Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

At night, deep inside the forest, Li Yao leaned against a thick bloody coconut tree, considering the situation quietly.

After winning the fourth game, they had been granted the right to challenge the champion gladiators of the Skeleton Island. Over the next couple of days, their training facilities had been fully upgraded. They had more strengthening drugs, better high-energy food, and all available battle experience for them to learn.

During the high-intensity training, Li Yao finally saw an example of mental derangement and cell collapse with his own eyes.

Before, Li Yao had already known that the death rate of the training camp was very high, and he had barely paid attention to other gladiators as he had been too occupied in his own training.

But that day, a chaotic-blood demon, more than four meters tall and weighing ten tons, boasting the bloodline of ‘Hammer Head Battle Elephant’, suddenly collapsed right in front of his eyes after injecting twenty doses of strengthening drugs and devouring more than two tons of food. He trembled in the beginning before fluids that looked like foam leaked out of the wrinkles of his skin.

The mountain-like demon screamed miserably, wreathed in the foam, while his body features changed constantly.

In one short minute, the features of behemoths, rhinos, and other heavy beasts appeared on his body, only to be replaced by those of lions and leopards a moment later. Eventually, he was even growing colorful feathers and sharp claws and teeth.

For a moment, maybe it was just his imagine, but Li Yao even vaguely sensed that all the features of animals disappeared from the chaotic-blood demon, and he turned into a tall, strong, magnificent-looking man.

However, such a form did not last even 0.1 seconds before endless foam flowed out of his widely opened mouth and melted him completely.

A gentle breeze passed by, blowing the foam up as if it was made of flying butterflies. Illuminated by the torches, they shone in glamorous colors before they vanished into nothingness in the end.

The demon that looked as undefeatable as a mountain was vaporized just like that in only one minute.

Not too many demons were surprised by such a scene. The gladiators all whispered to each other that the demon had been embraced by God Chaos again.

Yes. During Li Yao’s adventure on the Skeleton Island, the ideology of the Blade of Chaos had spread afar among the gladiators, many of whom were praying to Chaos in secret. As far as Li Yao knew, even the most resolute gladiators often could not help but carry a charm of the Blade of Chaos and scratch it before they joined a game, as if it was the hope of their survival.

After their first encounter, Ba Mingsong had visited Li Yao and Mo Tiesheng several times. The two talented, distinguished new gladiators seemed to be important targets of the Blade of Chaos.

Mo Tiesheng’s tongue was rather tight, and he did not reveal his thoughts easily. Li Yao tried to have a chat with Ba Mingsong several times, but there was no telling whether the demon was too clever or truly knew nothing about the details. Except for repeating the benevolence of ‘God Chaos’, he failed to offer anything new.

But today, the collapse of the gladiator was a major blow for Li Yao’s mind, which prompted him to consider the different methodologies of training of mankind and the demon race from a higher level.

According to the mental devil, the method of training to directly stimulate the cells was dangerous and extremely unstable.

On the Skeleton Island, in order to trigger the greatest potential of the gladiators in the shortest amount of time, strengthening drugs far exceeding normal dosages had been injected into them.

Although the strengthening drugs were all first class and contained a lot of balancing and repairing constituents, such a hasty approach to training still resulted in the mess of genes and the collapse of cells in many demons.

In the past, Li Yao had always been confused by something. In terms of physical build and combat ability, the individuals of the demon race were far better than those of mankind. Mo Tiesheng and the chaotic-blood demons that he saw in the Dry Leaf Village were all civilians, but after preliminary training, they were able to deal shocking damage, and ten muscular human beings might not have been a match for one of them.

Then, why did the demon race suffer such a crushing defeat in the great war against human beings ten thousand years ago when they boasted such fine individual soldiers?

Li Yao did not fully understand the question until he dug deeper into the training methods of the demon race.

Firstly, talent played a very important role in the training of the demon race. Demons who boasted the bloodlines of the Red Blood Bronze Bulls such as Mo Tiesheng were in fact not large in number. Most of the demons, such as rooster demons and rabbit demons, did not have much combat ability. They were even weaker than adult men in general.

Secondly, the training method of the demon race was to stimulate the cells, which proved to be very unstable. Their odds of mental derangement were much higher than those of mankind. Besides, they were almost always beyond rescue the moment they were mentally deranged.

A complete collapse with their body turning into foam was naturally the most extreme example. But on many occasions, a certain weird organ inside a demon’s body would be awakened when they were mentally deranged, say, lungs that were suitable for the special air millions of years ago, or gills that replaced their lungs once and for all. If so, they would still die miserably on the spot, and other people would not know what happened to them at all.

Thirdly, the training system of the demon race was too monotonous and focused too much attention on awakening the strength within one’s body. In other words, they were lacking creativity.

Li Yao had always believed that, although there might be regressions in the development of a civilization, the trend of every civilization was getting stronger and stronger.

