Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Xiong Tao was speechless for half a minute. His eyes were frozen, and weird expressions surfaced on his face.

”What’s going on? The old man is dazed?”

”How crappy must Li Yao’s components be for the old man to not know what to say?”

The other refiners were whispering to each other.

But they were all stunned and put on weird expressions, too, when Xiong Tao silently opened the storage box fully, the walls of which then collapsed to the ground revealing everything contained inside.

Putting the quality of the components that Li Yao had recycled aside, the way they were stored was different from the usual ones.

Others’ components were mostly piled up in a mess. The best thing they could do was to sort the components into several boxes according to their general purpose.

In comparison, Li Yao had built up many three-dimensional districts inside the storage box with thin metal plates, rune arrays of the wind class, and anti-gravity rune arrays, which on one hand increased the utilization efficiency of the storage box, and on the other hand differentiated each and every component clearly.

Now, they were lying neatly inside the box like a well-trained troop waiting to be inspected by their king.

Moreover…

Components of different categories were all placed in different areas with an implicit logic. Generally speaking, the areas that were close to each other had components for a certain kind of magical equipment. Therefore, it was very handy if someone was going to put the components to use.

The few refiners blinked their eyes, which were pricked by the glittering light reflected by the components. They picked up several of them from the shelves inside the box and examined them carefully.

They found that, not only were the components as bright as newly-made ones and even the tiniest rune in the most inconspicuous corner had been polished perfectly without the slightest stain, the components also felt as smooth as silk because they were covered in a protective layer that seemed like an oily membrane so that their longevity in extreme environments could be significantly improved.

Illuminated by the lights, colorful glimmers rippled out on the surface of the components appealingly. Even the most ordinary metals looked like Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and captivated one’s eyes, making them unable to look away.

”Hum. Hum. Hum Hum…”

One of the refiners blew onto the components and put them beside his ear to analyze the sound of the vibrations as if he were listening to the most marvelous music. He mumbled, ”The hardness inside the components is as good as the brand-new ones. If the hundred thousand components are all as perfect as the samples, it will be too unbelievable!

”The guy’s speed is terrifying, too. He has restored more than a hundred components from the debris resulting from serious explosions to such an extent within only seven days! In my opinion, even many experts working in maintenance within Heavenly Saints City are not proficient enough to do that.

”Was everything he said actually true? Did he really grow up in an ancient space battleground and start recycling garbage when his mother was still breastfeeding him?

”If that is case, we have got a real talent!”

The refiners were all excited.

A young man with such fluent hands and solid knowledge about magical equipment was the best assistant that every one of them had dreamed for!

But Xiong Tao was still frowning. He mumbled something to himself as Li Yao’s performance was beyond his expectations.

Judging from what had happened, it was very likely that he had been telling the truth.

However, the guy claimed that he wandered in various ancient space battlegrounds for many years and yet he had never seen a Space Gyroscope? That did not sound right.

The young man must’ve had spent the entire week cleaning the debris trying to prove himself without any rest after being scolded by him.

If that was what had happened, how much time had he devoted to the maintenance manual?

Xiong Tao secretly felt regretful.

Such a talented young man shouldn’t be just trained as a magical equipment mechanic or a refiner’s assistant. He should be allowed to climb higher mountains!

”Contact this guy Li Yao for me. I have a few questions for him,” said Xiong Tao emotionlessly and expressionlessly.

The young man showing up on the light beam somewhat surprised Xiong Tao.

Because of the long time of confinement inside a starship without any contact with lights, Li Yao’s skin was apparently fairer than before, but his eyes, in which sparks seemed to be bursting from time to time, were even deeper and darker. No one would be able to tell what kind of things were buried behind the ink-like eyes.

Besides…

Staying inside a starship remnant that was filled with darkness for an entire week was usually an unbearable thing. Many people would cry to return to the company of their companions after one or two days. Even the most determined people would be somewhat agitated after a week of solitude.

But Li Yao was perfectly peaceful without the slightest sign of discomfort; he seemed to be enjoying the loneliness.

Xiong Tao appreciated such a quality.

Refining was an art of loneliness. For most of the time, a refiner had to keep themselves alone in a refining workshop.

In order to find the most suitable materials for a certain kind of magical equipment, they would often have to try thousands of times tirelessly, without any confidence that they could succeed at last.

When the sword Cultivators rode their swords, flying in the air and enjoying the reverence of thousands of people, refiners were walking on the path of turning unknown into known.

