Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  Under Li Yao's control, the unpredictable white smoke was all absorbed, revealing a black, seemingly unattractive iron statue.

  "This is—"

  Although they had been mentally prepared, all the refiners of the Deep Sea Fleet couldn't help but feel greatly surprised.

  They did not expect that Li Yao's expertise in remote manipulation was so terrifying that he had concentrated the components of almost ten crystal suits on the skeleton of one crystal suit without even moving a finger.

  The many damaged crystal suits, despite the use of abundant generic components, were in vastly different shapes and styles. They had also been so seriously damaged in battles that a lot of the components had been melted together after contortions. But Li Yao had combined all of them flawlessly by picking the most appropriate components in only half an hour. The product looked smooth, natural, and impeccable, like a statue that had been carved out of an entire block of metal.

  What great senses, self-control, and deep understanding of crystal suits it required!

  If it were them, even with the guidance of the structure designs and the operation manuals, they might not be able to achieve it after a day and a night's work on the most advanced maintenance platform!

  Of course, such a mix was only the simplest combination, like a mannequin that a craftsman built.

  The joining components hadn't been processed by the furnace, and they were not internally integrated perfectly yet. Although the crystal suit might look solid and tough, it would not be able to withstand one barrage in a fierce battlefield.

  However, as they recalled the unbelievable scenes when Li Yao tested the furnace just now, nobody had any doubt about the performance of the brand-new crystal suit after being processed in a furnace.

  Everybody simply looked at Li Yao, whispering to each other and wondering what was amazing about the new crystal suit that Li Yao had modified through all the trouble, full of expectations. The brand-new crystal suit had adopted abundant units of the damaged crystal suits, as the "Giant Crab Battlesuit", as the skeleton, was not any of the super crystal suits with the most distinguished performance. So, he was dazzlingly busy for such a long time just in order to show his expertise in crystal suit modification? Or maybe…

  Huala…

  In front of Li Yao, the crystal suit that was more than two meters tall but had a particularly thick shoulder and back slowly opened in the front.

  An excellent crystal suit, even if as solid as steel, would let out beautiful sounds like running water when they were opened. It was the knowledge that many refiners were taught at school.

  But this was the first time that many of them had truly heard the sound of a crystal suit that felt like running water!

  Li Yao put on the crystal suit that he had just modified without any hesitation. He slightly activated the power rune arrays and moved his limbs.

  This place was not a test room, and the crystal suit was only a simple combination of other crystal suits. Without being processed by the furnaces and the cutting machine tools, it meant that it was inappropriate for any extreme movement tests to be done here.

  When everybody was wondering what kind of trick Li Yao would play with such a newly-combined crystal suit, Li Yao unleashed all his spiritual energy after a bellow!

  For a moment, inside the small warehouse of crystal suits on the starship, the world seemed to have been darkened by a dust storm!

  The hearts and throats of all the refiners were frozen. Their every nerve ending was shrieking loudly!

  The many advanced crystal suits nearby were shaking slightly, as if they could not withstand the overwhelming pressure that was flowing out of Li Yao's body, and they were about to kneel before Li Yao and the crystal suit on him!

  An amazing thing happened!

  After the bellow, Li Yao's muscles bulged, his bones cracked, and his body size expanded by 30% at the moment!

  Every crystal suit boasted a certain degree of extension, which was made possible by gels or soft materials filled inside, in order to adapt to users of different body sizes.

  However, crystal suits were made of metals after all. Different from the mustard-seed combat suits that could be infinitely extended, it had limited abilities of adaptation.

  That was why the crystal suits were classified into light, medium, heavy, and super heavy types.

  The slim users could manage to wear the heavy crystal suits with enormous internal space, like a small horse dragging a huge wagon.

  But it was barely possible to stuff a tall, brawny man whose muscles were as explosive as crystal bombs into a super small crystal suit that highlighted speed and mobility.

  Some of the "monsters" that had received genetic modifications or practiced secret techniques could be more than 2.5 meters tall.

  But most of the high-speed crystal suits were no taller than 2.2 meters. How could they be stuffed into such crystal suits?

  To make things worse, many brawny men who practiced secret techniques had a very bad habit on the battlefield, which was to break their clothes and go berserk. By blowing their cells crazily with spiritual energy, they could expand their body size by 30%, 50%, and even 100%!

  They could break their clothes, but how could they break a crystal suit?

  Crystal suits were not armed shuttles or Colossi, which had huge cockpits. They were all worn close to the body. If the user expanded by 50% in excitement in the middle of a fight, wouldn't the crystal suit be crammed and even blown up?

  It was indeed a very tricky problem.

  Many brawny men who were used to body transformations had to bring two crystal suits with them, one large and the other small, which were to be used before and after their transformation respectively.

  The old problem was more or less solved, but a new problem showed up. Body transformation and switching of crystal suits took time. Not every Exo could perform an "air change" in half a second like Li Yao. If they were barraged by the enemy halfway through their transformation, wouldn't it be terribly awkward?

  It seemed highly impractical to search for a shelter whenever one wanted to transform and go berserk in their battle frenzy, right?

