Forty millenniums of cul.., p.458
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 458
"We don't know the power of the Heart Gnawing Mist as of now. But by our rough estimates, one spoonful of Heart Gnawing Mist should be enough to kill tens of thousands of people when it is released into the air!"
The 300-year-old Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator was not moved. "We've all seen better poison. Is the Temple of Immortals trying to kill so many Core Formation Stage Cultivators and Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators with venom?"
"The Heart Gnawing Poison is not designed for you." Xiao Xuance shook his head and replied calmly, "It is prepared for ordinary people and low-level Cultivators."
"What?"
Everyone, including Li Yao, was shocked.
"Heavenly Saints City is a star fortress. Our central area is essentially an enclosed iron ball. All the fresh air is provided by an artificial circulating system.
"When the Edge Sharpeners' Meeting began, experts, scholars, and visitors from other space zones all came to enjoy the gala. Up until the day before yesterday, the population of the central area of Heavenly Saints City was three times the usual, a new record!
"All these people need to breath oxygen. Our air recycling system is now already overloaded.
"If the Temple of Immortals infiltrates one of the procedures of the air recycling system and injects abundant Heart Gnawing Mist, it will definitely fill the entire central area of Heavenly Saints City. What will the consequences be, if I may ask?
"Perhaps Cultivators above the Building Foundation Stage will be able to resist the poison. But the ordinary people and low-level Cultivators are bound to be affected by the mist.
"At that time, the central area of Heavenly Saints City will be in chaos. All the Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators will be busy rescuing the people.
"The 'Black King' and the 'Eight Blades of Black Spider' will naturally take the opportunity to assassinate the targets whom they deem of value and who are least prepared.
"Even if the assassination fails, the chaos they make in the central area of Heavenly Saints City will be a major strike for people's confidence in Cultivators and, therefore, shake the foundation of the world!
"This is the general picture of the Mist Plan."
There was half a minute of silence in the command center.
Although the ventilation rune arrays were fully functioning and releasing fresh air that even carried the aroma of soil after a rain, the Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators all felt short of breath, as if they had already been poisoned by the mist.
Coldness beamed out of the eyes of the 300-year-old Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, while he raised his voice and asked, "Fellow Cultivator Xiao, are you sure that the Immortal Slayers have fully grasped the Mist Plan and we have the Black King and the Eight Blades of Black Spider on our radar?"
"No. The Black King and the Eight Blades of Black Spider are not important. The Heart Gnawing Poison is the key."
Greasy sweat was pouring down the forehead of another Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, who was a bit obese, while he asked, "Have we located all of the Heart Gnawing Mist?"
"We have." Xiao Xuance nodded calmly. "After several months of hard work, we have found out the residences of the Black King and the Eight Blades of Black Spider in Heavenly Saints City and how they are preparing to breach in the air recycling system!
"The Mist Plan started several years ago. Two Immortal Cultivators snuck into the central area of Heavenly Saints City two years ago and have been working in the air recycling stations.
"Of course, it is also possible that the Temple of Immortals bewildered the Cultivators who used to work in the air recycling station and turned them into emotionless Immortal Cultivators."
"What!"
A Core Formation Stage Cultivator rose up and exclaimed in shock. Half a second later, he blushed and sat down again.
"There's no need to be worried, everybody. We have everybody on the list under our control. The coordinates of all the Immortal Cultivators and the Heart Gnawing Mist are in our hands.
"The net has been thrown, and the fish will be picked up before midnight.
"However, we did not expect that the Temple of Immortals would send so many experts for the mission. The soldiers of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City and the Immortal Slayers may not be capable enough to annihilate all of them.
"Therefore, we need you to give us a hand. There is no way that such a tragedy can be allowed to take place in the central area of Heavenly Saints City!"
Chapter 683: Genius and Mentally Retarded |
"It is our responsibility to slay the devils!"
The Core Formation Stage Cultivator who exclaimed in shock just now stood up again and declared, "What do you mean by giving you a hand? This is a disaster that the entire Flying Star Sector is faced with. There's no reason the six sects of Heavenly Saints City should work it out on your own. Just tell us what to do, Senior Xiao!"
Xiao Xuance slightly bowed and said sincerely, "Please don't misunderstand us, everyone. There were not many Cultivators outside Heavenly Saints City working as the Immortal Slayers, partly because we feared that the message would more likely be leaked out, and partly because all the space zones needed their warriors to protect their own land against the rampant space pirates nowadays.
"If the operation succeeds and the Temple of Immortals is significantly reduced, we will definitely publicize the files about the Immortal Slayers as much as we can and recruit Cultivators beyond Heavenly Saints City into the team. Everybody will work together and fight against the Immortal Cultivators!"
The wrinkled Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator said gloomily, "Naturally, we are going to do our part now that the Immortal Cultivators have all been locked onto. However, Brother Xiao said that the Mist Plan is to be carried out tonight. The time is too short, and many of us don't even know each other, let alone cooperated before. I'm afraid that our teamwork may not be flawless in a metropolis with complicated terrain such as Heavenly Saints City."
