Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

when ye qingyun brought back a batch of crystals of the highest purity on dragon abyss, he discovered that li yao had turned on the operation interface of the “scorching sun vii” furnace and was conducting the initialization settings.

the room was utterly quiet. all the refiners were watching li yao’s performance with the utmost bewilderment.

when ye qingyun saw the initialization parameters that li yao had set, he couldn’t help but gasp and feel astounded too.

he finally knew what “exploit the extreme potentials of this furnace” meant.

this “vulture li yao” had set the parameters of the furnace simply too crazily!

in the performance of the furnace, “power” and “stability” were often a pair of contradictory values. the furnaces that focused too much on stability would not reach the highest power, and it would be impossible to trigger the extreme high or low temperatures. as a result, some special materials wouldn’t be able to be refined.

however, if the furnace pursued nothing but extreme temperatures, it would not be hard to guess that the furnace would be highly unstable. not only would the faulty rate be greatly improved, but the spiritual energy would possibly overflow and swallow the refiner. in worse cases, even the furnaces would explode!

having been using this “scorching sun vii” frequently, ye qingyun naturally knew its most appropriate parameter settings and had reached the perfect balance between “power” and “stability” since a long time ago.

but right now, this “vulture li yao”, through a series of dazzling, complicated settings, had increased the power to the highest, which put the furnace in a highly-unstable, highly-sensitive state where the refiner might receive a backlash at any moment.

“is this a furnace at all?”

ye qingyun frowned hard. looking at the initialization data that he had set carefully before turning into an utter mess, he couldn’t help but feel enraged. he blurted out, “this is a crystal bomb!”

“not exactly. i’m quite familiar with crystal bombs.”

after finishing the most unbelievable settings smoothly, li yao turned back with a smile and said, “can i take a look at the crystals first?”

his eyelids twitching, ye qingyun commanded a few low-level refiners to push over the crystals that were stored in boxes on carts without saying anything.

the crystals for the use of furnaces were naturally not the raw minerals in bizarre shapes with all kinds of impurities. they had been preprocessed and consolidated by the factories and transformed into clear, colorful bricks. the crystals of the wind, fire, water, and thunder classes seemed to have truly sealed four different powers inside. if one were to knock them with their finger, they would hear the sounds of raging flames, pouring storm, and rumbling thunder inside.

li yao squatted and picked up the crystal bricks one after another. tapping and sniffing their surface, he transmitted his spiritual energy into them now and then and observed the ripples on the surface of the bricks caused by his spiritual energy.

it was not until a long time later that he finally chose a brick and put it aside solemnly. he then began to pick the second one.

ye qingyun couldn’t help but ask, “those crystal bricks have been refined through dozens of procedures to ensure a purity of more than 99%. they are the fuel of the highest level that has more than enough to power crystal suits or even colossi. i wonder, what are you choosing exactly, fellow cultivator li?”

“even if their purity is 99%, the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of the crystal bricks are still different.”

touching the bricks and appreciating the splendid colors with his eyes half narrowed, li yao said, “in the eyes of the ancient cultivators, crystals are the essence of natural spiritual energy, consolidated by the souls of the living creatures after they die. according to modern theory, crystals are the regular minerals or the fossils of enormous creatures in the primeval era after they are condensed by high temperatures and pressure and soaked by all kinds of cosmic radiations, high-energy particles, and spiritual energy for a long time.

“also, we have classified the crystals into different categories such as ‘water, fire, wind, and thunder’ according to their general features, but such a classification is simply too simple and rough.

“due to the different environments, different histories, and different relative locations to the stars of every planet, even the crystals of the same quality will have subtle differences.

“for example, the crystals of the fire class that are excavated from a highly-unstable planet, which is very close to a star and fraught with volcano eruptions, and the crystals of the fire class that are collected from a very moist planet whose surface is almost entirely covered by ocean—can they be the same?

“the former certainly carry the features of violence, fury, and instability, and are more suitable to be crafted into crystal bombs, whereas the latter contains the features of both water and fire. they have both the toughness of fire and the gentleness of water, and they are the best fuel for refining.

“take a look at the two crystal bricks of the fire class here. they are both of 99% purity, and they look identical. however, when i input a stream of feeble spiritual energy into it, the ripples spreading on their surfaces are entirely different.

“the ripples of the first one are radial, in that they look like both the halo of a star and magma that are splashing out into a mess quickly. but the ripples of the second brick are very even rings that do not disperse until they reach the edge of the brick. they are also vaguely emitting bluish colors. that is exactly the combination of toughness and gentleness.

