Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao was so scared that he almost slashed the Feathered Dragon Saber instinctively.

He had just scanned the entire training room with his telepathic thoughts and sensed no hints of experts, but the man had been lurking in the darkness, gazing at him, for such a long time without being discovered by him.

After releasing nine layers of spiritual shields instantly, Li Yao felt safer. He calmed himself down and looked carefully, only to find that he was being paranoid. The man he saw was not alive, but a corpse soaked in a crystal flume.

The crystal flume was like a translucent coffin that was filled with bright green preservative liquid. The corpse, covered in a mustard-seed suit, was standing inside.

In the darkness, the preservative liquid was emitting mysterious fluorescence, making the body seem to be alive. Creepy scents were spreading out of the dead body.

Li Yao’s pounding heart gradually calmed down. He discovered that the preservative liquid was quite dirty. There was damage over the entire body, and even the mustard-seed suit was riddled with holes because of biting.

All was likely the mice’s doing.

Even the eyelids of the corpse had been torn away by the mice, making the man literally ‘dying with eyes open’. That was why he was ‘gazing’ at Li Yao in the darkness all the time.

He is…

Li Yao thought of something. Although the body had been seriously damaged, he could tell from the facial structure of the body that it was similar to Yan Xinjian’s appearance in many pictures.

Besides, there could not be a second man who showed up in the secret training room without a reason and whose body was carefully preserved other than Yan Xinjian.

The best expert of the Flying Star Sector five hundred years ago, the unparalleled expert who had the chance to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage, Yan Xinjian, died just like that, in a world of darkness ten thousand meters below the ground, and turned into a cold body that was gnawed at by mice. Even his eyelids have gone.

Li Yao had complicated feelings.

In order to break into the Divine Transformation Stage, Yan Xinjian had indeed made full preparations. He had even taken the resistance of apocalypses into consideration.

However, he had still failed in the end. He perished, his Cultivation gone, and mice even insulted his body after he died.

Bai Xinghe said that everything Yan Xinjian did, including killing his wife and the family of his leader, was perhaps a disguise to cover his real purpose, which was to explore the underground of Spider Den for treasures.

If Yan Xinjian had known that this would be his ending after he abandoned everything and went through all the trouble, I wonder, would he have given up his dignity and his career?

Li Yao sighed. He could not help but recall the mice that were emitting white brightness. They were like men living in pain who kept reciting their late wife’s name in regret.

Li Yao was more and more eager to know what had happened inside the secret training room for five hundred years.

How did Yan Xinjian die? Where were those mice that could spoke human language from?

Li Yao looked at the back of the crystal flume and found that a lot of debris of magical equipment was piled up in the corner. After examining for a while, he decided that they were the scraps of several artificial bodies.

Artificial bodies were different from the spiritual puppets. They were specially refined to serve as bodies for spectral Cultivators. Therefore, the specifications of the crystal processor and the overall structure were slightly different. As a seasoned refiner, Li Yao recognized what the objects were quickly.

Scraps of so many artificial bodies?

Was there once a strong spectral Cultivator in this place

Right. Right. Yan Xinjian must’ve been smart enough to foresee that he might die during the breakthrough. But one’s soul would not necessarily go immediately after they died. So, he prepared a lot of artificial bodies in case he perished unfortunately during the breakthrough. Thus, he still had the chance to be transformed into a spectral Cultivator and continue his training!

However, ghosts have their longevity, too. Five hundred years is too long. Even the strongest spectral Cultivators gradually disperse, and all their brainwaves quiet down in the end. When that happens, it marks the arrival of their real ‘death’.

Li Yao held back his curiosity and kept exploring.

At the bottom of the training room was the true training area, which was divided into two areas, training and meditation.

Li Yao was faced with a whole lot of bizarre-shaped training facilities as if he had been placed in the middle of an iron forest. He was so thrilled that he was about to cry.

So many powerful training facilities. They are all invaluable treasures!

Li Yao held his breath, his hands shaking. He touched the cold shell of the training facilities carefully, especially the Red Dragon Swallowing the Sun pattern, which was the battle emblem of the Star Ocean Imperium.

They are the training facilities of the military. Judging from the patterns next to the battle emblems, they are prepared for high-level officers. Only real experts in the military were qualified to use them!

Right. The underground fortress above my head was the last stronghold of the Flying Star Sector. In the plan, countless experts would have gathered and fought in this place. Therefore, it is only natural that advanced training facilities were constructed deep inside the fortress!

Yan Xinjian selected all the usable training facilities five hundred years ago and moved them here!

Also, the Fire Stealers five thousand years ago, who were the predecessors of the space pirates, stole a lot of the most advanced training facilities when then carried out ‘Plan Prometheus’. They must have brought the stolen goods to Spider Den in the end. Eventually, Yan Xinjian, as the supreme space pirate, got took all of them and transferred them here!