  However, those problems did not exist for Li Yao right now.

  The crystal suit that had been modified by him carefully seemed to boast a very high ability of extension and transformation. As his body size expanded abruptly, a lot of brilliance shot out of the crystal suit, as it expanded and bloomed at the same time.

  While Li Yao finished the transformation, the crystal suit also turned from a medium-sized crystal suit around two meters tall into a heavy crystal suit almost three meters tall. The protruding veins on the breastplate truly made it look like a tyrannical giant crab, full of aggression and intimidation.

  "A transformative crystal suit!"

  Ye Qingyun couldn't help but exclaim.

  The eyes of the refiners of the Deep Sea Fleet shone brightly. They were surprised to witness a highly rare transformative crystal suit!

  As its name suggested, the transformative crystal suits were special crystal suits that were meant to solve the body expansion problems of some of the berserkers.

  Such crystal suits were often embedded with one or two Cosmos Rings, in which a lot of changeable components were stored. Through special designs, when the user's body size expanded abruptly, the crystal suit would have a series of changes too, and it would keep up with the body size of the user. Even new magical equipment units and weapon systems would show up after the transformation.

  In such a way, one crystal suit would display two different features and achieve entirely opposite effects.

  Theoretically speaking, it was a great idea.

  However, to achieve the purpose of "transformation", the designs of the crystal suit had to be extremely sophisticated, filled with all kinds of unnecessary, redundant components, which would significantly drop the defense ability and the sturdiness. The crystal suit's survival abilities in the battlefield would be di
rectly affected.

  For the logistics department and the daily maintenance, it was even a greater nightmare. If something went wrong during the maintenance, the crystal suit might be stuck in the middle of the transformation, which would be really fatal.

  Therefore, the transformative crystal suits were not very popular among the berserkers whose body sizes could expand crazily. They were a very niche type of crystal suits.

  In the over hundred years, there was not even a mature model that could be manufactured in the magical equipment industry in the Imperium. This type of crystal suits had been completely abandoned.

  It never occurred to them that the path that had been proved impossible by the mainstream refiners of the Imperium was now furthered by Li Yao!

  Although they were not aware of the parameters and the performance in a real battle yet, they could tell from the dancing electric arcs around Li Yao and the glittering crystal suit that—

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  While everybody was speculating in secret, the crystal suit on Li Yao uttered the roars of a waking primeval beast again and further expanded!

  "Double… Double transformations?"

  The refiners of the Deep Sea Fleet were so astounded that they were almost screaming aloud.

  In the middle of their exclamations, the crystal suit on Li Yao's body expanded again to almost four meters tall.

  A lot of magical equipment units were attached to the skeleton by the electromagnetic force. The spluttering electric arcs surrounded the crystal suit like strengthened armor, making it almost look like an Ares Extension. It seemed that a god that could destroy the world had arrived!

  "A crystal suit with three phases? What-What kind of complicated designs it must have? I feel that my head is exploding just by thinking about it!"

  "Does such a crystal suit really boast any survival abilities in a battlefield? It would fall apart on its own because of the conflicts and interferences of the redundant components, wouldn't it?"

  "Regardless of its survival abilities, it is already insane enough to complete the designs in half an hour, assemble it preliminarily, and realize the effect of double transformations!"

  "Wait, wait, wait. Isn't… Isn't he a refiner? What kind of astounding aura is this? He is almost tearing the entire starship apart!"

  Dozens of eyes that were filled with shock, suspicion, admiration, and fear were cast at Li Yao, who was floating in midair like a daunting devil!

  Chapter 2178: Sky Is the Limit! |

  Huala!

  While everybody was staring at him in astonishment, the crystal suit on Li Yao suddenly quaked at a high frequency and broke apart.

  "Ah!"

  Somebody exclaimed in shock, thinking that the crystal suit that had been assembled roughly with too complicated a structure finally could not withstand the overwhelming blast of spiritual energy from Li Yao and completely collapsed.

  However, after all the units and components dispersed, they were still attracted by the spiritual energy and electric arcs released by Li Yao. Hovering slowly and glittering five meters around him, they looked like dazzling stars.

  In such a way, Li Yao was able to get a closer look at the tiny problems when the components were assembled and connected from inside to outside.

  Li Yao, who was under the cover of the crystal suit, was beyond everyone's expectation. He did not turn into a muscular man more than three meters tall but was surrounded by deep red spiritual energy and bluish electric arcs, as if he had released the energy into a second layer of muscles and veins. It was an unusual view when one's control over the spiritual energy reached the highest extent!

  "Is… Is he a refiner or an ace Exo?"

  A lot of refiners of the Deep Sea Fleet, just like Ye Qingyun, swallowed hard.

  They were no stranger to what Li Yao was doing right now. He was a "test pilot"!

  For normal refiners, if they meant to test a brand-new crystal suit, they had to invite the experienced Exos as special test pilots.

  The production of crystal suits and the use of crystal suits were two vastly different fields after all. Nobody had the courage to be a test pilot without dozens of years of experience in fighting.

