Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Hiu! Hiu! Hiu! Hiu!

Li Yao’s fingers turned into clusters of gray mist as he shot out hundreds of tiny needles toward Yan Liren. But all of them took a weird turn in midair and hit the rocks, turning the crags as tough as iron into honeycombs!

It was because Yan Liren’s sword had captured Li Yao’s every needle precisely and blocked them midway by brute force!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The sound of bow strings being broken echoed in the seemingly empty air. The dozens of molecular mica threads that Li Yao deployed in midair without anybody knowing had been severed by Yan Liren’s invincible sword!

Li Yao’s movement became faster and faster. A streak of brilliance flashed above, and he appeared at dozens of corners on the God Shocking Peak almost simultaneously!

Yan Liren, however, slowed down. He squatted, like a gyro that was rotating at such a high speed that it actually seemed stationary. He grabbed his sword with his right hand and touched the sheath with his left sword gently. He was mumbling something to himself and put on a charming smile. He even half closed his eyes, not looking at Li Yao at all.

Suddenly…

“Ahhh!”

The dozens of shadows scattered all over the God Shocking Peak perished at the same time. Li Yao shrieked, with cracking noises echoing from inside his body, which seemed to be split in half and gathered again dozens of meters away.

His face was pale, and he was breathing like a cow. His sweat was pouring, only to be frozen into white frost on his face because of the frigidness.

Crack!

Behind Li Yao, a rock more than ten meters in diameter split apart from precisely the middle, broke through, and fell to the bottom of the peak thousands of meters below in deafening noises.

Before the rocks fell, Li Yao noticed that the fracture was as smooth as a mirror, without the slightest gap or dent. It seemed to have been dissected with the most state-of-the-art knives of the Star Glory Federation.

Huala! Huala! Huala!

The three layers of armor on Li Yao’s chest exploded one after another, the broken pieces spluttering out. The assault did not stop until the last protective glass in front of his heart.

But a deep crack appeared at the center of the heart-protection glass, too, and it fell into two crescent pieces with that slight touch.

Li Yao felt excruciating pain in front of his chest and behind his back. A thin, long line slowly extended, and drops of blood were crawling out in a hurry.

“Nice sword!”

Looking at the wound on his chest, Li Yao observed Yan Liren at the same time.

He was complimenting Yan Liren’s sword arts.

Yan Liren, on the other hand, was complimenting the sword that he refined.

It was the first sword that Li Yao had crafted for Yan Liren in the past three months.

The past three months had been particularly comfortable for Li Yao.

After revealing the ‘fourth sword’ in public during the chitchat with Yan Liren, and crushing three Cultivators in the middle level of the Nascent Soul Stage, and then hosting a personal lecture—where he bragged about the conclusions of the Hundred Smelting Clan under the pretext of the nonexistent notes of the Great Zhou Dynasty—his plan indeed worked out. The name of ‘Master Spiritual Vulture’ soon spread out to the entire world of Cultivators through the mouths of the participants of the Dragon Spring Meeting who returned to their hometown.

Then, Li Yao took the opportunity to visit the super sects including the Grand Mystery Sect, the Gold Armor Clan, and many others, further consolidating his status as a ‘great sword forger’.

Since he distinguished himself at the Dragon Spring Meeting and earned tremendous benefits for the Purple Pole Sword Sect, naturally, the Purple Pole Sword Sect met his demands for every material and provided all of them in slightly more than one month.

With those materials, it took Li Yao only one month to craft the components to maintain and strengthen the star beacons. Many of the components, having adopted the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, had even a better performance than the original components from the federation.

As long as the components were brought back to Spark, which was still docked on the satellite to assemble before they were projected to the sea of stars to be activated, the coordinates of this Sector would be sent back to the federation immediately.

Now that the most important job was done, Li Yao focused his full attention on Yan Liren.

As the saying went, ‘he who has no desires is unassailable’. The converse of that was—those who had desires had weaknesses.

Yan Liren was not a man without desires. His greatest desire was his sword. Anything related to the sword would intoxicate him.

Li Yao had Ou Yezi’s memory pieces. There were too many unverified records and anecdotes in terms of sword forging and sword arts in the Hundred Smelting Clan. Some of them were even ridiculous tales about deities and devils collected from hundreds of different Sectors. Naturally, they were much more interesting than the stories of the Ancient Sages Sector alone.

As an expert of personal magical equipment, Li Yao’s passion for sabers and swords came from the bottom of his heart, too, and was certainly not faked.

Yan Liren’s understanding of sword arts, including the clandestine arts and techniques, hooked Li Yao.

