Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Chapter 441 - Chapter 450

Chapter 441 - Flying Star Sector

Before the pincers reached him, an invisible wave of air stirred up Li Yao's surroundings. The turbulence covered Li Yao like an impregnable net.

In the meantime, the double-head crystal cannon on the back of the giant crab emitted weird redness, too. Spiritual waves were condensing in the depths of the barrels. The frequency and wavelength were totally different from the hundreds of spiritual energy condensing methods that Li Yao had seen before; the spiritual waves he was witnessing at this moment were much more shrill, furious, and unstable.

After a single glance, Li Yao's mind was already greatly disturbed. All kinds of dark feelings were popping up inside his brain weirdly.

Li Yao showed no expression. His eyeballs were rolling at a high speed as he captured every movement of the giant crab.

This was his very first battle in a foreign constellation, and he didn't want to end it so quickly. Instead, he was planning to analyze the crab to get more information about this particular constellation.

"The guy is doomed!"

Box Novel.com

Mu Ping and the other Exos were back to themselves. Seeing that the unfamiliar Exo in tatty armor standing dumbly in front of a demon beast doing nothing but watching its pincers waving at him, they all thought that he was a rookie or that he had a brain concussion because of the huge impact when the escape capsule hit the land, and therefore exclaimed in shock.

They had no doubt that the blundering Exo would be cut in half by the crab's pincers in the very next second!

Swoosh!

Li Yao retreated quickly, leaving grey blurred shadows behind him. The seemingly broken crystal suit was actually performing small-scale dodging movements at an unbelievable speed. Although the pincers of the crab were smashing crazily, they couldn't touch the swiftly jumping Li Yao.

"Such impressive speed!"

"The movements are so delicate! No gap is wasted, not even a millimeter!"

"The guy is not influenced by the air turbulence at all. How skilled he must be at manipulating the power rune arrays!"

"He must be a Cultivator, and a very strong one! Chances are that—he is in the high level of the Refinement Stage!"

"You must be kidding. His capability is apparently even higher than the experts that we hired. He can't be just in the high level of the Refinement Stage. At the very least, he must be in the peak of the Refinement Stage!"

Everyone's eyes were bulging wide, including Mu Ping's. They had seen experts before, but none of the self-proclaimed experts who were obviously more talkers than doers had such unpredictable movements and delicate dodging abilities!

"Hiss!"

The crab's dozens of smashes all missed their target, which made it more infuriated than ever. Its entire shell turned crimson. The double-headed crystal cannon on its back blew out two clusters of raging redness which split into some twenty streaks and darted at Li Yao from different angles in weird curves.

"Is this everything you can do?

"Not as good as I expected!

"Although you look intimidating and even carry a piece of magical equipment on your back, your attack pattern is too monotonous. Every one of your attacks has been in fixed routes as if they were following a set pattern. You are even more useless than the demon beasts of the Heaven's Origin Sector!"

Coldness blinked in Li Yao's eyes. He put on a cruel smile casually and sprinted through four streaks of redness. The Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber was extended abruptly, circling him and withstanding another seven streaks. Eventually, he dodged the siege of the two incoming pincers at a close distance and reached the front of the crab.

CRACK!

The Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber stabbed deep into the crab's eyes. Li Yao burnt the power of his soul furiously. Spiritual energy in bright gold was dancing around his body like flames. The aura on his saber was instantly triggered to twenty meters long, which pierced through the crab's body out of its back and minced all its weak internal organs hiding behind the solid shell into pieces!

Shua!

Li Yao withdrew his saber and danced in the air to dodge the last three streaks of redness. Landing softly, he shook off the blood stain on his saber. Then he sheathed his saber and walked to the bystanders without looking back.

BOOM!

Behind him, the crab was still trying to wave its pincers. Struggling for three seconds, it finally collapsed to the ground. The pincers were twitching, and the crystal cannon dangled helplessly.

The Exos were so shocked that their jaws were nearly touching the ground.

One attack!

One attack was enough to slay the demon beast which was about to destroy the entire town!

The erratic movements, the ghost-like dodging, and the ferocious saber art were actually performed by a battered crystal suit which could break any second!

Who exactly was this super Exo that had fallen from the sky with such brutal skills?

Cold sweat was dripping off everyone's foreheads. They were frozen and didn't even dare to blink their eyes.

This mysterious Exo walked to the middle of them. A bright gold hexagon appeared on the helmet of the crystal suit, before the facial cover split into six petals and retreated, unveiling a face that was almost too young.

There were low exclamations in the crowed, which were immediately shut by biting their lips. Deep reverence appeared in their eyes.

Mu Ping's heart was not peaceful, either. However, he had no other choice except to walk forward and bow respectfully. "Master, if I may ask..."

Beyond his expectation, the face of this 'master' was twitching violently with a baffled expression. The eyes of the newcomer seemed to be covered in two clusters of grey mist, and there was no telling what he was actually thinking about.

Then he mumbled, "What... is this place?

"Who... am I?"

"Huh?"

Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment.

...

Half a day later, in Black Iron Town at the other end of the garbage plateau...

This was a town with a population of several thousand. It was located in the center of dozens of endless garbage hills that were hundreds of meters high. There was nothing but glittering metal wreckages as far as one's eyes could see.

Black Iron Town was itself almost exclusively built on debris.

All the houses had been constructed using the remnants of starships. Fleet emblems and numbers that were all mottled could be found on the walls of many buildings.

The streets of the town were made of starships' floors, too. They were all different colors as if patches piled up together.

On the two sides of the streets grew a lot of tall trees. But with a closer look, one would notice that the so-called 'trees' were actually vines which were climbing on the rebar, crystal tubes, and crystal wires on the starships. They brought greenness to the desolate town.

At this moment, almost every household was working out of the town, dissecting the great crab dozens of meters long merrily.

A simple examination had suggested that the big fellow had no poison whatsoever and contained enough spiritual energy and nutrition to fill a lot of people's stomachs.

For the residents who lived in an austere world fragment and always tricked their mouths with recycled food, this was rarely-seen delicious food worthy of feasting upon.

They were also particularly excellent food ingredients for the few brawny fighters and Cultivators to help them with their training.

On the street, a few children with running noses and naked bottoms were wearing thin steel clothing connected by crystal wires and pretended it to be a crystal suit as they brayed and played with each other with abandoned air transmission tubes.

"Ho. 'Lightning Man' Zhao Xiaobao, the best Exo of the Flying Star Sector, is here! Take my Lightning Sword!"

"Hehe. I, Wang Tiehu, am the best Exo of the Flying Star Sector, and I am wearing the most awesome 'Angry God Battlesuit'. Your sword won't be able to break through it in a thousand years... Ah, no, no, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding!"

More children, on the other hand, had gathered outside of Mayor Mu Ping's house and peeped into it in great interest through the fence that had been built up by metal tubes.

"An awesome uncle fell from the sky!"

"He had only just landed on the ground when he put down an enormous crab!"

"Is he from the Heavenly Saints Alliance? My dad said the most brilliant Exos of the Flying Star Sector are all from the Heavenly Saints Alliance!"

Sitting below the roof, Li Yao accepted the respect of the little children somewhat embarrassedly.

There was a fully-automatic spiritual energy water cleaner that had been dismantled from a starship. It could put twenty-one flavors into the water by adjusting the vibration frequency.

Right now, it was set to the green tea flavor. The air was filled with a vague scent of freshness.

Amnesia was his best disguise. On one hand, he was saved the trouble of explaining his identity; on the other hand, if he was engaged with formidable enemies, there would be more room for him to act.

Therefore, Li Yao 'forgot everything' except for his own name.

But the actual situation seemed to indicate that he had worried too much.

This world fragment was at the edge of the constellation. Although it was fairly large, there was only one town with a population of several thousand. There were no strong experts here. Even Mu Ping, mayor of the town, was only in the middle level of the Refinement Stage.

Li Yao left a deep impression on everybody by slaying the giant crab with one slash. Therefore, he didn't meet too much trouble in getting along with them.

Despite his suspicious claim that he couldn't remember anything, Mu Ping and the rest of the folks did not dare to make light of him. They invited him into town respectfully and explained the basic situation of this constellation for him at his request.

Li Yao's speculation proved to be correct. The world here was named 'Flying Star Sector'. Since the environment here used to be very favorable for a lot of rare metals and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, this place had been an important base of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago. Quite a few crystal suit refining centers, research institutes, and universities had been established here.

In order to protect the crystal suit manufacturers as well as the experts and specialists, a large fleet of starships had been based in the Flying Star Sector, too.

After the 'Hundred-Million Lightyears Expedition' took away seventy percent of the troops of the Star Ocean Imperium, the Flying Star Sector had in effect become one of the most important strategical establishments in the rear.

Therefore, after the outbreak of 'Armageddon Rebellion', the army of demonic Cultivators corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils and the remnant demons collaborated to assault the Flying Star Sector without warning.

The alliance of the demonic Cultivators and the demons was engaged in a protracted fierce battle with the army of Cultivators who were loyal to the Supreme Emperor and mankind. The Flying Sector was turned upside down during the battle. More than half of the world collapsed and broke into smithereens.

After thousands of years of recovery, the Flying Star Sector was still an unstable place, plagued by cosmic storms, cosmic turbulence, and space garbage. The few planets that were left intact had harsh natural environments that were not suitable for the survival of mass human beings despite their atmosphere.

Therefore, different from the human civilization of the Heaven's Origin Sector, the human civilization of the Flying Star Sector was actually not rooted on a planet, or a fairly-large and even boundless world fragment; mankind in the Flying Star Sector lived in small world fragments, starships, and star fortresses and roamed the sea of stars. Theirs was a brand-new space civilization!

Chapter 442 - Chaotic Constellation

"This is the basic situation of the Flying Star Sector. The planets relatively larger all have extremely harsh environments. Either boundless deserts, surging oceans, or highlands with ragged mountains more than five thousand meters tall.

"The air of such planets often contains all kinds of impurities, if they have air at all. Ordinary people and low-level Cultivators find it barely possible to survive. Some ordinary people decided to live and procreate in such planets, only to experience various mutations and end up nothing like humans. We space residents call them the barbarians.

"Only the high-level Cultivators land on the planets occasionally to obtain rare materials or hunt demon beasts.

"Most people prefer to live in the sea of stars.

"Take us for example. Our town is in the periphery of the Flying Star Sector and based in this small fragment. Although I wouldn't say it is prosperous, there are quite a lot of ancient battlegrounds nearby where we can excavate valuable items to trade for food and other daily necessities with other towns. Life here is not the most comfortable, but we can make do with it.

"Cultivation sects, on the other hand, prefer to live in starships. The headquarters of a sect are often located in a giant starship carrier. A large batch of cruisers and destroyers that are less aggressive will be their branches. When all the starships go out together, it can be quite a splendid scene.

Box Novel.com

"What I was talking about is the sects that are relatively smaller in size. For the top ten sects of the Flying Star Sector, their headquarters are often a super-large star fortress!

"Such star fortresses were originally the ultimate weapons of the Star Ocean Imperium. After the sects retrieved them, they spent thousands of years gathering new usable debris and materials which they affixed to their star fortresses to enlarge them. Eventually, the star fortresses have become colossal cities in space that can accommodate millions of people and even more!

"Several ultra-strong super sects simply emptied some smaller planets and their satellites before carving extraordinarily large power rune arrays that can be hundreds of square kilometers on their surfaces. Then, such sects built the planets and satellites into their headquarters and all their disciples have been living inside!"

Mu Ping said with a smile, "Master Li Yao, I don't think that your remarkable combat skills are self-taught. You must be a disciple from one of the major sects. Something went wrong, perchance an assault of the space pirates. You escaped the disaster and somehow ended up here.

"You might as well settle yourself in Black Iron Town first. Then, you can try to recover your memories while you train yourself. When there is a chance, we will ask around to see if any Cultivation sects' transportation teams have passed by us recently. It's very likely that you belong to the sect."

Li Yao nodded his head, showing neither approval nor disapproval. However, something Mu Ping said aroused his interest and he pursued further, "What are space pirates? Thieves in the sea of stars?"

Mu Ping did not doubt Li Yao's authenticity. In his eyes, Li Yao was way above himself and had absolutely no need to cheat country folks such as them. He replied frankly, "Space pirates are one of the three hazards of the Flying Star Sector.