  Out of everyone's expectation, Li Yao took care of all the work singlehandedly, which both astounded them and raised their envy. If they could test their crystal suits themselves, they would be able to sense the problems and flaws in the crystal suits from the perspective of the user, and their adjustments and modifications would definitely be more accurate and subtle.

  Shua!

  In their whispers of admiration, the thousands of components around Li Yao were attracted to him again and assembled into a complete crystal suit. After brief adjustments, it split apart and blossomed, before it was constricted again. Repeating the process for five times, Li Yao finally finished the preliminary adjustment. He restored the crystal suit to the original form and crawled out of it.

  "Have you noticed the mysteries of this crystal suit?"

  Li Yao said to Li Jialing with a smile, "This is for you. But it has to be delivered to a furnace for repetitive polishing and whetting before it is completely done."

  "It is for me?"

  Li Jialing had long been fascinated by the crystal suit and was almost drooling. His eyes were shining so brilliantly that they were almost burning holes on the surface of the crystal suit. He mumbled, "What a beautiful transformative crystal suit!"

  "Exactly. I have named such a transformative crystal suit 'Demonic Crab'!"

  Li Yao was quite satisfied with the crystal suit that he had created through crazy modifications too.

  Generally speaking, he agreed with the mainstream ideas in the circle of refiners and did not appreciate the design of "transformative crystal suits".

  In order to achieve the purpose of changing the shape of the crystal suit to adapt to the body size of the berserkers, a lot of connection units and redundant components had to be added into the crystal suit, which would significantly increase the difficulty of maintenance and lower the battlefield survival abilities. The gains certainly could not outweigh the losses.

  Those people might as well carry a large crystal suit and a small one for their uses!

  When Li Yao just embarked on the path of a refiner, he had been focused on the ideas of "grassroots" and attached more importance to the sturdiness, simple maintenance, and universality of the magical equipment than to the pure increase of theoretical performance. Naturally, he despised the transformative crystal suits.

  However, as he advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage, he had new understandings about the production of the magical equipment.

  There were no "grassroots" magical equipment or "elites" magical equipment in the world. There was even no difference between "low-level magical equipment" and "advanced magical equipment". There was only the magical equipment that was "suitable" and the magical equipment that was not.

  Any magical equipment had its advantages and shortcomings. The most critical thing was to carry out the maximal advantages of a piece of magical equipment and try to cover the shortcomings as much as possible according to the environment and the features of the user.

  Transformative crystal suits indeed entailed a lot of serious deficiencies, but—

  Firstly, the user of the crystal suit was Li Jialing, who had almost exactly the same methodology of training as Wuying Lan. They were both monsters who received abundant surgical procedures and who could, and needed to, expand their bodies crazily in a battle to change into terrifying beings that felt like primeval beasts.

  Li Yao engaged in a battle with Wuying Lan before. To this moment, he still remembered the oppressive killing intent.

  According to Li Lingfeng, Li Jialing was an "experimental subject" that was even more perfect than Wuying Lan.

  Then, he would be the most standard berserker, and it was a rigid demand to "transform" in a battle for him.

  Secondly, and more importantly, Li Jialing
was not fighting alone right now but had the technical support of such a master of refining as Li Yao. The repair and maintenance were not going to be a problem at all.

  Then, a transformative crystal suit would be the most "suitable" choice right now.

  Right now, Li Yao already couldn't see the differences between the grassroots and the elites, the ancient refining arts and the modern ones, the Imperium's technologies and the federation's, etc. Magical equipment was magical equipment after all. It was a tool that mankind had invented to address a certain specific problem. There was nothing mysterious and unchangeable about them.

  He was approaching the essence of magical equipment.

  Having picked a crystal suit for Li Jialing, Li Yao still needed to choose one for himself.

  After all, he could not go on a killing spree in the Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing all the time. He did not intend to keep it a secret from the "rebels" of the Deep Sea Fleet, and it was impossible for him to keep it a secret too. However, it would seem too flagrant to walk on the street in the capital in the Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing.

  Li Yao had long selected his target in the many crystal suits that were in a myriad of appearances but equally awesome and intimidating.

  The crystal suit that he focused his eyes on was round and somewhat clumsy. There was also a weird protrusion on the back, which looked like a giant turtle shell.

  Under the contrast of the many glamorous, high-level crystal suits, this particular crystal suit looked rather plain, if not overshadowed.

  But when the refiners of the Deep Sea Fleet saw that Li Yao laid his eyes on the crystal suit, they were all whispering to each other.

  "This crystal suit is very impressive!"

  His eyes glowing, Li Yao said to Ye Qingyun with ecstasy, having discovered a real treasure. "The crystal suits here are all crafted by masters. Any of them will suffice. However, this crystal suit is natural and flawless from design to production. The designs of the crystal reactor and the power rune arrays on the crystal suit are particularly eye-catching. I have never seen such a weird asymmetrical nine-star distribution before. It seems random and unreasonable at first look, but if you think about it more carefully, such a disordered distribution can carry out the performance of the crystal suit in small-scale turning to the best.