Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The Fist King pushed two square metal boxes toward the two little fellows and opened them softly. The most intense fragrance immediately spread out. Inside the boxes was hot, colorful food.

It was not sticky, muddy, unrecognizable synthesized food. Instead, there was natural meat whose fibers were clearly visible and vegetables that were a hundred times more precious than the meat!

Ravenousness immediately beamed out of the two little fellows’ eyes.

While natural meat was rare in the Land of Sins, there were hundreds of types of mutated beasts to be hunted and butchered after all, but vegetables were something that most people had never heard of before. The relief assets sent from the Heavenly Rails mostly consisted of synthesized food of suspicious origins. Although it could provide enough energy, it tasted as bad as wax. Vegetables and cereals were legendary food that most people had never tasted in their entire life.

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other in bewilderment. Their stomachs immediately began to rumble in hunger.

“Help yourselves.”

The Fist King made a ‘please’ gesture, truly like an amiable uncle-next-door.

Li Yao felt creeped out. He did not have the slightest idea what the Fist King’s goal was. Even if the man had seen through his camouflage, it was not a big deal for the tough bandits and thugs in the Land of Sins to change their names and appearances because they had made far too many enemies. Why on earth was the Fist King pursuing the issue so diligently at such a critical moment?

However, with the Fist King’s strength and power, if he intended to find out the truth of an issue, it was impossible for two youngsters like Han Te and Liu Li to resist.

Li Yao sighed and secretly sent a message to Han Te’s and Liu Li’s heads. “Just eat. Whatever the Fist King asks, just answer it truthfully. Do not think that you can fool him.”

Han Te and Liu Li swallowed hard simultaneously before they began to wolf the food down without delay.

As a ghost, the Fist King considered crystals and spiritual liquids as the source of energy and naturally could not eat food. He simply looked at the two little fellows gulping down the food like gluttons, and it was not until their mouths had been stuffed with meat and vegetables that he remarked, “According to the sheets you filled in, you are from a place called the Village of Peace at the edge of the Thousand Lakes Area near Double Dragons City. The place should be a Desolate World, right? But your invitation card was supposed to be delivered to Double Dragons City.”

The two little fellows immediately stopped chewing and blinked fast.

“Don’t be scared,” the Fist King said. “Survival of the fittest is the natural law in the Land of Sins. I’ve sent invitation cards to a lot of forces everywhere in the Land of Sins to summon heroes of the world to attack Liberty City together, but to be honest, I don’t really care who exactly comes with those invitation cards.

“Whoever passes through the entire Bloody Plateau and arrives at Great Iron City has proved themselves worthy enough to share the glory of conquering Liberty City!

“On the other hand, the incompetent garbage who cannot even protect their invitation cards would be useless even if they came here. Will they be of any help other than disrupting the organization and morale?

“Therefore, it doesn’t matter whom your invitation card belonged to at the beginning. It is now in your hands. So, it is yours.

“I am just a little bit curious. Double Dragons City is just an insignificant town at the edge of the Bloody Worlds and makes its living by levying taxes on the business activities that pass through the city. But in any case, the ten or so gangs occupying the place have fought through mountains of corpses and oceans of blood. They are all the most ferocious desperadoes.

“The Village of Peace… should only be a settlement of civilians in a Desolate World, right? However strong you may be, how on earth could you have robbed them of their invitation card?

“Also, it’s been almost a month since you arrived at Great Iron City, but not a third person from Double Dragons City ever came. It’s obvious that the gangs lurking there were annihilated by you, leaving no survivors, which makes me even more curious about how exactly you did it.”

Han Te chewed hard and struggled to swallow a large piece of meat. He stammered, “The gangs in Double Dragons City wanted to capture the sinners in dozens of villages nearby as cannon fodder. Left with no choice, we could only fight them! Later, well, some of them seemed to be thinking of joining the leader of Liberty City. A civil war broke out, and they seriously devastated each other among themselves. We took the opportunity and suppressed all the gangs!”

“I imagined so.” The Fist King nodded and gestured for the two little fellows to continue eating. Then he suddenly changed the topic. “However, did the cunning gangs so easily begin a large-scale fight among themselves, to the point that everybody was wounded and exhausted? There must’ve been a key to the whole incident. It was probably the spiritual puppet right next to you.”

Han Te and Liu Li only just took a breath in relief when they shuddered in fear again at the Fist King’s new insight. The food that they had just eaten was stuck in their throats, neither going up nor sinking down. They were both blushing in suffocation.