"Our Flying Star Sector was a crucial battleground ten thousand years ago. Therefore, the entire constellation is brimming with war wreckages.

"Those wreckages are inexhaustible treasuries for us.

"What's more, most people live in world fragments, starships, and star fortresses which are, in effect, lone islands in a vast ocean.

"All factors considered, free trade in space is of paramount importance for us.

"Some star fortresses can't produce food, some world fragments are in lack of certain Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, and some starships need to change their air circulation system regularly... The demands have encouraged very prosperous space trade. There are countless trade routes.

"Take Black Iron Town for example. Although we are far from the center of the sector, we still have to go out and participate in several fairs to exchange for things we need every year.

"As the scale of the trade grew, naturally, some bad, strong guys decided that killing and stealing were more suitable for them.

"At first, they might have had good reasons. For example, a starship of a certain sect encountered a meteorite cascade and cosmic storm and was almost blown to pieces. Perhaps it was in desperate need of certain goods, but it had lost all its resources to trade for them. In the emergency, they might have been grabbed by devastation and decided to rob someone else of what they needed.

"But later, those people tasted the fun in it. They turned from amateurs into professional space pirates. After all, the conditions of the Flying Star Sector couldn't be more suitable for them. They could simply hide in a random stone belt after each job and nobody would ever be able to find them!

"And now, the influence of the space pirates is growing stronger and stronger. The several kitties in the beginning have now evolved into more than ten infamous gangs.

"As for the smaller space pirate gangs and the space pirates who prefer to run solo, there are simply too many of them to count!

"Even some business caravans which are made of conspicuously legal merchants and behave obediently in the trade spots garrisoned by strong Cultivators will often cut off the communication of a starship much weaker than theirs when they run into one in the desolate sea of stars and loot whatever is on the captured starship secretly. It is not unusual at all."

Li Yao's face turned extremely weird as he listened to Mu Ping's words.

Cultivation sects could disgrace themselves so much as to live on robbery?

It was something inconceivable in the Heaven's Origin Sector.

The most scandalous Cultivators might play dirty moves on other Cultivators for their own interest. But would they ever rob ordinary people?

They would kill themselves before they did that because it was considered a public humiliation.

The Flying Star Sector was indeed a world of chaos!

"You just mentioned 'one of the three hazards'. What are the other two hazards other than space pirates?" Asked Li Yao calmly.

Although the spiritual energy in the Flying Star Sector was much more abundant than that in the Heaven's Origin Sector, the situation here was much more messed-up. It was best to get a big picture of everything so that he could be prepared for whatever was to come.

Mu Ping counted his fingers and said, "The second hazard is the demon beasts.

"There are no powerful demon forces in the Flying Star Sector except for the occasionally-seen demon beasts. However, those demon beasts are all offspring of the alliance of the demon race and the demonic Cultivators. They have inherited some secret arts of their ancestors which allow them to meld their bodies with the magical equipment left by the demonic Cultivators!

"The big crab that you killed is precisely one such demon beast.

"As to how they are melded with the magical equipment, we don't have the slightest clue. We only know that the beasts will lurk in meteorites and drift in the sea of stars looking for the scent of human beings.

"Black Iron Town was unfortunate to have been detected by the beast when we were collecting the remnants of the starships. It then followed our scent and made its way here. Thankfully, Master Li Yao came in time. Otherwise, the entire town would've been slaughtered."

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. He didn't know that the eccentric double-headed crystal cannon was made by the demonic Cultivators. No wonder the way that its spiritual energy took shape was completely different to the appearance of spiritual energy from Cultivators' magical equipment; it was much more brutal, ferocious, and malevolent.

He would definitely spend some time studying it when he had a spare minute!

Mu Ping paused briefly and then continued.

"The third hazard is, obviously, the demonic Cultivators!

"The Flying Star Sector was one of the main battlegrounds of the 'Armageddon Rebellion'. Countless corpses of the demonic Cultivators were left in this place. Perhaps that's the reason demonic Cultivators have a special interest in our sector.

"Also, because of the disordered environment, many wavering Cultivators are often tempted by the extraterrestrial devils and transformed into demonic Cultivators.

"There are even cases where the Cultivators of an entire starship were turned into demonic Cultivators and the vehicle they were taking became a 'satanic warship'.

"For ordinary people and low-level Cultivators such as myself, if we are caught by the 'befallen fiends', there would be absolutely nothing we can do except to close our eyes and wait for our death.

"But thankfully, the appearance of demon beasts or demonic Cultivators is highly unlikely. It is extremely improbable for us to run into one. In comparison, the likelihood of the space pirates' visits is much higher. That's why space pirates are listed first and foremost on the list of hazards in the Flying Star Sector!"

Deep in thought, Li Yao nodded his head. But excitement was beaming out of his eyes.

Demonic Cultivators...

They were brand new enemies for him.

The biggest threat to the Heaven's Origin Sector was the Blood Demon Sector. News about demonic Cultivators was rare. Li Yao had once run into a mediocre demonic Cultivator named Zheng Dongming. However, the guy had to wag his tail and did not dare to reveal his true identity.

But as it turned out, demonic Cultivators were one of the major hazards in the Flying Star Sector. How interesting!

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao asked, "If the three hazards are causing so much damage, how has the government been handling them?"

Mu Ping was startled. He blurted out, "Government? What government?"

Li Yao was startled, too. He scratched his head and frowned.

"The national government. The army. Are they taking any measures against the three hazards?"

Mu Ping stared at him for a long time, as if he had said the most hilarious thing in the world. After a long while, he shook his head and said, "There hasn't been a nation in the Flying Star Sector for thousands of years! A starship represents a Cultivation sect. The Cultivation sects are scattered everywhere in the constellation and rely on the debris of ancient battlegrounds and the world fragments to provide supplies. The concept of a nation is highly redundant."

Li Yao raised his eyebrows.

He had read in the text books that, before the Star Glory Federation was established, the Heaven's Origin Sector was in an anarchistic state where all the sects minded their own business in a disorganized manner.

He didn't expect for the Flying Star Sector to be still in such a state right now.

However, it seemed to be pretty plausible on second thought.

After all, most of the spiritual energy and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in the Heaven's Origin Sector congregated in one planet which only had one main continent.

In such a case, the Cultivation sects tended to bond and form a nation when they were faced with the threat of a common foe.

In comparison, the Cultivation sects of the Flying Star Sector were scattered in the sea of stars. Each of them could get their own supplies from the ancient debris. It was pretty understandable that a unified nation and a central government did not exist.

After Mu Ping's explanations, Li Yao finally learnt that most people living in the Flying Star Sector paid taxes to and did business with selected Cultivation sects in exchange for their protection. When they were threatened by the three hazards such as a space pirate assault, they could send distress calls to the Cultivation sect they had chosen and ask for their help.

In order to suppress the space pirates and ensure the safety of the trade routes between different sects, a lot of high bounties had been declared, resulting in the ever-appearing unaffiliated Cultivators and hunters who chased and preyed on space pirates, demon beasts, and demonic Cultivators in the sea of stars for the generous rewards.

Chapter 443 - Heavenly Saints City

Generally speaking, the Flying Star Sector was more chaotic than the Heaven's Origin Sector, but it was freer. The Cultivation sects here had more power, too. They were in effect the miniature governments in this world.

Li Yao thought of something and asked, "Then, which sect does Black Iron Town belong to?"

Mu Ping smiled, somewhat embarrassedly, and said, "Black Iron Town does not belong to any sect."

As it turned out, Black Iron Domain, the world fragment that Black Iron Town was located in, was at the edge of the Flying Star Sector, surrounded by dangerous stone belts and cosmic storms and haunted by spiritual tides. Sailing in this area would consume a lot of resources.

Although there was an ancient battleground here, it was one of the relics that had been developed in the earliest years. After thousands of years of exploitation, the key components and precious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures had been drained a long time ago. What was left were nothing but broken remnants riddled with holes or empty starship shells. For high-level Cultivators, they were not of much value.

This was a typical backward village. None of the big sects thought highly of the place. Even sending a large starship to establish a 'branch' here was a waste of time and resources in their eyes.

Box Novel.com

Previously, a small sect named 'Trinity Sect' had been stationed in this place. But it was quite unlucky that a cosmic storm struck them when their leader was advancing to a higher level in seclusion. Two of the three starships of the sect had been blown into smithereens. The leader of the sect had been so irked that his breakthrough was disturbed, leading to his mental derangement and eventually his death.

The survivors of the disaster were far from enough to run a sect. They decided to join other big sects in the center of the constellation flying their last starship.

As a result, the dozens of world fragments and starship towns became unprotected by the sects.

Thankfully, this place was too remote and infertile. Not just the Cultivators, even the space pirates barely had any interest in it. Also, since the residents living in such harsh environments, be they low-level Cultivators or ordinary people, were all equipped with crystal suits, they were capable of protecting themselves during the assaults of small demon beasts. As long as large batches of space pirates did not invade, they would be relatively safe.

The benefit of having zero protection from Cultivation sects was that the residents did not have to pay taxes and fulfil the labor duties. The dozens of towns here traded with each other and supplied themselves with whatever they needed. Their life had been peaceful and comfortable.

The enormous crab that Li Yao had slayed had drifted to this place on a meteor. It was not a local demon beast. That was why they'd found it so tricky to deal with it.

Li Yao nodded and realized that it was very fortunate of him to land in this place.

Since there were no Cultivation sects, nobody would investigate his identity. Later, he would be able to travel in the Flying Star Sector as a resident of Black Iron Town. Unless somebody was suspicious and decided to pursue it further, his faked identity would be seamless.

However, the fact that there were no Cultivation sects meant the general knowledge of Cultivation remained insufficient in this area, which could be inferred from how everyone was addressing him.

He was merely in the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage, and yet everyone was calling him 'Master', as if he were one of the top Cultivators in the universe.

Although it was not unusual for Cultivators in the middle level of the Building Foundation Stage, who were considered to be the most promising persons among all Cultivators, to work as the key personnel of Cultivation sects or university professors, the gap between them and the real 'masters' was not negligible.

He had to get out of here as soon as possible and find the real Cultivation sects in the center of the Flying Star Sector which were more prosperous.

If he could join one of the Cultivation sects and learn the advanced Cultivation arts of the Flying Star Sector, it would be best.

Thinking about this part, Li Yao continued posing questions. "Mayor Mu, which sect is the most influential one in the Flying Star Sector?"

Hopeful brilliance beamed out of Mu Ping's eyes as he replied with a smile, "There are almost a hundred well-known sects in the Flying Star Sector. But the biggest one of all is unquestionably the 'Heavenly Saints Alliance'!

"The Heavenly Saints Alliance is not one sect, but the coalition of the six strongest sects of the Flying Star Sector.

"A thousand years ago, they bridged their main starships and star fortresses and built a grand, magnificent super metropolis in space named 'Heavenly Saints City'! After a thousand years of development, Heavenly Saints City has grown larger and larger like an enormous animal devouring new starships and star fortresses.

"I'm told that Heavenly Saints City is the biggest man-made structure in the Flying Star Sector; it can accommodate tens of millions of people!

"Heavenly Saints City is not only the place where the six strongest sects of the Flying Star Sector are headquartered, but also boasts the best universities, the most advanced crystal suit refining centers, the biggest and most extravagant arenas, and the most Exo associations...

"Anyways, although the Flying Star Sector does not have a capital, Heavenly Saints City is the well-deserved center of the Flying Star Sector!

"What's more, it is said that the high-level Cultivators have modified the interior of Heavenly Saints City tremendously, to the extent that the residents inside the city do not feel that they are floating in space at all.

"What they see are white clouds and blue sky. What they smell is fresh air. They can enjoy the beautiful landscapes such as man-made lakes, rivers, mountains, and even oceans. It is truly heaven on earth. Everyone in the Flying Star Sector yearns to live in Heavenly Saints City, even for just a month!"

Mu Ping's face was gleaming. The interconnecting scars on his face started twitching, suggesting his intense desire.

Li Yao was quite shocked, too.

A city in space that boasted man-made oceans?

What a marvelous splendor it must be!

Heavenly Saints City! It would appear that he had his goal now.

When he arrived in Heavenly Saints City, he would be able to join the strongest Cultivation sects where he could learn the most sophisticated skills and the most advanced technologies!

