring Li Yao in secret at all.
Li Yao was still living in the same suite as Huangpu Xiaoya. It was partly for the sake of easier surveillance, and partly to set him as an example for Huangpu Xiaoya.
But Huangpu Xiaoya was not influenced at all.
In the first couple of days, she was mired in despair and irritation and couldn't get herself out. But as time went by, she grew more and more silent and indifferent. She seemed to have become the girl made of lightning, like when Li Yao had seen her for the first time.
The only difference was that all the lighting was frozen, not jumping anymore.
Seven days after Li Yao and Huangpu Shiyi made the deal, Huangpu Xiaoya was brought to talk to Huangpu Shiyi, too.
Three hours later, when Huangpu Xiaoya was back, her eyes were hollow, and she was quieter than ever, like the tranquil and depressed ocean before a storm.
She sat cross-legged on her bed and stared at Li Yao across her, who had been carefully studying crystal bombs for an entire hour. Then she suddenly jumped up and looked down upon Li Yao in disgust, as she gnashed her teeth. "I'm not an ant, much less a monkey!"
Li Yao's eyes were still focused on the crystal bombs. He murmured something to himself and completely ignored her.
Huangpu Xiaoya raised her voice, not speaking to Li Yao, but more like speaking to herself, "Ants can only wave their antennas, and monkeys just squeak! But when ordinary people laugh, we know they are happy; when ordinary people cry, we know they are sad! We drink the same water, we breathe same air, we speak the same language, and we sing the same songs!
"We are all ordinary people when we were born! Our parents are likely to be ordinary people, and our descendants may be ordinary people for all eternity!
