by <unknown>
Ding Lingdang self-complacently praised herself before once again ridiculing, "However, the fact remains the same. In front of an early stage Building Foundation Stage cultivator, you, a 4th level Refinement Stage cultivator, are a glass—jaw!"
"No, don't you see how cool my form is!?"
Li Yao remained unconvinced. With the shake of his pair of arms, the feathers created out of spiritual energy sparkled.
"What's the use of a cool form?"
Ding Lingdang disapprovingly said. "The Refinement Stage is altogether divided into 13 levels. From the 1st to the 5th level, it is collectively known as low-level, the 6th to the 10th is intermediate-level, the10th to the 13th level is high-level, and above high-level is peak-stage."
"In the early-stage of the Refinement Stage, spiritual energy can only be drawn into a virtual form. It just looks good and doesn't have any battle force. Amidst combat, I can blast your spiritual energy feathers away with just the poke of my finger!"
"Not to mention..."
Ding Lingdang slightly smiled: "In these few months, you have only been studying refining, which has an extremely high requirement for computation ability. Usually, you would have to come in contact with algorithms, theorems, array glyphs, and the likes. You have been cultivating pure spiritual energy, but so what?"
"In the end, a 4th level Refinement Stage cultivator like you, strictly speaking, is a 4th level creation-type Refinement Stage cultivator. There is still a certain difference when compared to a battle-type 4th level Refinement Stage cultivator."
"You are just like Jiang Tao, who you had once beaten. He was a pure creation-type cultivator. Even though he had achieved the 3rd level of the Refinement Stage, wasn't he still beaten into a pig by you?"
This statement completely calmed Li Yao down.
After having thought about it carefully, he realized Ding Lingdang was right. Over the course of these few months, his computation ability had fiercely increased, enough for him to draw his spiritual energy into a form. A majority of the virtual form he had forcibly stimulated came from relying on his computation ability, which was simply unable to be utilized during combat.
When he thought of this, he could not help but get a bit discouraged and, even more so, a bit unwilling.
If he could act as a good training partner for Ding Lingdang, then he could get 10 credits in one minute, 100 in 10 minutes, and 600 in 1 hour!
Of course, holding on for one hour was just a pipe dream.
During an exchange between experts, life and death were a matter of seconds, even more so with Ding Lingdang, who specialized in killing within seconds. Even a "Herculean Bear Devil" would be unable to stand against her for a minute.
"If I could persevere for three to five minutes, I can have 30-50 credits. Simply practicing twice a day will allow me to have a few thousand credits in a month. If I pass the specialized courses, then just maybe, I will be able to accumulate 10,000 credits by the end of the first semester."
"This way, I will have a whole semester next year, then I can go to the Wasteland and hunt for the remaining 30,000 credits!"
Having thought of this, Li Yao's eyes flashed with a sliver of resolution as he stressed each and every word while seriously looking at Ding Lingdang, "Sister Ling, please give me a chance. I want to—"
Even before he could finish, a red light suddenly flashed past his eyes. He felt as though a high-speed crystal train had fiercely crashed into his stomach!
While spewing blood, Li Yao, like a kite with a broken string, flew back and even broke 20-30 reefs before falling flat among the reefs.
For ten seconds, Li Yao's entire body was paralyzed; he could not move an iota.
And the drilling pain of his stomach felt as though it jolted into his heart like lightning bolt one after another, simulating each and every cell along the nerves; each second felt like a year.
Those 10 seconds... were as hard as ten entire years!
"W-what the hell..."
After 10 seconds, Li Yao barely regained the ability to speak. His voice sounded incomparably hoarse, meanwhile, he felt like he had been hit by a meteor.
Ding Lingdang jumped over in an unhurried and unperturbed manner. Parting her slim and slender legs, she, without the slightest bit of modesty, sat on his stomach.
"Rip!"
Li Yao’s shirt, which was blown into pieces by the impact, was lightly torn away by Ding Lingdang, revealing a distinct fist imprint on his stomach which had flames lingering around it and his skin over his stomach, which was lightly burned.
