Forty millenniums of cul.., p.50
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 50
Peng Hai swiftly punched in a couple of glyphs into the hologram. Soon, three small screens emerged in the hologram with each screen depicting a completely different world.
Peng Hai clicked on the gray world among them, then set the coordinates and other parameters before stepping onto the transmission formation.
Li Yao and Ding Lingdang similarly followed him onto the disc. The crystal inlaid around its edges were getting increasingly brighter, making it impossible to directly look at them. The array engraved underneath their feet started moving like a whirlpool, generating an inexplicable suction force which seemed to pull them into the ground.
Everything went black before Li Yao's eyes. He felt like he was like a noodle which was stretched to a hundred meter, and in 0.1 seconds, he was reverted back to his original form.
Li Yao was hit with a burst of dizziness; he had an urge to vomit. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a very strange world.
From the sky to the earth, everything was completely gray. As far as his eyes could see, it was a lifeless gray dessert. The earth beneath his feet was composed solely of broken stones and gravel... One would not be able to find the slightest trace of life here.
This world seemed to have no atmosphere. The air here was sparse; for each breath, Li Yao had to exert all his strength. Moreover, there was an unpleasant smell in the air, and upon inhaling the air, a feeling of extreme discomfort rose within him as the air travels down from his nasal cavity to the trachea. Li Yao felt like it was not air that he had breathed but some hot volcanic gas. As the air reached his lungs, he felt as if a ball of fire had been hurled into his lungs, it was extremely stifling.
What made him even more uncomfortable was that the gravity here was several times more than that of the Heaven Origin Sector. Just from standing, Li Yao felt his strength seeping away as his knees almost buckled to the ground.
The gray sky above was devoid of any stars, the moon, and the sun. Instead, a couple huge pieces of gray rocks with a human face carved upon them were hanging in the sky. They floated in an extremely strange manner, and their eyes seemingly stared directly upon the people on the ground. Looking at those rocks, Li Yao felt jittery.
In addition, he noticed one more staggering thing — standing approximately seven to eight hundred meters away from them were three people on the other side who dressed exactly like them!
"You don't need to check, that's us. This world has a diameter of approximately a kilometer. It is a typical world fragment,” Peng Hai smiled and said.
"We are inside the legendary world fragment?" Li Yao curiously looked at everything around him.
According to textbooks, there were two kinds of worlds in the universe.
The first was something like the Heaven Origin Sector which occupied a vast piece of space and stretched across several galaxies and had several habitable planets that had stable atmospheres and complete ecosystems.
This type of world was ideal for the humans or demon beasts to thrive and evolve, and for the development of civilization.
This type of world was called the "Main World" or also known as the "Boundless Universe".
The other type was much miserable. Perhaps you could say it was the space-time fragment formed due to the Big Bang at the beginning of the Universe, or perhaps a part of the Main World blasted off during the fight between super ancient cultivators, or maybe a part torn away during the spiritual energy tide, or it might even be possible that it was artificially created for all sorts of strange and unusual reasons.
This type of world was often very small with a radius varying from a couple hundred meters to even a few dozen meters, while the largest one would not even exceed the size of a continent. On account of its small volume, the fluctuation of spiritual energy was extremely intense. This type of world was very unstable and lacked a set of fixed rules of operation. It might even collapse in minutes.
This type of world went by the name of "World Fragment" or also known as the "Small World".
The Main World and the World Fragment were separated through a space-time gap; however, once the exact coordinates of the World Fragment were known, one could directly enter it through the transmission formation.
In the early days of modern cultivation civilization, mankind discovered many such World Fragments. However, at that time, humans had not yet learned how to utilize these World Fragments. These World Fragments were simply treated as a dumping site for waste from the Main World or were treated as a place of exile.
After 10,000 years of development, mankind had discovered millions of such World Fragments and realized the advantages of these World Fragments. From then on, these World Fragments were developed and utilized — they were no longer waste but turned into treasures to be exploited.
