Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

In the depths of the Flying Star Sector, through more than ten fatal stone belts and areas where cosmic storms were active, somewhere near the Spider Den Space Zone, a fat ’black-behemoth’ level carrier was avoiding the meteoroids at an amazing speed while flying toward Spider Den along a secret route.

The black-behemoth-level carrier was one of the thousand starships that had fled out of the tenth space ring of Heavenly Saints City a month ago.

Developed more than 180 years ago, the black-behemoth-level carrier was an old model. Since they were simple in structure and sturdy, many such carriers were purchased by dealers of second-hand starships when they were declared total losses, before they were repaired, modified, and sold again.

Many black-behemoth-level carriers were sold and resold almost ten times. After multiple times of modification, they often looked entirely different from what they were supposed to be.

That was exactly the case for this black-behemoth-level carrier.

In the space port of Heavenly Saints City, it was registered under a perfectly legal identity and claimed to be from a remote space town of a remote space zone.

There were few Cultivators in the space town. Most of the folks there were bumpkins who never went to cities.

All the files and data were real. If the Cultivators of Heavenly Saints City really went to the edge of the Flying Star Sector where the starship was registered, a bunch of farmers there would stand out and admit that they did own such a starship.

But in fact, the black-behemoth-level carrier belonged to the space pirates.

Hiding behind the plate armor that was full of patches were the deadliest crystal cannons and the most advanced, vigorous, and fastest power rune arrays.

After fleeing out of Heavenly Saints City, the starship returned to the remote space zone where it was registered after seven space jumps. Then, it hid itself on the back of a desolate planet for ten days to make sure that it had no followers before it performed another space jump and left the place.

During the twenty days after that, it had been cruising along a secret sailing route that only the space pirates knew.

Today, the carrier had finally reached the periphery of the Spider Den Space Zone.

The black-behemoth-level carrier, which had undergone tremendous modifications, boasted enormous power rune arrays that were disproportionate to its size. It had eighteen main power rune arrays, each of which was ten meters in diameter.

Other than them, there were more than five hundred ancillary power rune arrays to help the giant object move more swiftly.

Such an enormous group of rune arrays was stuffed into a carrier that was not designed to be so fast. Naturally, a complicated heat-emitting system was mandatory.

The black-behemoth-level carrier was installed with an air cooling system. A circle of cooling tubes that looked like a labyrinth surrounded the engine compartment and took up five times more space than the engine itself did.

As different power rune arrays functioned or halted, the tubes would spurt burning air currents hundreds of degrees high one moment and then freeze into a frigid hell of minus a hundred degrees the next moment. It was truly the roughest place in the world.

It appeared that no creature could survive in such a cruel world.

Right now, it was 4:33 p.m. in the standard time of the Flying Star Sector.

Li Yao turned off the refreshing music in his crystal processor and stretched his arms comfortably in the frost of one of the cooling tubes.

He sensed that the No.12 main power rune array in the engine compartment below him was functioning at 75% of its capacity.

It meant that the cooling tube he was hiding in would be filled with scorching air of 2,400 degrees in 13.3 seconds.

Besides, the air currents contained very corrosive components, which consisted of the waste gas from when the cooling liquids that the rune arrays employed were vaporized.

Even with the protection of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, he would not be able to last for half an hour in such a high temperature and such fatal venomous gas.

On the other hand, the No.7 and No.8 power rune arrays on his right side had just spurted rapidly for acceleration.

According to the pattern that he discovered over the past month, the two power rune arrays would rest for at least an hour and function at only 30% of their capacity.

It meant that, as long as he passed the intersection 37 meters behind him in ten seconds and changed his position, he would be granted with at least another 49 minutes of peace.

Of course, that was only if the carrier did not run into any accident.

Li Yao still felt scared as he remembered the scene three days ago when the carrier was in a cosmic storm.

At that time, all the power rune arrays had been activated to the maximum. Sweltering venomous gas had raged inside the cooling tubes without any pattern.

He could only improve the activity of all the cells on his body to their maximum while holding back the excruciating pain of his bottom being roasted. He rushed among the cooling tubes and searched for a chance of survival in the deadly flames.

Compared to the adventure three days ago, the heat right now that was licking his face was merely a cool breeze during an autumn dusk.

Before the entire cooling liquid was consumed by fire, Li Yao turned into a streak of blackness and zigzagged to a new area that was temporarily safe.

”Hehe.”

