by <unknown>
Since childhood, Li Yao liked eating the shrimp instant noodles from the Sea Dragon Sect. However, Sea Dragon Sect, due to poor management, suffered losses year after year. These past few years, it had been difficult to find the products of this sect in the market. He did not expect to finally find one here.
Licking his lips, Li Yao reached out his hand.
The very moment he reached out, someone else next to him also reached out and grabbed the final shrimp instant noodles. Li Yao was not as fast as the other guy, and in the end, he only touched the back of the other guy’s hand.
"Hey?"
Li Yao and the other guy's eyes shone at the same time. Both of them felt a strangeness in the hand of the other.
Refiners pay particular attention to the actual application more so than the theory, especially the skills of their hands.
Li Yao swept a glance at the other guy's hand and then at the other guy's appearance, finding it to be mediocre. He was an ordinary-looking, bald middle-aged man, whose pair of hands seemed as if they had been carved out from jade; they were extremely delicate and faintly surging with warmth.
He was clearly a superb refiner.
And the middle-aged man was ten times more shocked than Li Yao.
Although Li Yao had currently grown a beard, he had a relatively mature temperament, and both his eyes were extremely clear. From the looks of it, he was at most 20-30 years old.
His pair of hands, on the other hand, seemed as if they had been immersed in refining techniques for 30-50 years. They were like rubber, and upon touching, one would not be able to find a single trace of his bones; however, his hands were tough to the extreme, giving others a very contradictory feeling.
The middle-aged man was intrigued. Like five poisonous snakes, his five fingers silently swam towards Li Yao’s palm.
Li Yao slightly smiled. His five fingers, like five mini-bullets, directly shot towards the other guy's fingers, and as his fingertips came in contact with the middle-aged man's fingertips, the two of them, at the same time, exclaimed, "Hey!"
Because they had both discovered that there were no fingerprints on the other’s fingertips.
All the fingerprints had been repeatedly tempered and became smooth.
This probing out only took one-tenth of a second. When the two's palm had just come into contact, Li Yao made concessions and chose the braised beef noodles next to the shrimp instant noodles.
Since the other party was a senior from the refiners community, he had to show a little courtesy.
The middle-aged man smiled in embarrassment and nodded to Li Yao as a greeting, seemingly expressing his apology as well as gratitude.
Not far from them, two passengers got up, leaving two vacant spaces. Li Yao leisurely walked over.
The bald middle-aged man hesitated for a bit but then chose to follow him. The two, side by side, sat down.
Li Yao opened the lid of the instant noodles; inside of which was a fork, a spirit glyph wrapped in plastic film, and a very greasy, square-shaped block.
Removing the fork, Li Yao, with his teeth, removed the plastic film packaging that covered the spirit glyph before pasting it onto the yellow-brown square block. Then, he waited for three seconds.
The red patterns on the spirit glyph suddenly lit up, and like a mass of burning flames, released a large amount of heat.
"Bo!" The compressed and solidified, greasy square block, in an instant, dissolved into a bowl of fragrant braised beef noodles with steam rising from it.
In fact, this kind of highly compressed noodles held no nutritional value and was often very greasy.
If one was not hungry to the point where the stomach made noises, one would rather not eat them.
But its biggest feature lied in the fact that, after the spirit glyph was activated, it would release a particularly fragrant aroma. Often, its consumer would not find it any tastier, but when one smelled that fragrance, they could not help but shout and immediately gorge it down.
Li Yao inhaled a long, deep breath of the aroma before heaving a completely satisfied sigh. Picking up the bowl of noodles, Li Yao wiped his fork on his clothes to clean it before shoving the noodles into his mouth.
Soon after, a burst of shrimp fragrance wafted from beside him and made its way into his nose, causing Li Yao to instantly remember his delightful and unforgettable childhood.
As his nose twitched, Li Yao forced himself not to look at the middle-aged man’s bowl of shrimp noodles; instead, he pulled up a virtual book from the mini-crystal processor, directing his attention to reading.