Even if these Cultivation sects rejected him, according to Mu Ping, there were still universities, arenas, crystal suit refining centers, and Exo associations in Heavenly Saints City. It seemed that information regarding the magical equipment and technology of this Sector was not too confidential, and there were public forums where people could study and communicate.

If so, he could learn many things as long as he could reach Heavenly Saints City!

Li Yao swallowed so as to suppress the desire in his heart. Then he asked casually, "How far is it from here to Heavenly Saints City? What kind of procedures are there to live and study in Heavenly Saints City and even join a Cultivation sect?"

Mu Ping coughed and said, somewhat embarrassedly, "Nobody can say for sure the distance between us and Heavenly Saints City. The Flying Star Sector is a fairly large place and a very chaotic one. Many routes are often cut off by stone belts and cosmic storms. Dangerous space turbulence and swirls are not uncommon either. If a starship sails into the seemingly peaceful area, they'll fall into the four-dimensional universe and be teleported to god knows where. In the worst cases, they might be torn apart directly.

"The point is, our starships may not be able to reach Heavenly Saints City in several years.

"Besides, Heavenly Saints City is not fixed in one place but a moving metropolis floating in the sea of stars, searching for the areas with the most abundant spiritual energy; it will fly to any place that has more resources.

"Sure, there are star beacons. But they are not prepared for country folks such as us.

"Heavenly Saints City is the holy land for all the people in the Flying Star Sector. Everyone craves to be a resident of Heavenly Saints City and will head there at whatever cost.

"Even though Heavenly Saints City is being enlarged every year, there are still too many people crowding into it.

"Five hundred years ago, orbital rings started to be built on the periphery of Heavenly Saints City to accommodate more residents. They are known as 'star rings'.

"At first, there was one ring. Then, two rings. Currently, even the ninth ring has been filled. The tenth ring is under construction!

"Therefore, since three hundred years ago, Heavenly Saints City stopped opening to the general outsiders.

"Every year, Heavenly Saints City will propose a certain quota of population and issue corresponding residential certificates to the outsiders. To apply for a residential certificate, one must first prove that one is a qualified talent for Heavenly Saints City."

Li Yao frowned. "And how can one prove oneself?"

Mu Ping extended two of his fingers and said, "There are two ways. The first one is to participate in the various matches hosted by Heavenly Saints City, such as Exo championships and refining competitions. The winners of the games will be entitled to enter Heavenly Saints City.

"The matches are not necessarily for Cultivators. Many of them are for ordinary people, too. For example, last year, the management of Heavenly Saints City discovered after prolonged calculations that the city was short of three hundred chefs. Therefore, a match of cooking skills was held, and the top three hundred winners were authorized to live in Heavenly Saints City even though they were just cooks.

"The second way is to accomplish certain special tasks.

"For example, a space pirate has fled to the depths of the sea of stars after committing felonies in Heavenly Saints City. The guardians of Heavenly Saints City are not able to catch him for the time being. Therefore, they may propose a bounty with additional rewards, say, the permission to live in Heavenly Saints City, besides the monetary benefits.

"However, either the matches hosted by Heavenly Saints City or the bounty tasks are usually only open to other major sects and the ordinary people under their protection. Small places like ours do not have the ticket to take part in such matches at all. On the other hand, we often miss the latest news, because we are not covered in the Spiritual Nexus. We can only learn what is going on in the outside world when we are attending kermises. It is hard for us to hear of the bounties in time.

"Therefore, although Heavenly Saints City is heaven on earth, it is but a daydream for us. Haha."

Mu Ping smiled, bitterly and regretfully.

Li Yao scratched his hair. Kermises?

In a place filled with remnants of starships where giant light beams were hanging on the walls, kermis sounded like a pretty odd word.

But he didn't pursue it further. Pondering for a moment, he reflected on what Mu Ping had just said.

It seemed that entering Heavenly Saints City would not be an easy job. But first of all, he had to move to the center of the Flying Star Sector where the news was more frequently updated. Or, he could join a random sect first in order to be qualified to participate in the matches of Heavenly Saints City.

As for what kind of matches to take part in...

In either the competitions of crystal suits or those of refining, Li Yao was confident that, even though he might not be the best in the Flying Star Sector, his skills were more than enough to earn him a place in Heavenly Saints City.

Ten of millions of people lived in Heavenly Saints City. A vast majority of them must be ordinary people. Li Yao didn't believe that he would be worse than them.

Suddenly, Li Yao thought of something that Mu Ping just mentioned. Confusion clear on his face, he asked, "Mayor Mu, you just said that every household in this area has crystal suits... But from what I've seen, there are not many Cultivators in the town. Then, who are the people wearing the crystal suits?"

Chapter 444 - Skill Card

Confused, Mu Ping blinked his eyes and asked, "What do you mean, Master Li? Our crystal suits are not specialized combat suits but are modified based on engineering suits and farming suits. They don't require Cultivators to wear. It is our country folks who have been using them.

"There are only four Cultivators in Black Iron Town. I am the strongest one of all, although I am merely in the middle level of the Refinement Stage. That's why I was elected as the mayor.

"This place is poor and underdeveloped, not something that young people with talent in Cultivation are particularly fond of. Most of them leave their hometown and make their living in bigger world fragments or starship towns. Young people want what is best for themselves. It's hard for us to say no. Therefore, the only Cultivators in town are the few old fellows like me, who have endured a lot of setbacks and haven't accomplished anything remarkable over the dozens of years of travelling outside. Now that we are old and our capability is unlikely to grow, retiring and resuming our old lives in our hometown is a better option for us. We quite enjoy it."

Li Yao was confused and startled. He could guess a thing or two about engineering crystal suits, but what were farming crystal suits? Did farmers in this place till the land in crystal suits?

It must be a joke!

Besides, ordinary people could wear crystal suits?

Box Novel.com

Li Yao's mindset was completely reshaped.

Crystal suits were magical equipment of magical equipment. They were the ultimate weapons in the Heaven's Origin Sector. Not just random fighters, not many low-level Cultivators had even been equipped with crystal suits before MP crystal suits were promoted.

It was partly because crystal suits were unaffordable, and partly because wearing a crystal suit required high personal abilities.

First of all, through the high-sensitivity crystal cameras and ears, a crystal suit could gather a huge amount of information within a moment and pour it down into the brain of the Exo. The computational ability of the ordinary people was far from enough to handle it.

Secondly, combat with a crystal suit was a great burden for the body of the Exo. The backlash against the body resulting from accelerating to sub-sonic or even super-sonic speed instantly and halting, turning or spinning in the very next second almost equaled to a free fall from dozens of floors high.

If an ordinary person were to wear such a crystal suit, it was quite likely that, after an instantaneous acceleration, a suddenly halt, and a zigzag, their internal organs would all explode.

Not to mention that the blast of spiritual energy when the formidable attacks were carried out in a crystal suit would definitely be enough to batter the soul of an ordinary person and turn them mentally retarded.

Therefore, in the Heaven's Origin Sector, even Li Yao as a Cultivator had to learn crazily in a special Exo training camp for quite a few months in order to familiarize himself with the skills of how to manipulate a crystal suit, let alone ordinary people.

But Mu Ping seemed to be implying that every household in the Flying Star Sector had a crystal suit and they were at full disposal of ordinary people without causing any injuries.

That was indeed incredible!

If I can learn such technology and equip every soldier of the Star Glory Federation with a crystal suit, a steel torrent of billions of crystal suits will be created. It will be as easy as pie to crush the Blood Demon Sector!

Li Yao was greatly interested.

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao realized that he wouldn't know what the crystal suits in this place were exactly until he saw them with his own eyes. Therefore, he asked Mu Ping to bring him to check them out.

Mu Ping gladly agreed. Surrounded by dozens of children, he brought Li Yao to the outside of the town where the giant crab was being dissected.

The residents of Black Iron Town lived on the relics of an ancient battleground. They occasionally hunted down intruding demon beasts, too. Therefore, they were quite familiar with the job.

Dozens of muscled men were waving chainswords and battle axes in somewhat clumsy engineering crystal suits to cut open the solid shells. The scraps of the solid shell were then cleaned up, sanitized, put through anti-corrosive procedures, and stacked orderly.

The solid shell was one of the best materials that could be used to trade with other towns.

As for the crab meat contained inside, it was rough and hard, not readily edible. It would have to be minced and mixed with other meat and a nutrition drug, but it did have a special flavor with it. For the residents, it could almost be called delicious.

Seeing that Li Yao had arrived, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him in reverence.

Mu Ping called down a hefty, brawny guy from the back of the giant crab. Together with his thick and black crystal suit, he was almost three meters tall.

"This is Zhang Heiniu. Twenty-five years old. His Spirit Actualization Quotient has reached 85%. It's very likely that his spiritual root will be awakened soon. His fighting skills with a crystal suit are among the best in the few towns nearby!" said Mu Ping with a smile.

Zhang Heiniu held his head high and grinned innocently, too.

"Heiniu, this master wants to see your capability. You must try your best!" informed Mu Ping.

As a remote village, Black Iron Town was not frequented by crystal suit masters. Zhang Heiniu was in high spirits the moment he heard the news. He rubbed his fists and asked the bystanders to clear the area.

Suddenly, he stomped on the ground and sprinted forward dozens of meters like a black tornado. Then he came to an abrupt halt and punched the air in front of him twice. Waves were rippling out in the air, producing rumbling thunder-like noises.

Li Yao was somewhat startled.

Zhang Heiniu's attack was, of course, not very impressive, but it had far exceeded the limits of an ordinary person. By logic, the bones throughout his body should've been shattered into pieces by the immense blast.

Right then, Zhang Heiniu bellowed. His body span weirdly, bringing out an intimidating aura around him as if he were a different person. Two clusters of black air circled his arms, which were pushed forward forcefully. The black air drilled forward like a helix and blew two giant holes on a metal remnant some twenty meters away.

"This is—"

Li Yao's eyes were almost frozen, and his mind was greatly shocked.

Such a remote attack must have a high demand on the control of the shape and trajectory of the spiritual energy, not to mention the huge cost of spiritual energy and computational ability. It was clearly a move that only Cultivators could manage. How could Zhang Heiniu carry it out as an ordinary person?

Zhang Heiniu seemed exhausted after performing the attack. He bent his body and took a moment to rest before he came back to Li Yao and said respectfully, "Master, my previous attack, 'Black Tiger Explosion', is supposed to hit a target at least twenty meters away. But the best I can do is reach fifteen meters however hard I train myself. I don't know if there is something wrong with my posture or the way I exert my strength. Please do enlighten me, Master!"

Holding back the surprise in his heart, Li Yao asked Zhang Heiniu to take off his crystal suit.

Since the main livelihood of Black Iron Town came from dismantling, recycling, and modifying the remnants, there were quite a few maintenance platforms in the town. Li Yao examined this particular engineering crystal suit on an open-air maintenance platform.

"The crystal suit is not made of precious materials, just regular strengthened alloys. No wonder the crystal suit is refined in such a clumsy style. Otherwise, the demand in hardness wouldn't be satisfied.

"The framework is quite impressive, in distinctive grassroots fashions. Simple, practical, highly-replaceable, and easy to fix. Very low requirement in maintenance skills.

"The joints of the crystal suit are quite unusual... Brilliant, truly brilliant. Even the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit can learn many things from the brand-new design of the joints!

"This is just an engineering crystal suit, and it already has so many extraordinary designs and structures. I wonder, how fabulous will the real combat crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector be?

"Huh. What are these?"

Li Yao discovered almost a hundred of rune arrays on the interior of the crystal suit that he had never seen before. Judging from the constitution and the circulation model of the rune arrays, their purpose was to buffer the blast and enhance the strength of the Exo.

It appeared that these rune arrays provided perfect protection and tremendous aid to the Exo so that the body of an ordinary person was enough to support the crystal suit.

As for information processing, Li Yao paid special attention to the crystal processor of the engineering crystal suit.

He discovered that, not only was the crystal processor added with quite a few miniature units that were new to him, there were even two small slots on it. One of them was empty, while the other one had a card inserted in it.

Li Yao took out the card with a pair of forceps.

It was a card no larger than a fingernail and less than a millimeter thick. But there were countless crystal wires on the edge of the card. It appeared that the card had been piled up by layers of extremely thin crystal membranes.

The surface of the crystal card was carved with more than twenty miniature rune arrays, which were bathed in glamourous brightness, with spiritual energy flowing vaguely.

Such a sophisticated steric rune arrays building technique!

