Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao had found it hilarious in the beginning, but he soon realized that it might not be a bad outcome. If he shaved his face clean and put on ordinary clothes in space, nobody would recognize who he was if they did not observe him carefully and have a pair of keen eyes. A lot of his trouble could be saved.

After he entered the superlative height of the Building Foundation Stage, his control over the muscles throughout his body became more delicate than before. He could even slightly change the shape of his bones.

Li Yao’s current face was vastly different from when he participated in the Skyhill Sword Seminar. It was even more ordinary right now. He had also changed his hands a little bit. Therefore, Xie Anan failed to recognize him.

The girl blinked and felt a familiar scent from the guy ’Sand Scorpion’, as if she had seen him a long, long time ago. Her face flushed, she said, ”Nice to meet you, too, Master Sand Scorpion. I didn’t think that you would still remember me.”

Li Yao smiled. ”Of course I do. It was thanks to your calmness on Iron Plateau that the following rescue mission was carried out successfully.”

However, his words made Xie Anan’s face even redder. She lowered her head and looked at her feet while she thought to herself, He still remembers me.

Hou Zitao finally came back to himself. He was secretly delighted because Sand Scorpion did not appear to be an unfriendly guy. He immediately signaled to his companions and put on a sunny smile, while he said, ”Master Sand, nice to meet you. I’m Hou Zitao from the Refining Department. I volunteered to greet you when I was told that you were coming to the Refining Department as a visiting scholar.

”Everybody knows that Master Sand Scorpion is the best warrior of the six tribes of Iron Plateau, but few of them are aware that you are adept at the arts of refining, too. We’ve all seen the 3D photos and structural designs of the True Qi armors, True Qi blades, and crystal bombs modified by you. They are indeed quite sophisticated and can be described as top-tier in many regards! We can’t wait to share our research programs with Master Sand and hear your enlightenment!

”Take the program that I’ve been working on for example. I feel that Cultivators nowadays do not have a good solution to the alternation of remote magical equipment and melee magical equipment yet.

”When a gun runs out of ammo or crystal cells, it becomes completely useless. On the other hand, sabers and swords cannot attack the enemy in a long distance.

”A Cultivator often has to bring a gun as well as a melee weapon in order to meet the need of both remote and melee combat. In regard of load, logistics, and maintenance, such a design is a great burden!

”Therefore, I’m preparing to devise a super weapon that combines remote magical equipment and melee magical equipment so that the problem can be solved once and for all. The burden for Cultivators and logistics will be greatly relieved!

”You know that the Temple of Immortals and space pirates have been running rampant recently. Our supply lines have been seriously affected by them. If such super weapons are successfully developed, the returns will be very promising!

”If you are interested, Master Sand, you are welcome to my laboratory any time. We can even research together!

”Truth be told, my research has already entered the most crucial procedure. As long as the last sum of investment is in position, our first prototype will be produced shortly, and it is only a matter of time before they are mass-produced!”

Li Yao smiled. ”You are too courteous, Master Hou. Despite your young age, you’ve published five papers in ’Bimonthly Journal of the Gunnery Association’ and ’Light Magical Equipment Studies’ and are well-acknowledged as an expert in regards of guns.

”I’ve read all your papers. Your modification plan of ’Icy Flames Explosive Bullets’, in which you proposed to mix the spiritual energy of the ice class and that of the fire class before it is released to make the best of the mechanism of thermal expansion and contraction, gave me a lot of insights. The formulas and rune arrays you mentioned in your article were of tremendous help to me.

”However, I’m not the best at the gun-type magical equipment, and I do not know much about the arts of shooting. Of course, we can exchange our ideas and thoughts, but I wouldn’t be bold enough to call my words enlightenment.”

Hearing his words, Hou Zitao and the other young refiners were greatly surprised. They had thought that Sand Scorpion was an idiot who knew nothing about refining, and yet he could comment on Hou Zitao’s paper?

The four of them looked at each other in bewilderment. They had been planning to brag about themselves, but they were uncertain of the newcomer’s knowledge right now and did not know whether or not they should stick to their plan.

Li Yao smiled casually. After the deal of cooperation between Flying Star University and Iron Plateau was settled, he had been authorized to read the files and papers of the Refining Department of Flying Star University.

Other than the confidential projects, most of the projects were accessible to public. Their relative files could be bought on academic websites.

Of course, the core data was kept secret. But for an expert like Li Yao, he could still infer a lot of things from the publicly published papers.

Although he had been staying in the Cross Wind Space Zone over the past month, he had a basic understanding about the studies of every expert and professor in the Refining Department of Flying Star University right now.

Solo magical equipment was a field that he was quite interested in, too. Since it somewhat overlapped with Hou Zitao’s studies, Li Yao had spent quite some time studying the guy’s theories.

Li Yao smiled and said, ”Master Hou, it is an interesting idea to combine remote magical equipment with melee magical equipment. However, although the methodology you choose is not wrong, you’ve increased a lot of unnecessary difficulties for yourself. Technologically speaking, combining vibration sabers and spiritual guns is too complicated and too costly, if the plan succeeds at all.”

Hou Zitao was greatly shocked. He took a step back and blurted out, ”There are so many kinds of melee magical equipment. How did you know that I was going to combine vibration sabers with spiritual guns?”

