Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  What delighted him, however, was that the basic mechanism of the magical equipment was the same despite their incredibleness. There might be an order of magnitude regarding the gap on the precision, but the products had no fundamental differences.

  As long as the mechanism was the same, it was totally possible for them to understand the designing principles of the magical equipment in the Pangu civilization. They would be able to learn the advanced methods and even… catch up to and surpass them!

  When Li Yao was fascinated by the future while staring at a super sword almost thirty meters, he suddenly felt that his neck was itchy.

  Little Black was calling him from the Cosmos Ring and seemed to be pointing at somewhere in the escape center.

  Chapter 1278: Draconic Phoenix! |

  Little Black, what have you found? Li Yao sent a telepathic thought into his Cosmos Ring.

  For some reason, although Little Black had been lazy and unresponsive over the past couple of months after breaking the seal of the flying sword, it was particularly excited after arriving in Kunlun.

  When Li Yao approached the debris of some Colossi, the guy was always seething in impatience inside the Cosmos Ring, as if it was eager to try them.

  Li Yao glanced around. Monitored by dozens of spiritual puppets closely, he did not dare summon Little Black. He simply flew in the direction that it pointed at without alerting anyone.

  After squeezing through a cluster of broken debris, and passing by a few dead, dehydrated bodies of the Pangu Clan, from the middle of a garbage swirl that was slowly revolving, Li Yao discovered the remains of a dark red Colossus.

  The remains of the dark red Colossus were piled up with the garbage of other magical equipment. Its surface was lackluster. Even the crimson color there was like mottled lacquer that was about to entirely fall apart.

  It was so inconspicuous that Li Yao would never have noticed it in the battlefield where the debris was as boundless as an ocean without Little Black's reminder.

  The Colossus was about fifteen meters tall and generally in the shape of a human being, but the details on its body also featured the characteristics of a dragon and a griffin, too.

  The layered spiritual stripes on the plate armor in red waves looked like the burning fire, the scales of a dragon, and most importantly of all, the feathers of a griffin.

  Li Yao circled around the Colossus and did not find any weapons. They seemed to have been lost during the fierce battle. However, two unbelievable wings that were more than twenty meters long extended out of the back of the Colossus. Red turbulence was condensed on the surface of the wings, as if they were made of magma!

  However, at this moment…

  The Colossus could not have looked more wretched!

  The entire left arm together with a large cluster of the left shoulder had been ripped off, revealing the broken circuits, rune arrays, tubes, and wires inside. All the components had been seriously corroded and deformed into a mess.

  It was like a hideous scar that had recovered without any careful treatment.

  The skull, from which three rams jabbed out like the head of a dragon, had been smashed by heavy magical equipment with brute force, too. The left side of the skull had completely collapsed, and both of the two eyes on the face had burst out. They were only still attached to the head by two crystal wires that were as thin as spider threads.

  The breastplate of the Colossus had been torn open, too, exposing the cockpit that was utterly empty. The wings that had been stretched to the maximum were riddled with even more holes. They reminded Li Yao of an old hen whose feathers were falling out. It seemed that the two wings would break up by themselves after a small flap!

  The plate armor on all the other parts was packed with cracks, through which one could see the seriously rusted components without any trouble.

  This Colossus looked a hundred more times more miserable than a lot of the others that Li Yao had seen on the primeval battlefield. It did not seem to boast any value to be maintained or even dismantled whatsoever from any perspective.

  Li Yao had no idea why Little Black had to pull him to this particular Colossus.

  After circling around the Colossus three times, Li Yao finally noticed something interesting.

  Despite the wretched appearance of the Colossus, which was equivalent to someone with polio together with hemiplegia, the inside of the cockpit was miraculously intact.

  When Li Yao narrowed his eyes and observed carefully, he discovered that the entire cockpit was covered in a scarlet mist that possessed a vague magma-like aura!

  The other Colossi on the battlefield, on the other hand, had most been so deeply susceptible to the minerals and the electromagnetic interference that their cockpits had degraded into lifeless caves despite their originally perfect appearance!