The crystal card is only one millimeter thick, but it is actually a set of at least a hundred crystal membranes. If each of the membranes has been carved with twenty miniature rune arrays, there will be so much things that this fingernail-like crystal card can do!

Li Yao secretly paid his compliments. Then he frowned as if he were deep in thought and asked Mu Ping, "What's the name of this? It looks rather familiar, but I can't remember what it is called."

"This is a skill card. I believe Master Li must've been using them all the time before. Of course it looks familiar."

Mu Ping explained, "For us the low-level Cultivators and ordinary fighters, although we can complete the simple attack and defense movements in a crystal suit, the more complicated skills and the ultimate ones are tantalizing yet unachievable for us.

"But a skill card can store the ultimate moves of the high-level Cultivators. When they are inserted into a crystal suit, they will be automatically triggered. All the skills stored inside will be ready. With a telepathic thought, the crystal suit will take control of our body and let us perform the ultimate skill that we chose!"

Li Yao's eyes bulged wide open. The Flying Star Sector was indeed a place of marvels. There were even such amazing things!

Cultivators could seal their own moves in a crystal card and let someone else to use them?

Mu Ping grinned. "The Flying Star Sector is too large a place, and the residents are scattered everywhere in the sea of stars. There are bound to be places Cultivators may not be able to attend to. Therefore, the skill cards were invented to equip the ordinary people and low-level Cultivators with their remarkable moves. The capability of the recipients is able to soar instantly.

"This skill card has been sealed with 'Peak Fighters Luxury Bundle' provided by 'Ferocious Tiger Sect'. It is designed for the super experts among the regular fights and includes twenty uses of 'Black Tiger Explosion', five uses of 'Tiger Devil Slash', and one use of the extraordinarily fearsome 'Tiger Satan Heart Piercing Barrage'. The moves have all been sealed into the cards by the elites in Ferocious Tiger Sect who spent a huge amount of their soul power sealing their telepathic thoughts. More importantly, such a skill card sells at only five thousand Flying Star dollars apiece. A marvelous item with a decent price. It is one of the most popular skill cards for Exos nearby."

Chapter 445 - Kermis Visiting

Li Yao was almost baffled. Even skills could be mass produced and sold?

Pondering for a while, he decided to insert the skill card back to the slot of the crystal processor and reactivated the engineering crystal suit named "Rockman".

The crystal suit had been designed for the purpose of dismantling and maintaining large starships in the vacuum of space. But the residents of Black Iron Town had added alloy plate armor and chainswords to it to make it a usable tool in a combat.

Since it could be manipulated by an ordinary fighter, Li Yao had no trouble wearing it at all as an expert Exo.

After reading the tutorials of the Rockman in three minutes, Li Yao took a few steps forward stumblingly.

The Rockman seemed no different from the crystal suits that he used to wear, but it felt much more soft and gentle. Li Yao felt like he was soaked in a hot spring and couldn't tell that he was wearing a large crystal suit weighing more than ten tons.

Box Novel.com

The buffer system and the assisting system are smartly designed. I barely need to exert my own strength. Every movement can be performed by the suit.

The comprehensive information processing system is quite advanced, too. Most of the information has been preprocessed by the crystal suit. Only the final outcome and the most crucial information are displayed. Together with the simple and straightforward operation menu, even ordinary people will know what situation they are in and what they should do to cope with it.

Although such a design may lead to monotonous tactics due to the lack of changes, it is something not unacceptable for ordinary fighters and low-level Cultivators.

Li Yao secretly compared Rockman with other crystal suits that he had worn and discovered that the operation pattern of Rockman was even easier than the 'beginner mode' in many crystal suits. It could almost be called 'auto mode'.

The Exo could choose from several combat styles, including 'assault', 'guerilla warfare', 'stall', 'remote attack', 'strength saving', and so on. Then, the crystal suit would act accordingly and automatically adjust the power rune arrays, defense shield, and the crystal reactor.

The Exo could also input simple instructions such as 'attack to the left' or 'defend on the right'. Their crystal suit would immediately complete the instructions.

Such a mode significantly improved the independency of a crystal suit and diminished the importance of the Exo. It had both disadvantages and advantages.

For experts such as Li Yao, he disliked the dull, boring combat style where the crystal processor took care of everything; he preferred to handle all the information he needed personally.

From the wind and direction of a breeze a hundred meters away, to the activation level of one of the runes on one of the thirty-two power rune arrays on his back... Everything must be under his control so that he could pick one of the thousands of possible combat plans at his will.

Such an 'auto' crystal suit was like a puppet with strings. Most of its movements had been preset. All the Exo had to do was to cooperate and do what the crystal suit asked to.

It may not be a big deal if the Exo was faced with a mediocre enemy. But the experts were likely to notice the pattern in the attacks and eventually locate loopholes.

But Li Yao had to admit that, for ordinary fighters and low-level Cultivators, such an 'auto mode' might be their best choice.

After all, not everyone had the talent required to be an expert Exo. They were hardly likely to encounter the real formidable enemies, too.

Even if they were engaged with a real formidable enemy, they could simply crush the enemy with their advantage in numbers!

Therefore, although he was not particularly fond of the crystal suit himself, Li Yao still paid his respect to the designer of such a crystal suit.

At this time, Li Yao noticed that, right beside the attack and defense instructions, there was another row of brilliantly shining buttons surrounded by right gold lines.

The words on them were the three moves comprised in the 'Peak Fighters Luxury Bundle'.

Black Tiger Explosion, Tiger Devil Slash, and Tiger Satan Heart Piercing Barrage!

Li Yao was greatly interested. He locked onto 'Black Tiger Explosion' with one of his telepathic thoughts and triggered it softly.

In a moment, a transparent phantom seemed to break apart in front of his eyes. Intense spiritual waves and telepathic thoughts were ringing around him. The Rockman produced a shrill sound, with an intimidating aura surrounding him. New reminders appeared on the light beam, asking him to carry out certain movements with his arms and torso.

Li Yao crossed his arms and pushed forward. He had barely exerted any of his strength when two streaks of immense spiritual energy blew out of the crystal reactor furiously like Zhang Heiniu just did, except that the black swirl of spiritual energy reached more than thirty meters away!

As I expected, not only does the 'skill card' store the instructions of a certain move, it also contains one of the telepathic thoughts of the Cultivator who produced it. The Cultivator must have spent a lot of time and effort on it. It is as authentic as their own attack. Quite impressive!

Greatly satisfied, Li Yao took off his crystal suit. He said to Zhang Heiniu, after thinking for a moment, "The most important thing about Black Tiger Explosion is not how much force you exert to push it out, but the inward helical strength when you are punching. You should 'swing' your strength instead of 'pushing' it out. Try to understand it. The damage of your attack should be able to be increased by 10% after you do."

"Thank you very much, Master!" yelled Zhang Heiniu in excitement.

Li Yao smiled. Pondering for a moment, he said to Mu Ping, "Mayor Mu, I would like to make a deal with Black Iron Town."

...

In the next half month, Li Yao stayed in Black Iron Town, partly to collect all the useful information about the Flying Star Sector, and partly to study the 'auto' crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector more carefully.

In order to deal with the giant crab, several Exos suffered tremendous wounds, and two of them had perished on the spot. Almost all the crystal suits had been seriously damaged.

Some of the minor damage could be maintained by themselves. But the crystal suits with more damage had to be sent to a bigger town named 'Star Lord Temple' for examination.

Li Yao had proposed to maintain and also strengthen the broken crystal suits in exchange for one of them.

The style of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was different from the crystal suits in the Flying Star Sector after all. Also, it had been affixed with a lot of materials from Skeleton Dragon.

Skeleton Dragon had been an ancient deadly demon forty thousand years ago. Its body materials and the scraps of the ancient magical equipment it collected were definitely treasures that were not seen every day.

Although Li Yao had covered them up and nobody had noticed anything wrong in Black Iron Town, Li Yao was certain that, since this world boasted such advanced technology in crystal suits, it was quite possible that somebody would see through the secrets of his crystal suit after he reached the more prosperous places and encountered the real specialists of the trade.

If so, he might be blamed even if he did nothing wrong just because he had an unparalleled treasure. Somebody might covet the body materials of Skeleton Dragon and decide to hunt him down. It would be a great nuisance for him.

Therefore, Li Yao had made up his mind that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit would be his secret weapon which wouldn't be used unless it was absolutely necessary.

And when the secret weapon was to be used, all the enemies who saw it would have to be eliminated!

So, he needed a common crystal suit of the Flying Star Sector for his daily use.

Right now, he could make do with an engineering crystal suit. After all, he could always upgrade the crystal suit after he arrived in the more prosperous places.

Li Yao spent ten days maintaining all the engineering crystal suits and farming crystal suits. He had basically grasped the refining style of the preliminary crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector.

Although he hadn't completely figured out the complicated rune arrays inside the crystal suits yet, he found no major trouble performing the rudimental repair work.

Then, he started to modify his own Rockman.

Since it was an engineering crystal suit and wouldn't boast enough combat ability no matter how it was modified, Li Yao decided to go exactly the opposite way. He fully restored the characteristics of an engineering crystal suit for Rockman and added two extra multipurpose arms that were filled with all kinds of maintenance and refining tools.

The Rockman right now had four arms, with an enormous storage bag on its back which could carry bountiful magical equipment units and components. It looked somewhat clumsy and eccentric.

Purposefully, Li Yao didn't polish or strengthen the surface of his new crystal suit. He even left a few meteorite scratches and patches of rust undealt with, making the crystal suit look heavy, stupid, and utterly harmless.

In a battleground, it would fit every description of a standard logistic crystal suit for maintenance.

In accordance to the Rockman was the new identity that Li Yao set for himself.

Li Yao, twenty-three years old, born and raised in a minor relic at the periphery of the Flying Star Sector. Because of the poor transportation, he had never gotten in touch with the outside world, except for the stories that he had been told and the knowledge he'd learnt from books.

Since he had been living with the garbage in the relic since he was a kid, his talent for magical equipment maintenance was discovered very early. He was especially good at the maintenance and modification of beginner-level crystal suits.

Half a year ago, his hometown was destroyed by an unexpected rain of meteorites; only a few survived. He had since been wandering in several other space towns and eventually learnt more about the outside world, especially the information regarding Heavenly Saints City.

As a young man who desired to be a master in crystal suit refining, he was now striving to reach Heavenly Saints City.

There were more young men in the Flying Star Sector that had shared similar life experiences than specks of dust here.

Making their way to Heavenly Saints City was almost a ubiquitous dream for everyone in the Flying Star Sector.

Such an identity was both inconspicuous and hard to falsify. It offered a fairly plausible explanation for his maintenance and modification skills, too.

After he left Black Iron Town and marched into the depths of the sea of stars, no one would doubt his background.

Mayor Mu had told him that there would be a kermis in a bigger town nearby named Star Lord Temple during the last five days in each month. At that time, the fleets of dozens of towns and villages in this place would all take part in the kermis, exchanging news and bartering goods.

There was cargo that set off to the more prosperous places regularly in Star Lord Temple, too. The young men who wanted to make a living in the outside world often chose to take the cargo ships because of the fairly reasonable ticket prices. For those who were adept at certain skills and could work as sailors or mechanics, they could even take the cargo ships for free.

Black Iron Town had suffered tremendous losses. Not only were some of their own residents killed or injured in the battle, the professional guards that they had hired from Star Lord Temple had passed away, too. It was expected that they sent the dead bodies back.

Besides, the precious materials they retrieved from the giant crab could only be sold in Star Lord Temple.

Therefore, the kermis this month was something that they had to attend.

Li Yao offered to go with them. Mu Ping was worried about the safety issue since they would be carrying so many demon beast materials and therefore agreed happily.

Chapter 446 - News Store

Six days later, on a shabby carrier, Mu Ping bowed to the light beam and said to Li Yao solemnly, "In front of us is the Temple of Lord Sea Stomper."

Inside the light beam was the remnant of a cruiser more than three thousand meters long with defense rings around it. The head and the tail of it were both shattered, a clear sign that the cruiser wouldn't be able to cruise anymore. The middle part of the cruiser was still intact and emitting seven-colored faint mystic rays.

Mu Ping explained, "Lord Sea Stomper used to be a 'Sea Stomper'-level cruiser of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago. Right now, most of its structure is too damaged to repair. But many living quarters in the middle part of the starship are still functioning. Also, since defense is highlighted in the design of the starship of this particular model, the protective rings around it are still working and can release solid spiritual shields.