Ding Lingdang raised her orchid-like fingers and lightly poked upon the fist imprint.
"Hisss—"
Li Yao soon had tears flowing out of his eyes from the pain. He wanted to roll and writhe from pain, but his body remained out of his control; the pain seemed to have turned into invisible shackles, firmly locking his every nerve.
"You see? Just a light punch from me and you have turned into this. How are you even going to spar with me?"
Ding Lingdang's pursed her lips.
"Didn't you just blast a punch at me?"
Li Yao felt as though he was waking up from a dream.
Only after a minute did he regain the ability to control his body. His stomach was still in an awful lot of pain, and he felt as if his heart had been entangled inside thorns, where every beat of his heart was torture to him.
Ding Lingdang stretched out her jade-like finger and lightly shook it:
"Wrong, please don't use the word 'blast'. At least, only when I have used 90% of my strength can you call it 'blast'. I just lightly 'jabbed' a punch at you!"
"You said you wanted to give it a try. I know you are very stubborn and wouldn’t give up unless I promised you, so I let you give it a try. Do you now know how big of a difference there is between the Building Foundation Stage and Refinement Stage?"
"With your current strength, you can't even clearly see the trace of my fist. Just a silly poke of mine rendered you completely incapable in your place, leaving you in a state where I can beat you as I like. So what's the difference between beating a sandbag and you?"
"Alright, don't think about it too much. Take this, it’s an ointment. Smear it over your wounds and train here at ease, while I log on and post the mission."
Patting her butt, Ding Lingdang started to walk towards the edge of the island.
Right when her charming foot touched the cold sea, a low and anguishing growl suddenly came from behind her.
"Wait!"
TLN
Sorry guys, you might not know but at the start of this month I was in a minor accident, though I didn’t get injured much, I happened to have torn the muscles of my left leg and had internal bleeding. It was healing fine, but in mid of the month, I had the slightly healed muscles which had somehow connected torn again during a slight mishap in the bathroom. I went to the hospital and was on painkillers. But a couple days ago an extreme pain flared in my leg, rendering me almost unable to move my left leg, I went to the hospital and was hospitalized. Apparently, there was a huge bleeding(clot) still in my leg which is pressing my nerves and muscles. So I was under observation for 4 days and hence unable to translate any chapters, no laptops were allowed there. Anyway, I am back and I will cover whatever I miss during this week. And on another note, a happy news is soon to be bound. You will read it soon, take it as a surprise.
Chapter 154: As Though Two Completely Different People |
Ding Lingdang immediately retracted her foot. A sliver of surprise appeared in the pair of her pretty eyes as she turned around and looked at Li Yao; in her heart, she was astonished.
"It can't be! Was my heavy punch still not enough for this kid to give up? He really is too stubborn!"
Contrary to her expectation, she only saw Li Yao grimace in pain as he weakly said, "Sister Ling, can you help me out? I can't walk."
"What!"
Ding Lingdang found it annoying as well as amusing at the same time. With a step, she rushed
over and ruthlessly nabbed Li Yao's ear: "You conceited brat!"
Only then did she pull him to an island at the corner of the reefs.
From the get go, the Billowing Star Sea was sold to cultivators as a place for them to train, and as such, it was preinstalled with various facilities.
The island was a natural resting place and a combat zone, and the seller had set up a supply point at the corner of the island where not only were commonly used drugs were placed but also a medical treatment pod as well.
"Armor?"
On one hand, Li Yao was smearing ointment, while on the other, he was curiously gazing at the supply point, discovering that apart from the drugs and medical treatment pod, two huge weapon caches were also there.
Among which, one was jam packed with chainsword-like close combat magical equipment, while the other had seven or eight sets of armor.
Ding Lingdang shrugged her shoulders:
"These came as a gift when I bought the rights to use the Billowing Star Sea for ten years. Think of it as promotional means of the seller; otherwise, it would be too expensive. But as I am a body practitioner, I seldom use these kinds of things. If you are so interested, you can play with them as you like."
