Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Three days later, in the northwest edge of the Furious Bears Tribe’s territory, beside a zigzagging valley…

Hundreds of years ago, there used to a running river in this place, but it had dried long ago due to climate change.

The riverbed, infiltrated by the underground mother lodes, was as red as blood. Looking from afar, a crimson river seemed to be still flowing slowly.

The hundreds of square kilometers nearby were uninhabited, but weird sounds were echoing in a forsaken mine.

The dense sounds seemed to suggest that a tornado was savaging the cave, or that two primordial beasts were fighting each other in the depths of the mine. Occasionally, deafening explosions would burst out from hundreds of meters below the ground, blowing smog mixed with stone powder of various colors out of the cave.

Finally, everything went peaceful again that afternoon. An exhausted man, dragging quite a number of fully-loaded carts, crawled out of the cave.

Colorful stone powder was all over Li Yao’s body. Even his face had become fuzzy. His hands were shivering, and his sweat that dropped to the ground vaporized immediately due to the high temperature.

He hurried to pour half a bottle of clean water into his mouth. In great satisfaction, Li Yao licked his dry lips and suddenly kicked over the few carts, allowing all the items inside them to roll out. He then examined the works that he had refined crazily in the previous three days.

The first cart was packed with bullets.

The True Qi guns on Iron Plateau launched bullets by spiritual gas that the qi-trainers blew in from the back of the weapon.

Theoretically speaking, even an iron ball could deal unparalleled damage when it was granted with enough momentum.

However, the impetus of spiritual gas was limited anyway. To increase the damage of the guns, he’d had to revise the bullets.

Those bullets were crafted from the corpses of the apocalyptic beasts and high-purity crystals.

Most of the bullets were armor-piercing projectiles. The most solid bones of the dragon-level beasts were utilized as cores, and the crystals stored inside the bullets would explode furiously after they pierced the target’s body.

For those in the low level of the Refinement Stage, such bullets could wipe them out instantly!

The second cart carried several guns and melee weapons. They had all been renewed after he’d added the bones of the apocalyptic beasts and special alloys to them.

Since nobody was around, Li Yao was able to perform the best of the ancient arts of refining that he knew. He utilized all the materials perfectly and improved the strength and sharpness of the weapons to their maximum.

In the third cart was ’Thunder Roar’, the deadly weapon that could spray Wolf Fangs out like they were bullets!

Li Yao had redesigned ’Thunder Roar’ so that it could launch the oval-shaped crystal bombs that he had specially made.

The crystal bombs looked as unattractive as eggs, but they were made of the cores of the dragon-level beasts. One of them was enough to blow up half of a mine or clear the small fries within a hundred square meters.

Even the experts in the Building Foundation Stage or the Core Formation Stage might not be bold enough to confront such explosive bullets!

What was most shocking was that he had crafted two hundred such explosive bullets at the cost of almost all the precious trophies from the battle of the apocalypse!

Refining such Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures into bullets and crystal bombs was the most wasteful way to make use of them. Even Li Yao felt slightly regretful.

But there were no other options. His time was too limited for him to create the exquisite and elegant magical equipment. He could only choose the simplest, the roughest, and the wildest style!

I’m truly sorry, six tribes of Iron Plateau. I’ve wasted so many of your resources for my own usage! But if we cannot make it through this war, there will be no future for Iron Plateau at all!

If we can grit our teeth through the disaster and unveil the scheme of the Temple of Immortals, the Immortal Cultivators will become our common foe. Interspace trade will be as certain as anything can ever be. However many resources I’ve wasted, they can be traded back later!

While thinking, Li Yao kicked over the fourth cart.

Rolling on the ground were the components of a set of armor that looked like the shell of a beetle.

”Sky Scorpion Armor, suit up!”

Li Yao took a deep breath. Spiritual gas surged out of his body and spread out like ripples, raising a strong attraction force.

The components on the ground were absorbed to him one by one. They were combined and assembled into an awe-inspiring armor!

The brand-new Sky Scorpion Armor had been upgraded with the materials of the apocalyptic beasts!

Although the structure was basically the same, unlike the previous Sky Scorpion Armor, which only simulated the appearance of the Emperor Sand Scorpion and was made of common metals, the new Sky Scorpion Armor had employed a large quantity of shells and bones of apocalyptic beasts and even part of the body materials of the two calamity-level beasts!

One of the two calamity-level beasts was a sturdy being that could resist the collective attack of more than ten experts around the 80th level of the Refinement Stage. The defensive ability of its shell was almost equal to that of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator!