"Five hundred years ago, a fleet which was blown off course by a cosmic storm found the place accidentally and survived the disaster by hiding inside the protective rings. Since then, the place has become well known.

"Everybody says that the soul of the starship has become a divinity, guarding the residents in this area from the unseen world. This place is the best port around.

"As time's gone by, the starship has become known as 'Lord Sea Stomper' and the place in general is called 'Star Lord Temple'. It is the trading center of the dozens of space towns nearby. Many other people have moved into the living quarters of the starship, gradually turning it into a teeming town itself."

Box Novel.com

"Fourth brother, offer incense to our Lord!"

A stout man answered and rubbed his hands on his linen trousers. Then, he typed quickly on the light beam. The carrier shivered and sent out three ivory light beams from its head to the front end of Lord Sea Stomper.

The three mystic rays were not aggressive at all; they carried the purest and most stable spiritual energy. After they pierced into the front end of Lord Sea Stomper, the hundreds of holes there all started glittering like countless blinking eyes, bringing out a sense of mystery.

Mu Ping and the townsfolk all shut their eyes and prayed.

"May Lord Sea Stomper watch over Black Iron Town and see that it is not disturbed by demon beasts, space pirates, or cosmic storms. It will be better if we can find more precious treasures in the ancient relic. If we make a fortune this year thanks to your help, we will definitely deliver you a water circulation system next year!"

Li Yao found it very amusing. As a determined modern Cultivator, he did not believe in the supernatural powers whose existences were hard to prove. He reached out to Mo Xuan during the time being.

Mo Xuan and the rest of the crew hadn't idled around while Li Yao was staying in Black Iron Town. They had collected a lot of warship remnants in the ancient battlegrounds and covered Sparkle with them in a messy manner.

Right now, even if Mo Xuan were to park Sparkle right in front of Li Yao, he wouldn't be able to recognize it.

Then, after riveting a bunch of other starship remnants, Mo Xuan drifted after Li Yao.

Battlegrounds were everywhere in the Flying Star Sector. Stirred by cosmic storms, countless remnants were floating in the sea of stars. Nobody would pay attention to them at all.

Li Yao exchanged the latest progress with Mu Xuan and his lot. Mu Xuan was quite interested in the refining style of the Flying Star Sector's crystal suits, too. They agreed that they would start a large-scale telepathic thought transmission session to send the detailed information over when they arrived at a relatively safe location.

Right then, the carrier drew close to Star Lord Temple.

Li Yao could see that dozens of small carriers were docked in the port at the tail of Lord Sea Stomper. Another few carriers were entering the port slowly.

They all detected the carrier of Black Iron Town and emitted mystic rays in a fixed rhythm one after another, broadcasting their identity to the newcomer.

The carrier of Black Iron Town followed them and sent out its spiritual authorizations, before it entered the port slowly, too.

...

"Supreme Scorpion Sword Art, simple yet scaring! Remote learning through telepathic thoughts. Organized in small classes. One month of concentrated learning will be enough for you to learn the first three levels. The tuition fee is only 15,000 bucks. The first fifty students to sign up, for an additional 5,000 bucks, will receive a complimentary well-tempered Supreme Scorpion Sword which is 2.4 meters long with three venomous thorns embedded on the tip. A hundred percent true and authentic. Our headcount is limited. Come on and sign up if you are interested!"

"Skill cards. New skill cards have arrived!"

"Super skill cards produced by elders of Cheetah Teeth Sect, all Core Formation Stage Cultivators, containing an entire set of seventy-two deadly serial moves, are now available! Once you start the first move, you won't be able to stop the following three minutes of storm-like attacks at all! Look. There are signatures of the elders of Cheetah Teeth Sect. They are totally authentic. Everybody is welcome to check them out in the branches of Cheetah Teeth Sect!"

"Do you want to be an unparalleled expert in the world? Are you eager to let your name resound in the Flying Star Sector? Do you want to fully appreciate the mysteries of the Cultivation world? Join Rumbling Thunder Union!

"Rumbling Thunder Union boasts both a long history and an immense capability right now! We have experience in the transportation industry, the mining industry, and the crystal suit refining industry. Right now, we have thirty-five starships in total, thirteen large-scale mines, and refining centers on four planets. Our comprehensive capability always ranks in the top twenty in the Flying Star Sector!

"Rumbling Thunder Union is headquartered on the super starship 'Rumbling Thunder'. Not only does the starship have unimaginable firepower and an amazingly high speed, it is also installed with a one-hundred percent real simulation of the natural environment. There are many attractions in the living quarters, including lakes, beaches, and hills. You will feel that you are standing in a natural paradise instead of floating in the sea of stars!

"Right now, we sincerely invite promising young men below the age of eighteen with a Spirit Actualization Quotient higher than 80% as our intern disciples. The length of internship will be three years, during which time your living expenses will be covered, and you will be enlightened by the real masters. Once your spiritual root is awakened, you will be registered as an official disciple! Even if your spiritual root isn't awakened in three years, you will still have the opportunity to work in the Rumbling Thunder Group with a decent salary!"

Half a day later, as Li Yao walked through the packed streets of Star Lord Temple, watching the colorfully blinking light beams in the air, hearing the tempting commercials, and even smelling the vague scent of the delicious food, his lips curled up without him knowing.

The feeling... was so familiar.

It was the time of the monthly kermis. A lot of visitors had come to this place. At least ten thousand people were roaming on the street.

Outside of the starship, it was cold, lonely space. Inside Star Lord Temple, it was a lively world of laughter and happiness.

In a trance, Li Yao felt like he was back to a certain underground city of the Heaven's Origin Sector.

They were both raucous, noisy, and chaotic. But they were equally vigorous, too.

At this moment, Li Yao bade farewell to the folks of Black Iron Town.

As a gesture of gratitude, Mayor Mu Ping had given him a large sum of money after the shell of the giant crab had been sold.

Li Yao was a newcomer to the world and literally cash-strapped. Therefore, he'd accepted Mu Ping's generosity, which had met his urgent need.

Firstly, he bought an old wrist crystal processor in a second-hand crystal processor store.

The Flying Star Sector was much more advanced than the Heaven's Origin Sector in miniaturizing the crystal processor. The wrist crystal processor was very light and thin, just like a watch.

Then, Li Yao visited a store named 'Know-All', a special shop that did not sell concrete goods but the latest news.

Since the area of Star Lord Temple was too far away from the central zone of the Flying Star Sector, it often lost connection to the Spiritual Nexus. Therefore, such news stores were opened in many remote villages and towns which were often short of information.

The residents in such places could go to a news store and browse the latest news in the outside world at the cost of a tiny bit of money.

The news would usually be fully updated on a monthly or bimonthly basis. Considering the vastness of the Flying Star Sector, it could almost be called timely.

Sitting in a corner of the news store, Li Yao turned on four light beams in front him and skimmed the news at a speed that wouldn't shock the fellow readers around him.

The news from the central zone of the constellation gave him a much deeper understanding of the Flying Star Sector.

Most of the news contained briefs about cosmic storms or meteorite cascades in certain coordinates or about the newly found space swirls in certain other coordinates.

It appeared that the anomalies in space were of paramount importance for the human civilization of the Flying Star Sector which lived on sailing through the sea of stars.

Li Yao also saw a lot of news about the assaults of space pirates, the latest rank of pirate gangs, and the most wanted list with their respective bounties.

The most wanted list was brimming with names, each of which represented loads of appalling murders. The perils of cruising through the sea of stars couldn't be clearer.

There wasn't much news about the scourge of demon beasts and the demonic Cultivators, suggesting that these two hazards only appeared sporadically and that they were less threatening than space pirates.

But what Li Yao was most concerned about was the general capability of the Cultivators in the Flying Star Sector and that of the top ones.

If this was a world where there were too many Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Cultivators, he would have to tuck his tail between his legs and behave nicely however ambitious he was.

Thankfully, after browsing through all the news, he didn't find enough evidence to support the hypothesis. Several names of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were brought up in the news, but in a very respectful tone. The leaders and elders of many famous sects seemed to be only at the Core Formation Stage, too.

As for the Divine Transformation Stage Cultivators that were even stronger than the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, Li Yao read about none of them in the recent news.

This is rather odd. The spiritual energy of the Flying Star Sector is clearly much more abundant than that of the Heaven's Origin Sector. Why are the number and capability of the top Cultivators of the two worlds so similar?

Li Yao pondered the question while he continued reading the news.

Half an hour later, he came to an uncertain conclusion.

It was true that the spiritual energy of the Flying Star Sector was more abundant. But since this place was an ancient battleground where a large number of relics of starships and magical equipment had been left, the Cultivators of this sector attached more importance to the creation and utilization of magical equipment.

After dedicating most of its manpower, resources, and time to the refinement of magical equipment, the Flying Star Sector was blessed with an extraordinarily advanced and popularized crystal suit system. This was a world where crystal suits mattered most. Most of their training and combat theories featured crystal suits as the core.

In comparison, the Heaven's Origin Sector did not have enough resources nor were there enough ancient relics to excavate. Therefore, crystal suits were never promoted on a large scale. Most Cultivators still highlighted the training of themselves and considered crystal suits to be auxiliary tools.

As a result, although the resources of the two Sectors were not even, the top experts of them were of similar level.

However, it was also possible that the stronger experts of the Flying Star Sector had been training in seclusion recently and therefore did not appear in the news that Li Yao read.

Chapter 447 - Incoming Space Pirates!

Other than that, the most viewed news was that about Heavenly Saints City. There were even some paid Great Illusionary Land programs which could simulate the splendid experience inside Heavenly Saints City.

Li Yao tried a few of them himself. It was indeed quite impressive.

The living quarters of Heavenly Saints City included not only lakes and oceans, but also continuous highlands and canyons that were hundreds of meters deep. Many floating mountains were moving in midair, from which thousands of waterfalls rushed down and turned into fuzzy drizzle half way. Rainbows were forming among them.

The working and studying quarters of Heavenly Saints City were spread across several districts. Numerous skyscrapers were connected to each other by vacuum tubes and teleportation arrays. Packs of people were coming and going on the bridges that were almost transparent as if they were strolling on the sky. Shuttles in all kinds of weird shapes were commuting among the bridges, producing colorful exhaust flames behind them at an amazingly high speed, but they never ran into one another. An invisible hand seemed to be manipulating everything behind the scenes.

Li Yao found it hard to accept that such a grand, prosperous city was built in space instead of on a planet. No wonder all the residents of the Flying Star Sector were captivated by Heavenly Saints City.

However, what interested him more were the training facilities of Heavenly Saints City.

Box Novel.com

As the training center of the Flying Star Sector, not only were the six largest Cultivation sects headquartered there, they had also established all kinds of institutions such as elementary, middle, and high schools, training camps, crystal suit refining clubs, and so on.

The most renowned crystal suit refining centers of the Flying Star Sector were based in Heavenly Saints City, too.

Li Yao discovered the promotion video of one of the crystal suit refining centers in the database.

What was shown in the promotion video was a super large training laboratory of more than eighty acres, an endless assembly line of magical equipment, and an automatic loading and distribution system utilizing countless mechanical arms driven by spiritual energy.

A common engineering crystal suit or a farming one could be manufactured unceasingly by dozens of low-level Cultivators and hundreds of ordinary workers supervised by only a few real refiners.

This was the true sense of mass-production!

Such advanced production facilities and technology had reduced the cost of a crystal suit to as low as possible, which was why they were so popular in the Flying Star Sector. Just like the shuttles of the Heaven's Origin Sector, crystal suits were affordable to every household here, even if they might not be considered low-priced, either.

As for battlesuits, although Li Yao failed to find their refining process, he did find a commercial of 'Nine Cauldron Arena', a place where crystal suits specialized in combat competed against each other.

Since crystal suits were popular in the Flying Star Sector, it was almost every Cultivator's dream to be a formidable Exo. Therefore, crystal suit competitions were a trendy activity.

The Flying Crystal Racing game in the Heaven's Origin Sector was but a daily routine in this world. There were more thrilling ways of competition in other forms.

All kinds of crystal suit arenas had thus been built everywhere in the Flying Star Sector like mushrooms after a spring rain. Not only did Cultivators like to practice with their peers inside, ordinary people enjoyed entertaining themselves by crashing into each other while wearing engineering and farming crystal suits. The satisfying scent of rust and sweat was the best reward for them.