Xiao Xuance assured confidently, "No need to worry, everybody. The main force of the operation is still the Cultivators from the six sects of Heavenly Saints City. We have practiced multiple times to ensure that everything will be okay.
"Your job is to guard in the periphery of the city in case that some of our enemies run away.
"If the Black King of the Temple of Immortals arrives in person, such an expert in the Nascent Soul Stage might still be able to get away even if three to five other Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators are hunting him. Therefore, we have to make thorough preparations!
"We have decided on your position and responsibilities according to your capability and personality. Please take a look."
Xiao Xuance clapped his hands softly. The wall on the left side of the command center suddenly split apart, revealing a large crystal processor center.
Dozens of crystal processor experts were tapping and operating crazily on hundreds of light beams, analyzing the tremendous data.
Li Yao noticed the guy sitting in the middle of the crystal processors immediately.
In fact, nobody could overlook him.
He was definitely more than two hundred kilograms and was basically a mountain of white, greasy meat. There were wrinkles on his skin all over his body, and his legs were drowned in his fat.
His skin was scarily fair, his hair was as yellow as straw, and his eyeballs were slightly red as if they were covered in a thin blood membrane.
Every sign suggested that he was an albino.
Li Yao knew that the eyes of such patients often had mutations before they were born. Their sight was often affected.
Moreover, his two eyes were very far away from each other, his forehead was extremely broad, and his lips were very thick. His face suggested he had Down syndrome, or in other words, a natural-born intellectual disability.
It was hard to tell his age with all the fat on his body, but Li Yao guessed that he should be in his fifties anyway. Yet, the man was wearing a fancy big shirt that had lovely bears on it while he was enjoying a lollipop in his mouth with cracking noises as he bit it.
The innocent countenance on his face usually exclusively belonged to little kids.
"Dad! Dad! I've just got another one! He was trying to play hide-and-seek with me. I only managed to capture him again after changing 72 algorithms!"
The big fatty in his fifties was surrounded by hundreds of translucent light beams on which various kinds of data was going up and down like a surging ocean. Ordinary people might have been dazzled and even vomited blood just glancing at them, and yet the man was dancing joyfully as if he were playing an interesting game.
Seeing that Xiao Xuance had arrived, he immediately shouted, hoping to be praised.
"Good boy. Let me take a look. There are still three left. Can you capture all of them in ten minutes?"
Xiao Xuance's expression immediately changed. He took out a piece of candy from his pocket and said in a tone that was usually used to comfort kids, "As long as my boy can find all of them, I will give you this nougat."
"Wonderful! Wonderful!"
The fatty clapped his hands, and he was almost drooling. He extended his two fingers and then added another one after thinking for a moment. "I want two candies. No. Three!"
"Alright. If you can find all of them, I will give you three candies!"
Xiao Xuance patted the head of the fatty affectionately and said softly, "I believe my boy will definitely be awesome enough to locate all the bad people!"
The 'boy' dived into the world of data. He bulged his eyes and did not move his hands. Streams of spiritual energy flowed out of his fingertips and manipulated hundreds of light beams simultaneously.
Of the more than seven hundred light beams that were floating in the crystal processor center, half were being controlled by him alone, and the other half were evenly divided by ten or so crystal processor experts.
"A Cultivator!"
Li Yao's pupils constricted violently. He had not expected that the albino fatty who suffered from Down syndrome was actually a Cultivator.
Judging from his dedication to the data, he was a fairly good one!
Li Yao remembered that Huangpu Bo had told him that Xiao Xuance had a foster son who was both genius and mentally retarded.
He was the 'star child'!
Xiao Xuance turned around. He glanced at everyone with a complicated expression and said, "This is Xiao Tianbao, my foster son. I believe that many of you have heard rumors about him.
"Whatever other people might think, he is a truly determined man, a Cultivator who is as innocent as a baby and willing to devote his everything to Cultivation!
"In his life, there is absolutely nothing except Cultivation!
"Xiao Tianbao was the leading developer of the star brain to manipulate the Grand Illusionary Soldiers. No. Actually, he created the star brain purely on his own. There is no need to doubt his ability.
"We were able to lock onto the Black King and the Eight Blades of Black Spider precisely because Xiao Tianbao found signs in the billions of telepathic thoughts flooding via the Spiritual Nexus and traced them back to the Immortal Cultivators' portable crystal processors.
"Also, Xiao Tianbao and the other crystal processor experts have come up with 27 tactical plans according to the terrain of Heavenly Saints City, the capability of the warriors of the Temple of Immortals, all known data of the Mist Plan, and the strength of every one of you.
"Before the operation, a tactical crystal processor will be handed over to you. You will only need to act according to the plans stored in the crystal processor, and everything will be good!"
This was the first time that most Cultivators had seen the legendary 'star child'. They were all very interested in the talented weirdo.
Most of them were pure battle-type Cultivators and did not know what Xiao Tianbao was doing on the light beams.
Li Yao, on the other hand, knew a thing or two about crystal processors and the Spiritual Nexus. He tilted his head and observed for a long time. The more he watched, the more he was awed.
