Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The moment before the space jump was implemented, Li Yao triggered his soul power to the maximum. His telepathic thoughts blossomed deep inside his brain like an octopus and flooded toward Long Yangjun incessantly with tremendous information!

It was extremely dangerous when they were to be teleported in the next second. It might cause Li Yao’s soul to be lost in the turbulence of four-dimensional space and ripped into shreds!

But there was no time. Li Yao could only tell Long Yangjun his deduction in such a risky way!

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

For a moment, Li Yao’s mind and Long Yangjun’s mind were deeply interweaved with each other. Infinite information was exchanged in the most mysterious way!

“Something is wrong,” Li Yao said. “Something is greatly wrong with the ‘double test’ that Professor Mo Xuan did on me. Now that I think about it, even if the Secret Sword Bureau wanted to ensure safety, they shouldn’t have done it in such a reckless way. Even if they were really so reckless, one of their leaders should’ve shown up and apologized to me. After all, I was representing the Star Ocean Republic and Speaker Cui Lingfeng!

“However, they merely offered a simple apology through Ling Xiaole, and Ling Xiaole only received the instruction from her portable crystal processor!

“I assume that it was truly a test, not performed by the Secret Sword Bureau but by Professor Mo Xuan. He somehow manipulated the Secret Sword Bureau!

“Professor Mo Xuan grew suspicious of me and my real purpose behind visiting the Tinder Base. I don’t think that I revealed any openings in the ‘second Spiriters’ Realm’. But who knows? Perhaps Professor Mo Xuan noticed something abnormal in it!

“Moreover… moreover, we are supposed to take off this afternoon, but we have cut in line and left the Hundred Flowers Space Zone three hours early. If Professor Mo Xuan knows it, he can certainly guess that we’ve already grown suspicious of him, too!

“The conclusion is that Professor Mo Xuan is suspicious of me, and he also knows that I’m suspicious of him! Think about it. If Professor Mo Xuan is really planning a big operation, will he simply let us go to the Heaven’s Origin Sector?”

“In that case,” Long Yangjun said, “all the more reason we should leave the Hundred Flowers Space Zone as quickly as possible and jump to the Heaven’s Origin Sector. This place is Professor Mo Xuan’s home field!”

“The critical problem right now is, who can guarantee that we are jumping to the Heaven’s Origin Sector?” Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts were bouncing like fire rapidly. “Did we ‘see’ the Heaven’s Origin Sector? No. The mainframe crystal processor of our starship received the coordinates of the star beacons that were claimed to be from the Heaven’s Origin Sector. Then, the control tower in the spaceport planned a sailing route for us. We are simply launching the space jump based on the coordinates and the sailing route that they offered!

“Who can guarantee that their information is absolutely correct? Who can guarantee that Professor Mo Xuan cannot hack this place? If he is really concocting some big operation, he must’ve hacked most of the crystal processors in the Hundred Flowers Space Zone, or at least controlled the port, the most important place in the space zone!

“He could’ve totally manipulated the control tower in the spaceport to process the coordinates of the star beacons sent from the Heaven’s Origin Sector in order to navigate us to somewhere unknown!

“He could even have hacked the crystal processors of our starship in advance. This is not a main-force warship of a high level, just a carrier!

“Most importantly of all, he can also ‘hack’ our souls when our body and soul are unfolded in four-dimensional space during the teleportation, when we are most vulnerable and least defended!”

Invading the soul was never easy, especially when the targets were experts in the Nascent Soul Stage. The only way to drag them into the Spiriters’ Realm was to make them lie in a virtual cabin and connect themselves to the grand-unified Spiritual Nexus willingly.

But now that Li Yao and the rest of them were all suspicious, to immerse them into the nerval interaction liquids was certainly as difficult as pressing down the heads of twelve tyrannosaurs and forcing them to drink water.

But things were different during teleportation!

It was the best time to invade the soul!

Li Yao knew that because he had already been attacked once by the ‘Blood Stripe Virus’, a weird life form of pure energy, when his soul was about to be ripped into shreds during the teleportation from the Flying Star Sector to the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

It was the most perilous soul battle in Li Yao’s life.

He had even been ready to die together with the Blood Stripe Virus.

Of course, he had prepared a series of traps on the starship in advance because he had noticed the existence of the Blood Stripe Virus long before the space jump.

Eventually, the Blood Stripe Virus had failed to entirely consume his soul but only partly corrupted it, which caused his schizophrenia. A ‘mental devil’ had been born inside his brain.

Professor Mo Xuan knew everything about it. Well, actually, it was Li Yao who had told him everything through the video in the jade chip.

Who knew whether or not he would do exactly the same thing?

But this time, there were no traps on the starship. The other ten experts except Li Yao and Long Yangjun were not prepared, either.

In fact, despite the high Cultivation of the experts from the Ancient Sages Sector, they were from an ancient world after all and had never experienced many space jumps. Therefore, they were all quite unused to teleportation.

Li Yao and Long Yangjun looked at each other, both greatly stunned.

