by <unknown>
By preliminary analysis, the powder was neither metal nor stone, but it was emitting intense spiritual waves, indicating that its raw materials were among the best Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
As for what the raw materials were specifically, it could only be found out when they were back in the Heaven's Origin Sector's labs.
Li Yao even found a broken claw inside the hole of one of the scratch marks.
Technically speaking, it was just a talon, but it was already as long as an adult. It was bright gold, somewhat curved, and extremely sharp.
It took them an hour of hard work to pull the talon out of the black pillar.
Li Yao swung the talon gently. Like the most excellent saber, the talon roared and raised immense spiritual waves, unleashing an aura that was almost fifteen meters long.
"Good heavens! This is definitely one of the best Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures! It can enhance my spiritual energy by 200% without being refined. It will definitely be a marvelous saber if it is refined properly!"
Li Yao's eyes were beaming with joy. He was almost drooling.
His Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber was refined out of rarely-seen marrow blood crystals from the Blood Demon Sector and dozens of other marrow crystals and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures based on the ancient refining technology of the Hundred Smelting Clan. But the blood aura triggered by the saber was no longer than ten meters.
The talon could unleash a fifteen-meters-long aura without being refined whatsoever!
Besides, its shape and weight were very similar to those of a heavy saber, and it felt comfortable in his hands.
If he could refine the talon together with his Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber, the strength of his weapon would at least be doubled.
Li Yao stored the talon inside his Cosmos Ring without any hesitation.
As the refiner and the expert in saber arts in the team, he was naturally the most suitable guardian of such a saber-shaped Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure. Should it be needed, its strength would be maximized in his hands.
Li Yao had made up his mind that he would redeem this talon no matter how many contribution points he had to pay.
As one of the explorers of the item, he had the priority of redemption. Even Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators could not compete with him.
While he was drawing dozens of refining plans in his mind, his teammates made more shocking discoveries.
Among the dozens of black pillars in the center of the giant array, they found countless thick chains, each of which was more than one meter in diameter brimming with runes that were smaller than grain. They were releasing weird dark purple light.
Li Yao scanned all the runes and compared them with the multiple powerful arrays of the Hundred Smelting Clan. Then he mumbled, "Although I don't understand the specific functioning mechanism of the runes, they should be part of an ancient barrier!
"If my guess is correct, the black pillars do not just protrude out of the atmosphere, but they also extend deep into the underground!
"Beyond the atmosphere, they absorb the violent spiritual energy in the cosmos; in the middle of the atmosphere, they absorb the power of thunder; deep underground, they absorb the energy unbridled from volcano eruptions and crustal movements!
"All the energy has been transmitted to the black pillars in the center of the array in a mysterious way that I cannot comprehend in order to trigger the barrier on the chains!
"What kind of thing was such a splendid barrier trying to contain?"
Soon, they found the answer to their question.
In the center of the black array, they found dozens of bones.
Several of them looked like ribs but were more than three hundred meters long, as if they were the pillars of a splendid temple.
Some other bones seemed to belong to a short and thick arm, if two hundred meters could be called short.
The color of the bones was almost identical to the talon that Li Yao had collected previously. However, they were riddled with holes after thousands of years of savaging from the barrier.
"What is this beast that has ribs more than three hundred meters long and requires such an enormous barrier to suppress?"
"Why is there only such a small proportion of bones? Where are the rest of them? Have they been chewed by the spiritual beasts on Ultimacy or excavated by the adventurers of the Star Ocean Imperium and the demon race?
"Or maybe… the beast tore off its own arm and ran away?"
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment, while they pictured the same thing in their mind:
Locked by countless black pillars and manacles, curbed by thunder, fire, and interstellar storms, a bright gold beast several kilometers long was roaring, struggling, leaving deep scratches on the black pillars effortlessly.
Eventually, it exerted its strength and freed itself from the shackles at the cost of one of its limbs. Then it hollered and soared to the sky, vanishing in the boundless cosmos.
The picture made all six of them sweat in tremble.
Li Yao flew around the broken bones a few times, trying to store the bright gold bones into his Cosmos Ring.
But the storage technology of the Heaven's Origin Sector was still quite shabby. Cosmos Rings and Storage Bags were not able to be manufactured.
The Cosmos Rings and the Storage Bags they used were all pickups from the Occult Orbs.
The Cosmos Rings and the Storage Bags were all of low levels with limited space. Even the biggest of them had room no larger than that of a train car.
For the expedition to Ultimacy, the Heaven's Origin Sector had poured all the resources available. Every Orb Patroller was carrying more than ten Cosmos Rings and Storage Bags.
But they were all helpless when faced with such super large Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures more than a hundred meters long. Unless the items were cut into fragments, there would be no way to take them back in the Cosmos Rings.
Therefore, Li Yao could do nothing except sigh in discontent.