Therefore, the training room is the essence of the underground fortress, no, the essence of Spider Den!

Li Yao was like a rat that had fallen into a tank of rice. He was flushed with excitement and did not even know where to put his hands.

This training machine can release hundreds of ‘tiny ball lightnings’ no larger than one millimeter in diameter instantly. When the ball lightnings are imported into the limbs and organs, the acupoints will be stimulated and the body will be built up. It must be hundreds of times more effective than the common ‘electric arc training equipment’!

This training machine can simulate 150 times standard gravity? That’s awesome!

Hiss. This training machine can stimulate the trainer’s brain directly and simulate the battle scenes of a hundred experts in the Star Ocean Imperium in their brain. The trainer will be fighting against the experts in the deep meditative state!

This training machine is even more powerful than a furnace. It can create an environment of any temperature between absolute zero and five thousand degrees. The trainer will be able to train in the burning heat or the freezing cold!

As a training maniac and a crazy fan of magical equipment, Li Yao felt his soul shivering and his blood boiling when he read the introductions that were as glamorous as flowers on the training machines.

The meditation chamber at the bottom was an even bigger eye-opener for him.

The meditation chamber was not very large. Li Yao could only cram himself in, and he could only sit cross-legged after he entered it.

Dense runes the size of the heads of flies were carved on the smooth walls. When Li Yao sat at the center of the chamber, they immediately started humming.

Every rune turned into a dancing, brilliant butterfly and flew into Li Yao’s brain swiftly.

Li Yao’s consciousness was pumped away from his body. It left Spider Den and the Flying Star Sector at a speed higher than that of light and returned to the Heaven’s Origin Sector, to his past.

The teachings of so many seniors and masters during his growth popped up inside his brain again.

The mechanisms of training, formulas, and techniques that had troubled him before were now as obvious and understandable as one plus one equaling two.

The details of the bloody battles he experienced occurred to him again.

It was like the review of a fierce chess game after the game was completed. Li Yao reflected on all the battles that he had participated in and thought of dozens of new ways of fighting instantly.

During the ‘Limit Challenge Competition’ that I took part in on the Devil Flood Dragon Island, although I was on a killing spree with the backdoors I left on the contestants’ magical equipment, such a way of fighting was not the most efficient. If I had adopted this strategy, this strategy, and this strategy… I might have been able to achieve better results!

I once encountered Wang Ji, a silver-blood demon and the prince of the Kingdom of Lion Butchers, in the Thunderous Sound Mountain. At that time, I could do nothing except run away. But now that I think of it, if I had selected apposite tactics, there would have been a one percent likelihood that I could have reversed the situation and executed Wang Ji!

In the battle versus Skeleton Dragon…

During the fight against Fengyu Zhong…

Li Yao only planned to have a try of Yan Xinjian’s training facilities briefly, but he found it hard to stop when he got started. When he was back to himself, he realized that three hours had passed.

Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. I have sorted through most of my combat experience in three hours of meditation inside this chamber. My tactical choices are clearer now, and I have a deeper understanding about the utilization of spiritual energy!

Although my strength is not improved, my wisdom as to how to use the strength has been significantly improved!

Before Li Yao left the meditation chamber unwillingly, Li Yao carefully studied the surroundings and discovered that the entire chamber was made of an intact, flawless black jade.

The jade was about five meters in diameter. A hollow around two meters in diameter had been made in the middle and was a natural space for meditation.

Li Yao had never seen such weird jade before. He thought hard and compared it with all the jade materials in Ou Yezi’s memory pieces. Still, he got nothing.

It was possible that the jade was from the outer space and was unique in the world of Cultivators. No wonder it was built into a meditation chamber by Yan Xinjian.

After three hours of fighting, the living area was already brimming with bodies. Even the most ferocious red mice were showing signs of exhaustion.

When Li Yao showed up again, the mice all crowded toward him like a tide.

The red mice roared, “I am Yan Xinjian. I demand that you kill all the rebels right now, or I will blow you to smithereens together with them!”

The green mice responded, “I am the real Yan Xinjian. They are all fakes. Just kill all of them right now. I will teach you all my techniques. Hahahaha!”

The purple mice negotiated, “I am Yan Xinjian. Young man, I can see that your body is quite good. Why don’t you lend it to me for a while? When I am out of the place, I will find a way return it to you. You can’t get out of the place without me. You can’t!”

The depressed blue mice were still leaning against wall while moaning, “It’s useless. Nobody is going to get out. Never going out!”

The few white mice were crouching in a corner. They dragged their voice and cried loudly, “Xiao Yu, I shouldn’t have killed you. I’m so regretful. I’m so regretful…”