Those who could not bear loneliness were definitely not made to be refiners.

Those who could bear loneliness yet couldn’t enjoy it would never become excellent refiners.

Only those who found fun in loneliness and even built a world of their own with which they entertained themselves could become the real experts in the art of refining!

Seeing Li Yao’s appearance, Xiong Tao had totally believed what he said. The chief refiner asked straightforwardly, ”How much of the Level 1 of ’Starship Maintenance Manual’ have you grasped? 80%?”

If Li Yao’s progress had reached 80%, Xiong Tao would put Li Yao in charge of several unimportant areas by himself for further observation.

Li Yao pondered for a moment about whether or not he should conceal part of his capability.

But very soon, he made up his mind because he had to seize every second and every opportunity to improve his capability in order to learn the best skills in the holy land of Cultivation of the Flying Star Sector, refine the strongest magical equipment, and find his way home!

Even if he could conceal part of capability right now, it would definitely still be exposed later in his training. By that time, his disguise right now would inevitably raise a lot of suspicion.

Therefore, he might as well show them his true abilities from the start!

Figuring the logic out, Li Yao stared Xiong Tao in eye and said, ”I’ve fully grasped the first three levels, and I grasped 79.5% of the first five levels. Level 6, 33.2%. As for the files beyond Level 6, I haven’t touched them yet.”

Xiong Tao was speechless for three seconds.

The other four refiners were dumbfounded.

Three seconds later, Xiong Tao took a deep breath and replied calmly, ”Alright. Please wait a moment.”

The communication was cut off. The four refiners’ doubtful exclamations echoed nonstop.

”Within only seven days, not only did he finish cleaning up so many components, he also managed to learn half of the ’Starship Maintenance Manual’?

”Impossible. It’s simply impossible. At best, he skimmed through it. How on earth could he grasp it?”

”Stop arguing!”

Xiong Tao glared at them and said, ”I’m going to prepare a special examination for him, with all the faults that happened to Gold Horn in the past seven days as the questions. Now, let’s gather the major malfunctions and the minor ones in your respective areas from over the past week.”

”In my area, a spiritual energy transmission tube was jammed once, resulting in a power rune array overloading and eventually exploding. Also, two power rune arrays interfered with each other and the spiritual pressure plunged. This fault is very rare. We spent thirty minutes ruling out all the other possibilities before we finally located the problem,” said the refiner who was in charge of the engine compartment.

”In my place, the artificial gravity disappeared abruptly twice, and four kinds of magical equipment whose units were sensitive to gravity were flying everywhere inside them. Because the gravity was only away very briefly, we failed to find the source of the problem until we dug deep.”

”It’s needless to say too much about the turret zone. Although the few turrets have been repaired for emergencies, small problems are occurring to them every day, and big ones are happening to them every other day! There’s not a single hour that it functions without error!”

The four refiners all spoke enthusiastically. Very soon, more than a hundred faults of various sorts were gathered.

Together with the three zones that Xiong Tao himself was in charge of, 182 faults were collected and transmitted to Li Yao’s mini crystal processor as a special examination paper.

Looking at the dense, transparent illustrations spinning around his head, Li Yao couldn’t be more thrilled. His face was red while he breathed heavily.

The questions on the paper was not in the least pedantic but associated with a lot of real-life situations. They were all comprehensive questions that could potentially affect the entire starship.

The paper is a finely-made one. The questions are very realistic!

For an expert in refining such as Li Yao, nothing excited him more than a finely-made exam.

Li Yao licked his lips. He stuffed almost twenty meat buns into his mouth in a row and washed them down with high-nutrition liquid in order to replenish his energy.

Then, he put a neat iron ring on his head.

The iron ring was a piece of self-made magical equipment of Li Yao’s. It was an upgraded version of the ’Freezing Ring’ that he had used back in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Other than the freezing rune arrays carved on the ring that could cool down the brain, it could also monitor the circulation of blood inside the head and automatically inject medication drugs.

When the blood inside his head was flowing too fast, the iron ring would promptly inject the medication drugs to bring up the hardness of cerebrovascular vessels and reduce their odds of fracture. If the situation was too bad, it would send warnings so that Li Yao could lower his brain cell activity and avoid the fate of mental derangement.

Let’s begin!

Li Yao rubbed his fists and grinned hideously. He lunged at the paper like a hungry wolf charging at a lamb.