Thankfully, he found several broken rune chains near the bright gold bones. The dark purple chains were like boas in hibernation. Intense spiritual energy could be felt inside them, indicating that they were rarely-seen secret treasures, too.
Li Yao searched and searched. He didn't stop collecting until one of his Cosmos Rings was full.
At this moment, 'Dummy' Ba Weiqi had finally reached out of another Star Team.
It was not a direction communication. He simply received a telepathic thought from the Star Team.
The source of the telepathic thought was 1,500 kilometers away from them to their northwest.
Out of concern for the possible block and detection of the demon squads, the telepathic thought was brief and encrypted.
It was a targeted telepathic thought, indicating that the Star Team had a major discovery and would like other Star Teams to join them as soon as possible.
Everyone was refreshed. After scanning the surroundings and making sure of their coordinates, they rushed northwest without any delay.
The northwest was a mountainous zone with enormous folds here and there. One moment, mountains concealed by clouds blocked their way; the next thing they knew, uncanny gales surged up from the gorges thousands of meters of deep, with an immense force pulling them downwards by their ankles like formless hands.
Due to the extremely complicated territories, they had to tread lightly although they were Cultivators. It took them almost twenty hours to reach the source of the telepathic thought.
In front of them was a giant valley more than 5,700 meters deep.
The valley was too dark to see the bottom. Raging wind was charging to and fro inside the valley like a flood which was finding its way out of a canal.
Countless scattered stones were floating in midair, forming a very special stone belt.
The signal had been sent from the bottom of the valley.
The odd environment seemed too unfavorable
for the demon race to set up any traps without a good reason. After discussing for a while, Team Blue Bronze decided to march inside.
"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!"
Like six torches tossed into an abyss, the six crystal suits roared and broke into the rampant wind and the scattering stones!
Chapter 407: 6,600 Meters Underground |
"Huuu!"
BOOM! CRACK!
The furious wind blowing through the entire canyon was carrying countless impurities and invisible spiritual energy turbulences. It used to be known as 'destructive wind' to the ancient Cultivators.
Savaged by the destructive winds for hundreds of years, many rocks on the walls of the canyon had fallen down and floated in midair, before crashing into one another and forming a scattering stone belt that was as thick as several kilometers.
The six crystal suits passed through the scattering stone belt carefully, taking care of both the rampant wind and the flying stones.
Some stones, boosted by the spiritual energy turbulences, were almost at the speed of sound. With the exotic crystals inside the rocks, they could break through the spiritual shields easily. It wouldn't be fun if anyone was smashed by them.
Thankfully, Captain Hong Tong was an expert in gravity manipulation. Controlled by his surging spiritual energy, an invisible defense shell seemed to have formed around the six of them. The stones rushing close to them all took a turn and brushed past them regardless of how short the distance was.
Looking from the ground, the six crystal suits of Team Blue Bronze were glimmering like six light spots, gradually disappearing in the depths of the scattering stone belt.
Ten minutes later, they were finally out of the stone belt.
Other than 'Dummy' Ba Weiqi who was burdened by the clumsy crystal suit and had a few scratches on it, everyone was totally safe.
The wind was still blowing hard. They glided downwards on a slant toward the endless, bottomless abyss.
When they looked up, they noticed that the long and narrow sky was entirely blocked by the scattering stones. The last ray of light had already disappeared. They seemed to be in the stomach of a behemoth.
As Building Foundation Stage Cultivators, they were all able to scan the environment with their spiritual threads. Loss of light did not influence them very much. But they did feel a little nervous about what was to come.
The rocks in some places were as smooth as a mirror, whereas some other places were full of crevices. The crags were covered with bumps and hollows that had clearly been made on purpose.
It was almost like some splendid buildings or even towns that once prospered on Ultimacy had been buried thousands of meters underground before being torn apart by crustal movements. That was why the faults was multi-layered.
Li Yao even discovered the faults that contained several giant bone fossils
However, since the wind was too ferocious in this place, they didn't have the opportunity to stop and survey it thoroughly. They could only take photos of the weird faults with special feedback crystal cameras for future research.
After gliding downward for almost twenty minutes, they still failed to see the bottom of the crevasse. They were now in the middle of a queer black smoke which swallowed the telepathic thoughts silently.
The telepathic thought that the other Star Team sent out was from one side of the wall.
After flying close and checking it out carefully, they discovered that the wall was full of crevices long and short leading deep underground.
Beside the longest crevice, there was a man-made platform several thousand meters both in length and width, emitting a vague metallic aura. The platform was apparently supported by extremely solid metal structures. Judging from the scale, it could allow several small-scale crystal warships or dozens of crystal tanks to land at the same time.
They had descended to more than 6,600 meters underground. To build a platform as enormous as a flying crystal arena was obviously too large a task for any of the other Star Teams to accomplish.
Even the exploration squads from the Blood Demon Sector wouldn't be able to make such a miracle.
