Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“All in all, Uncle Zhao Lie believes that my father’s petty kindness will only bring us trouble and that we will be killed sooner or later if we idle by. For the future of the Village of Peace, we have to attack and demolish all the villages nearby.”

After a long sigh, Liu Li said, “My father thinks that Uncle Zhao Lie cannot change his nature of a bandit and that his ruthlessness will be a disaster for the village!

“Zhao Lie has lived in the village for twenty years. As the captain of the exploration team who went through life and death, he made great contributions to the village many times. Naturally, a bunch of disobedient, ambitious guys listened to his command and demanded to sweep across all the villages around and take a great army to march into the ‘Bloody Worlds’!”

Han Te snorted. “Many young people in the village have been deceived by Zhao Lie and convinced by his ideals. His son, Zhao Chong, has made a society named ‘Iron-Blooded Youths’ in the village. They cause trouble every day.

“Before, they were awed by my master’s strength and only dared to instigate trouble in secret, not having the courage to jump out openly. But ever since my master’s strength dropped after the uncanny illness, rumors have been spreading out of the village, and Zhao Lie and his son have become much more flagrant than before. Today, they have even provoked us blatantly. Perhaps, just like you said just now, Grandpa Yao, they are planning to kick my master aside and set up their own regime.”

Li Yao was silent. In the abnormal, man-made laboratory that was the Land of Sins, it was hard to say which was correct—expand the army and embark on the path of conquest or stay in one’s own territory and be secluded from the outside world.

The two little fellows led Li Yao into the bottom cabin of a boat. They zigzagged in the dark pathways for a long time before they finally entered a fairly large greenhouse, with a transparent dome made of glass and soft mud below the feet.

Li Yao’s tracks slowly moved over the mud. He could sense the bountiful water and nutrition inside the soil clearly.

The soil in the greenhouse was entirely different from the dry land that suffered from radiation and pollution outside. It was full of the flavor of vigor.

As far as he could see, green-and-gold crops whose name Li Yao did not know were grown in the field. Their ears were so full that they were about to explode and were dangling down like windchimes, emitting a refreshing fragrance.

Deep inside the greenhouse, a slim man with thick bones, whose arms and legs were particularly long but whose skin was dry and sallow, was tending to the crops carefully but somewhat clumsily.

His solemn expression when he was watering the crops seemed to suggest that he cherished every drop of water he had.

“Master!”

“Dad!”

Han Te and Liu Li hurried to greet him.

The middle-aged, disease-stricken man with a pair of clear and sharp eyes was Gu Zhengyang, the leader of the Village of Peace, known as ‘Sky Breaking Hammer’.

“You’ve been to Area A3?” Gu Zhengyang’s eyes were as sharp as lightning as he observed them for a long time. Concluding that neither of them were seriously hurt, he finally heaved a sigh of relief. He coughed lightly before he said with a reproaching tone, “As I told you before, I am merely exhausted and do not have any serious issues. Even if I did, would your trip to Area A3 help at all? The future of the Village of Peace depends on you. You must not toy with your life!”

The two little fellows lowered their heads under the criticism.

Gu Zhengyang sighed and said, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Everything is great!” Han Te rolled his eyes and then released a tiny ball of lightning inside his palm. Making the deep blue electric arcs outside swirl quickly, he declared, “Master, look, my Cultivation is slowly recovering!”

“What?” Gu Zhengyang was rather shocked. He grabbed Han Te’s wrist and sensed the flow of spiritual energy inside his veins. Then he was even more baffled. “It’s true. Your veins have all been dredged. They are now even broader than before. What—what exactly happened?”

Han Te looked at Liu Li and coughed. He began to tell the tale that Li Yao had given him on the way here. “We came across a Thunder Juggernaut that we had never seen before in the underground city in Area A3. The stripes on its skin were like stars, with ripples spreading out. It was not a tumor that grew above its head but something like a blossoming flower. There were also dozens of bluish tentacles inside the pistils. All in all, the creature was weirder than anything I’ve ever seen!

“Since we’d run into each other in the narrow path and I did not have anywhere to escape, I could only fight the mutated Thunder Juggernaut. Naturally, I was no match for the beast. I was gradually running out of strength and about to be killed in its bloody mouth, so I made up my mind and thought I’d better die together with the animal. In the moment, I grabbed the ‘pistils’ above its head and yanked them hard!

“After that, I heard a deafening roar and felt that an overwhelming torrent of lightning flooded into my body, electrocuting my internal organs, veins, and nerves into burnt coal. I couldn’t hold out any longer and passed out!”

