Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Once this idea emerged in his mind, he was no longer able to contain himself.

Li Yao returned to the Grand Desolate War Institution at lightning-fast speed and headed straight to the 2nd laboratory of the Refining Department.

With progress being made on the cleaning of the wreckage, plus the sponsorship of the Empyrean Terminus Sect, the Refining Department’s situation was getting better and better. Two small-scale laboratories were built, which were used by Yuan Manqiu and Li Yao respectively.

Even though Li Yao’s laboratory was not too big, the crystal processor used there was assembled from the wreckage of the super crystal processor recovered from the ruins, causing its computing power was extremely strong.

In addition to the processor, Li Yao had bought a Super Perception Cabin at cheap price from the Combat Department shamelessly through his relationship with Ding Lingdang.

As far as others were concerned, the Super Perception Cabin was useless to them. However, he could utilize its full effects.

Li Yao had directly installed the Super Perception Cabin in the laboratory. Whenever he encountered a problem which needed careful consideration, he would flee to the Heavenly Refining Tower through the Super Perception Cabin and research there.

Apart from the training in the Billowing Star Sea and hunting demon beasts in the Wasteland, Li Yao would spend rest of his remaining time in the laboratory, thereby greatly improving his efficiency.

In the pitch black 2nd laboratory, tens of shining holograms floated in the air as information quickly fell from above like a waterfall, along with complex blueprints that would trickle down every now and then.

These were relatively popular methods that were used to detect demon beasts in the Star Glory Federation.

Sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, Li Yao would slap freezing glyphs on his temples from time to time, cooling down his brain that was sizzling hot from operating at high-speed.

In the darkness, his brightly lit eyes were just like those of a beast that was hiding in the depths of a forest, ready to hunt a wild animal at any moment.

At present, there were three kinds of commonly used demon beast detection methods in the Federation.

The most popular was what Li Yao had been using before. He would feed the crystal processor with the details of all the demon beasts, which could be activated with sound and then retrieved via special telepathic thoughts.

It was just like the time when Li Yao had encountered the Black Armored Saber Mantis in the Verdant Tarn City. As long as he yelled ”Black Armored Saber Mantis!”, the telepathic thoughts would automatically be activated, which would then retrieve all the details of Black Armored Saber Mantis from the database and display them before Li Yao in a translucent hologram.

Even though it sounded good, many times the user didn’t know the scientific name of the demon beast.

At that time, the telepathic thoughts would use the default ”general search” function.

For instance, if the user didn’t know the scientific name of the demon beast, but could see that the demon beast belonged to Saber Mantis Family from its appearance, he could shout ”Saber Mantis” and thousands of saber mantis’ images would appear for the user to refer to.

If the description was more detailed, like ”Black Saber Mantis” or ”Black Saber Mantis with two blade-like forelimbs”, the subsequent search options would be fewer and more accurate.

The problem with this type of detection method was that the species of demon beasts were too complex and too many. Even if described as ”black colored Saber Mantis with two blade-like forelimbs and sturdy armor”, the search options would still not be limited to Black Armored Saber Mantis, as there is also the Black Armored Large Sickle Mantis, Black Armored Small Sickle Mantis, Seven-Starred Black Sickle Mantis, Nine-Starred Black Sickle Mantis... and a few dozen more species.

The appearance of these demon beasts were strikingly similar, but in strength, they were far apart.

The Black Armored Saber Mantis was just a low-rank Demon Soldier, while the Nine-Starred Black Sickle Mantis was a vicious high-rank Demon Soldier that could even tear the Gold Armored Sickle Mantis apart just for food!

”This kind of search method is too slow!”

”By the time I could accurately determine that I was facing a Nine-Starred Black Sickle Mantis among the several dozen other black-colored Saber Mantises, the Nine-Starred Black Sickle Mantis would have already arrived before me to play with my life!”

The second method was by sensing the particular vibration frequency to detect any nearby demon beast.

When Li Yao was living as a scavenger in the Magical Equipment Graveyard, the essence watch he had that was manufactured by the Zephyr Guild possessed the same function.

At that time, he used that function to detect the priceless garbage ships. Every time, he was faster by a step and could seize the initiative.

However, this method could only tell its user the existence of a powerful demon beast nearby at the most or could determine the distance between the two. It was very difficult to accurately determine the demon beast’s species.

If it was used for hiding and escaping, it was an excellent method.

As for attacking, it was not appropriate at all.

The third method was employed by the military, who used a huge long-range detector.

The operating principle of this magical equipment was completely different and could be subdivided into ”optical detectors” and ”sound detectors”.

Either detector could accurately detect the scale and approximate strength of demon beasts from hundreds of kilometers away to thousands of kilometers.

However, this kind of magical equipment was engineered to deal with beast tide outbreak. Although it could determine the scale and an approximate number of demon beasts, it was impossible to determine the species of every demon beast. Not to mention, the magical equipment was rather huge; the smallest one still needed a crystal battleship to carry it.

”Among the common magical equipment in the market, there is nothing that suits my needs.”

”Who could I blame them; after all, hunters who are as weak as me and yet wander alone in the Wasteland are the minority.”

”If it’s the powerful high-level cultivators, their computation ability is relatively high and they could remember more information of demon beasts.

