Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao said, ”I know that the few inhabitable planets that have atmospheres generally have harsh environments. They are frequented by demon beasts and barbarians. Where did the barbarians come from?”

Huangpu Xiaoya bit her lips and said softly, ”They are not barbarians.”

Li Yao raised an eyebrow. ”Then what are they?”

Huangpu Xiaoya said, loudly, ”They are— qi 1 trainers!”

”Qi trainers?”

Li Yao chewed on the name for a while, and he couldn’t be more curious. ”I know the difference between regular Cultivators and Immortal Cultivators. But what are ’qi trainers’ exactly? Judging from your reaction, I suppose that the Cultivators at that time did something they were not particularly proud of, which you are ashamed of even to this day.

”Why did so many Cultivators degrade themselves and abandon their duties as Cultivators to become ’space pirates’ who rage in the sea of stars and raise chaos? According to Huangpu Shiyi, there seems to be more to the story!”

However, Huangpu Xiaoya stopped explaining further. Her eyes were somewhat at a loss. She gazed at the wall, as if she was watching the cold, bleak vacuum of the cosmos outside of the metal cabin.

”Did you know?”

After speechless for a moment, Huangpu Xiaoya said gloomily, ”The universe is dark. Too dark.”

Having said what she had to say, she lay on her bed, too, and stopped talking, as if all the strength inside her bones had been pumped away.

Li Yao didn’t make much of it. He devoted himself to the competition against the detectaphone again.

Half a day later, the floor under their feet quivered. Spluttering sounds of electric currents could be heard. The hair of both of them was floating in the air beyond their control.

The starship had finished preparation and was about to perform a space jump!

Through a space jump, a starship could reach lightyears away within a moment through the four-dimension, but there were a lot of restrictions to it.

In the Heaven’s Origin Sector, to teleport a star shuttle less than twenty meters long to hundreds of lightyears away, it already required special rails and would cost a huge amount of spiritual energy.

The civilization of the Flying Star Sector was a bit more developed than that of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, and the space jump technologies were more advanced. But the starships here were larger in size and often carried more goods and passengers.

In essence, although the catapult had been upgraded, the stones being sent were larger and heavier. As a result, the distance and precision of the launch were not improved by much.

To shatter the void with such a large starship would consume astronomical spiritual energy, not to mention the preparation procedures that could take hours.

In addition, there could not be serious cracks or damages on the shell of the starship. Otherwise, it might break apart in the four-dimensional space during the space jump. If so, everyone on board would be ripped open.

It was why no starships ever attempted to escape via a space jump when they were engaged with enemies. That would be a suicidal action.

It was also why Gold Horn had spent several months, and even risked passing through the Dim Flame Belt, in order to return to the Thousand Sails Space Zone, instead of being teleported right back. Gold Horn was too seriously damaged to withstand the tearing force when shattering the void.

For space pirates or members of the Temple of Immortals, it was even more complicated.

The sea of stars seemed peaceful, but it was, in fact, full of fatal traps, including swirls and storms. Not every place was suitable for star beacons.

Most of the places tolerable for star beacons had been occupied by various sects, who gradually spread out with the star beacons at the center. The star beacons were intersections of the universal highways.

The so-called ’space zones’ were actually settlements that had expanded around the large-scale star beacons.

Since this particular starship belonged to the Temple of Immortals, it was not likely that it would jump to a space beacon of the Cultivators. The starship would be turning itself in if so.

During their thousands of years of hiding and running, space pirates had built many smaller star beacons in secret in the remote, less populated areas, too. However, they were often attacked by the Exo Societies and the Cultivation sects.

Therefore, they were not able to be teleported somewhere near the Great Horn Exo Society directly.

After performing the first space jump, the starship sailed in the sea of stars for several days more.

Li Yao estimated that they’d jumped to the secret star beacon that was closest to the Great Horn Exo Society and they would cruise the rest of the way to the Great Horn Exo Society in stealth mode.

During that time, White Dew and Black Stone brought them food every day, but Huangpu Shiyi never showed up. He seemed to be rather patient.

Li Yao seemed to have really become a maniac of magical equipment. He was completely dedicated to the competition against the hidden crystal cameras and detectaphones that Huangpu Shiyi had set up.

During the three days, he had dismantled 25 crystal cameras and 18 detectaphones, but the alarm system had been triggered nine times, too.

He was completely dwelled in the world of magical equipment. He was more and more enthusiastic about it and didn’t feel tired in the least.

Huangpu Xiaoya, on the other hand, was getting increasingly anxious each day.

Every day, besides food, Black Stone and White Dew would bring them a crystal processor that had been denied access to the Spiritual Nexus. There was the latest news that the Temple of Immortals and Black Spider Tower had gathered on it.

According to the information, a lot of important things had happened over the past three days!

