Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Although ‘Thunder Lion’ Zhao Tongtian, the scar-faced man who was the deputy captain of the Thunderbolt Exo Society, seemed rather unreasonable, Li Yao did not think that his theory was entirely groundless.

A crystal suit was not a simple aggregation of the parameters of the units inside, and just because it met a certain standard did not mean that it was necessarily good enough. Such a criterion was only for the mass-produced crystal suits.

A truly excellent, limited-edition crystal suit, or even a tailor-made one, was the essence of the sweat and blood of an Armadominus. It was polished slowly bit by bit until it boasted its own ‘soul’ and ‘life’!

In the most extreme cases, even the slightest change of the degree at which a chip was inserted into the slot, or the tiniest difference of one tenth the width of a hair during the adjustment of an ancillary power rune array, would lead to drastic changes.

For the same crystal suit made of the same units, if it was adjusted by an expert such as Li Yao, even without any strengthening or modification, the overall combat ability of the crystal suit could still be improved by more than ten percent!

In an ever-changing battlefield, even one more percent of the potential dug out could decide the outcome of a battle. How unbelievable could an improvement of ten percent be?

Zhao Tongtian might not know the improvement exactly. However, the brutal man who had toed the line between life and death for many years in the Dragon Snake Space Zone apparently had a sharp instinct about crystal suits. He described it quite well by saying ‘it doesn’t feel right’.

Li Yao was quite overjoyed to see the rare treasure. He was going to move forward to study the crystal suit crafted by Jiang Shaoyang’s first assistant, in which case Zhao Tongtian would be a lucky dog who had his crystal suit adjusted by a master for free. He could also feel the progress that Jiang Shaoyang had made in the past hundred years more clearly.

However, after the first step he made, he pondered for a moment and retreated.

“Why don’t you go up?” the mental devil asked inside his head in confusion. “The little bald guy, Jiang Shaoyang, is quite fun. His disciple does not look incapable, either.”

“Forget it.” Scratching his nose, Li Yao said to himself, “Judging from ‘Thunder Lion’ Zhao Tongtian’s dominant and unreasonable look, he doesn’t seem to be a friendly guy. With my ‘honorable’ appearance right now, if I recklessly propose to help him adjust his crystal suit, he will certainly refuse it and possibly humiliate me. Why would I bother asking to be humiliated if I am not interested in causing any trouble?”

“Huh?” The mental devil was surprised. “Since when have you become such a nice person? If he dares humiliate us, won’t it be the best opportunity for us to show ourselves off and slap his face? Speaking of which, it’s been a long time since we last played such a game!”

Li Yao blinked and replied, “No, I would rather not. As the legendary ‘dominator of three Sectors’, I am a well-respected celebrity right now. This is only a junior in the Core Formation Stage. How is he at all qualified for me to act weak and swallow him? Slap his face? What face? Wouldn’t he be taking advantage of me if I slap his face with the hand of the ‘dominator of the three Sectors’? If the incident spreads out later, rumor will have it that I’m a bully who enjoys nothing better than making fun of the little friends. It’s not important that I will be dishonored personally, but even the reputation of the federation will be tarnished!”

The mental devil scratched its ears. “That makes sense. After all, every time you take action, you will certainly amaze everyone nearby. This young fellow might even cling to your thigh without letting it go in his astonishment. That’s the usual outcome. It’s quite boring.”

“Exactly. Even if we do want to relax ourselves and soothe nerves that have been tense for too long, we should find something better than messing with a little friend in the Core Formation Stage. We are now more than a hundred years old after all, so we should slightly improve our elegance. Such precious opportunities for slapping faces pretentiously should be saved for the young people. For example, the little girl standing behind us on our left side is apparently very eager to try.”

“What about the little girl?”

“Her hands are pretty,” Li Yao answered.

“Hiss. Is this what they call a small leak will sink a great ship? Please, don’t. You are already at the door of your home, and you must not do anything that will wrong your wife!”

“I never realized that you would be so concerned about me. You are indeed a ‘loyal friend’, aren’t you?”

“Loyal my ass! I’m sharing my body with you right now. Should you have an affair with some other woman and unfortunately get beaten to death by Ding Lingdang, I will be doomed together with you!”

“Well. You misunderstood me,” Li Yao said. “I’m saying that, from the perspective of a refiner, her hands are indeed very pretty. It is absolutely a pair of hands that only the best refiners can have. They must’ve been polished and nurtured by countless secret techniques and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures!”

Although a refiner could directly manipulate the components and units by making use of all kinds of facilities and releasing their spiritual energy, hands still played an indispensable role if they intended to build an immaculate piece of magical equipment.

One could generally tell the Cultivation of a refiner by the shape of the hands of the refiner!

When Li Yao first began his career, he had learned the Thousand Fingers Soft Bones Art from Ou Yezi, a master of refining in ancient times. Through the technique, he was able to make both of his hands surpass the speed of sound, which was one of his most famous skills.

