Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

”The chain gun is going to be a hit!” Professor Mo Xuan’s metallic voice was filled with undisguisable joy. ”A day ago, a carrier of the Glorious Sunlight Group was assaulted by the space pirates. The carrier ’happened’ to be guarded by the Great Horn Exo Society, and five hundred prototypes of the Aurora Chain Gun ’happened’ to be in the cargo!

”In the end, the Great Horn Exo Society took out the chain guns in the cabin and fought the space pirates hard with them. They stalled the Blood Hand Pirate Gang, which ranked the 31st on Spider Den, until reinforcements arrived and eliminated the enemies altogether!

”Such a satisfactory and dramatic victory is definitely worth reporting. Right now, all the journalists of the Cross Wind Space Zone have arrived in the area and are interviewing the Great Horn Exo Society. The newly-born Aurora Chain Gun is the unquestionable star of the show, too!”

”Were we so lucky?” Li Yao was overjoyed, but he rolled his eyes and asked, ”No. You must’ve prearranged everything, didn’t you?”

”Of course, we did. Such a series of coincidences could not happen at the same time,” Professor Mo Xuan replied merrily. ”Bai Kaixin, advisor of the Great Horn Exo Society, is truly an unpredictable man. He gathered a lot of intelligence in advance and inferred the route and personnel of the Blood Hand Pirate Gang. As it turned out, the pirate gang finally bit the bait after we wandered around in our route with a cargo of firearms for three days. This is the best advertisement for us!”

”Bai Kaixin!”

Li Yao rubbed his face, recalling Bai Kaixin, who was always frowning in depression. He never knew what to say.

Over the past half year since the Glorious Sunlight Group was established, the cooperation between them and the Great Horn Exo Society had grown deeper and deeper. Supported by the Glorious Sunlight Group as well as Iron Plateau, the Great Horn Exo Society expanded like a balloon being injected with air. Most of the guardian work for the Glorious Sunlight Group was taken care of by them, too.

After only half a year, the Great Horn Exo Society had grown from an unknown middle-sized Exo Society to one of the greatest Exo Societies of the Flying Star Sector—at least in terms of scale.

The ’chain gun’, a piece of new magical equipment co-developed by Li Yao and Hou Zitao, targeted ordinary people and low-level Cultivators as the potential customers. It was perfect for the Great Horn Exo Society as a standard weapon.

Li Yao did not expect that Bai Kaixin would have arranged everything in advance and offered him such a big gift in return!

When the battle of the annihilation of the Blood Hand Pirate Gang was disseminated to various space zones via the Spiritual Nexus, many people grew interested in the eccentric magical equipment that the Great Horn Exo Society carried with them.

At first look, such magical equipment was a storm bolter with a relatively thick barrel.

However, the underside of the front end of the gun was embedded with coldly-blinking sawtooth. There was a transformation trigger at the rear of the gun, too.

When the transformation trigger was touched, the folded gunstock would be unfolded and turn into a strengthening plugin, which would fix the gun onto the arm. In the end, the gun would become a sharp single-edged chainsword.

The Great Horn Exo Society were still exultant after a fierce battle. When they were interviewed by the journalists, they all waved their new weapons with pride and demonstrated the usage of the weapon toward the journalists without exhaustion.

In a few days, the new magical equipment named ’Aurora Chain Gun’ was known by everybody as the hundreds of videos of the interviews spread out.

Some magical equipment magazines praised the chain gun.

”From the traditional perspective, remote attack and melee attack are often difficult to be melded together perfectly. A soldier often has to carry a gun as well as a chainsword or a vibration saber.

”However, the enemy they are faced with are either thick-skinned demon beasts or heavily-armored Exos. Not only are they incapable of killing their enemy with the remote firepower, their enemy are also extremely fast and can cover their entire shooting range in the blink of an eye.

”In a real-life battle, it is often the case that your enemy will show up right in front of your nose the second after you aim at your enemy and shoot them.

”The super experts can, of course, throw away the storm bolter and pick up their chainsword in less than one second.

”However, for the low-level Cultivators and ordinary people, they will be caught in an awkward situation.

”Although the invention of Aurora Chain Gun does not solve the problem perfectly, it has introduced a relatively practical approach, to say the very least. Judging from the fierce battle that happened in the edge of the Cross Wind Space Zone, the Aurora Chain Sword will be a piece of magical equipment popular among low-level Cultivators.

”From many demonstration videos, we can clearly see that, while the members of the Great Horn Exo Society were opening fire at their targets, the embedded sawtooth in the front end of the gun had already started revolving rapidly. When the rune arrays on the sawtooth were triggered, sharp light blades were generated on the surface of the gun.

”Special sensors have been installed to the front end of the chain gun, too, which allow it to detect the object that is coming close in advance.