Gu Zhengyang was hooked by the story and naturally did not realize that his disciple was making up the ‘fierce fight’.

“Yes. I watched the whole battle nearby, and I was rather shocked, too!” Liu Li helped with the explanation. “I saw that an enormous ball of lightning enveloped my senior brother and leaked into his body in streams. His veins, bones, and internal organs were all revealed under the electrocution! Perhaps that was the life-saving ultimate skill of the ‘mutated Thunder Juggernaut’. All in all, it ran off after releasing the high-intensity electric currents.”

In great delight, Han Te described vividly, “I did not know how long it passed when I was finally woken up by my junior sister from the coma. After I woke up, I felt pain all over my body as if it had been torn apart, but my Cultivation was somehow greatly recovered. Also, the spiritual energy inside my body was flowing much more agilely and vigorously!”

“Master, please take a look for me. What exactly happened?”

Gu Zhengyang groped Han Te’s bones and acupoints carefully for a while. With intense confusion beaming out of his eyes, he shook his head slightly and said, “A Thunder Juggernaut with starry spots and not a tumor but a flower above its head? I have never heard of such a species before. Perhaps it is a new mutant.

“As for what happened to your body, it is quite perplexing. The ultra-powerful electric arcs unleashed by the mutated Thunder Juggernaut should’ve killed you directly. Perhaps they conflicted with the strength that smoldered inside your body, and the blocked acupoints were broken through again.

“I need to consider the specific reasons carefully. The bottom line is, it was not right for the two of you to sneak out. The disaster turned out to be a blessing this time, but will you have such good luck next time? Cough, cough, cough, cough…”

“Master, we both know we were wrong.”

Following Han Te’s hint, Liu Li hurried to move forward and massaged her father’s back. Han Te took the opportunity to change the topic by pushing Li Yao forward. “Right, master. We also found a treasure in the underground part of Area A3. Look!”

“A civil puppet… for cleaning and maintenance purposes?” Gu Zhengyang eyed it up and down. “It is an ancient model, but it is still in a good condition. At the very least, it is still functional. We may get a few coins if we sell it on the black market. If we slightly modify it, it can also stay and help us maintain the village. You’ve done a good job.”

“No, dad. It is very impressive.” Liu Li also followed the script that Li Yao had them without changing her facial expression. “It is no common puppet for cleaning and maintenance purposes. We believe that somebody might have poured enormous war puppet databases into its crystal processor, which can turn it into a very powerful ‘war pattern’. The only problem is that its shell right now is too weak for it to perform the skills.”

“Just like this.”

Han Te threw a piece of rotten wood at Li Yao casually. After a sharp edge flashed, Li Yao controlled the jigsaw of the Universal Janitor to trigger dozens of arced lights and chop the rotten wood into a hundred fragments in the same size.

“Look, master. This is not something that an ordinary civil puppet can do. We believe that a lot of mysterious things must be hidden deep inside its crystal processor. After all, hundreds of years have passed since Judgment Day. Who knows what the people hundreds of years ago did to the machine?”

Han Te rubbed his fists in enthusiasm. “Liu Li and I thought about dismantling the crystal processor and seeing what makes it so weird. But the studies of crystal processors in the ‘Desolate Worlds’ are too unprofessional. It is possible that we will not be able to reassemble it after we dismantle it! All in all, I feel that there might be a nice surprise if we strengthen and upgrade it with some military components!”

“A civil puppet that holds military databases?” Gu Zhengyang was slightly dazed, not entirely interested in Li Yao’s performance of dissecting the rotten wood instantly. He smiled and said, “You are indeed very creative. It does make sense. The ancient people hundreds of years ago were fond of making strange, mysterious stuff. There are too many incomprehensible things in the Land of Sins today. A civil puppet with a military pattern is not a big deal.

“This is an unimportant issue. Since it was the two of you who discovered the item in the highly-dangerous area outside of the village, it belongs to you. Whatever components you want to strengthen and modify it with, just take them from the warehouse. But remember, even if you take away nothing more than a screw, you must leave the record on the ledger and exchange your contributions in the Bliss Ceremony for it.”

“Great!”

The two little fellows cheered at the same time.

In such a case, Li Yao would have enough components of a low level to perform the first modifications on the ragged body.

Then, if he displayed a shocking performance in the battle later, there would be a somewhat reasonable excuse.

Seeing that the problem that had bothered his disciple for three years was resolved and that his daughter was so happy, Gu Zhengyang felt rather happy, too, and asked with a smile, “Does this thing have a name?”

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other and said at the same time, “Fiend Star. Its name is Fiend Star!”