1959 Bliss

　　At this moment, hundreds of white, flawless flowers were blossoming in the sky of the crater lake that the Village of Peace was at while they fell in the wind.

　　A lot of flowers had already fallen to the surface of the lake. They were floating like jellyfish.

　　The flowers made all the villagers go crazy. They were either searching on the lake in boats or fighting for them in midair with curved magical equipment that was similar to a paraglider on their back. Their searchlights illuminated the sky as if it were daylight. It was quite a lively scene.

　　Li Yao focused his attention and could vaguely tell that they were parachutes that were carrying some metal boxes.

　　“A blessing from the angels!”

　　The two little fellows already saw the white flowers falling from the sky from a long distance away. They were both exclaiming in excitement. They explained to Li Yao, their faces still flushed, “That is the aid tossed from the Heavenly Rails. Before the ‘Bliss Ceremony’ every year, the frequency of the assets sprayed from the Heavenly Rails increases. It is some sort of additional grace. I didn’t know that we would happen to run into it today.”

　　Seeing that a parachute was blown away from the lake toward them, Han Te exclaimed, “There’s one over there!”

　　He turned the shuttle abruptly, running at the landing point of the ‘blessing’. He found the metal box that had already fallen apart at the edge of the lake. It was filled with soft bubbles as buffers.

　　Under the protection of the bubbles, there were two weapons that were blinking coldly.

　　“New magical equipment. Two of them!”

　　Han Te and Liu Li’s eyes shone. They picked up the new weapons and played with them in great interest.

　　Li Yao released feeble telepathic thoughts that attached to the weapons in the hands of the two little fellows before he studied their structure carefully.

　　The weapon was very similar to the ‘power knuckle’ in Li Yao’s memory. It could entirely cover one’s fingers, palm, and elbow. However, a thick metal ring was added above the wrist, and there were twelve deep blue crystals the size of pebbles on the surface of the metal ring. There was no telling what they were designed for.

　　The two little fellows, however, were quite familiar with the situation. They kneeled on the ground and searched among the bubbles. Soon, they found a jade chip.

　　After being pressed softly, a 3D light beam was released from the front end of the jade chip, introducing the usage of the weapon with images, the most simple and straightforward way.

　　The weapon was named ‘Heavenly Fire Thunderous Strike Ring’. It was indeed an upgraded version of ‘power knuckle’. Other than significantly increasing the damage of the user’s fists, it also boasted two additional techniques in melee combats and in remote shooting.

　　When switched to the melee mode, the metal ring attached to the wrist would generate the specific fields of electric arcs and flames to simulate the effect of thunderous sabers and sky-burning axes.

　　When switched to the remote mode, it would launch a cluster of plasma, electrocuting targets up to a hundred meters away.

　　Judging from the 3D images released by the jade chip, the weapon was indeed quite powerful. When fully activated, it could pierce a spiritual puppet in one attack.

　　“This—this is so awesome!”

　　Han Te and Liu Li were in a trance, and their mouths were bulged so wide that one might be able to stuff two eggs inside.

　　It is indeed a piece of rather ingenious magical equipment, but it is too radical!

　　Li Yao’s soul had searched the two weapons inside and outside dozens of times, scanning the rune arrays on every layer of them and memorizing the information. He could not help but shake his head in secret.

　　The spiritual stripes and rune array technology in the Imperium of True Human Beings was certainly slightly above the federation’s, but the structural analysis of such a mass-produced item was not very difficult for Li Yao.

　　He could tell that the weapon had adopted more than fifty highly-unstable rune arrays and jumbled them up with the most extreme architecture in order to achieve the maximal output efficiency. Even the circuits of spiritual energy were designed with no consideration of the redundancies of the system. They had adopted a very reckless approach that barely considered anything.

　　Yes. When it came to the design of general magical equipment, it was acceptable to occasionally adopt one or two extreme rune arrays. As long as the design of redundancies was excellent enough, the maximal performance of the magical equipment would be realized without raising the fault rate.

　　Li Yao himself was an expert adept at extreme rune arrays. He was best known for his ‘insane’ style in refining.

　　However, as insane as he might have been, he never would have jumbled dozens of highly dangerous rune arrays without leaving any redundancies. The sole safety measure on the weapon was two cheap stabilization systems.

　　Such an approach would always lead to serious faults.

　　Yes. The ‘Heavenly Fire Thunderous Strike Ring’ would certainly be much more powerful than normal ‘power knuckles’, but when they had a fault, it was possible that they would blow up the user’s entire arm or directly electrocute them to death.

　　A piece of high-precision equipment was probably made of thousands of tiny rune arrays with hundreds of thousands of spiritual energy models. It was practically a system of chaos.

　　If Li Yao was asked to examine it, he would not be able to tell what kind of attack or what amount of spiritual energy would cause the faults in the weapon.

