Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The Fist King finally reached the most critical point. Han Te and Liu Li pricked their ears, and Li Yao condensed his soul, not missing a single detail.

“At that time,” the Fist King said, “he was being hunted and heavily wounded. He was almost somewhat deranged when he fell into the underground abyss. Then, he was bitten by a mutated beast, which wanted to drag him back to its nest as food.

“Having contemplated below the ground for a hundred years, I had nothing more to learn after absorbing all the information in the sanctuary. I was planning to leave the underground world and return to the surface for new upgrades.

“As I’d happened upon such a human being, I rescued him along the way and wanted to uncover the latest intelligence about the surface from him.

“After upgrading for a hundred years, my combat ability was countless times stronger than the past. Those mutated beasts were naturally no match for me.

“It was a shame that Lei Zonglie had already been half gnawed by the mutated beast. Even his brain was exposed to the air, and a large piece of it had been bitten off.

“In the underground sanctuary, there was medical equipment left from a thousand years ago. I managed to keep Lei Zonglie alive, but I was unable to restore his bodily functions and normal thinking. His limbs withered, his spine was broken, and his internal organs were only sustained by the medical equipment. He might as well have been stuck in a medical cabin, paralyzed and unable to move at all.

“Lei Zonglie’s body couldn’t have been more wretched, but he was more than excited. After witnessing me killing dozens of mutated beasts in a row quickly and bringing him into the underground sanctuary, he was so thrilled that he asked if I was a legendary ‘old grandpa’ who would teach him unparalleled techniques so that he would be able to avenge himself and make great accomplishments.

“There being no reason to lie to him, I told him frankly that I was not an ‘old grandpa’. Besides, his body and his soul were both weaker than ever. His life was as unstable as a candle in the wind. Half a second away from the medical cabin was enough to get him killed. Even I could not help him leave the darkness. In two years at most, his life would eventually be exhausted and ended.

“After hearing that, he had a complete meltdown. Also because of his incomplete brains, he finally became an out-and-out lunatic.”

Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other in bewilderment. Then they looked at Li Yao in confusion at the same time.

They did not expect the truth to be like this.

“Although Lei Zonglie went mad, he did speak of a lot of things in his crazy talk, including his life story.

“His story is similar to the legend of ‘Fist King Lei Zonglie’ that is widely spread outside. He was a teenager from a common village in a Desolate World. Then, his village was demolished by a gang, and he became a slave to the tough bandits. Later, he rose as cannon fodder and turned into a captain of a major force after years of bloody fights. In the end, because of his remarkable performance, his companions were jealous of him and set him up. He fell into the abyssal ruins, only to be picked up by the mutated beast and dragged to the underground sanctuary. That part is true.

“It is a shame that there are not so many comebacks in reality. His life eventually ended there. Too many people had appeared in the Land of Sins over the past hundreds of years. All of them turned into piles of bones and dry dust. Nothing more.

“Just like that, day after day, I managed to sustain Lei Zonglie’s life with the nutrition liquids squeezed out of the dead bodies of the mutated beasts, while he bulged his eyes and told me his stories, staring at the darkness around him.

“He told me of his younger years in his village, where there was still joy among the family and friends despite the poor life. At that time, he did not understand the true meaning of hardship.

“He told me about the feeling when he saw his own family being killed miserably before his eyes and swallowed by furious flames. His regret hurt as much as an iron hook being pierced through his internal organs and dragging them out through his throat. But it was a pity that I could never sense such a feeling however vivid his descriptions are.

“He told me of the wrath, hatred, and craziness in his head when an explosive neck ring was attached to him, and he charged at the enemy as cannon fodder. Not only did he hate those who destroyed his family, who turned him into a slave, who sold him again and again, and who were fighting him right now, he even hated every person and every animal in the Land of Sins.

“He shared his ecstasy when he finally got rid of his identity as a slave and became an official member of the gang after making abundant contributions and his endless ambition after the ecstasy. Being a member of an insignificant gang was not his destiny. He had never intended to become a tough bandit, but now that the heavens had pushed him to that point, he would certainly grow into the meanest, maddest, and most sadistic thug in the world and stab his chainsword into the belly of the heavens!

“Every time he talked about that with flames spurting out of his eyes, he would always wail and struggle hard in tears, almost ripping apart his chest. At this moment, his self-awareness was very clear, and his thinking ability was briefly back to normal. He knew that stories were just stories, legends were just legends, and there were not so many miracles in the real world. He was hopeless and destined to die an unknown death there.