Li Yao, however, was not surprised. It was very incredible for the Village of Peace to crush the many gangs in Double Dragons City after all. Whoever was suspicious of the issue could find many loopholes after they investigated.

He was becoming more and more curious about the Fist King’s aim.

There were almost ten thousand iron fibers as thin as hairs on the Fist King’s mask, which allowed him to make the movement of a ‘smile’ vividly. He was even able to look at Li Yao with obvious passion when he said to the two little fellows, “Because of their unstable performance and the difficulty of control, spiritual puppets that boast functions of automatic learning and upgrading are rare to come by nowadays. I did not know that there was such a well-preserved one in your desolate village. Where did you get it in the beginning?”

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other. Hinted by Li Yao, they replied dutifully, “It was picked up by us from some ruins not long ago. It seems to be a war puppet made before ‘Judgment Day’ and is embedded with a military crystal processor with remarkable performance. All in all, we do not need to operate it specifically. As long as it is given a basic instruction, it will automatically complete the task.”

The Fist King looked at Li Yao and said, “Therefore, to some extent, you can simulate the style of human beings and communicate with them?”

“Yes,” Li Yao said coldly.

His patience and curiosity had both reached their limits.

His crystal cameras and the Fist King’s flashed quickly in a similar frequency, raising invisible sparks in their collisions in midair that looked like a transparent rain of fire.

Li Yao was a hundred percent certain that the Fist King had learned that he was not a common spiritual puppet or war machine.

But out of his expectations, the Fist King did not pursue it any further and simply retreated his scorching gaze. Shifting the topic back to the two little fellows again, he said, “I can tell that the two of you are not enthusiastic about power or killing. Then, what exactly are you hoping to get from the war? Tell me. I may be able to help you.”

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other, both finding it hard to believe their ears. They felt that their heads were dizzy as if they had been hit right in the face by a tank named ‘luck’.

Han Te hurried to wipe his mouth and said, “W-we are hoping to ask for your protection for the Village of Peace. As long as your banner flies in the sky of the Village of Peace, no gang will ever be bold enough to bully us!”

“That’s all?” the Fist King said casually.

“Also…” Han Te hesitated for a moment. Then, with intense determination beaming out of his eyes, he said firmly, “I want to go to Manjusaka, the City in the Sky. I will not have an opportunity unless I join your army and help you conquer Liberty City!”

“Exactly.” Perhaps the Fist King’s gentle attitude and the delicious meal had shortened the distance between them. Liu Li summoned her courage and added, “I want to go to the City in the Sky, too. After you conquer Liberty City, would you help us find a way to go up there? Please.”

“The City in the Sky?” Looking at the two little fellows’ excitement, the Fist King seemed frustrated. He asked in disappointment, “Why do you want to go there at the risk of your life? You want to be the high and mighty angels, too?”

“Not exactly.” Han Te stared at his clenched fists. “I couldn’t care less about angels and whatnot. I only want to look for the truth in Manjusaka.”

The Fist King was slightly dazed. Then his crystal cameras glittered so hard that they were almost on fire. “What truth?”

“My sister went to the City in the Sky three years ago, never to be heard from again. I want to find my sister in the City in the Sky and ask her what happened in the past three years,” Han Te said solemnly. “Not just my sister, few of the people who have supposedly risen to the City in the Sky have ever returned. Why? Is Manjusaka such a splendid place that everybody forgets their hometown and family?

“A-also, the world we are living in, the desolate land, the sealed sky… I want to find out the truth about everything!

“Ever since my childhood, I have been standing on the ground, craning my neck to look at the supreme the City in the Sky. Now, I want to know what the view will be if I look down at the land from the City in the Sky!”

“That is really…” Subtle emotions spread out of the Fist King’s artificial eyes. He turned his metal head to Liu Li and asked, “Little girl, is it the same for you?”

“I am different from my senior brother.” Liu Li shook her head. “I’m told that the angels are omnipotent. I want to go to the City in the Sky to find a way to grow the Gold Barley across the Land of Sins!”

The Fist King was stunned again. “The Gold Barley?”

“Yes. Like this.” Liu Li took out a lead-plated can from a satchel attached to her waist and opened it carefully, revealing the seeds of the Gold Barley inside that looked like grains of sand. She smiled. “The Gold Barley is one of the few crops that can take root and sprout in all kinds of polluted and barren environments. If we can modify it and make it robust enough to be grown all over the Land of Sins, everybody will be able to fill their stomach, and there will probably be fewer conflicts!”