Li Yao explained, ”The latest paper you wrote elaborated on the application of ’Mid Noon Electricity Brewer’, an ancient rune array, in modern magical equipment.

”As far as I know, this particular rune array’s efficiency of storing and releasing thunder is extremely low, and it has many other shortcomings. Even in the ancient Cultivation world forty thousand years ago, it was never an excellent rune array and has been forsaken for a long time.

”Such a rune array is definitely a good choice if you want to improve the damage of the weapon with the power of thunder.

”The weak magnetic field generated by the ancient rune array is also an excellent buffer to offset the shaking resulting from vibrations.

”With consideration of other studies that you’ve been working on, I speculated that you were trying to combine vibration sabers with spiritual guns. However, the high-frequency vibration of the saber would lead to the violent quakes of the barrel. You were looking for a special buffer material or rune array to offset the vibration without affecting the precision of shooting and the damage of the saber.”

Hou Zitao was dumbfounded. A drop of cold sweat trickled down his forehead.

That was exactly his idea. Sand Scorpion had guessed his modification plan based on a few papers he had written even though the guy had been living on the desolate Iron Plateau the whole time?

That—that’s too monstrous! Who said that he was a silly, wealthy bumpkin who was readily foolable?

Besides, the Mid Noon Electricity Brewer was a very ancient, unpopular rune array, with a low efficiency in both the storage and the release of thunderbolts. In the ancient Cultivation world forty thousand years ago, dozens of rune arrays of the thunder class shared similar functions and could replace it. Therefore, even the ancient Cultivators did not use such a rune array much. Its inheritance had been lost since long ago!

Hou Zitao had only learned about the existence of such a rune array and the special buffering ability it could offer from a mysterious refiner named ’Fiend Star’ on the Spiritual Nexus by accident. That was the starting point of all his studies.

However, this Sand Scorpion knew the Mid Noon Electricity Brewer, too? Unbelievable!

Hou Zitao instantly put on a serious countenance and asked respectfully, ”Master Sand, do you think the approach is wrong?”

”It is not wrong, but it is too difficult and costly.”

Li Yao explained patiently, ”The Mid Noon Electricity Brewer is an ancient rune array from tens of thousands of years ago after all. The structure of the rune array is very primitive, and its stability extremely low. To make sure that it functions steadily on guns, you will have to add another few stabilizing rune arrays for it and even establish a 3D rune array group. Like this, for example.”

Li Yao thought for a moment. Since it was just a casual chitchat instead of a formal discussion, he decided to save himself of the trouble of summoning a light beam. He simply condensed his spiritual energy on his right hand and waved in midair.

Ripples immediately appeared in the air as if it were water.

Li Yao extended dozens of spiritual threads from his fingertips and left traces on the airwaves. Within a breath, more than twenty formulas and structural designs revealed themselves in the air.

Hiss!

Everyone was stunned at the translucent strokes condensed by spiritual gas that were emerging in the air and could not move their eyes away from them.

They all had seen such a technique before. The better of them could also draw runes in the air with their spiritual energy as the ink.

However, the runes they drew would soon disappear like a drop of water dispersing on paper.

Sand Scorpion’s runes in midair, on the other hand, were extremely clear, as if they had been written with a pen. They did not scatter for a long time!

How high is this guy’s Cultivation?

Everyone was greatly shocked.

Hou Zitao was the most shocked one of all, because he found that Sand Scorpion had written a series of formulas quickly and casually related to issues that had bothered him for a long time. They would solve the critical problem at hand completely!

While reading all the formulas, Hou Zitao felt that he had eaten a mouthful of mustard. Coldness was piercing his skull. He did not just feel enlightened; he felt that his brains were being rebuilt!

These—these formulas can be used to calculate the perfect structure of rune arrays for the super weapon combining the vibration sabers and spiritual guns!

Hou Zitao did not even know what to say. He stammered, ”Master Sand Scorpion, you’ve thought through it since long ago.”

After only one minute, he was already addressing ’Master Sand Scorpion’ sincerely now.

Li Yao, on the other hand, frowned and shook his head. ”No. As I said, the approach is too complicated.

”Look, if you adopt such an approach and utilize such a complicate rune array group as a buffer, your final product will definitely have a huge, heavy unit toward the front.

”The most important factor for guns and blades is balance. This redundant unit will be like a lump. Wherever it grows, the balance of the weapon will be seriously affected.

”Not to mention that the buffer unit will also consume a lot of spiritual energy, which means that the working time of the weapon will be significantly reduced.

”There’s also the fault rate. I believe that Master Hou must have seen it, too. Because of the designing principles, the fault rate of the buffer unit will be quite high.”

”Indeed.”

Soaked in sweat, Hou Zitao nodded his head, although he did not actually see a damn thing.

”Combining remote magical equipment and melee magical equipment is for the purpose of reducing the weight and the cost of spiritual energy, as well as easing logistics. But such a malformed weapon with a great lump on it will not achieve the goal. It is not hard to estimate that such weapons will be kept in laboratories after their prototypes are born. They will never be mass-produced, and even if they are, nobody will purchase them,” Li Yao concluded.