Later, he had stimulated the muscle fibers, cells, and nerve endings continuously with the Purple Ring Sword Ants and all kinds of other biochemical drugs. After training crazily for decades, he had finally reached the ultimate level of returning to simplicity!

Right now, his hands looked no different from those of common refiners who had just begun learning the arts of refining.

However, with the condensing of spiritual energy and the unleashing of telepathic thoughts of the Nascent Soul Stage, his hands could achieve the effects of ten thousand refining facilities in a large workshop!

The girl standing behind Li Yao, who was also wearing a face-changing chip and using an unattractive template, boasted a pair of extremely smooth hands.

With Li Yao’s Cultivation right now, if he soaked his eyes with spiritual energy, his sight would be very similar to the microscopes with extremely high magnification lens.

However, no matter how he adjusted his irises and crystalline lenses to enlarge the picture that he saw, he still could not find a single pore from the small, pure hands of the girl!

The secret technique that the girl practiced had apparently melted all the pores on her hands, thereby ensuring the ‘smoothness’ and ‘mildness’ of the hands on the microcosmic level to the maximum extent.

Pores were used to emit heat and sweat. If all the pores were melted, the cooling and perspiration system inside must have gone through drastic changes, which was quite a marvelous secret art. At the very least, Li Yao had never read similar records in the federation a hundred years ago or in Ou Yezi’s memory pieces. Even some of the techniques that could constrict the pores could only work temporarily!

The girl was quite an excellent refiner.

Li Yao could see the glow from her hands and the glow that was beaming out of her eyes despite her disguise.

As he expected, the girl who had a pair of astoundingly beautiful hands but selected an unattractive face intentionally stepped forward and, after bowing to Zhao Tongtian, said courteously, “There’s no need to be anxious, Fellow Cultivator. I once learned a thing or two about the arts of refining of ‘Solar Eclipse’ Jiang Shaoyang, the master of refining in the federation, and I’ve done some research on the works of ‘Wu Yaxuan’, Jiang Shaoyang’s assistant who has risen to fame as a creative genius. If you don’t find me imposing, maybe I can help you take a look and see where the problem is.”

“You?” Zhao Tongtian bulged his eyes and eyed the girl up and down for a long time. Naturally, he failed to find anything familiar on the template face. He could not help but sneer. “Who are you exactly to take advantage of me here? You must be boasting about yourself because you won’t have any other chance to touch a crystal suit crafted by such an expert as ‘Wu Yaxuan’ in person, right? Get lost!”

Zhao Tongtian raised his hands, trying to shove the girl away very rudely.

The mysterious girl frowned, but she stepped backward before Zhao Tongtian’s hands reached her.

In that moment, Li Yao sensed that several people in the crowd revealed vague killing intent when Zhao Tongtian raised his hands toward the mysterious girl. However, the killing intent was entirely gone after they determined Zhao Tongtian’s intention in 0.01 seconds.

Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao stepped forward to the right expressionlessly, pretending that he was giving the mysterious girl a hand.

As he expected, the killing intent flashed again, which allowed him to lock onto five experts who were well-prepared in the crowd.

The five experts were all the mysterious girl’s bodyguards. It seemed that she had an intriguing background.

That did make sense. To nurture such a pair of hands, techniques, secret arts, Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, and astronomical funds for training were all mandatory.

Such a young, professional refiner could only be raised in a wealthy family or a major sect with tremendous resources!

The mysterious girl was slightly dazed, as if she did not expect that anybody would offer to give her a hand. However, the education of upper society that she had received naturally prompted her to thank Li Yao. “… Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Li Yao said casually. It was simply because he habitually did not like unexpected factors in the crowd that he was not aware of. Therefore, he managed to lock onto them by pretending to support the girl.

Having been rejected by Zhao Tongtian, the mysterious girl did not seem to be interested in causing any trouble. She was about to leave, when somebody declared solemnly and toughly outside of the crowd, “Well, if it isn’t the great Captain Zhao! How majestic you are! I could already hear you shouting and screaming before I stepped into the test field. What are you doing here?”

The crowd was suddenly divided. An old man whose temples were white, with a short mustache that looked like iron needles and a pair of extremely sharp eyes, strode into the test field.

Li Yao noticed that the mysterious girl further retreated behind the crowd after the graceful, charismatic old man showed up, as if she did not want the old man to notice her.

“Who the f*ck—” ‘Thunder Lion’ Zhao Tongtian, who had been majestic and dominating a moment ago, cursed and turned around. However, once he saw who the newcomer was, the ferocious lion suddenly turned into a cute cat. He swallowed whatever was left of his sentence and hurried to walk forever, adulating in the most obsequious way. “Master Chu, I didn’t know that it was you. Hahahaha…”