Crystal suit competitions and championships, open and underground gambling games... An enormous chain of interest had been formed. Together with crystal suit refining, modification, and maintenance as well as the training of Exos, the industry of crystal suits was the unquestionable pillar of the Flying Star Sector.

The Exos who secured victories in the top arenas were seen as celebrities and big heroes to everyone. They often earned an abundance of admiration from young boys and girls and offers from big sects. Plentiful training resources were available for them at any time.

While he was watching the commercial of the arena which was displayed in the form of the Great Illusionary Land, Li Yao felt that he was seated in the vast ball-shaped arena and attracted to his seat by electromagnetic force, spinning.

Two crystal suits, one red and the other white, were floating in the middle of the arena. They turned into two streaks of brightness and bombarded each other with the most eye-catching attacks.

Sometimes, their attacks were only the width of a hair away from the audience, but the defense rune arrays managed to block them all the time. However, the hair of the audience was often tousled by the blowing wind, making them exclaim in satisfaction while their hearts was pounding.

The amateurs were enjoying the visual show, but the specialists were examining the skills. The more Li Yao watched, the more shocked he became.

According to the introduction, the two Exos in the commercial were only in the middle level and high level of the Building Foundation Stage state, but he was impressed by their speed, strength, small-scale movements in combat as Cultivators at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage, if not the Core Formation Stage!

Li Yao observed and remembered their every action. Then, he closed his eyes. Two translucent figures popped up in his brain while he started computing quickly.

A moment later, he came to the conclusion that, without the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit which had been added with the strengthening materials from Skeleton Dragon, it was very likely that he wouldn't be able to defeat the two Exos if he were wearing the same crystal suit they did!

To think that the two Exos were far from the best ones of the 'Nine Cauldron Arena'.

This is incredible. The appearance, structure, and firepower of the battlesuits of the Flying Star Sector are all at least a hundred years more advanced than those of the Heaven's Origin Sector!

Besides, the Exos here have multiple special techniques to drive their crystal suits which allows them to meld themselves with the crystal suits. Their combat ability is improved by more than five times!

I really can't wait any longer. I have to go to Heavenly Saints City and learn the secret arts of crystal suit refining and the techniques to drive them!

Watching the fierce battle of the two Exos in the Great Illusionary Land again, as a maniac of magical equipment, Li Yao was rubbing his fists in exhilaration, his drool almost dribbling down.

The news store also provided a lot of information for young men who wished to visit Heavenly Saints City such as himself.

A travelling agency had proposed a package to Heavenly Saints City. Not only would tourists be able to spend their vacation in the living quarters of Heavenly Saints City, they could also go to the top arenas and watch the competitions of the real expert Exos in person. The package had a duration of one month. Purely for recreation. No shopping detours included. Hand-written autographs of the real expert Exos were available if the tourists were in luck.

However, such a package was extremely costly, too. Even the cheapest package required tens of thousands.

There were also some other obscure messages which were channels through which one could smuggle themselves into Heavenly Saints City.

However, even if the smuggling succeeded, they could only live beyond the sixth ring of Heavenly Saints City secretly because they did not have residential certificates; it was impossible to enter the real training centers.

The messages that were much clearer were the notices of matches.

Different from what Li Yao had expected, the notices were issued not in the name of Heavenly Saints Alliance, but by the different organizations inside Heavenly Saints City.

For example, if Heavenly Saints Alliance gave fifty slots to a certain crystal suit refining center, this refining center would host refining matches publicly. The top fifty winners would be entitled to enter Heavenly Saints City and work as employees of the refining center.

As a result of such a policy, there were all kinds of matches taking place everywhere.

It was a pity that most of the matches were held in the relatively more prosperous zones. Underdeveloped areas such as Star Lord Temple and Black Iron Town, naturally, had none.

It seems that I'd better go to a more developed area before making any further plans.

Li Yao searched for cargo ships that were going to pass by Star Lord Temple soon and found that two cargo ships were coming to the place in three days. After simple maintenance and refilling of supplies, they would set off on a long journey to the Triple Lights Zone that was quite close to Heavenly Saints City.

Triple Lights Zone boasted a space spiritual lode which mostly contained spiritual energy of the fire class. If starships were docked in such a space spiritual lode, it would be a great help for those who majored in Cultivation arts of the fire class. Therefore, several medium-sized sects had headquartered in this area, making it one of the wealthier zones in the Flying Star Sector.

Then, I shall head off to the Triple Lights Zone first!

Cargo ships were the first choice for most of the residents of Star Lord Temple and nearby when they wanted to travel in the outside world. Therefore, the procedures to board a cargo ship were pretty standard now.

Through an agency, Li Yao reserved a seat on one of the ships.

Later, the agency asked a Meditation Healer at the Refinement Stage to hypnotize him and check out his identity.

Li Yao's soul power was too immense for him to be hypnotized by a Cultivator at the Refinement Stage. After the examination, the guy was convinced of his faked identity. He got his ticket without any trouble.

For the next three days, Li Yao stayed in the news store, absorbing information like a sponge sucking water.

...

In the morning, three days later, Li Yao was still huddling in a corner of the news store. His eyes were even more fresh than three days ago, even though he hadn't slept at all during the time. While others were taking a nap with their eyes closed, Li Yao secretly sped up his reading.

There was half a day to go before the cargo ship took off. He was planning to get more knowledge about the Flying Star Sector before he boarded the starship.

Right then, his seat suddenly shivered before it jumped abruptly. Several glasses on the desk nearby fell to the ground and shattered. Many readers were woken from their dreams and mumbled unclearly.

Beep—Beep—Beep

The hasty alarms shattered everyone's drowsiness.

"Space pirates! Space pirates are here!"

Residents of Star Lord Temple immediately recognized the alarms. Their faces turned pale as they cried uncontrollably.

The earth was shaking more and more violently. Many people were helplessly waving their arms and legs as if dancing. Some were so scared that they hid below the desks, but more people swarmed to the street.

Li Yao frowned and cursed in a low voice. He followed the crowds to the street, too.

Today was the second to last day of the kermis. Although most of the visitors had left Star Lord Temple, several thousand of them were still lingering. The street was a mess, congested by people who were running about like headless chickens. The blue sky and white clouds in the sky which were simulated by giant full-coverage light beams died down one after another under the intense impacts, revealing a bleak, cold dome of steel.

Dark red light beams were gradually condensed in midair, displaying a fierce battle in space.

A somewhat coarse voice said solemnly, "Please don't panic, everybody. We are engaged in a battle with intruding space pirates!

"Star Lord Temple boasts an extremely advanced defense system which is impossible for the space pirates to breach through. Lord Sea Stomper is with us!

"I believe every one of us knows the cruelty of space pirates.

"Perhaps, they might've spared our lives after looting everything of value in Star Lord Temple, if we had decided to surrender in the beginning.

"But now, the two parties have both opened fire, and we have slain multiple space pirates. There's no way that they will let go of us!

"If the space pirates break into Star Lord Temple, we will all be dead for sure!

"Therefore, please keep calm, everyone. Those of you who have crystal suits, please put them on; those of you who don't, please go to the shelter according to the guidance of the signal arrows. We will possibly be in a vacuum if the shell of the starship is compromised!

"Exos who have received space combat training before, please gather at the closest deck to you out of No. 1, No. 4, and No. 6. You and the Guardians of Star Lord Temple will work together to defeat the space pirates!"

Chapter 448 - Storm Prison

BOOM!

As the speech was concluded, another earthquake took place in Star Lord Temple. The steel dome screeched while its metal constituents fractured one after another. Some ten iron tubes couldn't bear the pressure any longer and smashed down.

Li Yao's pupils shrank to the size of two needles. The muscles all over his body tensed, making him, for a moment, appear smaller than his actual size. But his clothes puffed up as if they had been filled with air, with noises indicating that they were going to torn open at any moment.

Li Yao stomped on the ground. The workers' shoes he was wearing had no obvious changes on the surface, but the bottom of the shoes made of strengthened rubber had been pressed into powder. The ends of his trousers suffered collateral damage and were torn into ragged cloth, too. Then, Li Yao turned into a streak of brightness, darting toward where the iron tubes were falling.

Shua!

Li Yao's arms turned into more than ten blurred shadows and swallowed fourteen iron tubes like whips. The last iron tube hit the ground where nobody was standing with an earsplitting noise.

Box Novel.com

Although no one was hurt by the iron tubes, they were truly shocked. The crowds that just went tranquil were seething again. The old, the young, the disabled were falling over due to the intense pushing. Helpless cries of a little girl could be heard not far head.

CRACK!

Li Yao clenched the iron tubes so hard that imprints of his hands were left on them.

Li Yao's face was emotionless, but flames of fury were bursting out of his eyes.

He squinted and observed the situation of the battle through the light beams in the air.

Appearing abruptly in space was a hideous starship more than a thousand meters long that looked like a crocodile. The giant turrets on the back of the crocodile were spurting dazzling clusters of spiritual energy nonstop, bombarding Star Lord Temple.

However, the defense of Star Lord Temple was apparently beyond the expectations of the space pirates.

The defense ring of Star Lord Temple quickly spun. The spiritual shield it released absorbed all the energy of the attack. Its gravity interference system caused all the incoming attacks with real entities to deviate from their flight path; the rushing bullets and cannonballs all brushed past Star Lord Temple and darted elsewhere into the dark depths of space.

A moment later, the space pirates reduced the frequency of the bombardment. Instead, a lot of crystal suits jetted out from the stomach of the warship, trying to breach the defenses themselves.

The guardians of Star Lord Temple flew into space, too. Hundreds of Exos were engaged together. The cold sea of stars seemed to be boiling. Spiritual energy rippled out crazily like floods.

The space pirates did not have the advantage in numbers.

Since the local area was too remote to be protected by any Cultivation sects, the men of almost every family knew how to wear a crystal suit and the simple combat skills.

However, most of the residents in this place were ordinary people after all. Even of the guardians of Star Lord Temple, there were only several Refinement Stage Cultivators, who had retired to their hometown because of old age or disability.

In comparison, the space pirates were all ruthlessly desperadoes, most of whom were in the high level of the Refinement Stage or even the Building Foundation Stage. They were experienced in fighting and equipped with specialized battlesuits that had armed themselves to teeth. It was as easy as chopping wood when they were engaged with the amateurs.

The guardians of Star Lord Temple could only struggle to stall the enemies with the help of the powerful defense ring.

Everybody could tell that it was only a matter of time before the defense ring was broken.

But Li Yao was somewhat confused. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the crocodile-shaped warship.

Two enormous words were engraved on the head of the warship: 'Storm Prison'!

Li Yao quickly searched the latest information he collected for the name.

Storm Prison was a large space pirate gang ranking in the top twenty in the Flying Star Sector. It was unpredictable and merciless, known as one of the most notorious criminal organizations in this world.

Fengyu Zhong, the leader of the gang, was a Cultivator at the Core Formation Stage. He was both smart and quick-minded. The Heavenly Saints Alliance had convened several sieges against Storm Prison and even summoned a Cultivator at the peak of the Core Formation Stage once.

Members of Storm Prison were all wiped out after each siege. But Fengyu Zhong somehow survived each hunt, and before they knew it, he would have gathered another bunch of outlaws and rise again, with even more lackeys and even nastier reprisals!

It was possible that, when the management of Star Lord Temple saw the name of Storm Prison whose destination was clear to them, they immediately started preparing active defense without even considering surrendering at all.

This is odd. Why is a space pirate gang ranking the top twenty in the Flying Star Sector wandering in such a poor area?

Studying the light beams carefully, Li Yao was deep in thought.

He found that, despite the intimidating appearance of the crocodile-shaped warship, many damages and fractures could be found on it. Several turrets had been already blown apart, too. The exhaust flames on its back were blinking intermittently, suggesting that there was something seriously wrong with the power rune arrays of the warship.

The space pirates fighting were clumsy and hasty, and they seemed to be lacking spiritual energy and ammo, evidenced by the fact that they hardly performed remote attacks and preferred head-on combat.

In short, the guardians of Star Lord Temple were, of course, no better than the meat on a chopping block. But the space pirates of Storm Prison were swinging rather blunt cleavers, and it would be quite troublesome for them to mince the meat even if they could cut it.

They must've experienced a fierce battle just now and are running out of supplies.

