Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 88
Li Yao's face revealed a look of delight as he secretly pondered.
The other freshmen too were all grinning ear to ear; they were extremely excited.
Whereas the whirring and snoring sounds of the older students could still be heard without end.
However, in the eyes of the freshmen, even if oil was smeared all over their clothes, they started to look cuter—after all, everyone was working hard for "Project Mystic skeleton"!
Completing the project a day earlier would relieve them from their misery a day earlier!
Very soon, after crossing half of Wild Waves City, passing through the imposing Iron Fist Club and Chaos Edge Hall, and crossing a group of ginormous floating mountains, the flying shuttle arrived at a somewhat dilapidated and gloomy region.
This was like an old district of Wild Waves City; the buildings on the ground were dilapidated and the paint on the walls was peeling off, revealing the rugged surface of the bricks.
Seven to eight floating mountains were floating all alone in the sky. The size of these mountains was a lap shorter than the mountains at the center of the city.
One of the floating mountains seemed to have some problem with its Anti-Gravity Array Glyphs and was losing a lot of spiritual energy, which was leaking in the form of heat energy.
And in order to stop the heat radiating, a cooling pond was installed next to the Anti-Gravity Array Glyphs, resulting in a large amount of steam gushing out, filling the entire sky, and making the atmosphere look rather bad.
"Look! That's our school building. Don't be fooled by its inconspicuous appearance. Inside, it is instead a very advanced lab, refining workshop, and a small smelting room, all of which could fulfill the most basic requirements of refining. Like the saying goes, even though a sparrow is small, it still has all its organs!"
Yuan Manqiu, pointing at a round floating mountain, said.
This floating mountain simply had no style at all; it was as if classical, modern, and futuristic styles had been casually blended together. Purely from a practical point of view, it was like they only cared about the function and did not consider the artistic view. It simply gave off the misconception that a big lump of waste was floating in the sky.
If Yuan Manqiu had not given them that speech a while ago, presumably, almost half of these freshmen would have thought of transferring departments after looking at the school building.
However, at this moment, everyone was extremely excited. After they were immersed in the completion of Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, they were imagining the flourishing and glorious Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department.
"Even this floating mountain was built after Old Mo and I used hard and soft tactics on the Dean for several years. Only then was the funding provided. Because the funds were insufficient, that's why it looks a little ugly... but it does not matter! As long as we succeed in refining the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, we will surely build a super-huge floating mountain, one that is bigger than even the main school building of the Combat Department!"
Yuan Manqiu ruthlessly waved her fists as she said in an impassioned manner.
Li Yao's fingers started to itch after he was touched by her enthusiasm. He could not wait to fly to this "Junk Mountain" and start working on refining the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit together with Professor Mo Xuan!
"As long as we succeed in refining the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, astronomical funding and overwhelming resources will be poured into the Refining Department. In just a few years, Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department will be a major department just like the Combat Department, and within ten years, we will certainly have the opportunity to run shoulder to shoulder with the Deep Sea University's Refining Department. By then..."
"BOOM!"
While Li Yao and the others were immersed in the happy fantasy, an earth-shattering explosion suddenly rang in their ears.
A fiery brilliance shot to the sky as a mushroom cloud, which was like the arms of an octopus, spread in all direction, wrapping the entire floating mountain
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TLN:
[1] Tai Hao Emperor is one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the mythological rulers of Ancient China. More could be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sovereigns_and_Five_Emperors
Chapter 133: Skeleton of a War God |
"Quickly get on the ground! Everyone, get on the ground!" Li Yao screamed before he threw himself onto the ground.
However, it was too late! Before everyone could react, shockwaves from the explosion, like frightful billows and terrifying waves, blew the Turtle Car 300-400 meters away, ruthlessly smashing it into a four story tall building before the Turtle Car rolled and crashed into the ground!
Despite the Shock Mitigation Array Glyphs installed all over the Turtle Car, many of the people still collided with the walls seven to eight times and became confused and disoriented. A fair number of freshmen had even lost their consciousness.
Many of the people who had lost their consciousness had their faces covered with blood, while others even had their tendons torn and had their bones broken as painful groans were heard without stop in the Turtle Car.
Li Yao was one of the few students who had not been injured. He crawled his way to the Propulsion Drive and tried to hear the situation inside for a while before he determined that the Propulsion Array Glyphs were completely destroyed. Only after determining that the chance of the leaking spiritual energy leading into a chain of explosion was unlikely did he crawl his way out of the broken window and blankly stare at the sky.
In the sky, on the right side of the floating mountain, a giant hole with a diameter of a few dozen meters was blown out, from which a fiery green brilliance was gushing out, releasing a pungent smell in the air.
And inside the floating mountain, a chain of muffled explosions was still ringing; it was akin to the peals of thunder one would hear when he had buried himself under the blanket. The explosions were still continuing.