Therefore, after he received the legacy of Ou Yezi, a master of refining from forty thousand years, he did not count his everything on it. Instead, he learned a huge amount of modern knowledge of refining with the legacy of the past as references.

The legacy of the primeval era might have certain shining parts that were better than the technology of human beings, but Li Yao definitely did not believe that the contemporary civilization of mankind had no advantages.

On the contrary, modern human beings developed at an amazing speed and built a magnificent interstellar information society after only ten thousand years. Such speed and creativity were definitely impressive!

But as for the demon race, they were limited by their bloodlines and talents, and they attached too much importance to the awakening of the strength that was originally inside their body. They never thought to place the strength in the future that was more boundless. For thirty thousand years, they had been going around circles and even established such a bizarre construct as the ‘Four Pillar System’. No wonder they were no match for human beings!

After all, a war in modern times was a collision of two civilizations.

Since Li Yao’s arrival in the Blood Demon Sector, he had seen a lot of experts with marvelous skills. But as for the society and the political system of the Blood Demon Sector, he could not think of a better word to describe it than ‘obsolete’. The Blood Demon Sector was truly facing trouble from both the inside and the outside.

If a large-scale strategical war between the Blood Demon Sector and the Heaven’s Origin Sector really broke out in the end, Li Yao did not think that such a Blood Demon Sector had much chance of winning at all.

But here came to question.

Jin Xinyue was already smart and determined enough, and there was no way that Li Yao would underestimate the wisdom of the twelve demon emperors of the Blood Demon Sector. Did the real leaders of the Blood Demon Sector not understand the current crisis when he had seen through it after only three months?

Then, did the demon emperors persist in the final war against the Heaven’s Origin Sector knowing that the Blood Demon Sector was not as strong as it appeared to be because they were too arrogant or because they were actually up to something else?

Jin Tuyi, the new commander-in-chief of the coalition army of the demon race, means to implement the ‘Red Tide Plan’ and assault the Star Glory Federation from its central area. But is the ‘Red Tide Plan’ the only scheme of the final war for the Blood Demon Sector? I think they’ve underestimated the tenacity of the Star Glory Federation, haven’t they?

Everything was a mess. Even Li Yao could not get his head around the whole thing despite his computational ability.

While he was feeling frustrated, Mo Tiesheng walked over to him.

“Tomorrow is the day when we are going to fight the ‘Death Teeth Guards’.”

Mo Tiesheng sighed and said, “Word on the street is that the master of the Shooting Star Fiery Salamanders was not happy that we killed so many of them in the arena.

“The silver-blood noble not only lost a team of elite subordinates but also suffered a heavy monetary loss because he bet on his subordinates, not to mention that the failure was itself humiliating enough.

“Therefore, the silver-blood noble burst into fury and paid a fortune, demanding that the ‘Death Teeth Guards’ kill us all!

“We have made significant improvements after a month and a half’s training, but I’m afraid that we are not going to be match for the Death Teeth Guards however strong we are right now!”

Li Yao smiled and lay down on the grass with his hands as a pillow. He said, “Don’t be scared. Death… is not necessarily the destination.”

Li Yao was almost certain that everything was the plan of the Blade of Chaos and that they would see the real appearance of the Blade of Chaos tomorrow.

That would be the beginning of the real game.

No matter how perilous the game was, he was never willing to give in as a chess piece; he was going to be a player who made his moves on the board and even the one who manipulated the other player!

Licking his teeth, Li Yao quickly dismissed all the irrelevant thoughts.

Secrets had to be found out one after another. For now, he had better figure out everything about the Blade of Chaos first!

…

Hiu!

A sharp arrow tore apart the air in the forest and passed by Li Yao’s right ear, piercing deep into the giant tree. The trunk immediately emitted burning noises as it was withered with stenchful smoke popping up.

The battle between Li Yao, Mo Tiesheng, and the Death Teeth Guards was held in the open arena named ‘Hell Bone Swamp’.

It was a spacious jungle that seemed plain but was riddled with traps. Inconspicuous swamps that boasted uncanny attraction force were hidden below the bushes everywhere. Any creature that stepped on them would be swallowed whole. Their bones would not pop up to the surface again until a long time later when the swamp had absorbed their flesh and bone marrow. The remains of the victims usually radiated scary phosphorescence in the dark, and that was how the ‘Hell Bone Swamp’ got its name.

‘Hell Bone Swamp’ was one of the most dangerous arenas on the Skeleton Island. It was so dangerous that there was not even room to set up the auditorium. The audience could only watch the ongoing battle through the ‘Flying Spirit Eyes’ that were densely distributed in the jungle. Twelve minutes after the twenty-two gladiators including Li Yao were projected to the Hell Bone Swamp, only three were left.

Li Yao saw two gladiators being swallowed by the swamp with his own eyes, and one gladiator’s skin ulcerated and was burnt after being shot by an arrow, dying miserably on the spot.

But he was not affected at all because—