Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The smile on Li Yao’s lips instantly froze. A drop of cold sweat rolled down to the tip of his nose.

”Sand Scorpion, I’m confused right now. Just announce that you are an Iron Plateau native on the Truth Cabinet!”

Shi Meng shouted, ”As long as you prove your innocence, the Furious Bears Tribe will support you to the end until there are none of us left!”

”Yes! If you pass the test of the Truth Cabinet and prove yourself to be an Iron Plateau native, the Giant Axe Tribe will believe every word you said, too!”

”Same goes for the Silver Moon Tribe!”

”Same goes for the Heaven Wolves Tribe!”

The elite warriors of the six tribes all started shouting.

Two priests of the Feathered Snakes Tribe in colorful clothing made of feathers leapt onto the Truth Cabinet. They operated on the magical equipment and gestured for Li Yao to proceed. ”Please!”

Li Yao raised his head and looked at the yellow sky. He took a long, deep breath. Ten thousand thoughts were rolling through his mind.

Should I take the risk with a homophone? After all, ’Grand Plateau’ and ’Iron Plateau’ sound similar. If I say ’I’m a Grand Plateau native’, I might be able to fool the Truth Cabinet!

But Li Yao immediately dismissed the idea.

It was a horrible plan. The core of the Truth Cabinet was a military polygraph from the Star Ocean Imperium that monitored the soul of the charged directly. How could it be conned by such petty tricks like homophones?

Li Yao quickly thought of many things. Finally, he clenched his fists and said with much hesitation, ”I—I can’t say that!”

”What!” Shi Meng gasped. ”You still daren’t? You are not an Iron Plateau native?”

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe furrowed her brow and cawed like a crow, ”Are you admitting that you are not an Iron Plateau native?”

Yan Chifeng tried to hold back the joy in his eyes, while he said coldly, ”Of course, he is not an Iron Plateau native. I said he was a space spy long ago!”

”It’s not like that!”

Veins were bulging on his forehead, and resentment seemed to be pouring out of his eyes as tears. He waved his hands and shouted desperately, ”I—I don’t know whether or not I am a real Iron Plateau native. It is also the biggest secret about myself!

”But I am absolutely certain that I am definitely not a space resident!”

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe was curious. ”You are either a space resident or an Iron Plateau native. What do you mean by saying that you don’t know whether or not you are a real Iron Plateau native?”

Everybody stared at Li Yao who was struggling in pain. There was grief in his anger and loneliness in his grief.

For a moment, he did not seem to belong to this world. While smiling bittering, he replied, ”Everyone, especially brothers from the Furious Bears Tribe, I’m truly sorry!

”There are many things that I haven’t confessed to you yet. There’s indeed a great secret buried inside my body that makes me unclear who I am!

”I once thought that, as long as I fought side by side with everybody against the apocalypse like a real warrior of Iron Plateau would, I would be acknowledged by everybody and regarded as a real Iron Plateau native!

”Hehe. I was wrong. Very wrong!

”Whatever I do, however many apocalyptic beasts I slay, however much blood I shed… I’m afraid I will never become a real Iron Plateau native! Never!”

”But I swear that I am not a space resident. Definitely not!”

Shi Meng was baffled. He strode forward and cried, ”Sand Scorpion, what are you talking about? I don’t understand! What’s your secret? Just tell us!”

Li Yao smiled miserably. His body was shaking so hard that he seemed like he would fall out of the Truth Cabinet at any point.

The previous speech seemed to have drained him. He shook his head and murmured, ”It will be useless. Whatever I say right now, nobody will believe me. You will only consider me to be a liar!

”Hehe. It’s not your fault but mine. There are too many suspicious points about me to be washed away by the bit of blood I spilled in the battle of apocalypse!”

His words rendered everyone bewildered. Many qi-trainers thought of Li Yao’s brutal performance in the battle of apocalypse and lowered their heads while they thought to themselves, Have we really wronged him? Does he really have something personal that he would rather not tell?

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe said solemnly, ”Sand Scorpion, stop delaying. After all, you are either a space resident or an Iron Plateau native! Since you said that you did not know whether or not you are a real Iron Plateau native due to private reasons, then just sit on the chair and state ’I am not a space resident’. It will be the same!

”If the Truth Cabinet proves that you are speaking the truth, you can tell us your identity and background then. Everybody will believe you after that, won’t we?”

Hearing that, many qi-trainers nodded their heads in approval.

”Indeed. You are either a space resident or an Iron Plateau native. Prove that you are not a space resident first. Then you can tell us where you come from. Even the longest and the most sophisticated story has a beginning and an ending!”

”Yes. Prove that you are not a space resident first. Let’s talk about the rest later!”

Yan Chifeng frowned in silence. He felt that something was wrong, but he failed to determine where the loophole was.

Li Yao sniffed and said, tears in his eyes, ”Alright. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. After I prove that I am indeed not a space resident, I will share my background and secrets with you, and you will be judges to decide whether or not I am a real Iron Plateau native!”

Then, Li Yao seated himself on the iron black chair unhesitatingly. The two priests of the Feathered Snakes Tribe put on his head the hat embedded with dozens of crystals and carved with countless rune arrays, before they fixed it with belts.

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe declared slowly and solemnly, ”The Truth Cabinet… is now activated!”

After a while of humming sounds, the four thick tubes connected to other heavy tanks were dancing up and down as if they were alive.

Immense spiritual energy flooded into the Truth Cabinet unstoppably. The gears and chains started spinning rapidly. Hot steam popped out from the exhaust tubes, wreathing the entire Truth Cabinet in an ocean of fog. Li Yao, who was sitting on top of it, looked like a deity!