While reading, within Li Yao's mind constantly appeared the middle-aged man's appearance.
He suddenly felt that the ordinary-looking middle-aged man looked a little familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere.
Pondering for a while, Li Yao's eyes suddenly lit up. As an unbelievable idea came to mind, he switched to the title page at the front of the virtual book.
A virtual figure of a human immediately appeared on the hologram; it was an image of the book's author.
Raising the hologram, Li Yao overlapped the translucent image of the author with the middle-aged man sitting next to him. Besides the clothes, everything else was completely identical.
Li Yao exclaimed. A strand of noodle was still hanging out of his mouth, but he didn’t care about it as he excitedly asked:
"Hello, may I ask if you are Master Refiner 'Ding Yin', Professor Ding of Hidden God Valley? Are you the author of [Seven Common Modes of Spiritual and Mechanical Energy Conversion]?"
Chapter 105: Sworn Duty of a Cultivator |
The middle-aged man was surprised for a moment. Noticing his own image being projected above Li Yao's wrist, he could not help but smile. He nodded and said:
"Hello! Yes, I'm Ding Yin."
"Awesome! Professor Ding, my name is Li Yao. I'm a new student of the Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department. I am an ardent fan of your books and have collected all four of your books, which I’m currently reading. I feel that your theories are easier to understand than others, and the data is very detailed as well—they are truly rare monographs of theories!"
Li Yao was extremely excited.
Although Master Refiner Ding Yin of Hidden God Valley hadn't refined any shocking masterwork weapons, in the refiners community, he was a theorist that was second to none. He had done in-depth research about refining theories and had written several important books.
The most valuable part was that the books he wrote were mainly targeted at teenagers, thus many basic theories had been explained in detail, making them very suitable as introductory textbooks.
Li Yao had learned and benefited a lot from his books.
Who would have expected that the prominent theorist of the refiners community would be dressed so ordinarily? Li Yao was completely at a loss as he spoke incoherently:
"Professor Ding, you see, I'm reading this book of yours. This, this is an original book, and your remnant telepathic thought spirit mark is still in here..."
Amused by Li Yao’s words, Ding Ying smiled and said:
"Student Li Yao, you don't need to show me, I have already sensed it. Our meeting must be destined. If you don't mind, can I sign it for you?"
"A-awesome!"
Li Yao happily handed over his mini-crystal processor. Ding Yin's eyelid drooped down as he muttered some incantations. Suddenly, his pair of eyes overflowing in brilliance opened widely, and a golden radiance flared and shot like lightning towards the hologram!
"Well, Student Li Yao, you have pretty good hands; their foundation is very solid. They are good materials for a refiner!" Ding Yin laughed and said.
In fact, in his heart, Ding Yin had some misgivings.
Judging from Li Yao's hands, it was quite clear that he had practiced very hard and had a very solid foundation. He could very well be from a very ancient aristocratic family of refiners, but how could he go to the Grand Desolate War Institution, which was like a local school
in refining?
The Grand Desolate War Institution was famous for its combat department. If he wanted to study refining, it was better to go to Deep Sea University!
However, after a moment of thinking, he remembered that the Deep Sea University's Refining Department was the star department of the entire federation, thus its cut-off marks were very high. He reckoned that this little guy wasn’t able to get in and had settled for less, choosing the unpopular Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department; he must have had no other alternative.
Ding Yin was a refiner of a cultivation sect and was not a member of the "Nine Elite Universities". Usually, he would be busy with theoretical research and would rarely pay attention to what was going on in society. The news of Li Yao challenging the Deep Sea University had not yet reached his ears.
He was an experienced old man. Naturally, he was not going to poke Li Yao's scars; on the contrary, he encouraged him from the bottom of his heart.
