Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Those people are quite strong!”

Under the perception of Li Yao’s soul, all the prisoners turned into clusters of colorful flames and vitality fields.

From the ignition and bouncing of the flames, Li Yao had a basic evaluation of their capability.

Those prisoners were all highly dangerous with Cultivation at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage and even the Core Formation Stage on average. Many of them even had a burning existence that was particularly condensed like a small sun revolving slowly at the center of their vitality fields. It was their second brain and the legendary ‘gold core’!

“Even the experts with gold cores are kept as prisoners and test subjects here. The owner of Manjusaka is truly extravagant!”

Li Yao focused on observation. He discovered that the prisoners were much more than simply in the Building Foundation Stage or the Core Formation Stage. The bodies of most of them had been modified in bizarre ways. Some had bone spurs all over their bodies, some had metal-like scales covering their brawny arms, and some had composite armor directly melted into their chests, which turned them into half-human and half-machine monsters. There was no telling how the Immortal Cultivators fixed the problem of the conflicts between the metal and the fleshly body, but their integration seemed to be even more perfect than ‘Iron Commander’ Zhou Hengdao of the old federation.

Li Yao vaguely smelled a familiar feeling from the prisoners.

Yes. The mutations and modifications that happened to the prisoners were almost the same as the bandits in the Land of Sins that he saw in the Fist King’s army, except that it was less flawed and more natural, as if it were their upgraded version. It felt like…

“It feels like Manjusaka runs experiments on the tough bandits in the Land of Sins with all kinds of crazy technology and techniques first, and after enough data is recorded, it is applied to the test subjects of a higher level in order to produce the ‘ultimate subjects’ that are much more advanced,” said the mental devil casually.

“Exactly!” Li Yao felt cold. That should be the truth. It was a complete ‘pipeline of new techniques and modification technology’. From the bottom to the top, from the sinners in the Land of Sins to the Immortal Cultivator criminals, everybody was a test subject!

Li Yao focused and carefully observed. Although the prisoners were very strong and received the most cutting-edge modifications, they did not feel like experts at all. They were all lethargic, with the looks of frustration and desperation on their faces. Some of them were bulging their eyes and glaring at the guards outside of the prison cells with hysterical fury and hatred.

Their hands, legs, and necks were locked by heavy shackles. Every shackle was carved with dense rune arrays and functioning crazily, with flashing crystal embedded in them.

Li Yao narrowed his eyes. He immediately ‘saw’ the thick electric arcs and magnetic fields among the shackles and between the shackles and the walls around them.

The slightly weird posture when the prisoners moved about made Li Yao immediately realize what was going on.

“The entire beehive prison must’ve been installed with a certain super magnetic field control system, which generates a powerful magnetic field on the shackles and the walls. So, the prisoners can only struggle to move despite their unbelievable physical strength, as if they are carrying rocks that weigh ten thousand tons.

“The intensity of the magnetic field can certainly be adjusted. Once it is raised to the maximum, all their shackles will likely be pulled to the ground or the walls, or a couple of prisoners may be attracted to each other. In that case, they would not be able to move anywhere but be at anybody’s mercy!”

“It seems that the Immortal Cultivators are quite wary of the prisoners and have to suppress them through the most rigorous approaches.” The mental devil grimaced. “Hey. Do you think the prisoners enjoy their days in Manjusaka?”

Li Yao frowned. “Is that even a question?”

The mental devil continued. “Therefore, although they are all Immortal Cultivators, they must bear the deepest grudge against the owner of Manjusaka, and they will not hesitate to skin and mince the owner of this place when they have an opportunity to, will they?”

Li Yao immediately realized where the conversation was going. “Exactly. The Immortal Cultivators are all rancorous, brutal, and violent. Once the highly-dangerous criminals are unchained and given freedom again, and the Immortal Cultivators in the hibernation cabins up above are all unfrozen… it would be a miracle if they do not turn the whole of Manjusaka upside down!

“But what exactly do we need to do in order to free all those people?”

“It’s simple,” the mental devil said. “With the bodies of the dangerous criminals that have been strengthened and modified and their combat ability in the Core Formation Stage, it is practically impossible to trap them with a prison cell. The main control method should still be the ubiquitous super magnetic field system.

“The super magnetic field system certainly has a control center. It requires an enormous supply of energy, too.

“If we can sneak into the control center, hack and seize the mainframe crystal processor of the place, and take control of the entire super magnetic field system, wouldn’t we be able to do whatever we want?”

Li Yao blinked quickly. “Is it possible?”