Just like that, the two of them spent days and nights in the world of sword arts. They found too many things that they were both interested in. After only a couple of months, they had become good friends.

Li Yao’s capabilities soared after his competitions with Yan Liren!

Yan Liren was indeed the most formidable swordsman that Li Yao had ever encountered in his life. In terms of explosive attack, he was even stronger than Xiao Xuance!

However, Li Yao was also an unbelievable monster. Other than anything else, his body that had been strengthened by the Blood Stripe Virus boasted a very high cell segmentation and self-recovery ability.

It was not hard to imagine the formidability of such a body if Yan Xibei in the past could connect his broken body to a hideous apocalyptic beast!

As long as his head was not chopped off entirely and kicked ten thousand kilometers away, even if he was half chopped away, Li Yao was confident that he could survive.

It was his belief to be braver upon setbacks and to be stronger during battles. Almost his every major upgrade had been achieved on the brink of death.

In the last five years in the Star Glory Federation, although a few opponents could still have a gratifying battle with him, hardly any of them could bring him the life-and-death thrill that was the greatest momentum to stimulate him to improve!

For Li Yao, the one month of training was equal to the last five years!

Maybe he had not achieved a breakthrough in his level yet, but his damage had definitely been multiplied!

It had to be noted that he had not put on his crystal suit yet!

At this point, he had successfully realized the primary target on his journey to the Ancient Sages Sector.

He had finished the preparations to repair the star beacons, assumed a very reasonable identity, and become acquainted with the unparalleled experts of this Sector.

He had not quite figured out his new targets yet.

He did not know where he should begin to investigate the mysterious signals sent to the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector a hundred years ago, and he did not know whether or not the spies of the Imperium of True Human Beings were working in this Sector.

In Li Yao’s opinion, if he were a spy of the Imperium of True Human Beings, getting in touch with Yan Liren was a necessity.

On one hand, although Yan Liren lost the battle against Qi Zhongdao in the Dragon Spring Meeting three months ago, the mysterious ‘fourth sword’ had more or less proved him to be the best expert of the Ancient Sages Sector.

On the other hand, Yan Liren, as the ‘Sword Maniac’, had no attitude or stance. No trouble, save the delicate sword arts and the modern blades of the Imperium of True Human Beings, was required to persuade him.

But over the past three months, Li Yao had never seen any suspect of the Imperium of True Human Beings’ spy, although he had spent almost every minute with Yan Liren. It was quite uncanny!

Did the Imperium of True Human Beings not notice the Ancient Sages Sector?

Li Yao secretly hoped so.

Yan Liren appreciated the complicated stripes on the first sword that Li Yao crafted for himself right in the cold moonlight on the snowy mountain full of amazement.

After appreciating it for a long time, he finally put the sword back into his sheath, not entirely satisfied, before he leapt toward Li Yao.

“This sword is already very similar to mine!” He was as merry as a child who had just gotten a new toy. “The length, weight, barycenter, and feedback are all identical!”

“It is identical,” Li Yao said. “I have forged it entirely according to your ‘fourth sword’. Every detail, including the distribution of the tiniest bubbles inside the body of the sword, is exactly the same!”

“But I still feel that something is slightly different.” Recalling the battle just now, Yan Liren said, “Odd. Everything is the same. The length, weight, and feedback have no errors, but why was there a tiny bit of hindrance?”

“Of course, something is different. Even though all the dimensions are identical, the new sword is still missing one thing,” Li Yao said. “That’s why I said that I would repair your old sword for you, instead of building a new one.

“Forging a new sword is easy. As long as you grasp all the features of the old sword and copy them based on brand new materials, it will be done.

“However, it will be quite difficult to repair the old sword, which is riddled with holes and bruises, ensuring that it is renewed and reborn while not affecting the unique idiosyncrasy in the deepest part of the sword. The whole process has to take at least one year!”

“Is that so?” Yan Liren sat on the rock that had been entirely frozen and asked with great curiosity, “If the old sword and the new one are identical to each other in terms of length, weight, barycenter, and sharpness, what exactly is the difference?”

The routine sword discussion had begun again.

Li Yao sat cross-legged in front of Yan Liren and replied solemnly, “Commitment.

“The best magical equipment is not a cold, dead object but an item that accommodates your whole spirit, will, dreams, and even memories. I call your spirit, will, dreams, and memories collectively ‘commitment’!

“For a Cultivator, a piece of magical equipment with commitment is the best magical equipment. Without commitment, it will be like the three primeval swords that you wielded at the Dragon Spring Meeting. However powerful they are, they will only end up being shattered in the end!”