One of the most common use was to develop the World Fragment into a training field for powerful cultivators!
Peng Hai said, "This World Fragment is called 'Small Grayfield'. The specialty of this place lies in the underlying terrifying density of the ground and the high gravity which is approximately ten times that of Heaven Origin Sector. The strangest thing about this place is the gravity, which is unstable — it changes by the minute or even seconds. The gravity may vary from eight times to twelve times of that of the Heaven Origin Sector. It doesn't follow any law whatsoever. Often, the gravity would be twelve times for one second, and in the next, it could suddenly drop to eight times! For training the control over your body, the 'Small Grayfield' is the best place for cultivation!"
"So strange!" Li Yao was secretly shocked. This World Fragment was truly weird.
If the gravitational force was ten times higher than that of the Heaven Origin Sector, then according to the norms, the density of this place could be said to be especially high.
But the gravitational field here was subjected to change in an irregular fashion, and this phenomenon had no rule or any explainable reason.
And why were there statues engraved with human faces floating in the sky? Who created them? And even more, why could they violate all the laws of gravity and float in the sky? He could not find a single anti-gravity array on them anywhere!
However, Li Yao was not a scientist. Since he could not figure it out, he simply threw it at the back of his mind. When he arbitrarily blasted two punches, sure enough, he found some irregularities at the moments when his punches discharged power.
It was the so-called "force from the ground". The first part of any attack was to take a step to borrow strength from the ground.
The subtle changes in the gravitational field had led to Li Yao having a feeling as if he was stepping on cotton. The heavy-headedness and light-footedness kind of feeling rendered the punches, which were originally strong enough to tear the air, into powerless light jabs.
"There is a full set of training equipment in here. If you can adapt to the gravity of this place within a month, then I believe that after returning to the Heaven Origin Sector, your strength will have advanced to a completely new level, and getting admitted to the 'Nine Elite Universities' would be a piece of cake for you!" Peng Hai said with a smile.
Peng Hai paused and took a glance at the nearby Ding Lingdang, who seemed like she wanted to say something, before continuing, "Junior Sister Ding, you can't say senior brother didn't take care of you later. For the period of an entire month, the training room is under your management. You must operate the transmission formation and also help me look after this brat. Make sure to never ever step onto the other World Fragments besides the 'Small Grayfield, especially him. Even you have to be careful there. Both World Fragments were prepared for Building Foundation Stage cultivators and are extremely dangerous. If an ordinary person stepped in there, he would vanish in the puff of smoke."
Ding Lingdang was brimming with happiness. She jumped in jubilation and cheered, "Long live senior brother! For a long time, I've been wanting to cultivate in the 'Small Grayfield'! However, can't you promise me one more thing?"
Peng Hai frowned, "I knew you’d be insatiable. Say it, what else do you want?"
A huge grin appeared on Ding Lingdang's face, "Senior Brother Peng, as you know, fellow student Li Yao is hesitating between the Grand Desolate War Institution and the Deep Sea University. How about the two of us have a round of bout to let fellow student Li Yao experience the true strength of the Grand Desolate War Institution. Maybe watching us will cause his blood to start boiling and burst with joy. And who knows? He might just, on the spot, gave up on becoming a bullsh*t Refiner [1] and realize that a Body Practitioner is a very promising career!"
Once she was finished, without even waiting for Peng Hai to agree, Ding Lingdang began exercising her hands and feet on her own as very frightening sounds began to come from her joints.
Peng Hai calmly and collectedly backed away half a step. A helpless smile appeared on his face, "Do you want to show fellow student Li Yao, or do you simply want to have a round of spar with me?"
Ding Lingdang stuck her tongue out.
"You saw through me! Senior Brother Peng, you're the most outstanding graduate of Grand Desolate War Institution before me. All this time, I've been looking for an opportunity to learn from you, but you’ve always refused. Today, think of it as... letting fellow student Li Yao have a taste of the firepower of a battle-type cultivator! Let him see exactly how crazy it is!"
