Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Early morning, two days later.

The harsh winter was already over and with the advent of spring, everything was coming back to life; the grass was growing, birds were chirping.

Li Yao jumped out from the medical treatment pod, but there was still some light green high-energy nutrient solution covering his body. With a few strange movements of his muscles, it was absorbed through his pores into his flesh and blood, nourishing his strong physique.

After a moment, quite a few black droplets oozed out from all over his body, emitting a pungent smell.

It was the extravasated blood and the waste from the body circulation.

With a slight shake of his body, the hairs across his body immediately stood while all the droplets disappeared without a trace from the shock.

Li Yao burst into a jovial laughter as he wore the tight black combat suit and comfortably stretched his muscles before casually doing a few sets of [Thirteen Forces of War Beasts].

Suddenly, tiger and dragon roars could be heard coming from inside the medical tent.

Having been undergoing treatment for two days, not only had all the internal injuries Li Yao had sustained been cured, the excessively overdrafted brain cells had also recovered. Furthermore, carrying out the battle under the limit state of 331% brain cell activity had faintly stimulated the potential of Li Yao’s soul, giving him the chance to touch the barrier of the 6th level of the Refinement Stage.

And despite not having entered the 6th level Refinement Stage, Li Yao could vaguely see the high and abstruse glittering great Dao which was gradually opening in front of him, leading him to the highest heaven beyond the clouds, to the endless cosmos.

”I have really reaped a great harvest in the battle of Verdant Tarn City. Not only have I raked in a lot of credits, I have also grasped a little chance to rush into the intermediate-level of the Refinement Stage.”

”Once I entered the intermediate-level Refinement Stage, I can utilize the spiritual energy for combat. My battle force will experience a breakthrough, and it will be quite different compared to my strength in the low-level Refinement Stage!”

”Ah, right, two days have already passed, I wonder whether the credits for the final battle are calculated or not?!”

Without further ado, Li Yao started up the crystal processor as he entered the mission interface of the Grand Desolate War Institution.

Since the last battle was fought together with the students of the Federation’s First Military College, the allocation of merits involved negotiations between the two universities. The algorithm for the allocation was quite complex, and hence the final settlement could not be done on the spot at all.

When Li Yao accessed the mission interface, the translucent holographic screen immediately burst with a long list of credits awarded as crisp ”Beep Beep Beep Beep” sounds of notification rang incessantly.

”Wow, I made a fortune!”

Li Yao’s eyes lit up brightly.

The Gold Phoenix Road was the last stronghold above ground for the demon beasts and was extremely dangerous, and as such, additional credits were awarded to the low-level students like Li Yao who dared to take such risks.

After the system had done complex calculations, most of the merits for killing the Six-Armed Naga landed upon his head.

He alone was assigned 60% of the battle merits, while the rest of the 40% was allocated between the five.

In addition, there were battle merits for killing Mystic Chameleons and a large number of low-level demon beasts, as well as merits for suppressing the entire stock trading center, then there were also the battle merits accumulated from the previous battles.

All in all, when all of Li Yao’s military achievements in the Verdant Tarn City battle were converted into credits, they surpassed 10,000 and reached a terrifying digit of 16,993, which compared to the credits acquired during the previous semester was quite a lot!

Adding the previous credits, Li Yao’s total credits were 23,749.

Had it not been for Li Yao procuring various magical equipment as well as raw materials, for which a large number of credits were spent, the total number of credits would have surpassed the 25,000 mark.

Even so, it was still an astonishing digit.

Even Ding Lingdang and Peng Hai had not achieved such terrifying result till the second half of the 1st year.

Li Yao had already set a record as the fastest scorer in last two decades of Grand Desolate War Institution.

”Amazing, this time my luck was too good.”

Li Yao slightly smiled, from the 20,000 or so credits, a vast majority came from killing the Six-Armed Naga during the last battle.

The Six-Armed Naga was a low-level Demon General, whose strength was comparable to a low-level Building Foundation Stage cultivator. Compared to him, who was just a low-level Refinement Stage cultivator, there was too big of a gap.

He was an epitome of the weak overcoming the strong. Not only had he put a demon beast that was far stronger than him to death, he had also rescued his five teammates. When these factors were finally calculated, the subsequent bonus reward was an astronomical figure.

The system finally showed a long list of information on military exploits, and at the end, presented him with three choices.

First, it was converting all the military achievements into credits, which amounted to 16,993 credits.

Second, he could convert a certain percentage of his military achievements into a lump sum.

Some of the money was awarded by the nation itself.

The Star Glory Federation was in a state of war year around, thus, among all the taxes, the most important was the ”National Defense Tax”.

While the National Defense Tax on one side was used as military expenditure, on the other, it used to set up a special fund which provided rewards to the non-military personnel depending on the strength of the demon beast they hunted.

In addition, the demon beasts’ body was also very valuable.

The Six-Armed Naga goes without saying. Although its flesh and blood were charred, its snake bile, heart, and other similar organs were precious heaven and earth treasures.

Even low-level Demon Soldiers had valuable parts. The Black Armored Saber Mantis’ incomparably sharp saber-like limb was a rare material.

After the battlefield was cleaned by the army, all the corpses of the demon beasts would then be collected and sorted out, which after being processed could be taken out for sale.

And finally, a small part of the total income would be turned over to the federation, while the majority of the money was allocated to the staff participating in the battle in accordance with the merits recorded in the battle video.

It was also an another way to promote the enthusiasm to fight.

Or else, the cultivators who came all the way and busted their asses may fall due to the slightest bit of inattentiveness.