“in order to activate the extreme potentials of the furnace, i have adopted relatively extreme approaches in initialization settings. then, i have to be milder when it comes to the fuel and the catalysts. the second crystal brick can’t be better.”

while talking, li yao examined and filtered the crystal bricks, dividing them into two piles.

ye qingyun couldn’t have looked more awful.

although he was not convinced by li yao’s fancy, groundless explanation, he did know that the crystals on board were from two different suppliers. they were a combination of two different batches of goods.

in terms of the production of the standard crystals, namely the “crystal bricks”, the imperium of true human beings had a set of mature and rigorous standards. whichever world they came from, and however varied the features of the raw minerals were, the crystal bricks that were produced in the end were exactly the same and universally applicable to any starship, crystal suit, and even colossus.

but even the most rigorous standard of production would not involve the environment of the planet from which the raw minerals were excavated. what was that all about?

pointing at the different types of crystals, li yao explained in great detail again. he claimed that the best crystals of the water class were from the waterfalls in the mountainous areas because such crystals were relatively “unbent”. also, the crystals of the wind class and those of the thunder class were best to be from the same mine on the same planet to achieve the effect of resonation. he chattered on for more than ten minutes before he finally selected a few crystal bricks from the large pile.

even queen li linghai was more or less intimidated by what he said. she asked suspiciously, “master jin, is there really so much more to the standard crystal bricks?”

“well…”

master jin tianzong’s expression became more and more attentive, and the brilliance in his eyes was more and more dazzling. “there is already a mature system in the standard production of crystals in modern civilization. in fact, such concerns are unnecessary. however, i know that a lot of refining sects of the ancient civilization attached great significance to the sources of crystals. there are quite a few famous classics. for example, the ‘hundred smelting clan’, a famous sect of refining in the age of ancient cultivators, presented a book named ‘on stone tasting’, which was specifically about the selection of crystals. but it was lost a long time ago.”

“lost?”

li linghai said, “so, the major schools of refining in the imperium do not adopt such theories?”

“no.”

jin tianzong said with a smile of confusion. “this ‘vulture li yao’ is truly unpredictable. even i have never heard of some of the things he said before. impressive. he is truly impressive.

“let’s just see how this fellow cultivator li tests the furnace!”

his eyes glittering, master jin tianzong stared at li yao’s every movement.

inside the laboratory, all the refiners of the deep sea fleet including ye qingyun held their breath and bulged their eyes, not leaving out any detail.

however, li yao’s series of movements, including turning on the furnace, igniting the fire, boosting the combustion, filling in the materials, and testing the furnace, were more or less disappointing.

it was not because li yao had done anything outrageous but because his operations were too normal, plain, and unattractive, which was a major contrast to his sophisticated words just now.

his look as if he were treading on thin ice even made people suspect that he was worried the furnace would explode because he had set the parameters too “sensitively” just now!

while everybody was whispering to each other with confusion and doubt on their faces, li yao took a deep breath and raised his arm at the operating furnace. his fingers were spread open, and feeble brilliance emitted from the center of his palm.

boom!

as the brilliance at the center of his palm exploded, a blast burst out at the center of the furnace that had reached beyond a thousand degrees, as if a bell weighing ten thousand kilograms had just been tolled.

“what is this?”

everyone’s pupils were constricted to limits, and their ears couldn’t help but shiver hard too.

boom! boom! boom! boom!

with his left hand behind his back and his right hand unleashing spiritual waves at the furnace straightly, li yao triggered the resonations inside the furnace, letting out noises each higher than the last!

“he is blowing the furnace with spiritual energy to generate soundwaves and to sense the conditions of the furnace through the changes of the soundwaves so that he can further adjust the furnace accordingly and make the furnace completely adapt to him?”

master jin tianzong exclaimed in disbelief, “such a marvelous approach. how is it possible?”

“tolling a furnace like a bell? are you serious?”

many refiners of the deep sea fleet were almost driven crazy.

“even if you can toll the furnace like a bell, so what? however crazy you are, can you make the furnace sing?”

ye qingyun gnashed his teeth with a gloomy face.

hardly had he finished his remark when li yao changed his gesture, and the monotonous noises of the furnace immediately changed. they were now full of nuances and rhythms and truly sounded like a soul-stirring and blood-boiling marching song!