　　That was perhaps what the designers of the weapon intended to find out in a ‘real-life test’.

　　Via ‘Blessings’, the high and mighty Immortal Cultivators simply throw the highly-unstable, problematic magical equipment to the sinners so that the sinners will help them run the tests.

　　The Imperium of True Human Beings’ industry of magical equipment and techniques is founded on the piles of bones of countless sinners who have been killed by each other in bloody battles.

　　In silence, Li Yao was exasperated.

　　Naturally, the two little fellows did not know the scheme of the Immortal Cultivators. Playing with the weapons in delight for a while, they suddenly remembered the knowledgeable and professional ‘Grandpa Yao’. They presented the Heavenly Fire Thunderous Strike Rings to him in great respect and asked him to evaluate it.

　　Li Yao had long scanned the weapons. Naturally, he was not interested in the two experimental weapons that were extremely dangerous. He simply looked at the horizon curiously. In the places far away from the Village of Peace, a lot more parachutes seemed to be flying in midair.

　　“Are you not going to pick up those assets?” Li Yao asked.

　　Han Te glanced casually and shook his head. “They are too far away and have already entered the territory of other villages. By the time we arrive, they will have been picked up by other villages. It is very possible that a conflict will break about. Since the ‘Bliss Ceremony’ is about to begin, there’s no need for us to get into a huge fight at this moment, which will cause great casualties.”

　　“What is the Bliss Ceremony?”

　　“The Bliss Ceremony is the projection of resources of the largest scale every year. The specific date and location are always announced by the Heavenly Rails one month in advance. There will be a hundred times more assets projected than you have seen today. The quality will be much higher, too. It is very possible that ultimate old grandpas with sophisticated techniques or even an entire arsenal will show up. So, that will be the greatest day for all the villages. Everybody is making preparations to get more things from the Bliss Ceremony!”

　　“It is exactly because the Bliss Ceremony is of paramount importance, and whoever gets more assets will ensure the livelihood of their entire village in the next year, that not only will all the villages around fight for them, but even the experts from outside covet them,” Liu Li added. “Sometimes, the gangs and bandits who are usually active in the Bloody Worlds come. Therefore, we can’t be more careful.”

　　After pondering for a moment, Li Yao asked, “So to speak, the competition on the Bliss Ceremony is certainly very fierce, and some people will possibly be killed?”

　　“Not possibly but certainly. A lot of people will be killed,” Han Te said solemnly. “The Bliss Ceremony concerns the life and death of a village. If a village does not get enough assets, not only will they decline by themselves, other people will also attack, rob, and destroy the village after learning of their weakness!

　　“In contrast, if a village gets enough resources in the Bliss Ceremony and demonstrates great capability, the wanderers nearby who have lost the protection of their villages will come to join them. A lot of experts will request to join the village, too. It will be a great opportunity for the village to expand!

　　“Take the Village of Peace for example. It was only a small village in peril with a population of around two hundred at the beginning. But after my master greatly distinguished himself in many consecutive Bliss Ceremonies as the unquestionable champion, getting tremendous resources for our village, the village gradually flourished.

　　“Since the Bliss Ceremony is so important, everybody risks their life for it. Therefore, bloody fights happen every year. A lot of people will die!”

　　Pausing for a moment, Han Te said again, somewhat embarrassed, “Although my master is the well-acknowledged top expert in the hundreds of square kilometers nearby, he is in fact not a fan of the bloody, cruel competition in the Bliss Ceremony. He always says that when we brutalize each other like that, we are like dogs trained to bite each other.

　　“He once considered altering the pattern of the Bliss Ceremony by promoting a way to distribute the relief assets fairly so that all the villages and everyone can be satisfied. However, even I feel that such a solution is absolutely impossible!

　　“All in all, the Village of Peace does not want to go too far. All we want is our fair share in the Bliss Ceremony. However, if other people come to rob us, it is not like that we will simply wait to be mugged. Am I right, Grandpa Yao?”

　　Li Yao gave no comment. Instead, he asked, “Just now, you said that the gangs and bandits who are generally active in the Bloody Worlds will arrive during the Bliss Ceremony, too. Can you defeat those guys?”

　　“We are not entirely hopeless as long as we are united.” Han Te waved his fists confidently. “The Bliss Ceremony does not happen in one place but covers the entire Land of Sins at the same time. In other words, when tremendous assets fall to the Desolate Worlds, there will be abundant assets in the Bloody Worlds, too, and the assets there will only be greater in number, better in quality, and highly in level than ours.

　　“The real tough gangs and bandits will naturally fight for the assets there. Those who run to the Desolate Worlds will only be the nobodies among the gangs and bandits.

　　“My master’s fame is well known in the hundreds of square kilometers around. Those mediocre gangs and bandits do not have the courage to mess with us.”