Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Ten… eggs?”

Li Yao was stunned for a long time. “Is there something wrong with the Fist King’s head—I mean, is some chip burnt?”

“I think so too.”

Liu Li crossed his fingers and said in guilt, “I think that it might’ve been my responsibility. Did I do something wrong and wreck one of Master Fist King’s crucial chips because I didn’t grasp the maintenance skills that Grandpa Yao taught?”

“Have you mentioned the issue to him?”

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao asked, “You can ask him not to be so outrageous. Even if he is really dissatisfied with you, he can always say it out straightforwardly. It’s really unexpected of the best bandit on the Land of Sins to be so petty as to bully a little girl?”

“I brought it up several times indirectly.”

Liu Li said in frustration, “I said to Master Fist King multiple times that, although his noodles were delicious and I couldn’t be more satisfied, it was too troublesome for him and a waste of his computational ability… I talked to him many times, but he always turned a deaf ear to it. He also claimed that it would be worthwhile even if 5% of his computational ability had to be devoted in order to keep my optimal work state. Besides, he would work harder and adjust ingredients and methods, until he could cook the most perfect noodles with potatoes and eggs in the entire universe. Good heavens. It’s not about the perfection of the noodles at all, alright!”

“Got it. It’s about the monotonous flavor.”

Li Yao nodded his head quickly. “It would’ve been better even if he made you noodles with soybean paste and spiced eggs, right?”

“Yes, exactly!”

Liu Li nodded her head; her big, diamond-like eyes flashing. “Grandpa Yao, you do get me. However delicious a food is, you can’t have it for a year in a row! I brought it up to Master Fist King rather implicitly before, but he said that he was changing every day and even every meal. The hardness of the noodles, the ratios of flour, the types of the potatoes, the manufacturers of the eggs, and the cooking methods of the soup. After half a month of training, the noodles he cooked already entailed ninety-one variations, and even the flavors of the potatoes had fifteen distinctive levels. He even asked me in expectations whether or not I could taste all of them.

“My… My tongue was almost numb. How could I taste them?”

Hardly had the girl concluded her sentence when her wrist crystal processor buzzed and a communication request cut in.

The name that Liu Li had noted for the guy was—Egg Fiend!

The girl was entirely frozen after she saw it. Shuddering, she turned on the communication. As expected, the Fist King’s inhuman, metal face occupied the light beam.

“Miss Liu Li, where have you gone to?”

The Fist King said casually, “Come back for dinner. I have prepared a… big surprise for you!”

Shua!

Liu Li’s face was immediately as pale as paper. She paused the communication without even raising any excuse. Covering the wrist crystal processor, she asked Li Yao for help, “Grandpa Yao, I’m doomed. Judging from Master Fist King’s tone, he must’ve buried at least twelve eggs below the potato noodles. No, no, no. From the flash frequency of his artificial eyes, it may be fifteen!”

“Well, transfer the communication to my crystal processor. Let me talk to the Fist King.”

Li Yao clicked on the transfer and connection function on his wrist crystal processor, forwarding the Fist King’s communication to him and restoring the call. He said with a smile, “Fist King, nice to meet you. Liu Li is in my place. Since I’m leaving tomorrow, I called her over for some sort of a farewell get-together. Hahahaha!”

The Fist King was silent for a long time. His metal face darkened. “… Fine, got it.”

“One other thing—”

Li Yao scratched his head. “Please excuse me. During the past half month, I’ve been rather busy. I needed to take care of Xiaoming and Wenwen’s issues as well as my own training. I also had to negotiate with Zuo Tianying, Li Wuji, and other people for deals. In the meantime, I was obliged to learn the operation pattern and central resources of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, the environment and the structure of the Seven Seas Grand Market, etc. There was really no time for me to run maintenance and upgrade for you. Are you… Are you and your core chips okay?”

“I’m fine.”

The Fist King couldn’t help but touch his skull, which was yet another redundant movement. “I’m feeling better than ever. It’s like a mysterious gate in the deepest part of my database has been opened, from which exuberant computational ability is gushing out every day, filling me with burning, unstoppable strength.

“It seems that Liu Li has really absorbed your knowledge. She has done an even better job in maintenance than you did. I didn’t feel as better when you maintained me in person before.”

“Really?”

Li Yao was rather skeptical. “That is to say, you do not have any complaints about Liu Li?”

“Of course not!”

The Fist King said, “Why do you ask? Right, ask her to come back early after the dinner. This place is crowded by space pirates after all. Many of them have regained freedom after being identified and trained. Who knows if they will cause more trouble? It’s not safe!”

“Well, aren’t you overthinking?”

Li Yao was amused. “Everybody knows Liu Li’s relationship with you and me. Who can possibly be bold enough to touch her?”

