Chapter 176: Let’s Do It Big!
Translator: Ash Editor: FluffyGoblyn
Amid the bloody battles, time flew quickly.
The demon beasts numbered too many. Although demon beasts like Gold Armored Saber Mantis and Armored Snapping Turtle were few, common demon beasts numbered in the hundreds. Their destructive power was still terrifying.
Often, everyone would wake in the early morning and embark the military crystal tanks into the city, where they would search for small beast tides and begin high-speed hunting.
At sundown, they would once again board the crystal tanks and return to the heavily guarded temporary campsite set up in the outskirts for maintenance and repairs.
Every day, everyone would hunt a couple dozen demon beasts.
Whereas ruthless figures like Li Yao, Zhao Tianchong, and Lu Tieshan would hunt hundreds of ordinary demon beasts, there were a few low-level Demon Soldiers and one or two middle-rank Demon Soldiers as well.
Under the high-speed combat, for a week or so, everyone had forgone the immaturity which they possessed when they had just entered the campus.
In contrast, Li Yao and the others were even shrouded in a faint sinister air, giving off the impression of veterans that had undergone hundreds of battles. Even though their level had not significantly improved, amid the combat their battle force, on the other hand, was madly soaring every second.
Li Yao, Zhao Tianchong, and Li Tieshan, these three were regarded as the cream of the crop of the freshmen, and gradually worked out a set of effective team tactics.
Every time they encountered a demon beast with a thick defense, Li Yao would take the lead and suppress it with heavy fire, while Zhao Tianchong, with his ghost-like body art, would wander around and attack, and Li Tieshan's Devil Fists were quite aggressive and acted as the head-on attacker.
When Li Yao had completed the fire suppression task, he could similarly rely on the Heavy Vibrosaver to carry out powerful attacks at the flank.
Under this "Iron Triangle" offense, a vast majority of middle-rank Demon Soldiers could be easily killed. Whereupon, with the bonus of "leapfrog hunting", the credits of the three madly soared.
In the evening, if there was an opportunity to board the crystal tank to return to the campsite, there were even more difficult tasks awaiting Li Yao.
He would slow down the battle videos shot during the day and playback while pondering the inadequacies during the fight. Following which, he would use his super computational ability to improve himself.
At present, Li Yao still didn't have any abstruse saber method. After pondering for a long while, he simply disregarded any need of a saber method; as long as he could calculate the shortest and most direct trajectory for its blade edge to cut the demon beast at fastest speed, it would the most suitable saber method for him.
"For this strike, by bending the shoulder outward by 7.5 degrees and raising the wrist slightly by 1.3 degrees, the blade edge will cut into the Armored Snapping Turtle's neck with the shortest path as well as the fastest speed, and the time will also shorten by 0.13 second. Okay, next time I will do so!"
Watching the battle video frame by frame, Li Yao nervously analyzed and calculated, at the same time he also drew motion trajectories and human structures one after another and listed a couple dozen dazzling formulas.
If an ignorant looked at the diagrams for the first time, he would think that he was solving some kind of complex mathematical problems.
After analyzing the video, if Li Yao still had the time, he would borrow some the common maintenance magical equipment at the campsite and help his fellow students maintain their equipment.
Amid the intense combat, every sword and saber would cut through over hundreds of demon beasts bones. Even if the equipment wasn't wrecked, its edges would crack, array glyphs would corrode, its structure would become fragile...these kinds of damages would definitely exist and the equipment must go through maintenance for it to be used again.
Li Yao wasn't repairing just any kind of equipment; he only repaired saber-type magical equipment that was sharp only on one side.
After experiencing multitudes of fights, he came to realize how ridiculously had he spent his winter vacation.
Any kind of equipment had hundreds of performance parameters and methods of use, for which a thorough in-depth study was required; even after a year or two, he may still not be proficient.
Whereas during the winter vacation, he actually modified eighteen weapons in one deep breath and also felt amazingly proud, believing how awesome he was.
Now it seemed that the magical equipment he modified had too many parameters that were flashy but had no substance; much of the effort was utilized in wrong places. His fellow students who willingly bought them at 30 to 40% higher than the original price had been truly swindled by him.
Fortunately, Li Yao had found the problem quickly and completely dispelled his unrealistic fantasy, treating himself as an ordinary 5th level Refinement Stage refiner and prepared to first clearly research the characteristics of saber-type magical equipment diligently to become a saber expert!
He helped his fellow students maintain their sabers and at very low cost. Earning the credits was secondary; the most important thing was to thoroughly research these damaged sabers by reversing the source of the destruction of these sabers and, thus, deeply understanding the characteristics of the sabers.
As far as Li Yao was concerned, those damaged sabers were like corpses, and he was performing autopsies.
Once he had performed autopsies on hundreds of thousands of saber corpses, his understanding for the saber-type magical equipment's structure and characteristics would absolutely be as clear as the sun and the moon.
Just like this, during the day he, Zhao Tianchong and Li Tieshan would form an Iron Triangle and constantly venture into the depths of the city, where they would pave a path filled with so much bloodshed, to the point that even the pestles could float. At the end of the day, they would be utterly exhausted.
At night, Li Yao would study the combat videos over and over again, to improve his shortest and fastest saber methods, becoming faster and stronger.
Late at night, while the others were completely tired and asleep, he would instead dismantle, repair, and maintain damaged sabers of all kinds of shapes and sizes with red eyes.
