Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“A man from the sky?”

Li Jialing twisted the third prisoner’s fist hard, turning his arm from the elbow to the shoulder blade into a screw. “Why does it sound like a tale to me?”

“It’s true. In fact, the environments we grew up in are really quite similar. They are both living dog-eat-dog hells where there are absolutely no laws and one has to do anything one can, such as draining every bit of physical and mental strength, just to see the sunrise tomorrow.”

Li Yao said, “As far as my eyes could reach, wolves, tigers, leopards, and jackals in human skins were everywhere. It was not unusual to search the garbage for an entire day without finding any food to eat. Days of starvation and homelessness were routine. Broken bones and blood-vomiting because of other people’s beating were more than occasional, too.

“I slowly grew up in such a twisted environment. The moment I gained enough abilities to protect myself, I already became cold and heartless. Everything would be fine as long as I could survive. Other people? I didn’t bother to think about them at all!

“While I was not fond of bullying the weak, I never bothered to intervene if the scoundrels in human skins were bullying other people as long as I was not involved.

“At that time, those guys even gave me a nickname. They called me ‘Vulture’, for my sordidness, brutality, and solitude.”

“Vulture Li Yao?”

Li Jialing was slightly dazed. “It sounds like a nickname fit for an Immortal Cultivator.”

“Who can argue with that?”

Li Yao smiled. “If I had kept growing up like that, perhaps I would’ve turned into an out-and-out Immortal Cultivator. I would be indifferent in nature and always act on my own. Maybe I wouldn’t harm anyone voluntarily, but I would not help anyone in trouble either. Just like what you are dreaming to become right now, I would be as free as anyone could’ve been. Everything would be fine as long as nobody messes with me!

“But the old man who arrived from the sky completely changed me. He chattered on, mentioning so many things to my ears restlessly every day, telling me solemnly what was right and what was wrong, what was justice and what was evil. He also dragged me to the darkest corner of the magical equipment graveyard, which was the name of my hometown, to show me how the lonely, helpless little ones were bullied and how they wailed in fear and desperation after that.

“The bullying that the little ones suffered and their wails were experienced by me in exactly the same way before.

“At first, I could not see any reason in the old man’s words at all. I only thought that he was such a chatterbox that my head was going to explode.

“But he was much stronger than I was, and he allured me with very sophisticated technologies of magical equipment maintenance and many bizarre gadgets. To learn his skills, I had no choice except to calm myself down and grit my teeth to listen to the old man’s jibber-jabber.

“But as it turned out, humanity is such a strange thing. For even the coldest and heartless man, as long as a tiny seed is planted into a perfect gap in his heart, there will be a day when the seed sprouts flowers and fruits. Also, the moment when the seed of ’empathy’ truly gives birth to a tiny flower, everything is screwed. The days when one cares nothing about the lives of other people but only his own freedom will be gone for good!

“On the surface, I still turned a blind eye to the miserable lives of the helpless orphans who were bullied flagrantly in the magical equipment graveyard.

“But late at night, when everything was quiet, I began to have dreams, in which the orphans in ragged clothes were shuddering and hugging each other to warm each other up, only to be starved or frozen to death without them knowing it.

“And I was one of them!

“Every time I woke up from such nightmares, my empathy for those orphans would increase by a little bit, and my fury for the adult scavengers would be deeper.

“At that time, I still maintained the most fundamental rationality and restrained myself from messing with the adult scavengers. They all had gangs in their back, which were not something that a teenager and an old man could deal with. If I were to mess with them for only a moment of pleasure, it would definitely cause us infinite trouble.

“But at last, when the old man and I were excavating a pile of valuable garbage, we accidentally saw three adult scavengers pushing an orphan no older than ten to a corner and meaning to do dreadful things to her. I finally lost control of myself. My head went blank, and my empathy replaced my rationality. Together with the old man, I took down the three scumbags in difficulties, which indeed led to overwhelming trouble later. The old trouble wasn’t even resolved yet, and new trouble was already knocking on our door. Even to this day, the troubles do not seem to have completely dispersed!

“This is perhaps the reason why I became a Cultivator in the beginning. In fact, everybody can become a Cultivator as long as he can feel a slight bit of ’empathy’.

“The old man gave me a seed and activated the ’empathy’ in my heart. Now, I’m giving the seed to you. I believe that as an ‘experiment subject’, when you see so many people of your own kind enduring the hardship that you endured in the past, you will eventually find some ’empathy’ somewhere deep down inside your heart, won’t you?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t even know what you are talking about.”

Li Jialing frowned deeply. “Why me?”