"The information streams suggested that people of the Temple of Immortals were very prudent. Not only were they altering their personal identification telepathic thoughts every half an hour, they would also run dynamic encryptions on them by choosing three encryption methods randomly from seventeen different encryption methods. They even set up traps in which antitracking telepathic thoughts were stored, and they would be alarmed when anything went wrong!"
Seeing that a tricky problem was solved, Li Yao's eyes glowed, and he could not help but ask, "How did you lock onto them so quickly without them knowing it?"
Although Xiao Tianbao was naïve, he was not afraid of strangers. Li Yao's question poked right at what he was most proud of. He replied happily, "You like playing games, too, big brother? It's very simple!"
"At first, you run an inverse filtering with the Spiritual Griffin Algorithm and find the frequent cluster points of the key words entering and exiting Heavenly Saints City. Then, you plug in a hyperlink to them with the Nine Algorithms of Hook Chen and locate all the discontinuous variables, before you calculate all the recurrent sets with the Master Instability Regression Method. After that, run a few serial iterative algorithms and find the clusters whose wave frequencies are higher than the Master Heavenly Crane's equilibrium line. At last, you will only need to reorder the abnormal clusters by selection sort or insertion sort, and those bad people will be right in front of your nose, won't they?"
Xiao Tianbao blinked his red eyes, which were almost transparent, and looked at Li Yao in expectation of his compliment.
Cold sweat was popping up on Li Yao's forehead.
"That explains a lot!"
Li Yao slapped his head as if he had figured everything out. "Fellow Cultivator Xiao is truly considerate. You have my admiration!"
Xiao Tianbao pouted. "What do you mean, big brother?"
Xiao Xuance went forward and smiled. "Big brother was praising you for playing the game well! Here. I'll give you a candy first!"
"Gimme two!" Waving his chubby fingers, Xiao Tianbao chuckled. "I'm going to give big brother one. He understood what I said while none of the other people could!"
"Master Sand—"
Several teachers of the Combat Department and the Battlesuit Department came over and eyed Li Yao with admiration. "We are all pure battle-type Cultivators and don't understand the algorithms and data at all. We didn't know that Master Sand could comprehend all of that. You truly deserve to be a rising star of refining!"
"What did Fellow Cultivator Xiao mean? Can you explain the technological jargons to us, Master Sand?"
More than ten earnest eyes were focused on Li Yao.
Li Yao's eyelids were twitching violently. He coughed for a long time, before he finally squinted and said, "It's mysterious and complicated. You have no theoretical knowledge of data mining and analysis. I cannot explain the concepts to you in a hurry.
"Anyways, first things first. Let's focus our attention on the Mist Plan of the Temple of Immortals for now!"
"Fellow Cultivator Sand is quite right," Xiao Xuance said solemnly. "To prevent the news from leaking out, the operation has been kept confidential until the last moment. Therefore, it might be a bit hasty right now.
"Everybody has two hours for preparation starting from now. We will be faced with a brutal battle. Do be careful and make sure that your most powerful magical equipment is ready.
"If you did not bring sufficient magical equipment with you, the six sects of Heavenly Saints City have prepared abundant tools, which you are free to choose from.
"In two hours, we will gather in the hall of the Millennium Meeting and begin the operation.
"The name of our operation will be—'Mist Clearing'!"
Chapter 684: Unresolvable Conundrum |
In the training room, Li Yao was pacing back and forth anxiously like a leopard that had fallen into a trap. Now and then, he would scratch his hair hard, as if he was trying to dig out some insights from it.
The training room was rented for during the Edge Sharpeners' Meeting. Since he had too many secrets that he would rather nobody knew, he had installed very inconspicuous monitoring rune arrays in the corners of the training room to make sure that it was not broken into or under surveillance.
In a corner of the training room, a weirdly-looking crystal processor was trembling violently and sending a large paragraph of information out.
What Li Yao was transmitting was the Ice God Project and the Grand Illusionary Soldier Project that he had learned of that morning.
But he was transmitting them not through the Spiritual Nexus established by the Grand Illusionary Group but through his own route that Mo Xuan and himself had worked on together.
Professor Mo Xuan and him often talked a lot about the secrets in the Heaven's Origin Sector, and no information was absolutely safe in the Spiritual Nexus. Therefore, when the Glorious Sunlight Group was about to rise, Li Yao secretly transferred part of the capital to Professor Mo Xuan and asked him to refine a batch of their own Spiritual Towers.
Spiritual Towers were nodes of the Spiritual Nexus and a piece of classic magical equipment dating back to ten thousand years ago. They were not complicated in structure, and Professor Mo Xuan could totally build them right now.
After a batch of Spiritual Towers was produced and disguised as meteoroids and debris, they were shipped to all the space zones from the Cross Wind Space Zone to Heavenly Saints City by Sparkle in secret.
Naturally, with Li Yao's current wealth, it was impossible to build a second Spiritual Nexus that covered the entire Flying Star Sector. However, constructing a 'Spiritual Route' to support point-to-point communication from Heavenly Saints City to the Cross Wind Space Zone was quite realistic.
Since it was his personal route, there was no way that anyway could monitor the data at all.