Li Yao seemed to have thought of something:
"Sister Ling, what if I wore three to five pieces of armor? Wouldn't I be able to withstand your heavy punches?"
Ding Lingdang scoffed:
"You are so wrong. If you wore a couple pieces of armor, your defenses would indeed increase, but what about your speed and reaction? The higher the defense of the armor, the heavier they would be. You would have to carry a couple hundred pounds or even over a thousand pounds. Let alone quickly dodging my attacks, you wouldn’t even be unable to walk—I might as well hit wooden poles!"
"That might not be necessarily true!"
Li Yao was still very confident in his own capacity.
He would often go to the floating mountains of the Combat Department to observe the training of the Combat Department students. Over there, he discovered that a majority of them painstakingly trained their offense and defense, but in regards to carrying heavy weight, such as squatting and so on, they don't train enough.
In comparison, he, in order to modify 1st Generation Tai'e furnace, had to carry several tons of wrecked magical equipment and run on the rugged ruins every day.
Day after day, carrying such maddening training, his capacity to carry heavy weight happened to be absolutely outstanding and even better than a majority of the Combat Department senior students.
A mere few hundred pounds of armor was simply nothing for him!
Without further ado, Li Yao first wore a piece of light armor crafted from a Black Ice Crocodile's skin. Following that, he once again donned a chain armor completely crafted from metal and another set of turtle armor refined from a Star Spotted Turtle's shell. Finally, he hung over a hundred pieces of demon beast bone spikes above the turtle armor.
Li Yao wore a complete set that weighed 400 to 500 pounds, and when he walked, a "jingling" noise could be heard coming from his entire body, head to toe—it was completely horrendous!
"Huff..."
Li Yao did two squats, jumped up and down a couple of times off the jagged rocks to check if it was alright.
Donning so many layers of armor together was still not half as heavy as the crafting furnaces; his speed had only fallen by 20%.
Ding Lingdang coldly looked at him as she yawned and lazily said:
"A while ago, when you weren't even wearing the armor, you couldn’t even see from where my punch was coming from. Now that you have worn a couple hundred pounds of scrap, your reaction would be even slower. Isn't that nothing more than a wooden stake placed on the ground? You know, I can blast this armor with a few punches and kicks before beating you into a pig. This is simply not going to help me in training anyway."
A mysterious smile crept over Li Yao's face as he confidently said:
"Give me half a minute. After that, you can attack again. I guarantee, it will absolutely be nothing like before!"
"Oh?"
Ding Lindang was surprised for a moment. Noticing Li Yao's he-got-it-all-worked-it-out appearance, it gave off the impression that he wasn’t joking and got her interested as she said to herself, 'Could it be that this kid still has some trick left in his sleeve?'
"Alright, you have your half minute. However, let me warn you—if it is going to be just like before where you can't even take a hit and can’t stand for even half a second, then I will not give you a third opportunity."
Li Yao, of course, had a trick.
Li Yao's expression turned serious as he became calm and focused. His computational ability, like an invisible tide, continued to expand within his brain.
One by one, algorithms, formulae, theorems, and array glyphs flashed past his mind as lines of light, one after another, continuously expanded, collided, blended, and intertwined together to create an abstruse and complex crafting furnace blueprint.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub… dub...
His heartbeat was getting slower and slower, but as a matter of fact, his brain cell activity was increasing.
110%, 120%, 130%...
Li Yao had entered the super perceptive state!
His pupils contracted till they seemed as though they were black tips of a nail. He somewhat provocatively smiled at Ding Lingdang, simply wanting to bend his finger in an aloof manner and gesture for Ding Lingdang to come when suddenly—
The reef not far away from him appeared to be empty—Ding Lingdang was nowhere to be found!