“Because of a certain mysterious and unpredictable cycle. Or rather—”

Li Yao said in a smile, “It is just fate!”

BOOM!

Li Jialing blew away the third prisoner with a punch, who wriggled on the ground in difficulties, unable to get back to his feet anymore.

Breathing rapidly and frowning hard, the young man hinted at the surveillance camera at the corner. “It is not satisfying enough. Give me another thirty—no, fifty random prisoners!”

Very soon, fifty bizarre-looking, brawny, and hideous prisoners stood before Li Jialing.

They were all foaming hard, their eyes bloodshot, and the muscles all over their bodies were shivering very unnaturally. It was obvious that they had been injected with excessive excitants.

“This is more like it!”

The young man grinned creepily. The power rune arrays of his crystal suit were triggered to the maximum. The tiny training room was filled up by the noises of exhaust flames tearing apart the air. The blasts swept across every inch of the space like surging tides.

“Hiu!”

Li Jialing turned into a streak of brilliance and lunged at the fifty prisoners.

The prisoners were much stronger than the three prisoners just now. Although they did not carry any equipment, their fists and claws were already the most dangerous weapons. With five fearless berserkers fighting against one Li Jialing, Li Jialing could not completely crush them but was blown away by them again and again into the transparent glass wall brutally.

But in the ecstasy of killing, Li Jialing stomped on the transparent glass wall, again and again, to exert his strength and charge forward. The exhaust flames that spurted out of the power rune arrays at the bottoms of his feet significantly weakened the hardness of the transparent glass wall too.

Finally—

Li Jialing blinked past the sharp claws of two prisoners. On one of his knees, he opened his hands, raising a mini crystal cannon from each of his wrists and shoulders. The four crystal cannons were aimed at the prisoners and bombarded them crazily, but most of the bullets and the mystic rays actually hit the transparent glass wall that was facing the hollow channel of ascension at the center of the prison!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

As if he were crazy, Li Jialing shot out fiery bullets from his hands and his shoulders, which swept across everything like a storm.

Other than blowing away a large batch of prisoners, they also caused interconnected cracks that looked like a spider web on the transparent glass wall.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The wall of the tempered glass here had only considered the situation where the prisoners hit it with a body of flesh and flood. It was beyond the designer’s expectation that someone would launch magical equipment attacks from inside to outside.

Also, Li Jialing’s few heavy thuds at the beginning already significantly diminished the hardness and stability of the transparent glass wall.

Now that it was bombarded by the crystal cannons like a heavy storm, it could not sustain for long at all, and devastating holes immediately appeared on them.

The prisoners who were attacking Li Jialing immediately fell quiet. They looked at the broken glass ball, somewhat in disbelief.

Li Jialing also stopped attacking, as if he was at a loss about what to do.

“Aoooooo!”

The prisoners let out desperate roars that were mixed with the most intense hope and ecstasy. They were almost dancing in joy.

None of them bothered to look at Li Jialing anymore. Everybody simply jumped out through the broken glass wall.

Unhurried alarms immediately began to echo all over the beehive prison.

Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!

As the red and green mystic rays flashed in turn, an invisible, mysterious strength ascended quickly like a flood, drowning the entire beehive prison instantly. The complicated rune arrays on the wall nearby began to emit glamorous and brilliant lights, triggering visible electric arcs between themselves and the shackles of the prisoners!

For a moment, all the prisoners in the cells of all directions were stuck to the floor with their arms and legs stretched. Their shackles were firmly stuck to the floor, and there was not even a gap for a piece of paper.

The prisoners who had already jumped into midair were pulled back by the overwhelming magnetic forces too. They were smashed to the wall, the floor, and the ceiling, like rats that were pinned to a board by nails, unable to move at all.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Some of the prisoners who were particularly stubborn intended to break free from the shackles, only to make their bodies burst out earsplitting sounds of broken bones. The pale, shattered bones even pierced through their flesh. But there was more sorrow and desperation on their faces than pain!

“Ao! Aooooooo!”

Like beasts, they roared at Li Jialing and the entire prison.

With his hands in his back, Li Jialing looked at the prisoners coldly.

“I’m very curious. When you were tied up and moved to the operating table for refinements, did you grimace in pain like animals the same way they are doing right now?” Li Yao asked.

Li Jialing narrowed his eyes and sniffed. For some reason, he lost the courage to look at the faces of the abnormal prisoners, nor was he capable of giving Li Yao a straight answer to his question. He simply changed the topic and said, “How about it? I have already allured the prison to activate the great array. Have you figured out the model of the entire magnetic field and its weakness?”