After a while, billowing black smoke was spraying out from every window and every gap on the floating mountain, gathering into a terrifying and ominous beast of black smoke in the sky.
The Anti-Gravity Array Glyphs underneath the floating mountain began to die one by one.
Under the gravitational pull, the floating mountain tilted towards the left as it slowly fell towards the ground.
Because a part of the Anti-Gravity Array Glyphs was still operational, the two sides of the junk floating mountain were under a different gravitational pull. A small part of the floating mountain was forcibly torn because of the intense and opposing gravity.
Countless broken debris, which was also mixed in with several silhouettes that were moving their hand and legs, caved in. Some of the people were trying to escape by riding their flying sword, yet they were swallowed by the consecutive explosions, painting a scene that was too ghastly to look at.
The entire ordeal lasted for half a minute before the main body of the floating mountain finally crashed into the ground, raising an endless cloud of dust and stones, which gave the misconception of a volcanic eruption.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amidst the storm of dust, three pillars of green fire soared to the sky. An even more terrifying chain of explosions had occurred inside the floating mountain.
When Li Yao had his eyes opened wide and mouth agape, Yuan Manqiu too somehow crawled her way out of the flying shuttle.
Her face was covered in blood, and the expression on her face as she stared right at the empty sky was uglier than a ghost itself.
"Old Mo!"
After a moment, Yuan Manqiu let out a heartbreaking shrill as she threw caution to the wind and bolted right towards the place where the floating mountain had crashed.
...
After seven days, a very rare drizzle hit Wild Waves City, where the rainwater seemed to be a bit acidic.
The region where the floating mountain had crashed was already cleared.
In order to take precautions against the crashing of a floating mountain, under every floating mountain, there weren’t too many houses built, and the houses that were in the vicinity were also installed with powerful defensive array glyphs.
So this incident didn't cause too many casualties for the residents who were living on the ground, just a few dozen buildings had become unstable and were declared as dangerous because of the shockwaves and were simply demolished to remove trouble.
However, the floating junk mountain was completely scrapped.
Through the investigation of a dozen high-level cultivators, the accident this time had been determined as an experimental failure.
From simulating the scene of the accident, the accident occurred when Professor Mo Xuan was leading the entire team in doing installation work of the Super Compressed Crystal Reactor.
To be precise, the Crystal Reactor was the Propulsion Core of the crystal suit. The crystal, which contained an immense amount of powerful spiritual energy after having been compressed as much as hundred times, was installed in a palm-sized reactor, which would drive the crystal suit for a long time during a fight.
It was conceivable that once the Crystal Reactor had a problem, the crystal which was compressed to the extreme would, in the blink of an eye, return to its original size and release incomparably unstable spiritual energy that could destroy everything within a radius of few hundred meters.
The accident this time was exactly this kind of situation.
What was even worse was because of the shortage of funds, the Refining Department's floating mountain was small in size, and its crystal warehouse was not much farther away from the refining workshop.
The very moment the explosion occurred, the shockwaves continuously ran through seven layers of walls, and the walls, which were all built from metal with defensive array glyphs inlaid inside, were, just like paper, shredded into pieces. A tide of unstable spiritual energy swept through the crystal warehouse in the blink of an eye, leading to a series of earth-shattering explosions!
From the series of explosion, the entire floating mountain was eventually destroyed. Countless precious materials and magical equipment turned into scraps, priceless experimental materials and data were buried in the rubble, and even the 90% completed Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit melted into slag.
Project Mystic Skeleton returned to zero in just one second.
And this was just 1% of the total loss.
Project Mystic Skeleton was the only hope of the Refining Department, and as such, all the elites—including the head of the department, Professor Mo Xuan, a majority of faculty as well as the most experienced senior students—were all present in the refining workshop when the Crystal Reactor was being installed.
They were all killed in the explosion.
The spiritual energy tide, like a hurricane, swept everything away; every cell and every wisp of residual soul was torn to pieces.
Not to mention surviving the explosions, even if they wished to rescue a few wisps of residual souls to convert them into spectral cultivators, that was rendered impossible.
Even if the professors and students weren't present inside the refining workshop, so long as they were present in the floating mountain, every one of them suffered the disastrous effect of the spiritual energy waves, which ranged from fainting to seriously injured and immediately dying on the spot. The scene was too ghastly to look at.
Only Yuan Manqiu and a dozen older students who, because of their low level, had to leave to welcome the freshmen were lucky to escape this disaster.
They were simply not enough to sustain a department; one could even say that the Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department was—completely finished!
Seven days after the disaster.
The location of the Refining Department had completely turned to ruins.
At the beginning, the institute was ready to clean up this region, and the usable resources buried within the rubble could be re-used. The institute truly could not bear to let them be buried in the rubble; however, Yuan Manqiu forcibly stopped them.