Li Yao came to that conclusion. The Guardians of Star Lord Temple are but mobs made of ordinary people and low-level Cultivators. In other words, farmers with armor.

With Storm Prison's expertise, by logic, they should've settled the battle easily a long time ago, even if they are affected by the defense ring. How come they have been caught in a stalemate?

The Core Formation Stage Cultivator Fengyu Zhong, the boss of the gang, must either be away from the warship or have suffered such serious injuries that he couldn't even stand up. Otherwise, with the strength of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, he could've broken the defense effortlessly with just one leg and one foot.

The Flying Star Sector is indeed an interesting place. Not only do the supposedly upright Cultivators refuse to protect the ordinary people, they even turn into space pirates and butcher those weaker than themselves?

Li Yao recalled the crimes and felonies of Storm Prison recorded in the database. Brilliance sharper and colder than icy pitons beamed out of his eyes as he dashed forward to No. 1 deck.

No. 1 deck was in an utter mess.

Without the protection and guidance of Cultivation sects, the ordinary people and the low-level unaffiliated Cultivators were but loose sand. They simply roared, put on their crystal suits, and charged into space with their hot blood.

Li Yao found himself in a dilemma.

If somebody were to quantify his abilities and set his combat ability as 60, then his commanding ability... was approximately zero. He had no idea how to organize the headstrong fighters at all.

Li Yao sighed. Having no alternative, he summoned the Rockman and leapt into space, too.

But instead of roaring and rushing into the battlefield like everybody else, Li Yao observed the situation carefully and soon discovered that several space pirates seemed to know what they were doing. He estimated that they were at least at the Building Foundation Stage.

He might have been able to cope with two of three of them. But if five or more of them came at him together, he would definitely be stalled.

The turrets on their crocodile-shaped warship, on the other hand, were definitely not decorative. They might not be powerful enough to blow up the defense ring of Star Lord Temple, but it wouldn't be a different task for them to blow himself up at all.

"Li Yao, what is going on there? We sensed immense spiritual waves from Star Lord Temple and nearby. Do you need us to come over to you?"

Mo Xuan's anxious voice came through the communication channel.

"Not for now."

Li Yao pondered a moment and said, "We are now under the attack of space pirates who have a warship with tremendous firepower. Sparkle is a multipurpose exploration starship with only a few auxiliary cannons repaired right now. It would be completely disadvantaged against the warship.

"It is a total mess here right now. I don't know whether or not they have backup. Sparkle is not to be exposed yet.

"You guys keep drifting in disguise and mute the spiritual communication channel. When we are safe again, I will contact you from my side.

"As for this particular warship... Let me take care of it!"

Until today, Li Yao had hardly fought in the space with zero gravity; he was used to the ubiquitous restriction of the earth.

He slowly warmed up the power rune arrays as well as his own limbs as he watched and thought of possible combat plans one after another.

It would be hard to break into the crocodile-shaped warship from the outside even for the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, let alone the Rockman that I'm wearing. I have to find a way to sneak inside.

What do I do?

Although the warship's shell is full of holes, the space pirates are apparently well aware of that, too. All the open areas were specially attended to by the air defense cannons. Whoever gets too close will be greeted by a dense barrage.

Even if the barrage can be breached through, the enemies inside the warship will definitely notice the intruder. The whole point of stealth will be meaningless.

Where can I sneak into the warship without anybody noticing?

The starry brilliance inside Li Yao's eyes was trembling violently as he had brought his computational ability to its peak, thinking hard for a solution. Suddenly, he noticed a weird phenomenon. His face was immediately filled with joy.

At the tail of the crocodile-shaped warship, there were ten groups of spurts in two rows from which scorching exhaust flames were spraying out providing incessant impetus for the warship.

However, due to the unknown serious injuries, the flames from four groups of the spurts were sporadic.

The group with the longest gap spewed flames every nineteen seconds for a duration of five seconds.

By his preliminary estimation, the tubes in each group of spurts were all more than three meters in diameter.

"I should be able to make use of that."

Although Li Yao had never seen a warship in such a shape before, its inner structure shouldn't be very different from other crystal warships whose engine systems were located in the rear.

The tubes transmitting exhaust flames were often extended to the bottom of the engine compartment in the middle-rear part of the warship. To better dissipate the heat, a lot of room would be spared near the tubes. Sometimes, there were even cooling pools filled with special cooling liquid around the tubes.

The engine compartment was often heavily guarded. But nobody would watch over the cooling pools as long as they did not malfunction.

This is the spot!

Storm Prison has come to such a poor area without a good reason and launched attacks against a town which is apparently the opposite of wealthy, and yet they failed to take it down after such a long time. For them, it must be a great shame.

If they had additional forces, they would have already sent them out to join the raid of the defense ring.

Therefore, those in battle right now should be most of their manpower.

There shouldn't be too many experts within the warship!

Inside Li Yao brain's, everything he saw turned into translucent phantoms, and then billions of numbers. He calculated the distances, speeds and angles crazily. A moment later, the Rockman waved its four arms and charged into the battlefield, somewhat clumsily!

Chapter 449 - Sneaking In

Just like a newbie taking part in his first battle, he completely lost control over the power rune arrays perhaps because of panic and dashed at a space pirate awkwardly like a dancing crab.

The space pirate was wearing a crimson crystal suit shaped like a lobster whose two arms were attached to giant pincers. He was fighting two Exos of Star Lord Temple and seemed to be unaware that Li Yao was coming.

But when Li Yao reached his back, the space pirate suddenly turned around and kicked him with explosive spiritual energy right in his chest. More than ten high-frequency vibrating thorns stuck out from his shoes, too!

In a moment, the plate armor on the chest of the Rockman broke apart, before it was blown away like a cannonball. Li Yao struggled for a while and gradually turned rigid, unable to move anymore.

Other space pirates who saw the scene would naturally think that an idiotic bumpkin had tried to ambush a seasoned bandit only to be discovered by the enemy who had set up a trap and killed him without any trouble.

Judging from the quick movement and the brutal kick, the bandit was at least in the high level of the Refinement Stage, not something that a bumpkin wearing a Rockman could deal with!

Box Novel.com

Flowers of death were blossoming in the battlefield. No one paid any additional attention to the Rockman whose chest had been shattered, including the space pirate who made it so.

Inside the destructed Rockman, Li Yao's lips curled cruelly.

For his monster-like body built up by the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique, the strike from a Refinement Stage Cultivator dealt absolutely no damage to him except to make his heart beat a bit faster for a moment.

Like a hibernating animal, he kept his arms and legs still and drifted through space silently.

However, a lot of steam was popping up from his forehead. His sweat was vaporized before it came into being.

His soaring computational ability allowed him to see thousands of interrelated rays of light in front of his eyes. The course of the crocodile-shaped warship, the direction to which he was drifting, and all the interferences standing in his route had all been taken into consideration.

Chi... Chi...

Li Yao adjusted the power rune array to the minimum level. Only when his body was not in anybody's sight would the crystal suit spurt out a wave of lackluster exhaust flames occasionally to change course slightly.

Sometimes, he crashed into other Exos who were still fighting or the remnant crystal suits which had been torn into pieces. His direction would be changed again.

There were quite a lot of other corpses and remnants floating in the battleground just like himself.

Nobody seemed to notice that, impact after impact, he was gradually drifting to the tail of the crocodile-shaped warship.

Last five hundred meters.

Li Yao stared at the crimson flames jetting out of the back of the crocodile-shaped warship like volcanic eruptions. His eyelids were shivering as he swallowed uncontrollably.

He was well aware that the power rune arrays to drive a crystal warship more than a thousand meters long would be enormous and that the exhaust flames they let out had a scarily high temperature mixed with intense, furious spiritual energy.

The Rockman sent out warnings. Such an engineering crystal suit could barely withstand the high temperature of the exhaust flames. As it drew close, some units and components that were not well-sealed had already started melting.

Last three hundred meters.

Li Yao felt that he was in the middle of a furnace. His hair was burning and his mouth dry.

On the Rockman's light beam, the specifications of many units had hit rock bottom, suggesting that they had lost their functions.

Li Yao gritted his teeth and continued dashing toward the exhaust flames.

Last hundred meters!

If the trajectory of his movement remained unchanged, a giant exhaust flame would sweep over and obliterate him in three seconds.

This was the most critical hundred meters!

When the exhaust flame erupted, Li Yao activated all the working power rune arrays on his crystal suit which was shining crazily as if it had been hit by a lightning. The Rockman sprinted instantly at a speed that almost tore itself apart, making it brush past the exhaust flame at a close distance and stop above a group of intermittent spurts!

Even if somebody in the battlefield was observing this, their eyes would be attracted by the suddenly bursting exhaust flame and fail to notice that a crystal suit was moving unbelievably fast below the surging, scorching fire.

They would have naturally thought that the Rockman was swallowed by the exhaust flames and melted tragically.

Huchi... Huchi... Huchi...

Li Yao breathed heavily. But the air circulation system of the Rockman had been wrecked by the high temperature. The air he was inhaling felt like sweltering magma, making him moan briefly.

The next step was the most difficult one.

The group of spurts below Li Yao was only activated every nineteen seconds. So, the temperature around here was relatively lower than elsewhere.

However, 'low' was still almost a thousand degrees!

"Hu..."

A flare reminiscent of one tossed out of the sun was ejected from the tail of the ship.

Li Yao suddenly gritted his teeth and freed himself from the Rockman!

Right then, the only thing standing between him and the heat of a thousand degrees was a thin mustard suit!

In a moment, Li Yao was on fire, his skin chapping and his eyes red.

Shua!

In the very next moment, a weird, black crystal suit appeared on his body. Streaks of redness were flowing slowly among the gaps of the suit. Deep silver brightness could be found on many of its critical parts.

Li Yao had put on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit!

With the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit which had been strengthened by the body tissue of Skeleton Dragon and the scraps of ancient magical equipment, the heat of a thousand degrees was not entirely irresistible. Li Yao crouched above the spurt holding back the hotness like a black ghost. The crazy operation he was going to carry out made his heart race and his blood boil!

"HU—"

After another round of brilliant exhaust flame eruption, Li Yao roared and charged into the spurt like a black laser even though the flames hadn't died down yet.

The countdown now began. Nineteen seconds left!

Inside the spurt was a high temperature of thousands of degrees, which was not something that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit could entirely overlook.

Li Yao's eyes had been seared. He moved forward almost thirty meters in just one second and continued marching toward the interior of the crocodile-shaped warship.

The tubes in the front were narrower and narrower, bifurcating into various directions. It was impossible to go forward any longer.

Shua!

The Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw on the left arm of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit suddenly stuck out. Then, its talons joined together and formed a rapidly-revolving drill.

Purple electric arcs and blue fire surged out continuously and decorated the drill with a layer of helical mystic rays, which was revolving crazily, too!

Drill of mystic rays!

Impressed by the powerfulness of Sparkle's drill of mystic rays in the battle against Skeleton Dragon, Li Yao had thoroughly studied the rune arrays and technologies that it entailed together with Mo Xuan and the rest of the crew. More than three hundred brand new rune arrays had been discovered and analyzed, as well as the complicated spiritual energy circulation pattern. The new findings had all been applied to the modification of the Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw.

Right now, the front end of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's left arm was made up of five sharp talon blades strengthened by the silver bones and ancient scraps. When they were opened, they would form a deadly, treacherous claw; when they were folded away, they could revolve rapidly and turned into an unstoppable mini drill of mystic rays with the immense spiritual energy provided.

It was not enough.

Li Yao was clear that the hardness of the materials making up the tubes must be extremely high since they were supposed to function normally in an environment of thousands of degrees. Even a drill of mystic rays might not be able to dig a hole in it shortly.

Shua!

Li Yao raised his right hand and pinned several cylindrical crystal bombs on the tubes.

After several gentle explosions, the tube nearby was rendered into a mysterious bluish color, its temperature plummeting.

They were Frigid Prison Grenades, the most powerful freezing bombs that the Heaven's Origin Sector had ever excavated!

Li Yao had been fully armed when he went to explore Boneyard. As a frantic bomber, naturally, he had taken hundreds of various kinds of bombs with him.

However, the bombs had never gotten to play their parts on Boneyard. It wasn't their show time until right now.

The materials of the tubes boasted supreme resistance against high temperature. But the designers of the tubes hardly considered the scenario of an extremely low one.

