Chapter 154: As Though Two Completely Different People
Translator: Ash Editor: Geoffrey
Ding Lingdang immediately retracted her foot. A sliver of surprise appeared in the pair of her pretty eyes as she turned around and looked at Li Yao; in her heart, she was astonished.
"It can't be! Was my heavy punch still not enough for this kid to give up? He really is too stubborn!"
Contrary to her expectation, she only saw Li Yao grimace in pain as he weakly said, "Sister Ling, can you help me out? I can't walk."
"What!"
Ding Lingdang found it annoying as well as amusing at the same time. With a step, she rushed over and ruthlessly nabbed Li Yao's ear: "You conceited brat!"
Only then did she pull him to an island at the corner of the reefs.
From the get go, the Billowing Star Sea was sold to cultivators as a place for them to train, and as such, it was preinstalled with various facilities.
The island was a natural resting place and a combat zone, and the seller had set up a supply point at the corner of the island where not only were commonly used drugs were placed but also a medical treatment pod as well.
"Armor?"
On one hand, Li Yao was smearing ointment, while on the other, he was curiously gazing at the supply point, discovering that apart from the drugs and medical treatment pod, two huge weapon caches were also there.
Among which, one was jam packed with chainsword-like close combat magical equipment, while the other had seven or eight sets of armor.
Ding Lingdang shrugged her shoulders:
"These came as a gift when I bought the rights to use the Billowing Star Sea for ten years. Think of it as promotional means of the seller; otherwise, it would be too expensive. But as I am a body practitioner, I seldom use these kinds of things. If you are so interested, you can play with them as you like."
Li Yao seemed to have thought of something:
"Sister Ling, what if I wore three to five pieces of armor? Wouldn't I be able to withstand your heavy punches?"
Ding Lingdang scoffed:
"You are so wrong. If you wore a couple pieces of armor, your defenses would indeed increase, but what about your speed and reaction? The higher the defense of the armor, the heavier they would be. You would have to carry a couple hundred pounds or even over a thousand pounds. Let alone quickly dodging my attacks, you wouldn’t even be unable to walk—I might as well hit wooden poles!"
"That might not be necessarily true!"
Li Yao was still very confident in his own capacity.
He would often go to the floating mountains of the Combat Department to observe the training of the Combat Department students. Over there, he discovered that a majority of them painstakingly trained their offense and defense, but in regards to carrying heavy weight, such as squatting and so on, they don't train enough.
In comparison, he, in order to modify 1st Generation Tai'e furnace, had to carry several tons of wrecked magical equipment and run on the rugged ruins every day.
Day after day, carrying such maddening training, his capacity to carry heavy weight happened to be absolutely outstanding and even better than a majority of the Combat Department senior students.
A mere few hundred pounds of armor was simply nothing for him!
Without further ado, Li Yao first wore a piece of light armor crafted from a Black Ice Crocodile's skin. Following that, he once again donned a chain armor completely crafted from metal and another set of turtle armor refined from a Star Spotted Turtle's shell. Finally, he hung over a hundred pieces of demon beast bone spikes above the turtle armor.
Li Yao wore a complete set that weighed 400 to 500 pounds, and when he walked, a "jingling" noise could be heard coming from his entire body, head to toe—it was completely horrendous!
"Huff..."
Li Yao did two squats, jumped up and down a couple of times off the jagged rocks to check if it was alright.
Donning so many layers of armor together was still not half as heavy as the crafting furnaces; his speed had only fallen by 20%.
Ding Lingdang coldly looked at him as she yawned and lazily said:
"A while ago, when you weren't even wearing the armor, you couldn’t even see from where my punch was coming from. Now that you have worn a couple hundred pounds of scrap, your reaction would be even slower. Isn't that nothing more than a wooden stake placed on the ground? You know, I can blast this armor with a few punches and kicks before beating you into a pig. This is simply not going to help me in training anyway."
A mysterious smile crept over Li Yao's face as he confidently said:
"Give me half a minute. After that, you can attack again. I guarantee, it will absolutely be nothing like before!"
"Oh?"
Ding Lindang was surprised for a moment. Noticing Li Yao's he-got-it-all-worked-it-out appearance, it gave off the impression that he wasn’t joking and got her interested as she said to herself, 'Could it be that this kid still has some trick left in his sleeve?'
"Alright, you have your half minute. However, let me warn you—if it is going to be just like before where you can't even take a hit and can’t stand for even half a second, then I will not give you a third opportunity."
Li Yao, of course, had a trick.
Li Yao's expression turned serious as he became calm and focused. His computational ability, like an invisible tide, continued to expand within his brain.
One by one, algorithms, formulae, theorems, and array glyphs flashed past his mind as lines of light, one after another, continuously expanded, collided, blended, and intertwined together to create an abstruse and complex crafting furnace blueprint.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub… dub...
His heartbeat was getting slower and slower, but as a matter of fact, his brain cell activity was increasing.
110%, 120%, 130%...
Li Yao had entered the super perceptive state!
His pupils contracted till they seemed as though they were black tips of a nail. He somewhat provocatively smiled at Ding Lingdang, simply wanting to bend his finger in an aloof manner and gesture for Ding Lingdang to come when suddenly—
The reef not far away from him appeared to be empty—Ding Lingdang was nowhere to be found!
Li Yao felt his scalp tingle as a trail of goosebumps went down his back; his entire spine felt as though it had been immersed in an ice-cold water. Meanwhile, his brain cell activity, in the blink of an eye, broke through to 150%, and in response, his computation ability frantically soared, breaking past every limit one after another!
Behind me! On the right! Three meters! Target approaching at high speed!
This conclusion was not that he "saw" or "perceived", it was completely derived from 200% brain cell activity of super perceptive state by Li Yao!