  Is it possible that the Colossus is still functional?

  His heart pounding, Li Yao tried to extend a stream of telepathic thoughts into the cockpit of the Colossus.

  His telepathic thoughts together with his spiritual threads pierced into the mist, which filled the cockpit and explored deeper and deeper. Finally, he seemed to have touched something that felt like… a crystal!

  Little Black was sending out feeble waves inside the Cosmos Ring, as if it was guiding Li Yao to deal with the weird red mist.

  Making up his mind, Li Yao condensed his telepathic thoughts into the sharpest needle and stabbed it into the object in the depths of the red mist, which was suspected to be a crystal.

  "Hum!"

  A blood red sphere rippled out and blew away all the magical equipment debris nearby!

  The weirdest scene then took place!

  The crystal deep inside the red mist seemed to have been detonated by him. Like a supernova outbreak, infinite crimson brilliance was unleashed and flowing around the surface of the Colossus!

  The redness was compressed, turning both thick and stagnated. The Colossus seemed to be surrounded by a cocoon of magma!

  When the 'magma' was absorbed by the Colossus, and all the details were demonstrated to Li Yao again, the previously mottled armor was as fresh as new, and the lackluster colors were replaced by dazzling brilliance that resembled a red diamond!

  It seemed to have passed hundreds of thousands of years from the primeval age to the modern times through the purge of the burning fire. It was revived with unparalleled vigor again!

  In the meantime, Li Yao's brain was crushed by the ocean of fire crazily, too!

  The overwhelming torrent of information made his head ten times bigger than usual.

  The magma integrated with the fire and crawled into his every brain cell. They condensed two ancient, dominating words deep inside his brain!

  "Draconic Phoenix!"

  Li Yao seemed to envision that, on the primeval battlefield, a ferocious beast covered in infinite flames, which looked like both a dragon and a griffin, soared to the sky and tore apart the clouds. The magma seemed to be flooding the air!

  When the image of the 'Draconic Phoenix' slowly dispersed inside Li Yao's brain in thousands of sparks, Li Yao found himself enveloped in hot sweat. He breathed heavily.

  Draconic Phoenix. Is it the name of the Colossus? It truly sounds awesome!

  Little Black, how did you notice that something is special about the 'Draconic Phoenix' and that it is even maneuverable?

  Speaking of which… how should the thing be maneuvered at all?

  Li Yao blinked and observed the cockpit of Draconic Phoenix suspiciously. There were no crystal processors, levers, control light beams, or anything like that, nor any facilities like a virtual helmet or a connection system of synthesized nerves.

  How should he control it?

  Li Yao swallowed greedily. He was about to crawl into the cockpit to study more carefully when one of the pictures on the crystal processor showed that Kou Ruhuo was rushing toward him rapidly.

  It seemed that Kou Ruhuo's attention had been caught when he awakened Draconic Pho
enix a moment ago.

  Kou Ruhuo, as the chief of arms, should be the one with the highest combat ability of the three Immortal Cultivators. Without a suitable opportunity, Li Yao did not want to attack him recklessly.

  On one hand, he wanted to find out whether or not the Immortal Cultivators knew how to maneuver the Colossus.

  On the other hand, a magical equipment maniac such as Kou Ruhuo would certainly be deeply hooked by the Colossus. There would perhaps be a great opportunity for Li Yao.

  Although Li Yao did not intend to ambush the three Immortal Cultivators there, he might find it difficult to contain himself if the opportunity presented was too wonderful.

  As he expected, hardly had Kou Ruhuo arrived when his eyes were completely attracted to Draconic Phoenix, which was 'as good as new'. He stared at the Colossus without blinking the eyes and completely ignored Li Yao.

  Li Yao heard the suspicious sound of Kou Ruhuo's swallowing in the communication channel.

  "I—I don't know what happened. I extended my spiritual threads into it and stabbed into something during the exploration. Then, it—it suddenly hummed and got illuminated!"