“As long as we can locate the control center and the mainframe crystal processor, it will be more or less possible,” the mental devil said. “Don’t forget that we have swallowed most of the pieces of tenebrum energy of the extraterrestrial devil, and we received the complete legacy of Professor Mo Xuan. We have entered the Divinity Transformation Stage, too!

“It may be too hard for us to ‘create’ in cyberspace, but ‘destruction’ is always ten thousand times simpler than ‘creation’. Is it really a problem to plant a few viruses and completely sabotage the entire system?

“Then again, even if we cannot achieve that, we can always resort to the most simple and straightforward way, which is to directly blow up the power center that provides energy for the super magnetic field control system. Let’s see what they can use to generate the magnetic barriers without energy!”

“Now that you put it that way…” Li Yao mumbled. “I almost can’t wait to watch the entire beehive prison going out of control, and all the exasperated, ferocious criminals flooding out and lunging at the depths of Manjusaka.”

Neltharion continued downward. The prison cells gradually turned into an enormous circular space that was hidden in darkness. A lot of human-shaped objects were vaguely standing in the black fog. They were all naked but entangled by tubes and syringes.

“They are humans who are in the deep sleep state.” Li Yao was confused. “Their aura is very intimidating, but their brain activity is extremely weak, as if it has been suppressed by some sort of barrier. Who are they exactly?”

“They may be the army of the owner of the place,” the mental devil said coldly. “The man maintains such an enormous laboratory and runs so many experiments at such a great cost. It is only reasonable that he has some results, isn’t it?

“After the most advanced and cutting-edge achievements are secured, isn’t it perfectly normal for him to apply them to his own armed forces?”

Staring at the shadows in the black fog that were covered in tubes and wires, Li Yao felt that coldness was spreading out of his soul.

“Ho! Hooooo!”

Right then, feeble roars echoed from the bottom level of the beehive prison, which attracted the attention of Li Yao and the mental devil.

It was an extremely spacious prison cell or test field, where two ferocious creatures were engaged in a battle of life and death.

One of the creatures looked like the combination of spiders, scorpions, and crocodiles, but enlarged to almost five meters long. It was covered in sharp bone spurs and scales, as if a forest of blades had grown out of its flesh and blood.

The other creature was a freak that looked like a monster.

The creature could have been a human being, or an abnormally mutated gorilla. He was covered in green hair that was like iron needles, and the big eyes that bulged out were on the two sides of the head, with flames of spiritual energy that were more chaotic than a tsunami burning inside.

Although the enemy was twice its size, his air had completely dwarfed the enemy’s.

When Li Yao saw the battle, the freak that looked like a great-haired gorilla was sitting on the crocodile creature despite the sharp scales and bone spurs on the enemy body. Then, he opened the enemy’s mouth by brute force and rippled its head in half!

Crack!

In an explosion, blood burst out everywhere. But the green-haired gorilla was still not satisfied. He stabbed his fingers, which were sharper than chainswords, into the back of the crocodile creature and groped for a moment before yanking the heart out!

The crocodile creature boasted great vitality and was still struggling before its death. However, the green-haired gorilla already put on a smile of satisfaction and began to devour the bleeding, damp heart of the enemy.

Outside of the test room, a dozen Immortal Cultivators in sealed gowns were pointing and recording the data.

“This guy is rather tough!”vEven Li Yao was somewhat shocked to see it. “Almost zero drops of spiritual energy leaked out of his body. All of it was used to nurture the cells so that the body would release the optimum combat ability. This is the core principle of the ‘body fundamentalists’ in their training and fighting. This green-haired gorilla should be a ‘body fundamentalist’ that has trained or been modified to the highest level!”

Right then, the researchers seemed to have received a command. After whispering to each other for a while, they began to operate on the crystal processors quickly.

Dozens of red spots suddenly appeared on the green-haired gorilla. Then dozens of streams of scarlet liquids were injected into his body like water arrows.

At first, Li Yao thought that the Immortal Cultivators were going to destroy the test subject, but the green-haired gorilla simply staggered and collapsed onto the ground as if drunk after jumping up and down for a while.

It was not until then that Li Yao finally realized that what was injected into his body just now must have been anesthetics of a high intensity and dose.

After making sure that he had been heavily sedated, a few vigilant Immortal Cultivators in crystal suits tied him up, carried him into an enormous metal bag, and delivered it to a floating disc, which then slowly descended.

It was by far the strongest test subject that Li Yao had seen.

Since he had the highest combat ability, he must be related to the most advanced strengthening and modification technology, the most important labs, and the most influential big shots in Manjusaka.

Li Yao’s interest was aroused. “Let’s follow them and see where they are shipping him to.”