The only possible explanation was that it was the masterpiece of the previous adventurers.
They landed on the platform. Li Yao took off the plate armor on his hand and touched the ground with his fingers. It was smooth like silk with barely any friction. The technology employed in the platform was far more advanced than he had imagined.
The crevice in front of them was more than ten meters wide at the narrowest part, with traces of human modification. It had been reconstructed into an irregular cylinder with certain arcs, making it look like a tunnel leading to the center of the planet.
Very soon, Li Yao found a telepathic thought ball that had been disguised as a stone and left on the edge of the platform by another Star Team.
A telepathic thought ball was a piece of round magical equipment the size of an apple. Similar to jade chips, it could read and output a huge amount of telepathic thoughts and information very quickly, ten times faster than the jade chips did. It could be deemed as an upgraded version of jade chips.
Li Yao activated the ball with his spiritual energy. Hundreds of intersecting lines appeared on the surface of the telepathic thought ball and constituted a complicated pattern.
It was a barrier which would destroy the information that it stored and send a warning to its master who set it up if it was not decrypted within five seconds.
Li Yao's hands moved up and down. Like a tangram, the pattern on the telepathic thought ball was adjusted to a different one that all the Star Teams had agreed on before.
After a 'Bo' sound, the telepathic thought split into two halves from the middle. A sector of greenness scanned over the platform and connected to the crystal processors of the six of them.
In a moment, a lot of information flooded into their crystal processors.
The telepathic thought ball had been left by Team Tiger Deity, who was very fortunate to be teleported into the atmosphere of Ultimacy with abundant spiritual energy left. Therefore, they were able to condense a thick spiritual shield to protect their star shuttle, allowing them to land in the rugged land of mountains and valleys.
Team Tiger Deity was the first of the five Star Teams to start the exploration. But their attention had been attracted by the crags on the two sides of the valley, and they had spent a lot of time studying the different faults on the crags. Therefore, they didn't discover the black pillars and the bones of the strange beast. Instead, they found the platform and the tunnel leading deep underground where intense spiritual energy was popping up.
Probing with spiritual waves, they had come to the conclusion that there was a spacious hollow concealed under Ultimacy's surface. Towns and relics were hiding in the boundless dark world.
The discovery corresponded to the environment on the surface of Ultimacy.
81% of the surface of Ultimacy was ocean, where tsunamis thousands of meters high could form out of nowhere at any time. It was hardly possible to survive on land. Even the strong sea beasts must be not particularly fond of the raging tides.
Compared to the surface, the underground world was apparently much safer and more stable.
Therefore, Team Tiger Deity had entered the underground area for exploration in advance.
"Shua!"
A lot of maps and new information were added to their crystal processors, which were the preliminary findings of Team Tiger Deity. There was also a sophisticated map of the cave resembling the root of a tree.
They were currently at the top of the cave, like six ants which were faced with a giant banyan covering dozens of square kilometers.
Yet, it was still only the tip of the iceberg. More unknown areas were still waiting to be explored.
Other than that, Team Tiger Deity brought a piece of bad news.
When they were still exploring the ground, they had received an intermittent telepathic thought from another Star Team named Shadow M
oon.
According to the incomplete telepathic thought, Team Shadow Moon was quite unlucky.
They had been teleported to the middle of a space battlefield beyond the atmosphere of Ultimacy, too. But the soul of one of their teammates was seriously shocked during the teleportation, resulting in his derangement.
To make matters worse, the space battlefield that they were in was hundreds of times more tempestuous than the one Team Blue Bronze had arrived at.
The star shuttle was blown to smithereens by the scraps very soon. The crystal suits of several Orb Patrollers were seriously damaged when they were trying to protect their wounded companion.
After breaking into the atmosphere in their crystal suits, they saw a vast ocean.
Because of the serious injuries of their companion, they landed on the ocean directly instead of looking for a land and prepared to treat their companion and repair their crystal suits first.
Then, they encountered a tsunami.
The interference of the furious spiritual energy outbreak jammed the transmission of the telepathic thought. Therefore, Team Tiger Deity were not aware of the final outcome of Team Shadow Moon, nor were they able to locate the ill-fated Orb Patrollers precisely. They could only grit their teeth and carry on with their own exploration.
"This is why five Star Teams have been dispatched in separate ways.
"Let's double check our crystal suits and have one minute of silence for our comrades.
"After that one minute, we will start the journey to the underground world!
"Only by excavating more Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures from the underground world and building the Star Glory Federation into a stronger nation can we honor the souls of the warriors who have sacrificed themselves ten thousand lightyears away from their home!"
6,600 meters under the ground, six members of Team Blue Bronze fell quiet. They unmasked their helmets. Roaring wind was freezing their faces, but there was not the slightest hint of discomfort.
The flames in the depths of their eyes seemed to be illuminating the entire underground.