Vibrosabers, Flamesabers, Chainsabers, Long Sabers, Short Sabers, Daggers...dozens of saber-type common magical equipment available on the market, he would disassemble all of them several hundred times till his body had formed an instinct and he could completely disassemble and maintain them with closed eyes, or even while he was half-awake and half-asleep.
Only until now, he very meticulously began the second modification of his Heavy Vibrosaber.
However, this time, he was completely different as compared to the time during the winter vacation. Various advanced materials and complex array glyphs were piled in the corner of his brain, one by one.
Li Yao had a new understanding of the structure of the original magical equipment. He knew that these basic magical equipment had been repeatedly modified and sharpened by Master Refiners over the years; many performance parameters, which seemed to have been elevated, turned out to be a clumsy sleight of hand. It was like painting a snake with feet.
This time, all he did was thickened the front end of the saber blade, increased the weight, adjusted the center of gravity in accordance with his own characteristics.
While at the same time, he used the hand forging and tempering technique of the Hundred Smelting Clan from forty millenniums ago, altering the smooth edge of the blade into a slightly zigzag shape, increasing the overall destructive power while cutting.
The overall length of the saber had also been increased by 17.7 centimeters.
After the modification was finished, the overall weight had increased by 12.55%, which was suitable for someone with amazing physical attributes like his.
Under the high-speed slash, the jagged blade edge would emit a "Zoo Zoo!" howl, as though even the wind had been overtaken by the saber and sliced to death, giving out sad and shrill cries.
Therefore, Li Yao named this Super Heavy Vibrosaber "Windcutter"!
With Windcutter in his hand, Li Yao's killing intent became more intense. Since he could not rely on crafting magical equipment to fish out 30,000 credits, he must increase the efficiency of killing the demon beasts.
Unfortunately, along with the progress on the battlefield, the demon beast on the ground became fewer and fewer. After having been repeatedly searched, the suburbs had been cleaned completely; only a few demon beasts were lurking in the high-rise district where they made a last-ditch effort amid the ruins.
These demon beasts didn't dare to flee underground, for an even more intense contest was taking place there.
The underground battlefield belonged to Building Foundation Stage cultivators and Demon Generals, and even the Core Formation Stage cultivators and Demon Kings had taken up the stage, making them unable to easily step foot in.
The large-scale street fighting had already ended; all the civilians had been rescued, and the war had come to an end.
As for the remnants, they were still making a last-ditch effort at the center of the city. They were absolutely the most aggressive, most cunning, and the most frightening existence among the demon beasts.
If any low-level cultivator rashly rushed to the center of the city, he would only become a feast for the demon beasts.
Consequently, a majority of low-level cultivators turned their steps towards home.
Following which, the powerhouses of human and demon beasts began small scale searching, hiding, hunting, and anti-hunting contests.
For the demon beasts who were pushed into a corner, this was the final rush of madness!
0500 in the morning of the 27th day after the beast tide outbreak...
Li Yao, taking advantage of first light, was wiping the Windcutter with all his concentration; suddenly, he heard someone speaking outside the campsite.
Most of the juniors had returned to the institute, while the seniors and the others weren't at the campsite. Ding Lingdang and like professors, who were in Building Foundation Stage and above, were hunting high-level demon beasts under the ground. The campsite was empty, and thus, any sound was extremely clear.
He happened to hear Zhao Tianchon say with surprise.
"Form a team?"
"Ma Jian, you are a firearm cultivator who is proficient in 'gun fighting technique'. Among the freshman of the Federation's First Military College, you can also be counted as one of the top experts. You have a strong charisma. Yet, you can't even gather a few members?"
Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao opened the curtain to look, where he saw Zhao Tianchong and Lu Tieshan speaking to three youths dressed in gray urban camouflage.
Among the three youths were two males and a female; all of them were approximately in their twenties and had bright piercing eyes, which gave off the impression of six searchlights.
With every action of their bodies, the patterns of the camouflage dress would also happen to change, giving a bit of stealth effect.
In addition, the three also carried multitudes of firearms.
The youth called Ma Jiao had a moderate build and carried an assault rifle. The other boy had a tall and stalwart build, lush hair, and carried a heavy machine gun. Whereas the female could be said to be far from being beautiful. She had a ponytail and her face was spotted with freckles. Two pistols hung on her waist and she also carried a rectangular case. God knows what kind of weapon was inside.
In this beast tide outbreak, students and teachers of all Nine Elite Universities came to participate in the battle. The largest participation came from the Grand Desolate War Institution and the Federation's First Military College.
The Grand Desolate War Institution was closest to the Verdant Tarn City and also had the Combat Department, a traditional combat course.
While the Federation's First Military College specifically fostered cultivators for the army. In the state of war, of course, it was duty-bound to participate.
Ma Jiao nodded and spoke with each word as fast as a firing bullets:
"Zhao Tianchong, we are old rivals and are well aware of each other's strength; I'm not going to speak nonsense!"
"Just like your Grand Desolate War Institution has a credit system and you will be awarded credits after the completion of the mission, our Federation's First Military College will reward handsomely with a higher amount of battle merits."
"However, only some shrimp soldiers and crab generals are left in the city's outer ring now. How much benefit can we actually obtain by killing a few common demon beasts daily?"
"Therefore, I wanted to take advantage of the end of the beast tide outbreak and head to the center of the city. Let’s. Do. It. Big!"