Taking out his mini-crystal processor, Li Yao, once again, opened the virtual book. At the bottom of the title page were additional, calligraphic golden characters written in a small font that was as flamboyant as flying dragons and dancing phoenixes: "Refining the Endless Starry Sky—Presented to Young Friend Li Yao!"
Li Yao's gaze was fixed on those small characters. Suddenly, his vision blossomed as if there were countless stars rotating. He sensed an unfathomable aura of telepathic thoughts.
Li Yao knew it was Ding Yin's soul markers, which authenticated that this was his “personal autograph”, something which others were unable to imitate.
He didn't expect for such a master to be so amiable and easy to approach. Li Yao restrained the excitement in his heart and cautiously asked:
"Professor Ding, thank you for your kind encouragement, but I'm lacking in the basics. In your book, there are some places which I don't completely understand. For example, in the 7th chapter, you said that it is possible to use a double-layer folding glyph arrays architecture for the spiritual and mechanical energy conversion in weapons that are similar to the chainsaw sword. However, by doing so, the number of parts would increase. Not only would this increase the manufacturing costs, it would also greatly increase the rate of failure as well. If I may ask, what are the benefits actually?"
“Oh?”
Ding Yin's interest was also piqued. He did not expect for such a young man like him to have such a tricky perspective. Nodding again and again, he said with a smile, "Student Li Yao, you are very good. Most of the young people your age would first determine whether the magical equipment's strength is strong or weak. They usually believe that the stronger the magical equipment, the more formidable it is. I didn't expect for you to actually take into account the refining costs and the rate of failure. Good, pretty good! Come, turn the book over to that paragraph. I will explain. Using the double-layer folding glyph array architect, you can greatly reduce the energy loss during the conversion of spiritual energy to mechanical energy, and also, as long as proper refining techniques are used, the rate of failure would not increase too much. See? Especially this..."
The old and the young—the two heads bumped into each other as they burst into a heated conversation; they had completely lost themselves in the discussion.
At the beginning, the two kept each other at an arm’s reach; they were a little bit reserved.
Gradually, their conversation began to pick up. The two looked exceptionally solemn, and their tone became increasingly intense. From time to time, they would sketch some ghost-like structure in the hologram, yet the sketches would be as flamboyant as flying dragons and dancing phoenixes. “Lone Star Master Formula”, “Rock Reverend Formula”, or “Star Magnetic Rotational Forces Hypotheses”—one by one, words which seemed to have come from some book of heaven to the ordinary people were popping out of their mouths as if they were popcorn, and the passengers next to them, upon hearing, were surprised; it was as if they were looking at two madmen.
Like water overflowing from a broken dam, Li Yao could not be controlled and continuously threw strings of questions one by one as if he were firing a cannon. From time to time, Li Yao would praise him in his heart, "A master is a master. Generally, the problems which I could never understand even after contemplating for 10-15 days were solved with a few words in a way that it gave me a clear understanding. Moreover, thinking about it, he simply didn't use the concepts that were beyond my knowledge. One truly has to admire him greatly—he is really awesome!"
Little did he know that at this moment, Ding Yin had broken into cold sweat.
Because he found that this little guy was too abnormal!
Nine out of ten questions put forward by Li Yao were very basic, and Ding Yin could thoroughly answer with ease.
But after nine ordinary questions, he would often throw an extremely tricky and abstruse question. Upon hearing it at first, it would sound average, but after carefully pondering for a bit, you would find layers upon layers of stratagem inside; it was full of traps.
Ding Yin's entire body was drenched in cold sweat. He had to put forth his full concentration and use all his computing power to get the answer. Often, in his heart, he would feel unconfident as he pondered over whether his answers were complete or not.
As if the two were fighting, after a flowery fist with fancy footwork[1], he would suddenly throw one or two "trump cards", much like the heavenly steeds soaring in heaven, catching Ding Yin by surprise; he was terribly unhappy.
