Chapter 548: Appearance of Qi-trainers!

Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97

　　Now that his belief was firm again and he knew what he was aiming for, Li Yao felt that he was no longer lost, although he was wandering on a perilous, unknown planet all by himself. He retrieved the objects inside his Cosmos Rings and accessed them while he pondered what he was going to do next.

　　Firstly, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.

　　During the fierce battle with Fengyu Zhong, the breastplate of the crystal suit had been pierced by Fengyu Zhong’s spear, which left a terrifying hole there. The two pieces of plate armor had completely lost all functionality.

　　Then, he was blown brutally by the blast from the outbreak of the planetary ring. Thankfully, Li Yao had not been facing the planetary ring, or the blast might have charged into his body through the hole on his chest and minced him into pieces!

　　Although his life had been saved, the power rune arrays and the crystal reactor on the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit had all been seriously damaged and were on the brink of destruction. It would not resume its combat ability without major maintenance.

　　The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was no longer as awesome as it had been in the planetary ring. Shocking traces of claw marks could be found on the surface of the lackluster armor, as if the crystal suit had been savaged brutally by a deadly beast.

　　Li Yao felt his heart pounding the moment he saw the traces.

　　They were the result of horrifying demon beasts lurking inside the atmosphere of Iron Plateau when he was falling through it.

　　The atmosphere of Iron Plateau was like a layer of thin, grey mist. Such demon beasts had been hiding inside the grey mist and blending themselves in with it. Their speed was also too high for Li Yao to see what they looked like clearly. Moreover, more than ten of them had appeared at the same time and hunted the prey collaboratively. They were quite difficult to deal with.

　　To escape from the demon beasts, Li Yao had exploited the last bit of potential of his Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit at the risk of breaking down in the sky. He was lucky enough to have gotten rid of the predators.

　　The crystal reactor has to be replaced. More than half of the crystal processor has been blown up, too. I have to find a place to fully maintain the crystal suit and give it a rebirth!

　　Li Yao scratched his head. Where could he repair his crystal suit on such a desolate, uninhabited planet?

　　There were no Spiritual Towers in space near Iron Plateau Space Zone, which meant that the area had no network.

　　The atmosphere of Iron Plateau seemed a bit odd, too. It was extremely difficult to receive the messages of the outside world, not to mention sending signals out.

　　This planet was like a lone island in the boundless sea of stars that was completely isolated from the rest of the universe.

　　Li Yao could only rely to himself to repair the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit so that he could rush out of Iron Plateau with no fear of the flying demon beasts living inside the atmosphere.

　　But even if he rushed out of Iron Plateau, he might not be able to find a starship to board on because there were very few sailing routes in the Iron Plateau Space Zone, which had always known to be a forbidden area for Cultivators.

　　Crystal suits were perfect for short-distance battles in space, but a long journey from one space zone to another one? That would be a joke!

　　It meant that he would also need a starship that could at least cruise across space zones. He couldn’t help but wonder whether or not there had ever been such a thing on Iron Plateau.

　　Li Yao sighed and focused his attention on examining the other items.

　　The good news was that he was not short of food and clean water.

　　The large quality of supplies he had looted from Fengyu Ming had never been used however hard his life was, even if he had to buy leek pies in a vegetable market. Now, his frugalness had given him a great return. The food was sufficient for him to survive for quite a few years.

　　A moment ago, he had gone out to hunt the giant worm not because he lacked food, but because he needed the super alloys that the giant worm condensed inside its body.

　　The giant worms were like natural furnaces. They could swallow all kinds of minerals and transform them into hard super alloys, which looked like pearls, after a series of complicated chemical reactions inside their bodies. When they were attacking, the super alloys would be spurted as bullets.

　　When Li Yao discovered the habit, he had risked hunting several such giant worms and gathered a lot of alloys, hoping that the materials would be of use to his maintenance work later.

　　Although he had excessive food and clean water, the tremendous crystals that Fengyu Ming had kept inside his Cosmos Ring had run out a long time ago. Half of them were used for his personal training, and the other half were refined into crystal bombs. There weren’t any left.

　　After the previous consumptions, especially the spendthrift uses in the planetary ring at the end of the battle, his storage of crystal bombs was running low, too. There were only a few of them left now.

　　As for his weapons, the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber had suffered the most damage because of the head-on clash with Fengyu Zhong’s Devil’s cry. Both the surface and the interior of the blade were riddled with small cracks. If it was not examined and repaired in time, the saber would crumble after another few clashes.

　　There was a tiny dent on his Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw, too. The light flames right now were much feebler when it was condensed into a drill of mystic rays.

　　“This must be what is called ‘no ammo and no food’,” muttered Li Yao with a self-mocking smile.

　　Two streaks of brightness, one black and the other red, flew out of his Cosmos Ring and circled him.

　　The black one wagged its tail while it was flying in a cocky manner, as if it were saying, “Hey, do you know who the most reliable one is now?”

　　“Little Black, stop horsing around!”

　　Li Yao’s mood finally got better when he saw Black Wing.

　　The mysterious flying sword that his foster father had passed on to him had not been of much use after he left the Heaven’s Origin Sector. He had merely installed it to the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. When necessary, it could provide additional momentum to improve the speed and agility of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.