“The space jump must be stopped!”

“Wake up everyone immediately!”

But there was no time!

After Li Yao inferred the whole event based on his puzzle, the last second had already passed.

Hum! Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum!

The degree of the starship’s vibration grew lower and lower, but its frequency was higher and higher. Everything before Li Yao and Long Yangjun’s eyes turned fuzzy!

The space jump had begun. The ivory brilliance that enshrouded the starship leaked into the starship one drop after another. The starship seemed to be melting into the light and would transcend to the universe beyond three-dimensional space!

In the meantime, both Li Yao and Long Yangjun trembled. They felt an immense mental force pouring down from the galaxy and rushing into their brains that were being shaken and torn crazily!

Thankfully, he had already raised his alert to the maximum during his communication with Long Yangjun earlier. So, he managed to keep his head clear.

Also, because his soul was much more solid than a normal person’s, it was definitely not so easy to invade it when he was wary.

Boom!

Flames of spiritual energy burst out of Li Yao’s body, shattering the protective gel and the cocoon cabins into pieces.

He rolled on the ground. Having no time to bother about his headache, he was about to blow up Long Yangjun’s cabin.

But before he took action, Long Yangjun jumped out by herself.

Li Yao was slightly dazed. Then he put on an awful smile.

Yes. However magnificent and precise his professor’s designs were, it was impossible for him to have foreseen that the so-called Team Red Lotus actually consisted of twelve terrifying experts who were at least in the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage. Also, there were even two ‘monsters’ that were himself and Long Yangjun among them!

There was no need to mention Li Yao. Long Yangjun, as a warrior of the Nuwa Clan from the age of the primeval war, must have received special training on her brain, so it was not so easy to invade her mind!

“Save them!”

Li Yao jumped to Yan Liren’s cabin, which was the second closest to him.

Through the translucent cover on the cabin, Li Yao discovered, however, that Yan Liren was gritting his teeth in the buffer gel with a painful expression, his eyes closed, as if he were caught in a terrible nightmare!

Besides, Yan Liren, the protective cabin, and Li Yao himself were all turning transparent!

“Their soul has been mixed with the mental force of the intruder. We cannot wake them now!” Long Yangjun said in a hurry. “We are about to be unfolded into four-dimensional space. Even if you can wake them up by force, their soul will certainly be ripped into shreds by the storms in four-dimensional space, turning them into retards or putting them in a coma. The ghosts such as Meng Chixin, Wu Suiyun, or Wan Mingzhu will likely be wiped out instantly!”

Li Yao cursed loudly and made the decision soon. “We cannot be killed here. The souls of Yan Liren and the rest of them are powerful enough to keep them uncorrupted for a short while. Let’s go back to the Tinder Base and find Professor Mo Xuan directly. Then, we’ll figure out how to save them!”

Time was running out. Both of them felt that their bodies were slowly expanding, unfolding, and extending. The whole world turned weird, like butterflies of light that were dancing joyfully and about to split apart.

If they did not leave, they would never be able to leave. Once they completely fell into four-dimensional space, their body and their brain would be completely unfolded. Nobody knew if they could resist the weird mental assault or where they would be teleported to!

Li Yao and Long Yangjun took action at the same time. They turned into two streaks of brilliance and darted to the escape capsule at the rear of the starship.

They could not just blow a hole in the wall of the starship recklessly, which would cause the carrier as well as everybody on board to be ripped apart in four-dimensional space!

After they finally reached the escape area as fast as they could, the carrier and themselves were almost entirely transparent.

There seemed to be an enormous swirl behind them, which was trying to absorb their souls and every telepathic thought with the terrifying attraction force.

The two of them did not even have time to enter the escape capsules. They simply put on their crystal suits, opened the airtight gate, and rushed out, before they activated every power rune array on their crystal suits to the maximum!

Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi!

They were still at the interference area of the space distortion, like the periphery of a swirl. Both Li Yao and Long Yangjun felt that their bodies were growing and shrinking, expanding and compressing. The few seconds were as long as hundreds of years!

They could only grit their teeth and unleash their spiritual energy as much as they could to sprint toward space and get away from the carrier that was in the middle of a space jump, in case the space ripples generated by the teleportation affected them. That would probably cause the upper half of their bodies to be teleported to the unknown place far away together with the carrier while keeping their lower half still in the Hundred Flowers Space Zone!

After they did not know how long, the ‘surging tides’ behind the two of them finally died down.

They examined their bodies, not entirely recovered from their shock, and discovered that their limbs and internal organs were still there. No parts had been teleported together with the carrier. Then, they were somewhat relieved.

When they looked back, the carrier was already gone, leaving a halo that looked like a mist.

Li Yao and Long Yangjun both floated in space, like two dead fish that had been blown to the shore by tides.

The headache was still haunting them. They did not want to move at all.

Long Yangjun turned on the point-to-point communication channel that did not need to be connected to the Spiritual Nexus. Then, she said in a low and magnetic voice, “As I recall, someone said we would never lose if the twelve Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators slapped them in their face?”