She insisted that there were many precious experimental data and material buried in the rubble, which contained all the hope of them reconstructing the Refining Department. She absolutely didn't allow anyone to move the rubble, not even a rivet was allowed.
Yuan Manqiu was like a crazed mother elephant who was defending every inch of soil in her domain, and the dean too was unable to take her away.
At the center of the rubble, a tiny statue was placed, one which was similar to a skeleton of a War God that had melted halfway.
With its bare arms spread towards the sky, its black hole-like mouth emitted a furious roar towards the endless sky.
This was the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit that was being developed by the Refining Department.
It was a condensed form of painstaking effort and will of all the professors and students of Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department, which had turned into slag in the explosion instead, thereby losing its purpose for refining.
Now, it could only be placed as a monument to commemorate the people who had sacrificed themselves on the road of cultivation.
A solemn memorial was held before the statue.
Every department's student union, including the Iron Fist Club, Chaos Edge Hall, Lancets, Glyph Devils… had sent a representative to send their condolences.
Most of the institute's professors and all the management staff were also gathered here.
Even though the Refining Department was a waste department that was not worth mentioning in the Grand Desolate War Institution, even if many professors and students had thought to revoke the Refining Department...
But for the Refining Department to completely disappear from the face of the earth in such a way, this was just too cruel!
"Today, we are gathered here to commemorate some of the great students and cultivators who, in order to defend human civilisation, ventured in the endless mystery of the cultivation world, vigorously immersed themselves in research and cultivation for days and nights, spent all their sweat and blood, and even paid for it with their valuable lives and souls!"
Underneath the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit statue, Grand Desolate War Institution's dean, Xiong Baili, said in sadness.
Xiong Baili was a legendary figure in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Rumor has it that when he was young, his strength as a battle-type cultivator had already broken through to the peak level of the Core Formation Stage. In the Demon Beast Wasteland, he commanded winds and clouds, swept through everything in his path, and got the moniker "Volcano"!
However, during a beast tide outbreak, he was heavily surrounded. For an entire day and night, he directly clashed with the beast tide.
Although he had killed thousands upon thousands of demon beasts, he had excessively overdrafted his spiritual energy and was also poisoned by over thirty different kinds of demonic poison, corroding his eight extra meridians, as a result of which, his strength had suffered a disastrous decline, rendering him no longer fit for battle.
However, he did not give up. With amazing perseverance and talent, he, much to everyone's surprise, turned into an admin-type cultivator from a battle-type cultivator. Furthermore, his strength had also recovered to the intermediate level of the Core Formation Stage!
Because of this legendary experience, Xiong Baili enjoyed very high prestige in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Even the experts who were stronger than him assented cordially for him to assume the post of the dean of the institute.
Rumor has it that Xiong Baili was ambitious and was hell bent on raising the Grand Desolate War Institution into one of the three super universities among the "Nine Elite Universities". At the very least, he wanted to get rid of the current predicament where the Grand Desolate War Institution ranked last among the "Nine Elite Universities".
And his idea was to strengthen the four major departments and to weaken or even dismiss all the waste departments, and as such, all the resources were poured into the four major departments for development.
Even though he thought like this, in the wake of this tragedy, Xiong Baili could not help but feel dejected.
Next to the dean stood Yuan Manqiu, who wore a black robe and had a pale complexion as she kept staring at the wreckage of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, seemingly wanting to forcibly take that wreckage down from the pedestal.
During these seven days, she had almost never slept as she frantically rummaged through the rubble. She had become a lot more haggard but also a little thinner. One could vaguely find a slight shadow of the "Deep Sea Goddess" from a few decades ago.
Watching her undergo a complete transformation from her previous appearance in these seven days, Li Yao was a little absent-minded.
In these seven days, almost without any ounce of sleep, Li Yao unleashed all of his special abilities which he had learned in the Magical Equipment Graveyard as he cleaned up the rubble together with Yuan Manqiu, rescuing a lot of precious jade chips, books, training equipment, and heaven and earth treasures that were buried under the rubble.
Even though Li Yao had tempered himself with the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique, which he had learned from the memory fragments, at this moment, he was unable to hold on and was shaky and unsteady.
"The Refining Department is only left with an associate professor and a few dozen students who have mediocre strength. What am I going to do in the future?"
Contemplated Li Yao.
At this point, someone from behind lightly poked him. When he turned around, it was the freshman, Huang Tong.
Huang Tong was active amongst the freshmen. He was particularly outgoing; not even a few days had passed, yet he had become one with the older students and had also made a lot of friends outside the department. He was very well informed.
Huang Tong gave a wink to Li Yao: "Li Yao, what do you think? Which department are you actually going to transfer to? The Iron Fist Club or the Chaos Edge Hall?"