As for the giant sandworm, the other calamity-level beast, although its skin was soft, the defense ability of the beast was equally impressive. The circular blade-like teeth inside its mouthpart were perfect to be embedded on the surface of the armor as thorns, too!

Putting on the brand-new Sky Scorpion Armor, Li Yao seemed to have turned into a human-shaped apocalyptic beast. He couldn’t have been more horrifying!

But it was not the end yet.

After putting on the armor, Li Yao showed no signs of stopping. He moved forward and kicked over the fifth cart. It was still armor components that were rolling on the ground, except that they were larger in size and much more primitive and crazier!

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Attracted by Li Yao’s spiritual gas, the giant armor components all flew in the air and circled around him.

Li Yao’s feet left the ground, and he floated at an altitude of three meters high. He stretched out his arms to let the new components be attached to the Sky Scorpion Armor.

In the Sky Scorpion Armor, he was almost 2.2 meters tall. But after the new components were plugged into it, he turned into a giant almost four meters tall!

The upper body of the dual armor was like a monolithic scorpion that had stood straight. Distinctive features of spiders could be found on it, too. On the back of the shoulders, two claws resembling the forelegs of mantis protruded. A long horn that looked like a spear extended high into the sky on the helmet!

The whole armor was mostly black with gold stripes all over the body, which made it look like a tiger crossed with an insect!

It was an Ares Extension!

Ares Extensions could provide enhancements to a crystal suit and made it surpass its limits during combat briefly. They could only be used once or twice, so they were installed with all kinds of devastating attack rune arrays and strengthening plugins.

Li Yao had retrieved a ’Dragon Scale Extension’ on Boneyard. The power of the Ares Extension had left a deep impression on him. When he arrived in the Flying Star Sector, he had collected a lot of files about such equipment and tried to devise an Ares Extension on his own several times.

But as his research proceeded, he discovered that the cost of crafting an Ares Extension was really too high. All the strengthening plugins had to be made of abundant Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, and the most powerful attack rune arrays could only be driven by the purest crystals.

It was safe to say that every Ares Extension was founded on tremendous wealth, and yet it was essentially an expendable.

Only the affluent imperial army of the Star Ocean Imperium could afford such expensive magical equipment.

After Li Yao finished the cost analysis, he immediately gave up the idea of crafting an Ares Extension.

But right now, with the tremendous Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures he had acquired, and due to the urgent need to improve his combat ability in only a couple of days, Li Yao finally created an Ares Extension without even thinking about the cost.

Since all the strengthening components were made of materials from the apocalyptic beasts, he had named this particular Ares Extension ’Apocalyptic Extension’!

BOOM!

With the Apocalyptic Extension on his body, Li Yao’s terrifyingly oppressive aura was even stronger than before. Air waves spread out crazily when he only slightly exerted his strength. Sand was raging in the desert, but the hundred square meters around him couldn’t have been clearer because every tiny dust had been blown away by his dominating aura!

After swallowing massive Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures with the Art of the Swallowing Whale, I have reached the 81st level of the Refinement Stage, which equals to somewhere between the high level and the peak of the Building Foundation Stage.

Together with the Sky Scorpion Armor that has exploited the essence of the apocalyptic beasts and this powerful Apocalyptic Extension, I can fight a Core Formation Stage Cultivator for a while when the situation demands!

”Little Black, let’s go!”

Black Wing had greatly enjoyed itself with Li Yao over the last couple of days. Having swallowed quite a lot of cores of apocalyptic beasts, it contained more spiritual energy than ever before.

As Li Yao roared, intense streaks of blackness spurted out of the sword and darted toward the north like a rocket.

After passing through thousands of kilometers in the desolate area west of the territories of the six tribes, he finally entered the so-called ’Dark Continent’.

However, Li Yao did not dive into it immediately. He meandered in the desolate area and searched for the terrain that he needed.

Eventually, he found a valley to his satisfaction. He then crawled into a cave in the depths of the valley.

He sprayed the broken cloths and pieces of daily necessities that he had prepared before into the cave and carved various traces on the wall of the cave with a bone blade.

The Hundred Smelting Clan had a lot of secret arts that could disguise magical equipment into everyday objects. Some of them could be used to camouflage rocks, too.

After delicate decoration, the cave looked as if somebody had lived here long ago.

Maybe very soon, the preparations in the cave would come in handy.

Li Yao checked one last time to make sure there were no loopholes. After that, he went westward and marched into the Dark Continent!