"Move 37mm towards the left while turning 36.7 degrees counterclockwise. There is a 56% chance that I might be able to avoid the attack!"
Within one tenth of a second, his brain issued a command that was as fast as lightning.
However, his body was like an old bull pulling a broken cart; from his teleneurons to every strand of his muscle, they were all slow to process the commands madly issued by his brain.
In half of a second, Li Yao happened to move only by 29mm and turn counterclockwise by 31.4 degrees.
"Whizz!"
As if a high-speed crystal train had brushed past his body, setting off a super storm, Li Yao felt a cold feeling seeping through his waist which was followed by a burning sensation. When he lowered his head, he noticed that three to four layers of the armor on the right side of his waist had been torn away by the edge of Ding Lingdang's punch.
"So terrifying!"
Li Yao was tongue-tied. If he was even one tenth of a second slower in dodging, her punch would have truly struck him. Even if he was protected by four to five layers of armor, he could have possibly been sent flying away from the impact and rendered unconscious on the spot.
Now, he had a deeper understanding of the fierceness of Ding Lingdang, this terrifying dragon in a human form.
However, he didn't know that Ding Lingdang was ten times more surprised than him in her heart.
Using her big toes, she beautifully stood upon a sharp reef not so far away. Her cheeks happened to be slightly puffed up, and a lump had even appeared upon her glabella from frowning as her face was filled with perplexity. She could not understand how Li Yao had a quicker reaction than before even though he was bearing a couple hundred pounds of armor.
However, since her childhood, she had never been someone who liked racking her brain; if she encountered any unreasonable problem, then she would rather use her fists than her brain!
Ding Lingdang let out a long howl, whereupon the bells tied around her ankles burst forth with clear and melodious rings. Her big toes suddenly blasted the tip of the sharp reef into pieces before she herself transformed into a red beam as she whizzed past!
"Gotcha!"
Under the super perceptive state, Li Yao's brain cells were madly activated, allowing his five senses to be substantially elevated. Despite this, he was barely able to notice Ding Lingdang's quick-as-a-ghost-silhouette.
However, as a result, his perception of pain had also been increased by ten-fold. Although the punch from a moment ago had not struck him, the wind generated from the punch had nevertheless seeped into his flesh, bringing an excruciating pain which felt as though his heart and bones were being stabbed, making him drenched in cold sweat, and causing his eyes to be constantly twitching.
Li Yao tightly clenched his teeth as he forcibly endured the pain. His brain cell activity was once again elevated, frantically calculating Ding Lingdang's speed, angle, and movement trajectory as well as the direction of her next step.
When Ding Lingdang blasted a simple punch aiming at his abdomen, he even miraculously raised his pair of arms and crossed them against his abdomen to defend.
"BOOM!"
Three to four layers of protection on his arms were completely blown away, while Li Yao flew seven to eight meters away. His pair of arms were as though they had turned into two dry, burning branches; nevertheless, he didn't fall!
The depths of Ding Lingdang's eyes flickered with a blood-red brilliance as her face revealed a dense, murderous aura. She no longer gave him even one tenth of a second to do any calculations. In the blink of an eye, she appeared before Li Yao with her slender leg raised high, and without any hesitation, kicked downwards like a giant, hacking axe. All of a sudden, Li Yao was smashed into the reef, completely breaking the armor on his abdomen and leaving a deep dent on the iron armor.
Li Yao spewed out a mouthful of blood towards the sky and was no longer able to even crawl. Meanwhile, his brain had, in the blink of an eye, withdrawn from the super perceptive state and was all muddled up.
Ding Lingdang was relieved and refreshed. Bearing a smile on her face, she squatted down next to Li Yao and helped him remove the armor while gazing at him with an inconceivable look in her eye as she clicked her tongue in admiration and said:
"You are one little monster. I truly underestimated you a little bit. If I was even a little bit inattentive, you might have created a big miracle! A while ago, you could not even withstand a punch of mine, but now, you had actually dodged and blocked my punches. That's truly amazing!"
"However, your endurance is truly poor. During combat, you can not always dodge or block an enemy's attack, as you will always be hit. At that time, the ability to take a beating plays a particularly important role."
"You only lasted 10 seconds before you could not carry on and are still very far from lasting for 1 minute!"
"You might as well train here in the Billowing Star Sea for a couple of months. When you get to the next semester, just maybe, you will have the qualifications to act as my sparring partner."
"Cheer up, Little Brother!"
After a few words, Li Yao wasn't able to clearly hear anything at all; his mind was entirely preoccupied with the frustration of failing to last for an entire minute.
"Too weak, my endurance is truly too weak. Even after donning three to four layers of armor, I still could not withstand one blow of her. 10 seconds, I could only hold on for 10 seconds. I am too far away from one minute!"
"If I could increase my endurance a bit, then as long as it is even a little bit, I would be able to withstand three to five from her attacks, and with the keen perception and supercomputing ability under super perceptive state, hopefully, I may be able to last for a minute!"
"Let's see, if there isn't any exercise to increase endurance..."
Li Yao's pair of eyes suddenly seemed to be burning with fire. He, flinging caution to the wind, jumped up but was then struck again by a pain at his waist, causing him to bow down letting out an "Ouch!".
"Are you alright? Don't scare me, did I attack too heavily?"
Ding Lingdang was blaming herself a little.
"Will, will you be at home tonight?" Li Yao was extremely excited, completely forgetting the pain.
"Yes!" Ding Lingdang was rather baffled.
"Can you wait for me for three hours? No no no, five hours. 12 o’clock midnight, your house, in the bedroom, don't leave till we meet!"
Li Yao's eyes bloomed with a vicious gleam, casting a covetous look at Ding Lingdang.