Peng Hai glanced at Li Yao before a peculiar aura started surging in his eyes. Finally, he nodded in agreement.
"Alright, for fellow student Li Yao's sake, I'll suppress my strength to 'Pinnacle Refinement Stage' and spar with you. But first, you have to agree that this is only for thirty seconds."
"No need. If it's just 'Pinnacle Refinement Stage', then I'll blow you away in ten seconds!"
Notes:
[1] I’ll be using Refiner instead of Artificer.
Chapter 83: Your's is but a Cannon! |
Ding Lingdang was completely excited. Her excitement was clearly visible on her face; her skin, as exquisite as honey, was slightly flushed red. Even though there was no trace of visible movements on her, the eight bells tied to her beautiful ankles suddenly started vibrating frantically, producing sharp yet delicate jingles.
The jingles coming from these bells were unlike any ordinary bells. Surprisingly, they sounded like the clashing of swords and blades!
When those light and crashing jingles of bells connected into a loud bang, Ding Lingdang suddenly took off!
"Shua!"
What remained at the place she once stood was an incomparably distinct blur. Unexpectedly, Ding Lingdang appeared in front of Peng Hai!
Her pair of arms completely turned into two groups of imaginary shadows, seemingly as if she had thousands of hands, as wave after wave of white mist wandered around her body. Her arms appeared to have turned into air cannons, firing straight towards Peng Hai's head!
Yet, Peng Hai appeared to be calm and collected as a smile appeared on his face while he retreated a few steps.
Every time he withdrew a step, the step seemed to be very light, yet it somehow fractured the incomparably hard ground beneath his foot into spider web-like cracks, spattering numerous stones and gravel to create a scattered barrier in front of him.
As Ding Lingdang's rain of punches bombarded upon these bits of stone, these bits of stones were all crushed into powder, not even a single stone could remain unscathed. The strength of her punches continued to decline. She simply couldn't land a punch on Peng Hai.
"Senior Brother Peng, as expected, you're really something!"
Ding Lingdang's pair of eyes lit up. Her whole body, as if it was burning up, released a large amount of crimson aura that began to shoot out from the thirty-six thousand pores on her body, creating the image of millions of fire serpents coiling around her body, rendering the image of her body to become distorted.
On the other hand, the energy around Peng Hai also started surging with faint sounds of wind and thunder. Round after round of faint black energy emerged from the depth of his limbs and bones that poured out along the pores of his body to congeal into a sturdy set of armor which wrapped around his body.
Their figures clearly remained unchanged, but their aura was several times stronger than a moment ago. Red and black energy continued to diffuse around them as an area of a dozen meter in radius was completely enveloped by their energies.
And between the two, the point where the two energies met, had already started emitting crackling sounds, as if two armies were in the midst of war.
While criss-cross cracks started to appear on the ground, the rocks, which were within the reaches of their powerful energy, were smashed into powder.
"Come again!"
Ding Lingdang gave a long howl. Her breath shot like an arrow, creating a gorgeous ripple in front of her. This time, her figure completely disappeared. What stood in its place was a fire serpent whose length exceeded a hundred meters. Like a real snake preying upon some rodent, the fire serpent coiled around Peng Hai — Peng Hai was completely surrounded at the center!
As opposed to the fire serpent, at the center, a black mist escaped into the air as Peng Hai metamorphosed into a falcon, escaped the clutches of the fire serpent as it flapped its wings, and soared into the sky before bearing down its claws upon the fire serpent. The falcon immediately struck down towards the heart of the fire serpent!
The speed of the two seemed to have no bounds. As the two fought, their speed kept on increasing as the fire serpent and black falcon tore each other and congealed again in no time.