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

Rune arrays inside the hat were illuminated one after another brilliantly, as if half a sun was covering Li Yao’s head!

Li Yao was seeing all kinds of hallucinations. The whole world turned into chaos. The desert and the qi-trainers were all gone. The only thing in the entire universe was a lonely, monolithic eye that was gazing at him without blinking!

The stare of the eye seemed to be piercing through his flesh and his brain deep into the center of his soul!

Li Yao shuddered. He felt that the eye had become a weird hand that was touching the deepest part of his soul coldly.

Vaguely, he heard the chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe shout, ”Sand Scorpion, you may speak now!”

Trying to hold back the discomfort inside his soul, Li Yao clenched his fists and sat straight, while he roared without any hesitation, ”I am not a space resident!”

BAM! BAM!

Complicated mechanical noises echoed inside the Truth Cabinet. The central component that was the polygraph was fully functioning and releasing spiritual waves in ripples nonstop.

There was nothing but silence on the spot. Everybody focused their eyes on the ’True’ and ’False’ in front of the Truth Cabinet.

Although Yan Chifeng was quite certain of the result, he couldn’t help but bulge his eyes, his hands shaking.

A moment later—

Shua!

The left side of the Truth Cabined suddenly glittered in green. The word ’True’ was shining brightly, the glow of which reached almost ten meters away and formed an identical word in the air!

”It’s true!”

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe exclaimed, ”He is speaking the truth. He is not a space resident!”

”Marvelous!”

Shi Meng, Xiong Zhenzhen, and the other qi-trainers of the Furious Bears Tribe were dazed briefly, before they were so overjoyed that they were almost jumping. ”Sand Scorpion is not a space resident!”

”Not a space resident?”

”Sand Scorpion is truly not a space resident?”

”What is going on? Was Yan Chifeng lying? He couldn’t be! What was he lying for?”

The qi-trainers of the other tribes were all whispering to each other in confusion. Those from the Burning Sun Tribe were all scratching their faces, dumbfounded.

Yan Chifeng was wearing such an absurd expression as if Li Yao had kicked his nose to the back of his head. He was absolutely stunned and was about to dig his own eyeballs out. In bafflement, he mumbled, ”How is that possible?”

Li Yao took off his hat. He rose up suddenly and stared down at Yan Chifeng, while he bashed his chest and shouted, ”Yan Chifeng, I’ve proven myself to not be a space resident through the Truth Cabinet. What else have you got?”

”It’s impossible. Definitely impossible!”

Yan Chifeng was utterly confused. He took a few steps back, his eyes shuddering nonstop. Then he shrieked, ”You must have fooled the Truth Cabinet with your magical equipment. Otherwise, everything will be inexplicable! Where—where are you from? Why did you say that you were unclear whether or not you were a real Iron Plateau native just now? From whom did you learn such sophisticated armor-making technology?”

Li Yao eyed him coldly as if he was a pig about to be butchered, while he replied casually, ”The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe personally checked just now and made sure that I did not carry any special magical equipment. If you are not assured, you can examine me yourself, and I’ll do the test again!”

”That will be unnecessary!”

The face of the chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe was extremely awful. She glared at Yan Chifeng and said, ”For thousands of years, the Truth Cabinet has been protected and operated by the Feathered Snakes Tribe. It is our greatest glory and responsibility!

”If I’ve examined the charged and said he is okay, he is okay. Anyone who thinks that he is not okay is indicating that they don’t trust the Feathered Snakes Tribe. Is that the case?”

Yan Chifeng’s face was pale. He stammered, ”Chief, I didn’t mean that. But Sand Scorpion’s backgrounds are too mysterious. We must get to the bottom of it!”

Li Yao signed and said, gritting his teeth, ”This is the biggest secret of my life. I wasn’t going to tell it even if I was to be killed. But today, with everything reaching this point and a great plot looming ahead of us, I see no other options except to tell the truth!

”But I wonder, is everybody willing to believe me now?”

”Of course!”

Shi Meng was the first to jump out. He roared, ”Now that you’ve passed the test of the Truth Cabinet and proved that you are not a space resident, what else can they say? The Furious Bears Tribe definitely believes you!”

”Yes.”

The chief of the Feathered Snakes Tribe said, ”As guardians of the Truth Cabinet, the Feathered Snakes Tribe absolutely respects the test result of the Truth Cabinet. Our promise is still valid. Sand Scorpion, you are now the most honorable guest of the Feathered Snakes Tribe. We definitely believe you!”

The qi-trainers of the other tribes were also nodding their heads. Many of them realized that they’d misunderstood Li Yao and lowered their heads in embarrassment.

”Alright!”

Moved, Li Yao continued, ”Now, please listen to the story of my life and decide whether or not I am a real Iron Plateau native!

”Brother Shi Meng, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve indeed lied to you about many things!

”More than a month ago, when I just arrived in the Furious Bears Tribe, I lost my memory briefly because of the poison of the Emperor Sand Scorpions. That is true!

”However, my body was very sturdy, and the poison did not paralyze my brain for long. A few days later, flashbacks of my previous life started occurring to me!

”Like a blind man groping to know the shape of an elephant, I picked up the episodes of my past bit by bit. With the common sense and knowledge that I learned in the Furious Bears Tribe, I sorted through everything and finally found my past!

”As it turns out, I… I…”

Li Yao’s chest was heaving, up and down. He took multiple breaths and finally made up his mind and declared, ”As it turns out, it is very likely that I was raised by a space resident!”