Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Is that so?”

Li Yao looked at his hands. He seemed to be able to see the high-speed operation of the mitochondria factories deep inside his cells through his skin and his muscles. They were providing surging energy for his cells and his body, facilitating the proliferation of cells, the expansion of muscles, and the recovery of his body. Of course, they were also providing tremendous damage and damage. He even vaguely remembered that it was a feature of the ‘demons’ or his ‘apocalyptic body’ that was working. But what were the ‘demons’ and the ‘apocalyptic body’? Was it really as the novels described? How weird!

“You don’t seem to be surprised by your super recovery ability?”

The grey mist lady continued, “If my eyes aren’t deceiving me, this should be the second time you’ve come back from the dead in a short span of twelve hours, right? The first time was the ‘magical explosive’ of ‘Deep Perceiver’ White Night, which burnt you from your internal organs to the point that it was almost like you were placed in a super-large microwave oven for an entire ten minutes. Even I didn’t expect you to still be alive. The second time was with the ‘Hunter’. He didn’t use ordinary bullets, but two different types of super bullets. The first type had the characteristics of armor-piercing and explosive. It could even kill an African elephant in one shot. The second type contained a strange component of meteorites that could restrain most of the abilities of the awakened.

“You were shot seven times by the ‘hunter’. Three of the bullets hit the critical parts of your body. You should’ve been dead for sure, but you recovered in only twelve hours. During that time, you also absorbed nutrition liquids that ordinary awakeners wouldn’t be able to digest for an entire month. Your body is like an insatiable black hole. Interesting. Student Li Yao, what are you exactly?”

“If I tell you that I don’t know, will you believe me?”

Li Yao smiled and asked, “What about the author of ‘Forty Thousand Years of Cultivation’? How is he?”

“He is fine. He is merely leaving this place through other channels and going to the headquarters of the ‘Ark Foundation’. You are the same. You are safe for now. The transportation route is top secret. The people of the ‘Apocalyptic Organization’ will not be able to catch up to us so easily.

The grey mist lady said, “Zhang Daniu has told us a lot of things. He is even continuing to write. With the help of our hypnotists, his creative efficiency has improved quite a bit compared to the past. If it is confirmed that you are fine, we will provide you with the follow-up content of ‘Forty Thousand Years of Cultivator’.

“But the first question that needs to be addressed is—who are you exactly? Why did you find the author of ‘Forty Thousand Years of Cultivator’ and why are you trying to investigate the secrets of the ‘Ark Foundation’ and the ‘Apocalyptic Organization’ with him? What’s the deal with your unparalleled capability, as well as the detectaphones and trackers that you handed over to Zhang Daniu? The detectaphones that you made are very delicate and have a different structure from those of most national spy agencies in this life. How did you make such things?”

“I—I still don’t know.”

Li Yao took a long breath and shook his head gloomily.

Now that Zhang Daniu had been controlled by the members of the ‘Ark Foundation’, he must’ve confessed everything with his personality and integrity. There was no point in keeping it a secret any longer. “You won’t believe it if I tell you, but I was just an ordinary college student. It was only after reading ‘Forty Thousand Years of Cultivation’ a week ago that I was somehow awakened to an indescribable power. I—I feel that I am the protagonist of the author’s story. I am the Cultivator Li Yao from the ‘Four Universities of Cultivators’!”

Li Yao was prepared to be mocked by the grey mist lady.

But to his surprise, the grey mist lady’s face remained unchanged. She even nodded in understanding and said, “There are all kinds of amazing things in the world. Incredible things have happened to every one of us who have awakened, mutations that cannot be explained by science. How do you know that I don’t believe you?”

“Huh?”

Li Yao was dazed for a moment. The door of the ward was opened softly, and a middle-aged man in weird clothes with fiery red hair walked in.

“Lady Grey Mist, the pursuers have been taken care of. We should be safe for the next twelve hours.”

The middle-aged man said.

But Li Yao’s eyes were fixed on the middle-aged man, and he couldn’t get rid of them.

It could not be helped. The middle-aged man’s appearance was too... shocking.

It was not a big problem for a middle-aged man to dye his hair red like a young man, but the problem was that the baldness of the middle-aged man was very serious. There was a “Mediterranean Sea” on his head. In order to cover it up, he had also deliberately grown the few remaining strands of hair on the two sides of his head and combed them horizontally in such a clumsy way to cover it up. Even so, he still had to dye his hair red. His determination was firm.

Below the red hair was a big, greasy face with a bulbous nose. The uncle’s face was like a lonely rock in a desert that had been weathered by wind, snow, and time. The interconnecting wrinkles and hollows gave him a medal of vicissitudes.