During his decades of lawless life as a space pirate, Fengyu Zhong had slaughtered more Cultivators than anybody could count, including disciples of major sects and many family members of Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

Even the grandson of a Nascent Soul Stage had been killed by him twelve years ago!

Besides, Fengyu Zhong was not alone. From various sources, the Cultivators had gathered that several large-scale gangs on Spider Den had marched at the Great Horn Exo Society with their full strength.

Therefore, all the Cultivators considered the battle to be a great opportunity to strike the space pirates.

Gold Horn seemed to be voyaging in the space alone. But more than eighty heavy starships were hiding in the few space zones and world fragments nearby. More than fifty Core Formation Stage Cultivators and three Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, including the one whose grandson had been killed by Fengyu Zhong and the friends that he asked to help with his revenge, had been ready.

As for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators and Refinement Stage Cultivators, there were simply too many of them. They were all the elites of the major sects and had been summoned to this place in secret.

The battle was definitely the biggest operation in the world of Cultivators in the last thirty years.

However, wherever Gold Horn wandered in the sea of stars, the said main force of the space pirates never showed up.

After mobilizing most of their elites, many bases of the sects found themselves unable to protect themselves, especially those who had deep grudges with the space pirates and had sent out all their Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators!

As it turned out, an important mining base of the Endless Sea Sect was assaulted!

All the stored Gold Tide Stones, which could only be produced in this particular mining base, had been looted. A lot of disciples of Endless Sea Sect as well a few specialists adept at distinguishing raw stones had been captured!

The space pirates had even blown up the entire mining base. The production wouldn’t be restored without two to three years of reconstruction!

In the meantime, the base of Red Dragon Union, which had sent its only two Core Formation Stage Cultivators and a large number of battle-type Cultivators to clear the bandits, were ambushed by space pirates. Many disciples were killed, and more were held as hostages!

The only Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator of Destructive Wind Hall went to take care of the bandits. The remaining three non-battle-type elders were assassinated at the same time!

Blood was flowing everywhere in the sea of stars.

For hundreds of years, Cultivators of the Flying Star Sector had considered space pirates to be nothing more than dermatitis.

Although space pirates meant catastrophe for the lone space towns, they could only run away like rats when faced with massive Cultivators and hide themselves in stone belts or behind space storms, hoping in desperation that they would not be caught.

It was not until this moment that the Cultivators realized how powerful the space pirates really were and how enormous their intelligence network was. Every step that the Cultivators made had been predicted by them!

To be fair, the Cultivators were still in an overwhelming advantage in regard to manpower and strength. Not just space pirates, even the Temple of Immortals behind them was not enough to confront the Cultivators head-on.

The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were like the pillars of the world of Cultivators. They were invincible and unshakable.

The problem was, one could never know when a thief would come to visit. Not every sect was guarded by Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. Most sects were far away from each other with very bad transportation. Timely assistance was often impossible.

As strong as the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator might be, they were dispersed in the sea of stars and had to stay in the headquarters of their own sects most of the time so as to protect the precious resources and the large number of non-battle-type Cultivators.

This time, a few Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators had seized the initiative to launch an attack, only to find that their homes were invaded while they were away!

To some extent, the Temple of Immortals had fully exploited the potential of ’unrestricted warfare’ and ’asymmetric strike’.

The overall peace of the Flying Star Sector that had lasted for hundreds of years was shattered in three days of chaos!

A great era of storm and thunder, when blood and bravery surged and heroes distinguished themselves, had come!

The bad news frustrated Huangpu Xiaoya, who couldn’t feel more awful.

But Li Yao completely disregarded the crystal processor. Sometimes, he would glance at it. But he devoted much of his time to the ’competition’ between Huangpu Shiyi and himself.

It was not until the fifth day that he managed to dismantle the last detectaphone left by Huangpu Shiyi.

Huangpu Shiyi deserved to be the most talented genius in the circle of refiners for the last thirty years. The detectaphones and crystal cameras he had developed were big eye-openers for Li Yao, who had been inspired a lot by their structure.

After five days of competitive dismantling, Li Yao was soaked in sweat, but his understanding about precise magical equipment had reached a whole new level.

As the last detectaphone was removed, Huangpu Shiyi finally invited Li Yao for a second meeting.

This time, the conversation was located in Huangpu Shiyi’s refining workshop.

In the middle of the workshop was an eye-catching platform made of black wood that looked like a giant coffin. Two weird things were placed on the platform.

The first item was some sort of a model of bushes that seemed to be made of certain silver metal. It looked like a maze and gave a weird, blood-freezing feeling of beauty.

The second item was the model of a monkey. It was a regular snub-nosed monkey. Its two eyes had been specially decorated and looked very attractive. The model was as vivid as the real thing, as if it were about to lunge forward at any moment.