Under the thermodynamic effects, the tubes were much more fragile than before.

At this time, five seconds had passed.

Li Yao roared and struck the drill of mystic rays at the wall of the tubs.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

The next exhaust flame eruption was drawing closer and closer.

Li Yao attention was so focused that his eyes didn't move or blink. He didn't consider that he might not have enough time at all, but instead, he burnt his soul and unleash all his spiritual energy. Dazzling brilliance bloomed on the drill of mystic rays as it pushed forward, forward, and forward!

Finally!

The wall of the tube couldn't stand it any longer. The drill of mystic rays blew out a giant hole on it.

Li Yao dashed into the hole without bothering anything.

Inside the hole was a spacious hollow with a forest of tubes. They were dense, interconnected, and seemed to be various different models.

Gusts of wind swept over and left, carrying away the heat.

This is the air cooling chamber.

As it turns out, this crystal warship is using an air cooling system. The entire engine system is encircled by a large rune array of the wind class. There seem to be several freezing rune arrays, too. Together, they produce cold wind to cool down the power rune arrays and the transmission tubes.

Li Yao was thinking fast, but he was moving faster. Like a giant ape, he climbed and leapt among the tubes, fleeing toward the depths of the darkness. The broken hole that he'd dug out was getting further and further away from him.

BOOM!

The exhaust flames erupted again. A fraction of the flames charged into the hole and raged like a giant animal of fire.

But Li Yao had long run out of its savaging range and reached a corner of the chamber.

In the darkness, he gazed at the labyrinth-like forest of tubes above his head and speculated the distribution of cabins in the rear part of the warship and, more importantly, the location of the engine compartment.

Judging from where the tubes are going, the engine compartment should be in the top left corner, and it's most likely that the bottom right corner is an unattended zone.

Li Yao groped for the cold steel blocks and smiled. The drill of mystic rays appeared again in his hand.

Ten minutes later, at the tail of the crystal warship, in a cooling pool where nobody was watching, below a cover that was used to inject cooling liquids, squeaking noises came out, followed by a series of small, intense sparks which were bursting out through the gap between the cover and the cooling pool.

The cover was opened slowly. A black ghost gradually emerged from the cooling pool.

Without anybody knowing, Li Yao had breached to the inside of Storm Prison's starship.

Chapter 450 - Rabid Dogs

In a dim, narrow pathway at the end of the warship...

This warship seemed to have undergone protracted head-on battles. The internal structure was on the verge of destruction. Cracks, dislocations, and broken cabins that had been sealed by strengthened foams were everywhere. In general, it was like a complicated maze which had been smashed to pieces by a giant.

Through the tiny gaps between steel beams and tubes, Li Yao slithered silently from one cabin to another like a hungry boa which had just woken up from its hibernation.

Occasionally, several space pirates would come by the pathway below him. But Li Yao didn't attack them. Instead, he listened to what they were talking about carefully.

From the space pirates' conversation, Li Yao discovered that the warship was actually in a very bad condition, with serious internal damage everywhere that could possibly lead to explosions. The spiritual energy of the warship was running dry, too.

Most of the soldiers had been deployed to attack Star Lord Temple. Those left on board were mostly operators and mechanics.

Box Novel.com

Finally, when a space pirate was rushing close from the pathway in front and Li Yao's telepathic thoughts didn't sense a second heartbeat in the surrounding dozen or so square meters, he moved out!

Like a lurking boa lunging at its prey, Li Yao darted out from the gaps among the tubes, stomping on a wall. He reached the space pirate momentarily, and his two arms slapped down like the sharpest whips, producing earsplitting noises.

Before the space pirate knew what was going on, his shoulder blades had been blown into powder as tiny as sand!

The sense of pain hadn't yet travelled to his brain. There was still confusion in his eyes, but Li Yao had already locked his neck and kicked brutally right in his chest. His mustard suit proved to be utterly useless. His internal organs were shattered and his ribs broken. The sharp fractured bones brushed past his heart narrowly!

The space pirate finally felt the excruciating pain, but his mouth was being strangled by Li Yao so hard that his teeth were all clattering against each other.

The boa had caught a sheep. Unable to struggle, the space pirate was dragged to a long-prepared tool cabin by Li Yao, who then stickered a muting rune on the door of the cabin casually before he threw his captive to a corner.

The space pirate was cramping and vomiting in agony. Yet, he had lost the strength to scream. His eyes were darting around rapidly, which soon noticed the black crystal suit with blood-red spiritual stripes. Then, he was consumed by fear!

Li Yao took out a dose of a highly-condensed drug, flipped its cap away with his thumb, and tilted the utensil.

The thick, translucent drug with alluring aroma immediately flowed out and dripped to the ground silently.

Li Yao said calmly, "Your shoulders and ribs are all broken. Your internal organs are bleeding seriously. Depending on your capability, you will die in five to eight minutes.

"If you ingest this medication, your internal bleeding should be stopped temporarily, long enough for you to make it to the med bay.

"Now, you have three minutes to tell me the reason why you people are here, the status and personnel of your starship, and the identity and capability of your highest commander.

"Confess everything that you consider useful. I will be the one to judge whether or not your information is valuable.

"If I'm convinced that listening to you is worthwhile, I will give you the medication drug. You are not my target. I won't waste my time on a shrimp such as yourself.

"However, make it fast. The medicinal drug will continue to pour to the floor over the three minutes. If the remaining drug is not enough for you, don't blame me."

While he was talking, Li Yao projected a light beam in front of him, on which a blood-red countdown in a gruesome font was manifested.

Three minutes. The countdown began!

Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds to go!

The space pirate was cramping and grimacing in the sharp pain like a loach which had been pinned to a chopper block. He was mumbling something, but there was no telling whether he was cursing or begging.

Li Yao was as peaceful as before. The countdown continued, as did the flowing medication drug.

After ten seconds, the space pirate finally realized the situation that he was in. Like a drowning man grasping the last straw, he held back his pain and moved to Li Yao's feet, telling Li Yao everything that he knew of.

The reality was similar to what Li Yao had guessed. This starship of Storm Prison was not commanded by Fengyu Zhong, the brutal bandit in the Core Formation Stage, personally, but by his only son Fengyu Ming.

Fengyu Ming was 27 years old and in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage. But he was quite a Mr. Nobody in the 'Spider Den', a planet where space pirates congregated. In order to succeed his father's enterprise, he would have to show his ruthlessness to everyone first.

This was actually Fengyu Ming's first hunting trip by himself.

At first, everything had gone quite well. He'd captured two business starships and looted a lot of useful resources.

But very soon, during his next assault, he was noticed by the passing-by 'Great Horn Exo Society'.

The Great Horn Exo Society were not the guards of the business starship being savaged by him nor were there any grudges between the two parties before. Their comprehensive capabilities were on par. Fengyu Ming's side even had slight edge. Once they were engaged in a battle, there would be two losers and zero winners.

However, the Great Horn Exo Society bit Fengyu Ming like a bunch of rabid dogs and wouldn't let him go no matter what. They drifted and fought in the sea of stars for over two months, with significant losses on both sides. Their starships were all riddled with holes and on the verge of destruction now.

Fengyu Ming had never seen such a fearless Exo Society before. He ran far away and eventually reached this far-flung area.

At this moment, his starship was collapsing. Now that he'd detected Star Lord Temple, he had planned to steal some supplies from the place.

He had thought that, after one or two barrages, the country folk down there would surrender nicely. But the defense of Star Lord Temple was much tougher than he had expected. Having no other choice, he had been forced to command the bandits to launch frontal attacks. Li Yao already knew the rest of the story.

After two months of battles, Fengyu Ming had lost most of his elite subordinates. The surviving space pirates were all exhausted if not injured, with little ammunition and spiritual energy left. That was why his attack on a small town had lasted almost an hour with little progress.

"I—I've told you everything. Give me the medication drug, give me..."

The space pirate's face was pale. Blood was gurgling inside his throat. He begged anxiously and desperately.

Li Yao was deep in thought.

Great Horn Exo Society?

Exo Societies were unique organizations of Cultivators in the Flying Star Sector.

Compared with Cultivation sects, Exo Societies were burdened with less rules. The Exos with a clean history and acceptable skills could join or leave any of them free at their will.

Such loose organizations were very popular among the unaffiliated Cultivators who hated to be bounded by restrictions. Many young men from Cultivation sects preferred to join an Exo Society when they were travelling in the outside world away from their sects to gain more battle experience, make more prominent friends, and enjoy the more splendid scenery of the vast world.

Exo Societies mainly had two sources of income: to serve as guards for large business fleets or mining bases, and to hunt down space pirates and demon beasts to claim their bounties.

However, Li Yao didn't find 'Great Horn' among the names of the most famous Exo Societies in the Flying Star Sector. It seemed to be a mediocre one.

Then, why would a mediocre Exo Society with no impressive capabilities hunt the space pirates of Storm Prison for more than two months without any rest? Were the bounties of the space pirates that high?

"Why have the Great Horn Exo Society been chasing you for the last two months?"

Li Yao lowered his wrist. The medication drug inside was pouring out at a higher speed. Almost half dose was about to be emptied.

Two hands seemed to be popping out from the hollowed eyes of the space pirate. Smelling the exhilarating flavor, he felt that his internal organs were all the more painful and insufferable. His lips tremored for a moment, before he finally spoke the truth.

"When Master Ming was pillaging the second business starship, to— to better spread his name, he—killed everyone from the starship after they surrendered."

Several blood vessels inside Li Yao's eyes suddenly burst. He nodded and handed over the medication drug. "Very good. The information you've provided is very valuable."

The space pirate took a long breath in relief and picked the medication drug, shivering. Before he was able to swallow it, he suddenly felt that his chest was aching as if ten thousand iron needles had stabbed into it at the same time with tens of thousands of electric arcs. After an intense spasm, his eyes widened and froze.

Li Yao took back the medication drug and vanished in the gaps among tubes on the ceiling of the tool cabin.

...

Like a wolf who was locked in an iron cage with a broken leg, Fengyu Ming paced to and fro stumblingly, with a hideous and desperate, if not somewhat wronged, expression on his face.

"Son of a gun. When are the rabid dogs of the Great Horn Exo Society going to stop?

"It was not the cargo that you were protecting that I robbed anyway!

"This is just my first hunting trip. The bounty on my head is not even enough to pay for the fuel of your starship!

"Why? Can somebody tell me why?!"

Fengyu Ming yelled at the top of his voice and pulled on his hair incredibly violently.

The past two months had been a terrible memory for a bandit who had just started his career.

The comprehensive capability of the Great Horn Exo Society was not very impressive at all; it was even weaker than his starship.

But 'give up' seemed to be an entry that was missed from their dictionary. Each time he got rid of them, they would simply come back again. There was absolutely no way to ditch them!

Every time they were engaged, the Great Horn Exo Society was always determined to perish together with him. His enemy would park their starship an inch away from his own starship despite the fierce bombardment and then open fire at him. It was just like two burly thugs stabbing each other with daggers, not having the slightest fear about what might become of themselves.

Faced with such an insane foe, even the brutal bandits of Storm Prison had no other choice but to run away.

He had thought that, reaching the periphery of the Flying Star Sector after more than half a month of cruising through stone belts and cosmic storms, the rabid dogs must've been left behind.

But as it turned out, half a day ago, the telepathic thoughts of the Great Horn Exo Society had still been detected, which carried a piece of arrogant information written in plaintext without the shallowest disguise.

"It is the most important thing for Cultivators to keep our word. When we say we will take you down, we will take you down, even if you flee to the end of the sea of stars!"

A bunch of rabid dogs!

It never rains; it pours. The small space town in front of him was quite eccentric, too. Its powerful defense rings made him fail to conquer the settlement after almost two hours.

Fengyu Ming had a vague feeling that he was not going to be able to get supplies from this place.

Even though he could take over the town right now, there wouldn't be enough time for them to transport the supplies to their starship, since the rabid dogs of the Great Horn Exo Society could arrive at any time.

Fengyu Ming's facial muscles were twitching violently. He gritted his teeth and decided to abandon the fat meat right below his mouth and continue his escape as soon as possible.

Right then, the warship shivered. The giant light beam on the top of the dashboard was in ominous red, while hasty alarms were echoing nonstop.

The engine compartment had a serious explosion. 15% of the impetus was lost, and the number only continued to rise.

Fengyu Ming's face suddenly turned taut and grave.