　　However, the flying sword seemed to be very unsatisfied about Li Yao’s arrangement. When he landed on Iron Plateau, his flying sword had been coming out once in a while by itself and hit Li Yao. Yes. It had been hitting Li Yao’s head with the handle of the sword. Li Yao was more than pissed!

　　As for the red streak, it was ‘Neltharion’, a piece of magical equipment used to train its users to steer a starship.

　　Neltharion had proved to be extremely useful in such a strange environment like Iron Plateau because it was the perfect probe magical equipment. As long as Li Yao attached part of his soul to Neltharion, he could observe the surroundings from the perspective of Neltharion. Also, the magical equipment boasted certain stealth ability and was very hard to find when it snuck into the air without anybody knowing.

　　“You are my only company now.”

　　Gripping Black Wing and waving the sword, Li Yao suddenly recalled the life of struggles in the magical equipment graveyard together with Little Black five years ago.

　　He remembered how ambitious and audacious he had been, even though he had been an unknown middle-school student, and how he had been willing to walk on the seemingly hard and dangerous path. He was immediately cheered up again.

　　“I’ve passed through so much wind and storm. The demon prince failed to kill me, and the unparalleled deadly demon from forty thousand years ago was drilled right through by me! How can a small Iron Plateau trap me?

　　“Come on! I’m going to fix the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, find a starship, and get out of Iron Plateau!”

　　Right at this moment, the alarm magical equipment deployed in the depths of the cave emitted feeble redness.

　　“Somebody is here!”

　　Li Yao was refreshed. He put all the objects back to his Cosmos Rings but let Black Wing and Neltharion follow him. Then he dashed out of the cave.

　　When he reached the entrance of the cave, Li Yao tossed another slice of worm meat to the corrosive thorns guarding the cave. While the thorns were enjoying the new meal, Li Yao rushed to the peak of the meteorite mountain.

　　Li Yao crouched inside a cluster of grass and lay low before he extended his telepathic thoughts to Neltharion.

　　“Neltharion, strike forward!”

　　After entering a trance, Li Yao’s vision completely changed, as if Neltharion became his new eyes!

　　Swoosh!

　　Neltharion darted out, leaving red traces behind.

　　Li Yao did not dare to fly Neltharion too high. Iron Plateau was a place hundreds of times more dangerous than the Grand Desolate Plateau. It would be committing suicide to fly too high here because many demon beasts boasted keen anti-stealth abilities.

　　Therefore, Li Yao flew Neltharion toward the southeast, at such a low altitude that it almost kissed the ground, until it reached the foot of another meteorite mountain. Then, Li Yao hid it in the crown of a giant tree and kept it still.

　　Neltharion turned around and peeped at the southwest.

　　Even if someone in the southwest discovered that they were being observed, they wouldn’t be able to trace it back to Li Yao.

　　One could never be too cautious in a foreign land.

　　Many vehicles were driving over intimidatingly from the southwest. The sand they raised was like a raging yellow dragon.

　　Every three days, almost twenty vehicles would show up and go hunting in the desert.

　　It was almost the most important reason Li Yao had chosen to hide himself in this meteorite mountain.

　　He was trying to observe the natives of Iron Plateau at a close distance.

　　Although he did not dare draw too close to the vehicles, as he feared that they might have anti-stealth methods, he had still gathered a lot of information after so many days.

　　Many files he read stated that the few habitable planets of the Flying Star Sector were occupied by demon beasts and primitive barbarians.

　　From what he had seen, the place was indeed frequented by demon beasts, but the so-called barbarians were not necessarily savages.

　　The natives of Iron Plateau were not as civilized as the residents in space, but they knew how to drive tanks, and they employed a lot of magical equipment when they were hunting demon beasts. Besides, they were clear about when to attack and when to retreat. The collaboration of the team members was flawless. They were definitely not barbarians but citizens of a highly developed civilization.

　　They should be what Huangpu Xiaoya addressed as ‘qi-trainers’.

　　Li Yao was aware that ‘qi-trainer’ was an alternative name for Cultivators in the ancient Cultivation world forty thousand years ago. Many traditional Cultivators preferred to be called qi-trainers.

　　The question remained: what kind of people were the qi-trainers on Iron Plateau?

　　However, the wind on the desert was too furious. Whenever they appeared, they would raise a small sandstorm. Everything was obscured by the dust, and Li Yao was not able to watch them clearly.

　　Li Yao did not dare drive Neltharion too close to the vehicles, because he feared that the anti-stealth methods the qi-trainers had might destroy his treasure.

　　Li Yao stopped looking at the strangers and focused on studying the messages sent back by Neltharion.

　　They were the parameters of the airwaves that Neltharion detected.

　　By analyzing the change of the parameters, Li Yao could evaluate the intensity of a battle and the combat ability of the qi-trainers.

　　It was like inferring the size of a stone that was tossed into the center of a pond from the ripples at the edge of the pond.

　　These guys are merely in the Refinement Stage.

　　Li Yao analyzed the data carefully. Then he retrieved the report of the previous investigations and studied them together.

　　So far, he had observed six battles. However, Neltharion had never sensed the liquefication of spiritual gas in the air, not even once.

　　From the beginning to end, they had never showed any signs of having any Building Foundation Stage Cultivators, not even when they were in emergencies.

　　They are simply a bunch of Refinement Stage Cultivators. Although they are all battle-type, they are nothing to be scared of.

　　After ascertaining his conclusion, Li Yao smiled and was fully relieved.