“Perhaps I am overthinking, but since I promised to protect her according to the deal we made, I will consider every detail in every aspect and prevent her from being harmed at all. Even the lowest odds of hazard must be exterminated in cradles.”

The Fist King said solemnly, “I am a machine of honesty and integrity. Please rest assured of that.”

“Of course I am assured!”

Li Yao did not know what to say next. He could only change the topic rather unnaturally. “Right, I was told that you’ve picked up a new hobby recently, and you like to cook noodles for other people? Hahahaha. When will I have the privilege to appreciate your culinary craftsmanship?”

On the light beam, the Fist King’s artificial eyes constricted to the size of needle tips, and the crystal processors hummed and ran at a high speed for a long time, before he finally said coldly, “I haven’t, and I don’t. Please don’t ask such meaningless questions. It’s a waste of my precious time and computational ability.”

“Huh?”

Li Yao was completely confused. “What do you mean by ‘meaningless’? It was Liu Li who told me that you recently grew a thing for cooking noodles. She also said that your skills were not half bad!”

“Liu Li is Liu Li, and other people are other people.”

The Fist King continued indifferently, “Liu Li is my personal caretaker. Keeping her body healthy and her mood good is beneficial for the improvement of my combat ability and will make me realize the goal of becoming the strongest in the universe sooner. That’s why I’ve been taking care of her daily meals in person. Other people can’t help me realize my goal. Why would I cook for them?”

Stunned for a long time, Li Yao said, “That still doesn’t sound right. At the very least, I’m different from other people. I am an excellent refiner, and I am a technician of battle puppets, crystal suits, and even Colossi. It was me who taught Liu Li her skills and who changed your new body for you at the beginning!

“I can also help you maintain and build up your body so that you can become ‘the strongest in the universe’ sooner. So, isn’t it only natural and reasonable for you to cook a bowl of perfect noodles for me so that I will be delighted and modify your body devotedly?”

The Fist King was dumbfounded; his artificial eyes enlarging.

Li Yao laughed. “Look, my logic is flawless. You have nothing to say for yourself, don’t you?”

The Fist King was still silent, but his crystal processors were squeaking and smoking.

“Hey, hey, hey, Fist King, you are not caught in some sort of logic trap or data loop, aren’t you?”

Li Yao’s face changed greatly as he said, “Fist King, activate the cooling rune arrays and cool down the crystal processors! Fist King, Fist King!”

Rigidly, the Fist King heard none of it. His iron skull was shuddering nonstop, until the crystal processors made a dull noise in the end, and black smoke popped up from the gaps of the plate. All the lights on his body dimmed.

His crystal processors were burnt up, and he was paralyzed.

The light beam went black, and the communication came to an unexpected end.

“Not good!”

Li Yao rushed out. “The Fist King has burnt himself up. Let’s go and save him!”

Hardly had he started running when he felt that something was not right. Looking back, he found that Liu Li was still where she was at, as calm as before, not anxious at all.

“Liu Li, what’s going on?”

Li Yao was rather dazed. “The Fist King doesn’t look right. Why are you not nervous at all?”

“That’s alright, Grandpa Yao. Master Fist King has been doing it a lot. He burnt up his clones every now and then.”

Liu Li said, “Rest assured. It was on purpose, or even faked.”

“What?”

Li Yao was truly baffled. “He pretended that the crystal processors were burnt up… It’s almost like faking death, right? Why?”

“That’s why I said that I must’ve done something wrong and broke Master Fist King’s head.”

Liu Li said concernedly, “I feel that Master Fist King is getting weirder and weirder recently. Whenever he encounters a question he cannot answer, or a thing he doesn’t want to face, he will intentionally burn up his brain, or put up some smoke, pretending that he has crashed, as a way to evade the difficulties.

“At first, I thought it was real and was scared out of my wits before I found out that he was faking it. I was both angry and amused. What was that about? He was supposed to be such an awesome bandit from the Land of Sins, but whenever he ran into a problem, he was like a kid covering his head in the quilt.”

Frowning, Li Yao thought for a long time.

“In that case—”

Li Yao said, “Liu Li, since you don’t like the Fist King, have you considered switching to a different job? I can ask someone else to be the Fist King’s personal maintainer.”

“I never said that I don’t like Master Fist King!”

Liu Li jumped to her feet, slightly blushing. She pointed her index fingers at each other while she said in a low voice, “While the Fist King can be immature sometimes and has the bad habits of cooking noodles for other people every day and pretending to crash, he-he is still a very nice guy other than that!

“Besides, even the few bad habits might’ve been caused by my fault. In that case, it is all the more reason why I can’t abandon Master Fist King. I must keep on learning maintenance techniques and improving myself to be the most excellent maintainer so that I can fix the problems in Master Fist King’s head that were caused by me.

“All in all, I’ll certainly be responsible for Master Fist King!”

The girl from the Land of Sins who had the eyes of diamonds waved her tiny fists and said firmly.