”When the object is ten meters away from the gun, the embedded sawtooth will jet out automatically, and the gunstock at the back will restructure itself and turn into a plugin to stabilize the gun on the arm of the Exo. As a result, the gun will be switched to the ’melee mode’ seamlessly.

”The user will need to do nothing except to stab forward with their chain gun, and the enemy that is lunging close will be sending themselves to the edge of the blade!”

While there were compliments, there were also criticisms.

Many conservative magazines and websites expressed restrained suspicions about the new magical equipment.

”The chain gun indeed boasts an excellent design, but its structure is too complicated and coupling. The fault rate is going to be very high.

”The manufacturer of the Aurora Chain Gun was an unknown before now, nor was it ever engaged in the magical equipment business.

”It had no products whatsoever until half a month ago when the Combat Ability Detector was released.

”Although the Combat Ability Detector has been well-accepted on market, ancillary magical equipment and aggressive magical equipment are two entirely different fields.

”It remains to be seen whether or not such a small company is supervised by an excellent master of refining who can watch over the assembly line of such a piece of precise magical equipment.”

The two opinions both had a lot of supporters. Together with the flames that someone fanned intentionally, news about the chain gun was all over the Spiritual Nexus.

The Aurora Chain Gun was not officially released yet, but it had received much more attention than other magical equipment developers could dream of.

After several days, a journalist from one media outlet finally located the investor of the small company. He wrote a column article with a quite eye-catching title.

”Rise of a Giant—An Exploration of the Glorious Sunlight Group!”

”Over the past half year, many people in the world of Cultivators have heard the name of the ’Glorious Sunlight Group’, a conglomerate with Iron Plateau’s backing that has monopolized the sales of certain minerals from Iron Plateau.

”But beyond everyone’s expectations, the Glorious Sunlight Group did not stop on trades. It has been also marching into the magical equipment industry at a sprinting speed!

”As the journalists of this magazine pursued further into the matter, we discovered that the Combat Ability Detector, which has been quite a hit recently, was the first magical equipment developed by the Glorious Sunlight Group!

”The Aurora Chain Gun, another piece of new magical equipment that appeared out of nowhere and raised a heated discussion on the Spiritual Nexus, is co-produced by the Glorious Sunlight Group and Flying Star University!

”It is worth mentioning that the two pieces of magical equipment received a large number of orders from Iron Plateau the moment they were revealed!

”Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that, backed by an entire planet and tens of thousands of qi-trainers on it, the Glorious Sunlight Group will not only become a giant in trade but also an unneglectable rising power in the magical equipment industry!

”However, according to the information that this magazine gathered from various resources, the supervisor of the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center is Mo Xuan, an unknown refiner.

”Sand Scorpion, the biggest shareholder of the Glorious Sunlight Group and known to be the best warrior of the six tribes of Iron Plateau, does not have any masterpieces so far despite his claim that he is passionate about refining.

”With their understanding about refining, can they produce such delicate magical equipment as the Combat Ability Detector and the chain gun?

”Is it possible that somebody else is hiding behind the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center?

”Later, the journalists of this magazine will visit the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center in person and reveal the answer for you!”

This article deepened the sense of mystery surrounding the Glorious Sunlight Group, which had already been mysterious enough. For a moment, everybody in the circle of refiners was talking about ’Glorious Sunlight’.

Three days later, a piece of even more shocking news raised a riot among the refiners!

Master Fiend Star, an expert adept at classical refining theories, reappeared after vanishing for more than half a year!

Moreover, he showed up with a very detailed and professional article analyzing the two pieces of new magical equipment released by the Glorious Sunlight Group in terms of their structure, performance, and the rune arrays employed.

After reading the explanation of Master Fiend Star, the fans of magical equipment finally learned that the seemingly cheap Combat Ability Detector and the Aurora Chain Gun had utilized many ancient rune arrays and models from forty thousand years ago. They were actually quite sophisticated from the technological perspective!

Some people questioned if Master Fiend Star had written the article because he was paid. Some other people were asking about his relationship with the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center.

Master Fiend Star thanked everybody for their sincere concern about himself over the past half year at first. Then he expressed his apology for his disappearance. Although he did not admit his relationship with the Glorious Sunlight Group, he did not deny it, either. Instead, there was a clear hint between the lines that he was cooperating with the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center closely!

This news raised even more discussion.

The classical refining theories put forward by Master Fiend Star had been confirmed and even applied to many kinds of magical equipment by quite a few refiners after the one year.

The expertise of Master Fiend Star was well acknowledged in the circle of refiners, too.

If the Glorious Sunlight Refining Center was actually led by Master Fiend Star, it was not unusual that such two pieces of magical equipment, which employed a lot of classical refining theories, were developed.

”These are two masterpieces that Master Fiend Star worked hard on in seclusion for half a year!”

Somebody even made such a bold assumption on the Spiritual Nexus.