When one reached middle age, it was inevitable that one would gain weight. If one liked to drink a bit of wine or eat a bit of supper, it wouldn’t be strange for one’s belly to bulge like a pregnant woman’s. However, this uncle was clearly 1.7 meters tall, yet he was carrying a 200 lb weight. Moreover, he was wearing an extremely exaggerated collar and cuffs, as well as an extremely long white shirt that looked like scissors. He was even wearing a black short-sleeved shirt that had been crudely cut. The neckline of the shirt was extremely large, causing the fat on his body to become uneven, revealing his curves. This made everyone’s eyes a bit... sore.

However, that was not the weirdest part.

Below the super long white shirt and the tight black uniform, the middle-aged man was wearing a pair of red jeans and a red belt between his legs!

Li Yao didn’t know how to describe the uncle’s appearance.

He suddenly discovered that the middle-aged man’s thick and short neck, which was almost buried between his chin and the fat on his chest, was actually helping him with a black leather belt. There was no telling whether or not it was a collar.

Li Yao felt that he was suffocating.

In the meantime, he felt that the uncle looked familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before.

Right, wasn’t it someone from the game, someone from the game?

“Well done, Uncle Hui.”

The grey mist lady nodded her head. She pointed at Li Yao and said, “Right. This young friend Li Yao seems to have just awakened and is full of doubts about the strength in his body. Can I trouble Uncle Hui to explain the process of your awakening to him?”

“Alright, Lady Grey Mist.”

Uncle Hui, a middle-aged man with dyed red hair and red jeans, who was wearing a belt on his neck and knees, said in a southern accent, “However, as I said, please stop calling me ‘Uncle Hui’ and call me ‘Seven Gods’. Ms. Grey Mist, you’ve forgotten.”

“... I’m sorry.”

The grey mist lady’s eyelids were twitching. She said, “Don’t mind the details. Let’s begin!”

“No problem, young man. Fate is indeed a marvelous thing. None of us will know who we are until we are awakened.

Uncle Hui—the ‘Seven Gods’ pointed at his bulbous nose and said in plastic-flavored Mandarin, “Take this uncle for example. I have never achieved much in my life. Originally, I was just an ordinary old man selling pork in a vegetable market in a fourth-tier city in the south. Other people in the vegetable market like to eat, drink, smoke, play, gamble. I don’t like any of these. I only have one hobby since childhood, which is to play video games and games!

“I especially like to play a game called ‘Punching God 97’. It’s been almost twenty years since I was a young man. When I was at my peak, I was invincible. I was quite famous in our city. Unfortunately, times have changed. Young people nowadays like to play online games. The game that I like has been abandoned for a long time. It’s probably the last arcade in the entire country that is about to collapse.

“It doesn’t matter. This is what I like to play. I especially like a game character named ‘Seven Gods’ in ‘Punching God 97’. Every time I choose this character to play, wah, I always feel that I am one with the sword and that I am possessed by my soul. It’s like I have crawled into a game console and become one of the Seven Gods. Every punch hits flesh. It’s so refreshing!”

“That’s it. At the end of last year, the arcade that I’ve been playing with for 20-30 years finally couldn’t hold on any longer and was about to go bankrupt. Although you can play ‘Punching God 97’ on the computers and game consoles nowadays, and my child has already adjusted it for me, it is still different from playing in the arcade. Young man, you haven’t played it before. You don’t understand.

“All in all, it was probably the last time that this uncle went to play. Naturally, I was particularly dedicated and fierce. Over and over, I chose the ‘Seven Gods’ to fight against the heroes of the world. I fought more and more smoothly and skillfully. I even felt that the world around me was shattering and disappearing. Only then did the world of ‘Punching God 97’ become ‘real’. I—I felt that I had crawled into a machine and turned into the real ‘Seven Gods’!

Li Yao was fascinated. He couldn’t help but ask, “Then?”

“Then—”

Uncle Hui said seriously, “I passed out. When I woke up in the hospital, my daughter said that a machine in the arcade had a power leak and knocked me out for three days and three nights!”

“Well...” Li Yao stammered.

Uncle Hui said, “But I’m well aware that it’s not as simple as an electric shock. I’ve awakened the memories of my previous life. Young man, guess what? In my previous life—a long time ago in a certain life—I really did come from the ‘Seven Gods’. This is my destiny. It’s the destiny that I’m really going to face! From this day on, I can’t stand the identity of ‘Porkman’ any longer. I’ve decided to resume the original appearance of the ‘Seven Gods’ and fight to my heart’s content against my destiny and my mortal enemies!”