Li Yao felt his scalp tingle as a trail of goosebumps went down his back; his entire spine felt as though it had been immersed in an ice-cold water. Meanwhile, his brain cell activity, in the blink of an eye, broke through to 150%, and in response, his computation ability frantically soared, breaking past every limit one after another!
Behind me! On the right! Three meters! Target approaching at high speed!
This conclusion was not that he "saw" or "perceived", it was completely derived from 200% brain cell activity of super perceptive state by Li Yao!
"Move 37mm towards the left while turning 36.7 degrees counterclockwise. There is a 56% chance that I might be able to avoid the attack!"
Within one tenth of a second, his brain issued a command that was as fast as lightning.
However, his body was like an old bull pulling a broken cart; from his teleneurons to every strand of his muscle, they were all slow to process the commands madly issued by his brain.
In half of a second, Li Yao happened to move only by 29mm and turn counterclockwise by 31.4 degrees.
"Whizz!"
As if a high-speed crystal train had brushed past his body, setting off a super storm, Li Yao felt a cold feeling seeping through his waist which was followed by a burning sensation. When he lowered his head, he noticed that three to four layers of the armor on the right side of his waist had been torn away by the edge of Ding Lingdang's punch.
"So terrifying!"
Li Yao was tongue-tied. If he was even one tenth of a second slower in dodging, her punch would have truly struck him. Even if he was protected by four to five layers of armor, he could have possibly been sent flying away from the impact and rendered unconscious on the spot.
Now, he had a deeper understanding of the fierceness of Ding Lingdang, this terrifying dragon in a human form.
However, he didn't know that Ding Lingdang was ten times more surprised than him in her heart.
Using her big toes, she beautifully stood upon a sharp reef not so far away. Her cheeks happened to be slightly puffed up, and a lump had even appeared upon her glabella from frowning as her face was filled with perplexity. She could not understand how Li Yao had a quicker reaction than before even though he was bearing a couple hundred pounds of armor.
However, since her childhood, she had never been someone who liked racking her brain; if she encountered any unreasonable problem, then
she would rather use her fists than her brain!
Ding Lingdang let out a long howl, whereupon the bells tied around her ankles burst forth with clear and melodious rings. Her big toes suddenly blasted the tip of the sharp reef into pieces before she herself transformed into a red beam as she whizzed past!
"Gotcha!"
Under the super perceptive state, Li Yao's brain cells were madly activated, allowing his five senses to be substantially elevated. Despite this, he was barely able to notice Ding Lingdang's quick-as-a-ghost-silhouette.
However, as a result, his perception of pain had also been increased by ten-fold. Although the punch from a moment ago had not struck him, the wind generated from the punch had nevertheless seeped into his flesh, bringing an excruciating pain which felt as though his heart and bones were being stabbed, making him drenched in cold sweat, and causing his eyes to be constantly twitching.
Li Yao tightly clenched his teeth as he forcibly endured the pain. His brain cell activity was once again elevated, frantically calculating Ding Lingdang's speed, angle, and movement trajectory as well as the direction of her next step.
When Ding Lingdang blasted a simple punch aiming at his abdomen, he even miraculously raised his pair of arms and crossed them against his abdomen to defend.
"BOOM!"
Three to four layers of protection on his arms were completely blown away, while Li Yao flew seven to eight meters away. His pair of arms were as though they had turned into two dry, burning branches; nevertheless, he didn't fall!
The depths of Ding Lingdang's eyes flickered with a blood-red brilliance as her face revealed a dense, murderous aura. She no longer gave him even one tenth of a second to do any calculations. In the blink of an eye, she appeared before Li Yao with her slender leg raised high, and without any hesitation, kicked downwards like a giant, hacking axe. All of a sudden, Li Yao was smashed into the reef, completely breaking the armor on his abdomen and leaving a deep dent on the iron armor.
Li Yao spewed out a mouthful of blood towards the sky and was no longer able to even crawl. Meanwhile, his brain had, in the blink of an eye, withdrawn from the super perceptive state and was all muddled up.