”And if it’s a hunting team, then among the numerous people, someone would always know the details of the demon beasts, and even if no one knew, one of them could always refer to the crystal processor slowly.”

”Since I cannot find anything in the market, how about… I craft it myself?”

Li Yao’s head was struck with a thought; suddenly, his fingers started to itch.

Since the winter break, during which he had refined some flashy magical equipment, he just stuck to the basics. Usually, he would refine some complex structural components to practice the basics; at most he would modify his own saber and firearm.

Could someone like him, a freshman, craft a completely new magical equipment?

The frequency of freezing glyphs pasted on Li Yao’s forehead increased significantly, while his teeth clattered from cold.

On one side, he was shivering, while on the other, thinking calmly.

”For my needs, the magical equipment must be pre-inputted with a database of millions of demon beasts’ species.”

”No, there is no need to have millions; as long as it is pre-inputted with the demon beasts that would appear in the specific area, it would all fine.”

”For instance, if I am hunting on the Wasteland, obviously, there is no need to include the information for the demon beasts residing in the sea as well as in the forest.”

”This way, the amount of information will be greatly reduced, I will only have to store the information of a couple hundred thousand species which could be stored in an ordinary memory crystal card.”

”Second, the magical equipment needs a very high precision camera that can find a demon beast from a distance; most importantly, it should be able to scan every detail of the demon beast’s body.”

Li Yao pondered for a bit and summarized that it could be done.

The camera was a special magical equipment. In the cultivation world, it was also known as ”crystal eye”. It had a highly complex structure consisting of numerous lenses and imaging array glyphs.

The highest-grade camera could even take a picture of a cultivator’s soul as well as a high-level demon beast’s true form. It was known as the ”Dæmon Illuminateur”!

In the world of cultivation, there was a fair share of refiners who would spend their lifetime crafting the crystal eye.

Some even spent over a decade on a top-grade crystal eye, utilizing great care and precision. However, they would never sell it, only keep in their hands to play with and take a picture.

According to them, there was no need to let others know the indescribable pleasure of gazing at the beautiful world contained within a square inch.

No matter whether others said something like ”crystal eyes ruined three generations of fortune or the camera ruined their life”, they would still never be bored with it.

Although Li Yao was utterly ignorant of the crystal eye, nowadays, whether it was the cultivators or ordinary people, they loved taking pictures using the mini-crystal processor; as a result, the crystal eye technology was continuously developed and commercialized.

Currently, on the market, there were many powerful crystal eyes to choose from.

Although for the accuracy required by Li Yao, the price of crystal eye wasn’t cheap, this thing could be used for a long time; thus, he could only clench his teeth and accept it.

”The next problem would be how to compare the images of demon beast taken by the crystal eye with the vast database.”

”This needs a very powerful algorithm, and also a unique analogizing array glyph.”

Li Yao tensely pondered. Just as the cold sweat dripped down his forehead, it was immediately frozen into ice pellets by the freezing array glyphs.

Not long after, his forehead was covered in ice pellets.

However, his eyes were getting brighter and hotter as though they could melt the ice pellets one by one.

”The algorithm is not a problem. I have many ancient and modern algorithms in my hands. I could always find a suitable algorithm through repeated trials with the help of the large crystal processor.”

”The analogizing array glyph is even less of a problem!”

”Every crafting furnace has a set of analogizing array glyphs. We, refiners, are most familiar with this type of array glyphs!”

When the refiners mass produced magical equipment, it was impossible to refine each component one by one.

Last time, when he and Jin Quan, the refiner of Empyrean Terminus Sect, dueled, the two respectively forged a nail purely for the sake of showing their abilities.

In a normal crafting process, hundreds of thousands of the same type of components were forged all at the same time.

And whether these components were ”exactly the same” or there were there any flaws was judged with the help of analogizing array glyphs.

Many pieces of magical equipment needed a high degree of precision for their components. High-grade analogizing array glyphs could even distinguish a hair’s difference.

Different species of demon beasts looked similar, but could the difference between them be any smaller as compared to that between an ideal nail and defective nail?

When even ideal nails and defective nails could be identified in a furnace, would it not be a piece of cake to identify the species of a demon beast?

”Alright!”

Li Yao snapped his finger. He was so excited that he wanted to shout.

”Database, crystal eye, analogizing array glyph, algorithm... all the crucial points are no problem, they can be completely resolved with the current technology!”

”The only problem is to assemble the crystal eye, memory crystal card, and the processing crystal chip carrying the array glyphs in a square inch of space. The magical equipment cannot be too big, it has to be very light and conveniently carryable. When fighting, it should be able to automatically retrieve the information so that both hands are free to use!”

”Think, think...”

In Li Yao’s mind, countless magical equipment blueprints emerged, as they quickly rotated, constantly expanded, and broke into pieces.

After half a minute, his eyes flickered with an intelligent gleam as the blueprint of a slightly weird magical equipment jumped out.

”That’s it!”

Li Yao fiercely waved his fist, as though he was trying to grasp a fleeting speck of dust in the air.

He immediately plunged into the Super Perception Cabin and his consciousness fled to the Heavenly Refining Tower, where he began drawing the blueprint with madness!