Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Mao Feng was dazed and his anger burst out.

”A minor revision?

”For a man with zero talent such as yourself, who has hardly made any progress in training over the last month, what makes you think that you’re qualified to propose a revision?

”It’ll be your turn very soon. Your opponent is a super strong man. I have no doubt that you will be crushed and driven out of Thunder Training Camp in a minute!

”What revision could possibly help you after that?”

Li Yao pretended that he didn’t hear anything. He said calmly, ”This is exactly what I’m talking about. Chief Instructor, would you please stop talking such garbage? It’s really wasting my time.”

Mao Feng’s eyes went as wide as those of a bull.

”What?!”

Li Yao answered peacefully, ”Chief Instructor, if you have studied my profile before, you should be aware that I hadn’t touched a crystal suit until a month ago and I knew nothing about this incredible new world.

”I’m not a moron.

”At first, you were pissed off and declared that I had no talent whatsoever in using crystal suits after you saw my heartbreaking performance, and I bought it.

”But later, as I grew more familiar with crystal suits and knew more about properties of the different models, it occurred to me that there should have been something wrong with the Seven-step Rock Snake I’d driven. Your attitude had been weird after the accident, too.

”So, yesterday afternoon, I specially spared 17 minutes and 24 seconds to analyze the whole thing in retrospect.

”My conclusion was that there’s a 97% likelihood that, because of the extraordinary gift that I showed in the crystal suit, you were impressed and decided to impose an unusual training methodology upon me.

”You fire me up perversely and, by making advantage of my indomitable spirit, you devised a series of impossible tasks which accelerated my dramatic growth.

”In fact, I’m not half as lousy as you claimed. On the contrary, I’m very awesome, am I not?”

Mao Feng was rendered speechless for a long time.

Li Yao continued, ”Goading someone into action by sarcasm is an old strategy. I should’ve seen it through long time ago.

”However, the world of crystal suits is too tempting for me to let go. I only wish that I could devote every second that I have to the mysteries of crystal suits.

”That’s the reason why, although I have long felt something wasn’t right, I never took the time to investigate the matter.

”Until yesterday, when I ran some calculations.

”Over the past 30 days, you’ve spent 12 minutes and 37 seconds on average each day to verbally abuse me, hoping to evoke my ambition through ridicule.

”The 12 minutes and 37 seconds were a complete waste of time in my eyes.

”My ambition had already arrived at peak without any stimulation.

”So, if I were to spend the 12 minutes and 37 seconds on training, I would’ve been able to cover two more subjects and increase my ability by up to 0.05%.

”That’s why I decided to make it clear to you.

”I’m different from other people. Please don’t view me as someone ordinary, and please stop wasting our time with that trash talk.

”If you are really of a mind to torture me, please arrange training subjects that are more difficult, crazier, and more insane for me, instead of just trying to intimidate me with your mouth.

”That’s all I have to say. Excuse me, I’m about to go on stage now, Chief Instructor.”

Li Yao nodded and walked out of the room.

Mao Feng was completely bewildered. He stood alone in the room for a long time. His face turned from red to purple, purple to black, and in the end his face was so gloomy that it seemed as if some ink would spill out at any moment.

”BOOM!”

Mao Feng stamped on his foot and the floor was immediately shattered.

”Boy, that is way too presumptuous!” the chief instructor Mao Feng screamed horribly.

…

In the long and narrow aisle, Li Yao turned on his crystal processor and read the profile of his opponent while he was walking.

Unluckily, he was paired with the No. 9.

Most of the top 10 students had abundant Exo experience. Many of them were even battlesuit majors from famous universities.

No. 9, whose name was Zhou Zhenghao, had an unknown background. But according to his profile, he was an expert in the 10th level of the Refinement Stage.

Crystal suits could only enhance the user’s original combat ability, which was more important than the enhancement.

Now that the opponent was three levels higher than Li Yao, he could crush Li Yao as easy as pie, even if the two of them were equally skilled at operating their battlesuits.

There wouldn’t even be a slim chance of winning, unless his skills were far better than those of his opponent.

The strength of his opponent filled Li Yao’s eyes with joy.

Li Yao walked towards the crystal suit warehouse as he thought, ’Very good.

’This is my first real battle in a crystal suit.

’It’s great that I’ve been blessed with such a strong opponent.’

Since the latter half of the hundred students were less experienced than the former half, to ensure fairness of the elimination match, they were allowed to wait until their opponent had picked a crystal suit before they got to pick their own. It was believed that such arrangements could somewhat reduce the gap between the two contenders.

Very soon, No. 9’s choice was displayed on the crystal processor — Thunder Axe Battlesuit.