At the beginning, Li Yao could see the snake and falcon's form clearly. He could see each and every action and watch how they fought, but as the fight went longer, their forms later became vague and appeared to be badgering each other. Their forms now turned into a huge black and red mass of air. Li Yao could only hear lightning-like thunderclaps coming from the mass of air as the air around it burst into fierce gales, sweeping the sand and stones nearby. The ground, on the other hand, was as if a meteor shower had swept across the earth, leaving dozens of few meters deep craters behind with white steam rising from them — the scorching hot air was directly soaring into the sky!
A couple hundred meters away, watching all this, Li Yao was completely dumbfounded. His mind seemed to have lost its bearing, he was muddle-headed like he was senile, like he was intoxicated.
This was not the Heaven Origin Sector but the Small Grayfield, where the gravity was ten times stronger, yet, these two were staging such a gorgeous battle!
Such power, such violence… This was precisely the strength of cultivator which could not be stopped by anyone other than another cultivator!
And they were just Peak Refinement Stage cultivators, a stage that could only be seen as the lowest rung of the entire cultivation world.
If it was a cultivator with a step stronger cultivation, the Building Foundation Stage cultivators, or the Core Formation Stage cultivators, or some Nascent Soul Stage old devils, coupled with peerless divine weapons along with a few pieces of tyrannical magical equipment, that would simply be ——
It would not be impossible to pave a path from one end of the universe to the other, devastating everyone and everything in his path!
No wonder humankind could dominate the Universe for forty millennia, kill countless upon countless of aliens, and acquire the title of "The strongest family in the endless space"!
"Soon, I too will become a cultivator like them — even stronger than them!"
Along with strong feelings of jealousy and envy, an intense impulse to overtake them emerged in Li Yao's heart.
His bones, blood vessels, muscles, internal organs, and each and every single cell of his body began to itch. They could not wait for even a fraction of a second to start to cultivate!
A couple hundred meters away, the two entwining masses of air suddenly separated from each other and turned distinct. Soon after, the two red and black shining, bubble-like mass disappeared without a trace. Peng Hai and Ding Lingdang once again reverted back to their true form.
Ding Lingdang's whole body was laden with wounds. It appeared as if she was baked inside an oven as whirring hot air rose from her body.
Peng Hai looked down from high above as an exceptionally large metal ball appeared behind him. The surface of the metal ball happened to have nine openings. In the blink of an eye, nine unstable masses of spiritual energy started to gather in front of these openings.
"Spiritual Energy Star Cannon?"
The onlooking Li Yao almost had his eyes pop out of their sockets. This magical weapon was equipped on crystal warships — from where did Peng Hai steal this stuff?
Ding Lingdang screamed, "Senior Brother Peng, you're cheating!"
Peng Hai slightly smiled. "Junior Sister Ding, I only said that I’ll fight with Peak Refinement Stage strength. When did I say I won’t use magical equipment!?"
Ding Lingdang simmered in anger. "If it was a saber or sword, I might be able to withstand it— but your’s is a cannon!"
"Oh, it's your mistake."
Peng Hai pursed his lips into a smile as the Spiritual Energy Star Cannon opened fire with full force. Nine balls of light converged together and, without any delay or a trace of compassion, ruthlessly blasted towards Ding Lingdang!
Ding Lingdang's final line of defense, her spiritual energy force field, crumbled into nothing. Like a boneless snake, her whole body heavily crashed onto the ground!
As Ding Lingdang crashed, a burst of tremor ran through the ground before a few meters deep crater appeared.
Ding Lingdang, with an aggrieved look on her face, directly lost her consciousness.
Peng Hai slowly descended from the sky and very calmly walked towards Li Yao.
Li Yao glanced at the Spiritual Energy Star Cannon floating above Peng Hai's head before staring at the calm and unperturbed look on Peng Hai's face. He wanted to say something but, on second thought, swallowed his words.
"Just because I go by 'Fiend Blade', do you think I'm a sword cultivator?? Just because I have used a cannon during the fight, do you think I'm mean?" Peng Hai asked with a light smile on his face.