Sensing that burning air currents had rushed past him as if they were doing him a massage, Li Yao felt that his every cell stretched out like unfolding tea leaves that were put into hot water. He could not help but smile.

He had been lurking for a month in the cooling tubes of the carrier.

Over the past month, he would move in the cooling liquids every hour to dodge the hot stream and venomous gas in order to look for new place of survival.

Sometimes, he had to sprint every few minutes and search for the small area that was safe when 99% of the cooling tubes were filled with flames.

However, for some reason, struggling in such a harsh environment made Li Yao feel cheerier than when he was living a peaceful, carefree life in Flying Star University.

The peaceful life in Flying Star University was good, but it was short of something.

Maybe, he was born to live such a life, a life of walking beside a bottomless abyss and seeking safety amid peril.

”I’m alive again,” Li Yao mumbled and took a long breath.

The air was smelly despite the multiple filters of the crystal suit, but it was no less intoxicating for him. With a fascinated expression, he repeated, ”I’m alive again!”

Swoosh!

Li Yao crouched and turned into a black ball lightning, flashing inside the narrow cooling tubes. Now and then, he would draw a deadly curve with the tip of his left foot!

The sword art he had been practicing was different from his saber arts. It was more sordid and mysterious, like a viper without bones.

It was ’Hellsword Arts’, the ultimate skill of ’Hellsword’, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator!

Spider Den was home to all the unparalleled brutal bandits of the Flying Star Sector. It was much more perilous than Iron Plateau.

Since Li Yao was sneaking into Spider Den alone, he had to increase his capability as much as he could.

’Hellsword Arts’ was originally a kicking skill, but Hellsword had added elements of mental attacks to it and transformed it into a deadly sword art. It was quite complicated and had a lot of variations. Naturally, it was impossible for Li Yao to grasp all of it within one month.

However, Li Yao had a great advantage. His soul power was very strong because his brain had been blasted and cleansed by Ou Yezi.

Before, he had never practiced any mental attack skills and merely solidified his soul for defense.

But a lot of tricks of mental attacks were recorded in the ’Hellsword Arts’, as well as the techniques to build illusions and affect the enemy’s senses with one’s mental power.

After a month of wholehearted study, he had learned a thing or two about their usage.

In regard to mental attack, everybody’s approach was different. Hellsword was best at picturing gloomy, terrifying ghosts, but Li Yao did not have to be the same.

Hiu!

Li Yao’s left foot kicked forward together with a flash of a dagger. In the meantime, he pictured a horrendous image in his mind, before he compressed the picture into a ball the size of a bean with his soul and batted it out with his mental power!

Bo!

The ball exploded in midair, unfolding the picture that was an enormous, furiously-burning furnace.

Inside the crystal reactor, the wind was blowing, and the flames were roaring!

If the enemy was hit by Li Yao’s mental attack, they would feel as if they had been placed in a gargantuan furnace being cooked in a temperature of thousands of degrees.

With no entrances or exits, they could only be heated to death. Such an illusion was as intimidating as the illusion of ghosts built by Hellsword.

So much as the enemy was dazed for a moment, Li Yao could come close and cut into their throat!

”The assets that I brought have mostly run out, especially clean water. Thankfully, I’ll be arriving at Spider Den shortly. There’s no need to look for water now.

”In the battle of Heavenly Saints City, I used up all my crystal bombs and materials for magical equipment. I looted some materials from Hellsword’s Cosmos Rings, but they do not meet my needs right now.

”It is great that I stored the Star Basher and the Divine Anvil inside my Cosmos Ring and carried them with me earlier. With enough materials, I will be able to build a batch of desirable magical equipment on my own!

”It’s not difficult to sneak into Spider Den. The tricky problem is how to approach the heads of the space pirates so that I can investigate the secrets of the Temple of Immortals.”

Li Yao opened ’Stormy Sword’, Fengyu Zhong’s notebook, on his crystal processor and started reading carefully.

The notebook recorded Fengyu Zhong’s lifelong expertise. It was an extremely thorough tutorial for robbery that he had prepared for his only son, Fengyu Ming.

Other than the hunting methods, ’Stormy Sword’ also recorded a lot of rules, anecdotes, and analysis of the major forces on Spider Den. It even listed the most ferocious and cunning bandits on Spider Den and rated them according to how dangerous they were.

Those people were all brutal bandits that Fengyu Zhong would rather his son not mess around with.

After slaying Fengyu Ming, Li Yao had looted the Space Pirate 101 from him. At that time, he had no idea that the book would prove to be so useful later.