Thunder Axe Battlesuit was a super-heavy crystal suit, 2.65 meters tall, weighing 13.21 tons. It was the most titanic and cumbersome crystal suit among all the low-level ones provided by the training camp.

Of course, it boasted a large arsenal, too.

The Honeycomb Flying Sword System on its shoulder had 360 tiny flying swords on board. The four Thunder Axes on the outside of its arms and legs could deal incomparable damage, too.

Thunder Axe Battlesuit was muscular men’s all-time favorite. As long as the wearer had enough strength, the crystal suit would become a walking guillotine.

”It seems that No. 9 is going to be a husky fellow.

”A husky man in the 10th level of the Refinement Stage now has the Thunder Axe Battlesuit on him. It’s really blood-freezing!

”Which suit should I pick to fight him?”

Li Yao’s face was wrapped in a mixture of craziness, obsession, enjoyment, and excitement.

Like a young man going on a date with his girlfriend, an assassin who was prepared to avenge his father, a serpent that had locked onto its prey in some dark woods, and a boy who’d just found a new game and was exploring the rules of it.

Soon, his eyes started shining.

The young man was on bed with his girlfriend, the assassin jumped down from the beam of the house, the serpent charged towards its prey with its glaring poison fangs, and the boy found out the trick of the game and moved on to the next level, grinning in great satisfaction.

Li Yao picked a crystal suit without any hesitation. The exhaust flame of the suit lit up the sky, and he flew towards the arena.

…

Many students were paying close attention to this elimination match, especially the winners from previous matches, who wouldn’t let go of such a rare opportunity and gathered together in order to watch the live show from the screen.

They were all here for No. 9.

Although the 99 students except Li Yao had been studying under different instructors, now and then there would be group training sessions in which they would be summoned together. Therefore, they all knew a thing or two about the others’ progress.

No. 9, or the former Zhou Zhenghao, was one of the toughest men among all the students.

Not only had he been endowed with great talent, he was also crazy about training. People often noticed that he was doing training at midnight.

One time, when he had an accident during training and broke four of his ribs, he took no rest and resumed training after some simple treatment from the med bay.

Instead of reducing the amount of training, he added another 20%, claiming that he needed to make up for the time he lost in the med bay.

Therefore, No. 9 had received the nickname ”steel man”!

He was one of the best Exos among the muscular-type Exos. After he put on a super-heavy crystal suit such as the Thunder Axe Battlesuit, even Long Qianyue and Yuan Yeshi would need to pay full attention knowing they couldn’t be too careful.

A match such a tough man was participating in was definitely worth watching!

The only regret was that his opponent was too weak.

Many people clearly remembered what happened on Li Yao’s debut, and he had vanished into thin air ever since then.

It was told that his talents were so limited that he had to receive specially designed fundamental training.

Such a newbie would probably be blown away by the ’steel man’ with a single punch. They wouldn’t have the chance to see the full potential of the steel man at all.

But some people disagreed.

Li Yao’s ability was truly lousy, but his speed, on the other hand, was quite impressive.

If he had grasped some basic driving skills to stabilize his speed, with the help of a speed-type crystal suit, there was a good chance that he might be able to dodge the steel man for a while.

After all, as a super-heavy crystal suit, Thunder Axe Battlesuit was at a disadvantage to speed-type crystal suits.

If Li Yao just circled around, he could possibly survive for a few minutes.

Then the topic of the conversation changed to how long Li Yao could survive under the bombardment of the steel man.

After a couple of minutes, the match of No. 9 versus No. 100, or the steel man versus the newbie officially began.

There were eight arenas in the Outer camp that simulated different natural environment. The place of the elimination match would be a random one of them after drawing lots.

Unfortunately, Li Yao drew the desert battlefield.

In the vast desert, there were no shelters or complex territories that could be made use of. It would be the most straightforward competition of combat abilities!

When the two crystal suits flew into the battlefield and landed in the desert with a small sandstorm, everybody gasped in surprise.

They all thought that Li Yao had given up already in desperation.

”Thunder Axe Battlesuits! Two of them!”

”The newbie picked a Thunder Axe Battlesuit, too?”

”Is he insane? Knowing that his specialty is swiftness, yet picking a slow and leaden super-heavy crystal suit, he’s giving up his only advantage just like that?”

”Has he decided to do arm wrestling with Zhou Zhenghao, the steel man?”

While they watched in bewilderment and incomprehension, the two Thunder Axe Battlesuits had boosted their spiritual energy to their maximum, releasing splendid colors from their back. They ran towards each other, enshrouded by two clouds of smoke.

Thunder Axe Battlesuit against Thunder Axe Battlesuit, super-heavy against super-heavy, the contest between steel and flesh was about to begin!