  Pretending that he was at a loss, Li Yao defended himself in a tizzy.

  "It's alright. It's alright!" Kou Ruhuo was overjoyed. He shouted, "Fellow Cultivator Li, you are truly a man of fortune for us! We have been too unbelievably lucky on this trip with you on the team. Not only have we found a living member of the Pangu Clan, we have also discovered a Colossus with such a perfectly-preserved spiritual residence so quickly!"

  After pausing for a moment, he explained, "The spiritual residence is a term in the field of the Colossus studies. It refers to the cockpit of a Colossus. Although the limbs of the Colossus here are seriously worn, and its left arm is even entirely missing, it can still serve as the core of an assembled Colossus as long as its spiritual residence is not damaged!

  "As long as we find the hands and feet of other Colossi and connect them to this Colossus, we will still be able to bring out at least sixty percent of its combat ability!"

  Kou Ruhuo's words, however, cast Li Yao in a slight daze. He felt greatly alarmed.

  The ominous feeling that had been haunting him a moment ago popped up again, turning into a dark shadow and gazing at him coldly.

  Kou Ruhuo was an expert in the Nascent Soul Stage after all. Sensing Li Yao's subtle rigidness, he immediately struggled out of the excitement of finding a functional Colossus. He turned around and asked, "Fellow Cultivator Li, is there a problem?"

  Li Yao shook his head hard, trying to make the shadow clearer, while he mumbled, "Senior Kou, do you not feel that… something is not right?"

  Kou Ruhuo narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

  Li Yao scratched his helmet so hard that it was screeching. "Everything seems to have been going… too smoothly!

  "Senior, truth be told, I am in fact a man of misfortune, and my life has been full of twists and turns. I have never done anything smoothly. There have always been mistakes or trouble of all kinds, and I can only arrive at the destination after much difficulty!

  "Also, whenever I teamed up with somebody else to explore a relic or hunt a few demon beasts, no matter what the mission was, including those that seemed most safe and secure, my adventure would always prove shocking and life-blighting in the end. Every time, a few of my teammates had to be sacrificed for the mission to succeed!

  "But this time, everything has been going too smoothly. We are exploring such a weird primeval battlefield and a relic of the Pangu civilization, and my teammates are all alive? That doesn't seem right!"

  "… Why didn't you tell us your buff earlier?"

  "Cough. Cough. Forget my personal buff. Let's just review the exploration. Do you really not feel that everything has been too smooth?

  "Your starship happened to land next to the impetus tube precisely. We happened to run into a branch right after we descended, and we then happened to discover a city of the Pangu Clan after passing the branch. Then, we found the teleportation array leading to this place when we only searched the city casually. In the end, we found a living member of the Pangu Clan without any trouble!

  "Everything has happened within less than three days. Just like you said, we have been too unbelievably lucky!"

  Chapter 1279: Fatal Pulse Signals! |

  Li Yao's words made Kou Ruhuo's face grave, too.

  The Immortal Cultivators had all gained their expertise through mountains of bodies. They were all highly responsive to the environment. Although Kou Ruhuo was overjoyed by the shocking discovery just now, he soon noticed a lot of suspicious points after Li Yao's enlightenment.

  "Also, do you not feel that the relics here are too intact, Senior Su?" Li Yao pointed at the surroundings and said, "Since the Pangu Clan lost the battle on the planetary warship, why did human beings, as the winners, not clean the battlefield and sabotage the enemy's base? Why did they leave so many things to us?"

  "It's quite easy to explain," Kou Ruhuo replied. "The planetary warship is so huge that the city of the Pangu Clan and the escape center we have discovered can't be unique. Chances are that there are hundreds of more!

  "Most of the cities and escape centers must've already been plundered and ruined. We just happened to come across a place that was neglected."

  "That's exactly the problem," Li Yao analyzed calmly. "Let's assume that there were a hundred cities and escape centers on this planet of the Pangu Clan and ninety-nine of them were burnt to the ground in the war. Yet, it only took us three days to find the only one that was kept intact without encountering any major obstacles… What are the odds?"