"This brat really doesn’t have in-depth knowledge of refining theories? Speaking of his in-depth knowledge, he is at most twenty years old. Most of the questions raised by him are very simple, thus he should not be an expert. One could even say that he is a newcomer. But, how could he raise such strange questions? They are simply as quick, as shadowless, and as traceless as a fiend blade. I'm completely baffled!"
Ding Yin was completely astonished.
After carefully recalling their conversation, Ding Yin discovered that when it came to classical refining theories from forty millenniums ago, Li Yao could fire one or two terrifying questions that could make his back drenched in cold sweat.
And when the topic was switched back to modern refining theories, Li Yao would turn into a muddled child.
Ding Yin was secretly amazed.
"Which sect raised this little monster? How does he have such deep knowledge in classical refining theories and clearly understand the rarest of hypotheses? It is truly a waste to send such good material to Grand Desolate War Institution's Refining Department!"
No, some of the questions raised by this brat became more and more uncommon, even to the point where Ding Yin had never heard of some of the classical theories raised by him—there were some for which he simply didn’t know their elucidation!
Ding Yin was secretly crying. He quietly guided the discussion back to modern refining theories.
Li Yao talked about interests, talked about impulses, talked about true fire, and time and time again, the conversation would again be brought back to classical refining.
At last, Ding Yin could no longer bear it. He turned his head to look and said in surprise, "Hey, it's about time for the train to leave!"
"No… Ah... There is still half an hour, Professor Ding, so you don't have to worry. What were we talking about? Ah yes, I remember. Underworld Spring Sect, a devil sect from forty millenniums ago, had refined a 'Nine Yin Mother Sword'. Its technique of binding tenebrum energy is a little similar to the fourth matrix in Professor Ding's book. Why don't we talk about the Nine Yin Mother Sword?" Li Yao enthusiastically said.
"I need to go to the washroom!" Ding Yin said with a straight face and suddenly stood up.
"I am coming too!" Li Yao followed behind him while talking endlessly, "It is said that the refining process of the Nine Yin Mother Sword is extremely cruel, especially..."
"I need to go for the big one."
"Oh..."
Professor Ding sat in the lavatory for a complete half-
hour, and only then did he reluctantly come out. Once he walked out of the lavatory, Li Yao, like a loyal and devoted dog, rushed over, but Ding Yin simply didn't give him a chance to speak. Pointing to the front, he said, "We must quickly leave for the check-in!"
"So soon for the check-in?" Li Yao scratched his head. Apparently, he wanted to continue the conversation.
"Young man, don't need to be so grumpy. I have given you my spiritual crane number, so we will have plenty more opportunities to discuss!"
Ding Yin said as if a load had been lifted off his chest. He then picked up his luggage and quickly drilled his way into the crowd.
"Professor Ding, what's your seat number? How about I find someone to exchange the ticket, so we can continue our discussion on the train?" Li Yao shouted in a loud voice as he threw the Dark Star Rock onto his back, refusing to let him leave.
Ding Yin broke into cold sweat and hesitated a bit before speaking, "No need, the magical equipment technician of the army on this train is my old classmate. We have not seen each other for many years, so we have to catch up on some things. We will have a chat next time, Student Li Yao."
"Next time, it won't be so easy to encounter a master like you on a green passenger train[2]. If it were not for the scarcity of the trains, you would be sitting in a luxurious train and would not have rushed to sit on this kind of ragged green passenger train!" Li Yao muttered.
This sentence made Ding Yin stop. He came back and said with a weird look on his face, "Student Li Yao, you are wrong. Even if there were seats available in the more luxurious fast trains, even if there were more convenient and safe modes of transportation, I and many other cultivators wouldn’t sit. In the wasteland, a true cultivator would only choose the mode of transport which is carrying the largest number of people."
"Why?" Li Yao was puzzled; he could not understand why he got such a large reaction from his words.
"In order to protect you!"
"Protect us?" The answer was beyond Li Yao's expectation.