“I listened quietly next to him, watching the human being vent his emotions, his hope and his desperation. It was not very unusual. From the journals and last words of so many human beings in the sanctuary, I had already learned that one tended to be very expressive when they were about to die.

“I met a lot of human beings in the Land of Sins a hundred years ago. I fought side by side with some of them and killed some others, but I never thought that there was anything special about human beings. They were just targets that could be destroyed, just like rocks and other spiritual puppets.

“However, after learning from human beings for a hundred years in the underground world, I suddenly grew an interest in the creature that was human being.

“I vaguely knew that I was created by human beings. Then, were human beings, as my creators, stronger than me? If I intend to become the ‘strongest’, should I try to learn from human beings more deeply?

“Perhaps I should adjust my logical thinking circuits and reconstruct a more enormous and complicated database to fully simulate human beings’ way of thinking. I could try to simulate the so-called ‘feelings’ and even ‘will’, eventually creating something similar to a… ‘mind’, couldn’t I?

“It was a project worth being pushed forward. I got to work immediately. With Lei Zonglie as a teacher, I scanned and simulated his everything, including his demeanor, his thinking pattern, his anger and hatred, his dreams and ambitions, and his hope and desperation.

“As the days went by, Lei Zonglie became more and more feeble, insane, and incomprehensible.

“It could not be helped. Although I could recover the medical facilities in the underground sanctuary, there was not enough medication and high-energy food. The assets I collected from the mutate beasts I hunted were far from enough to sustain Lei Zonglie’s life.

“His self-awareness blurred, and his thinking abilities gradually dispersed. He could barely remember things of the past but only shouted at the sky again and again.

“Stronger! Stronger! I will grow into the strongest Fist King in the Land of Sins!

“I will unite all the gangs in the Land of Sins, I will conquer all the Elysian Worlds, and I will wage a war on Manjusaka, the City in the Sky!

“Manjusaka, what the f*ck are you exactly? What the f*ck is our world anyway?

“Hahaha. Nobody can kill me. I will not die. I certainly will not die before Manjusaka is blown down. Just go to hell now, Manjusaka! Go to hell!

“Lei Zonglie cried, laughed, and struggled, with blood and mucus spurting out of the wounds on his face and his body while he uttered such coarse shrieks.

“It was quite odd. My highest instruction was to be stronger. While Lei Zonglie had been reduced to such a state, his greatest wish was also to be stronger. The goal that everybody I came across in the Land of Sins before ever pursued seemed to be to get stronger. Also, nobody cared about the cost or the means. Was becoming stronger really some sort of truth?

“Finally, the data that I had been monitoring closely implied that Lei Zonglie was about to die.

“His bodily functions declined comprehensively, but his last bit of vitality was transmitted into his brains, making sure that his soul was clear for a short while. To quote human beings, it was the last moment of consciousness before their death.

“Lei Zonglie seemed to have realized where he was and what he had been through. He recognized who I was, too.

“With his bloody, deformed body, he clung to me and cried like a child who had just lost his children. He said that he was too regretful to die such an eventless death just like that. His revenge had not been sought, his accomplishments had not been achieved, and Manjusaka was still hanging in the sky, yet to be shot down. He could not die. He did not want to die just like that.

“He begged me to help him survive and, if I couldn’t, live on his behalf and help him shoot down the entire sky! He wanted everybody in the City in the Sky to taste the feeling in his childhood when his home was burnt to the ground and all his family danced in the ocean of fire.”

The more they listened, the more scared Han Te and Liu Li became. They both pictured the most horrifying scene in their head.

In the dark, deep underground world, a deformed, incomplete cripple whose brains were exposed to the air clung to a metal skeleton, gnashing his teeth, and screaming to cast the most vicious curse!

“T-therefore…” Han Te stammered, “Master Fist King, you promised him?”

“I was not set to be obliged to take human beings’ orders,” the Fist King said casually. “However, since my goal was to be stronger, travelling as a human being to experience and examine more things and to search for the strength hidden in feelings, will, ambitions, and hatred seemed to be a route of upgrading that was worth trying.

“Besides, if I wanted to become ‘strongest’, wasn’t it only natural for me to blow up Manjusaka, the City in the Sky? No strength should dwarf the ‘strongest’ and trick the ‘strongest’ blatantly as a toy or a test subject!”