It would be too much to ask the people to live up to justice without a little bit of reward.

The third option was to acquire materials.

Obviously, if Li Yao was interested in some material, let’s say if he was in need of Six-Armed Naga’s bile for cultivation, after he had filed an application for it, the snake bile would be returned to him, and the subsequent money or credits awarded would be a little less.

What it’s gonna be? Credits, money, or materials?

Li Yao sunk into thought before he chose to convert all the merits to the credits.

At present, he was really not short of money as there was the scholarship and the special allowance provided as a result of him being the Federation’s 1st Class Disabled Servicemen. In addition, he didn’t have to pay the tuition fees too.

As for the materials from the demon beasts like the Six-Armed Naga and the Gold Armored Saber Mantis, they were not too beneficial to him.

Credits, they were more precious than the money and materials.

With more than 20,000 credits, he could apply for some high-rank courses of Combat Department, cultivate powerful superior exercises, and tread further on the road of cultivation. In the future, he might even earn hundreds of millions.

Imagining the better days ahead, Li Yao grinned as he switched to the forum interface.

The battle of Verdant Tarn City was everyone’s focus of attention. Every day, the students who had not participated in the battle watch the progress of the war through the network. The university had specially opened up a Verdant Tarn City battle zone section in the forum, which was a place where the battle situation was discussed.

The students were highly excited. Over thousands of posts were made just within a few days, where every post had hundreds of thousands of threads.

Among which, many posts’ main topic was none other than Li Yao!

”Wow! A freshman vs Armored Snapping Turtle! Damn, so strong! He has so neatly blasted the demon beasts!”

”Crazy! This is completely crazy! Just a Refinement Stage student can confront a Six-Armed Naga head-on with a Six Barrel Rotary Cannon!”

”Vulture Li Yao? What’s so good about him?”

Posts just like these were jampacked with battle videos of Li Yao. Even some people had dug out the videos from the Limit Challenge Competition at the Devil Scaly Dragon Island. The awe-inspiring fame of ”Vulture Li Yao” had already spread through the entire Grand Desolate War Institution. Even some of the cultivation sects located at the Wild Waves City had heard of a ruthless freshman who had carried ten Hellfire-Lightnings with him!

In a moment, Li Yao had become a famous figure who was known to all of the residents of the Wild Waves City. His fame had completely covered the special enrolled students like Zhao Tianchong’s and Lu Tieshan.

Many people believed him to be stronger than Ding Lingdang and Peng Hai back in their days, but even more believed that regardless of whether Li Yao was stronger than the two during their time in college, his craziness at the very least was far more than theirs.

After all, whether it was Ding Lingdang or Peng Hai, they had never carried ten Hellfire-Lightnings along with them to the battlefield like they were walking in their own backyard!

The students of Grand Desolate War Institution held strong lunatics in awe and veneration even more so than they revered the strong. Many people held Li Yao in admiration to the point that they would be willing to throw themselves at his feet. Some even secretly reckoned that maybe no one could stop Li Yao from amassing 40,000 credits, and subsequently creating an unprecedented record!

Having seen these posts, the corned of Li Yao’s lips involuntarily rose as he began giggling in an exaggerated manner.

How could the hot-blooded youth not have some vanity?

Li Yao sighed in self-satisfaction as he thought of the irony of life; just last year he was still struggling with the idea of whether he could be accepted into a good university or not, just like wandering in the vast and dark cosmos, where he could not see any sign of light at his front. The Nine Elite Universities were like stars hanging above the clouds, simply out of his reach.

Whereas in just one year, he had become a famous figure of the Grand Desolate War Institution. It was like quickly running on the road of his dream.

What’s it going to be like after another year?

Li Yao felt extremely excited as he let his thoughts run wild.

At this time, a hubbub suddenly came from outside before Zhao Tianchong and Lu Tieshan happily came running inside the tent while dancing and shouting:

”Victory! We have won!”

”The beast tide was pushed back and the wormhole is also sealed!”

”We have not only completely won, we have also captured a Demon King!”

”Li Yao, hurry up! A regiment is about to drag the captured Demon King from the underground. Let’s quickly go and see the Demon King!”

At first, Li Yao was taken by surprise before he jumped high up in the air as he vigorously waved his fists, giving rise to seven subsequent waves in the air:

”A live Demon King? Awesome!”

After the bloody battle at the stock trading center, where the three went through fire and water together, a deep friendship was forged. Zhao Tianchong and Lu Tieshan did not put any airs of being special recruited students in front of Li Yao. The three with their arms around each other made their way out while laughing.

The news of victory sent dozens of campsites in ebullition as everyone gathered to celebrate.

Whether it was low-level cultivators or young soldiers in the army, everyone swarmed outside to watch the spectacle. The soldiers could barely curb their excitement. As for the local cultivators, they could not control themselves as well as the soldiers. Many among which were raising cries of cheers, shooting in the air, some even launched their flying swords in the air, covering the sky in resplendent colors as they clashed with each other, bursting forth with colorful fireworks one by one.

”Victory! We won!”

”Hip-hip-hurray, hip-hip-hurray!”

”So what if it’s a Demon King? If he dares to intrude upon our Heaven Origin Sector, he will be captured!”

Li Yao and the three somehow climbed their way atop the crystal tank as they stood on their tiptoes to watch.

Under the brilliant lights, a team with soaring killing intent gradually walked from afar.

”Look, our team is triumphantly returning from underground. Wow, so many high-rank demon clan experts are captured!”