  Kou Ruhuo was silent for a long time. With killing intent leaking out of the gaps of his crystal suit, he said coldly, "What are you trying to say?"

  Li Yao heart was beating faster and faster, as if an invisible ferocious animal was crouching on his back and gripping his neck with its thorny tongue. He could not have felt more creeped out.

  Instead of caring about the safety of his real identity, he was even bold enough to ask, "Senior Kou, with all due respect, did you come all the way from the Imperium of True Human Beings for this place in the beginning?"

  Kou Ruhuo was the one that was least interested in deception and tricks among the three Immortal Cultivators. After hesitating momentarily, he replied frankly, "Not exactly. It doesn't matter if I tell you the truth now. Our original purpose was the Flying Star Sector. We were preparing to explore and investigate your world! But when we were about to reach the Flying Star Sector, we received mysterious pulse signals from the area. That's why we shifted the direction and came here to take a look."

  "The Flying Star Sector is a civilization based on starships. We know a thing or two about super long-distance space voyages, too. There couldn't have been too much fuel left after such a long journey in the sea of stars, could there? You were indeed very 'brave' to make the decision to change the direction of sailing when your fuel was about to run out!"

  Li Yao smiled and continued asking, "Senior Kou, you mentioned that you received mysterious pulse signals. Did all three of you receive the signals or only some of you?"

  Kou Ruhuo was dazed for a moment before he replied. "It was Tang Qianhe who received the pulse signals and strongly suggested that we change our direction to explore this area. Neither I nor Master Su noticed anything unusual.

  "However, everybody has their specialties. There are countless signals triggered by electromagnetic waves and astronomical phenomena every second in the sea of stars. It is the job of the 'navigator' to distinguish the valuable signals from the messy, chaotic waves. Master Su and I are not good at that!

  "Tang Qianhe has received professional training in that regard. She is a top-tier space exploration expert. Since she insisted confidently, we naturally respected her professional judgement!"

  Li Yao felt that his entire spine was soaked in icy water. His voice was so frosty that his teeth were almost entirely frozen. "So, at first,
Senior Kou and Senior Su never intended to explore the area. It was Senior Tang who claimed that the pulse signals here were weird and persuaded you to come here, right?"

  Kou Ruhuo nodded slowly. Suddenly, his body shivered as he said gravely, "Are you suggesting—"

  "I have suddenly thought of something!" His teeth clattering, Li Yao mumbled, "The hibernation system installed in the single escape capsule of the Pangu Clan was obviously designed for the escapers to be successfully found again after they were launched into the universe and floating for maybe hundreds of years, right?"

  "Yes." Kou Ruhuo nodded.

  "The universe is too vast a place," Li Yao said solemnly. "How could the escapers of the Pangu Clan ensure that they would certainly be found again by their companions even if they were lucky enough not to be killed? After all, in the scale of the grand universe, a small single escape capsule is more insignificant than a grain of dust!

  "If it were me, I would've installed certain magical equipment that could send out distress signals inside the escape capsule. Such a device would send out the message 'I'm here. Come and save me!' incessantly!

  "Such distress signals should be encrypted through special methods. Only my allies would be able to distinguish them. In the eyes of bystanders and enemies, they would be nothing more than an episode of meaningless noise in the universe!

  "Senior Kou, you are a specialist of magical equipment. Do you think what I said makes sense?"

  Kou Ruhuo put his hand on the sword dangling from his waist softly before he said, one word after another, "It makes a lot of sense!"

  "Therefore…" Li Yao's voice sounded so gloomy and cold that it might have come from inside a blackhole. "What exactly were the 'pulse signals' that Tang Qianhe received from the planetary warship?"

  "Not good!" Kou Ruhuo spat on the ground. "Tang Qianhe said just now that she had found something, but she was not certain about it and asked Master Su to help identify it!"

  "What?" Li Yao was suddenly alarmed. Subconsciously, he looked at where Tang Qianhe and Su Changfa were at together with Kou Ruhuo.