Chapter 1087: Preparations (I)

Everyone was surprised to see more than a dozen people follow Li Hao out. They weren’t surprised that these people had been resurrected, but that they had emerged with the young man.

“Troop leaders.” Li Hao didn’t explain much apart from making simple arrangements. “Now that the Battle Heaven Army has headed east with Light Sword to prevent Barren Dynasty’s incursion, you can stay with Commander Yu to acclimate and familiarize yourself with the modern world.

“Jiang Yingli, you and the other students did not complete your studies back in the day. Your experience in society is potentially insufficient. Comparatively speaking, you know less of this age.” Li Hao took a look around and settled on one particular person. “You guys can stay with Headmaster Hong first and follow his instructions.”

The students looked at each other without protest. It was Hong Yitang and Huang Yu’s heads that ached. This... wasn’t a good mission that they’d just received.

“Vice Head Qi, if you’re not too busy, you can make a few rounds with Yuming. He’s collected the educated people and researchers of our age. There’s much to be done with them. Well... they’re actually all busy with the sky canopies at the moment.”

“The sky canopies are too simple an affair,” smiled the vice head. “Don’t you want to take the communication base stations? Whether you activate them for your own use or further abandon them, you’ll need personnel to maintain them. None of you know the base stations that well—and that includes Wang Ye. You might need my help.”

Li Hao’s eyes widened. Indeed, what he sought to do most at the moment was to obstruct communication of the other factions. He wanted control over the world’s entire communication system. Based on the vice head’s words, he seemed to possess a deep understanding of what New Martial had set up.

“Did Vice Head Qi also research communication systems?”

“The research center looked into a bit of everything.” The man looked at Li Hao. “Has the commander forgotten that we have eight departments? Of them, there is a void transmission department. They focused on signal transmission throughout the entire universe, not just internally within a world. They wanted to connect worlds with worlds.

“We had some results in those years and built a way to connect to the main world through various signal base stations in the void...”

Li Hao nodded, recalling that there was indeed such a department at the research center.

“So are signal transmission and its disruption within Silver Moon world minor issues for Vice Head Qi?”

“My expertise doesn’t reach that level.” The vice head was very humble. “At the very least, we are unable to restrict transmission between powerhouses. Granted, we are able to limit them in a certain way, such as creating specific ripples to shroud all ripple transmission apart from defined ones...”

Li Hao only half understood what the man was saying.

“I mean that we can adjust signal frequencies to jam all transmissions apart from the ones we approve of. That will cut off the enemy’s transmissions. The nine base stations will have this function if they are all activated.

“But...”

The crowd was listening raptly to their conversion; nerves drew taut when they heard him voice a ‘but’.

“But the nine signal stations serve a very important function,” sighed the vice head. “They require a certain authorization level that we lack.”

Heads drooped with immense disappointment!

“But...” said the vice head again.

Everyone’s ears perked up.

“Li Hao is the heir of the Sword Sovereign and wields Stellaris. Stellaris represents a very high level of authorization. No one else has the right to access the stations, but the commander does!”

“...whew!” Sighs of relief could be heard throughout the crowd. Li Hao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The vice head was doing this on purpose, wasn’t he? He was whetting everyone’s appetite to take them through emotional highs and lows!

Could Stellaris direct the nine base stations?

One site was already in Li Hao’s hands—the redwood tree’s ruins. It had been one of the guardian spirits of the nine base stations.

“I trust everyone here,” Li Hao said without further ado. “We don’t need to say anything else. Let’s make use of our recent victory over Divine Nation and a lull in hostilities with the other three nations to seize the nine base stations!

“They think that we’ll need to discuss strategy or recruit powerhouses over the next couple of days. Or perhaps we’ll be brainstorming how to respond to the four nations. Instead, we’ll utilize this period of time to seize all nine base stations. There might be some unexpected gains!

“Time is of the essence, we have eight more ruins to visit and should take three days at most for them. Let’s go!”

Three days for eight ruins. They would have to visit two to three a day. The group needed to locate the proper site, fight, clean up, and perhaps tend to their wounded...

The redwood had been a peak Immortal. The world hadn’t recovered as much when Li Hao fought it, so the existences in the ruins might be even stronger now.

“The Great Li king might return after three days, or teacher and them might discover the other ancient cities. Three days is also enough time for some people to collect their wits.” Li Hao took a deep breath. “We’re racing against time!”

The others nodded heavily.

“The imperial guard’s primary body can come with us now, but Senior Redwood can only send a replica. I’ll take both of them and the people of the Skystar Commander Office with me!

“The rest of the other plant spirit seniors will be stationed in Skystar Town to swiftly convert Water of Life. In addition, they must provide large sums of rations for us.” Li Hao took out the earth driller. “Let’s not waste any time and go right now.”

He didn’t take any ancient powerhouses with him—the imperial guard and redwood tree didn’t count. If he was going to bring any, then the replicas of General Pagoda and the others were a better choice.

However, Li Hao hoped to be able to kill or subdue peak Immortals by himself, without the aid of the ancients. This would be a litmus test before the major battles to come.

......

The earth driller swiftly sped through the ground. There were much fewer people on board this time.

The redwood tree’s replica probed the area around them; it was a bit nervous. As one of the guardians of the communication stations, the remaining eight were also up to it to locate. As such, it was under a lot of pressure.

Plant spirits could not reforge their bodies like the citizens of New Martial; neither was Li Hao able to build plant spirit bodies. He wasn’t even aware of whether they had dao meridians or not.

Plant spirits could not be remade and their primary bodies couldn’t emerge in the world. Plant spirit replicas did not have much of an effect on the battlefield.

As such and as one of the plant spirits that had sworn fealty to Li Hao early on, the redwood was rather exhausted by the fierce competition it experienced from the young man’s side.

Li Hao wasn’t as rushed as he usually was. He had the peace of mind to chat with several powerhouses.

“Martial Uncle Sky Sword, I have had some small comprehension today. Didn’t we say when we opened the dao meridians that people seemed to be setting their own areas of study? The thirty-six unattributed dao meridians we identified before were just the most mediocre, basic meridians. However, unattributed meridians have abilities of their own.”

“We know that.” Sky Sword looked at him, perplexed. “Didn’t we see 360 dao meridians form a sword?”

“......” Li Hao didn’t know how to continue the conversation.

“But we were thinking of opening more dao meridians only after completing cultivation of the basic thirty-six,” Sky Sword continued in a puzzled tone. “All of them will form their own abilities and techniques. We shouldn’t bite off more than we can chew, so what do you wish to say?”

“......”

Nothing at all.

Li Hao was rather wordless.

Am I the only one who forgot about the sword?

He hadn’t entirely forgotten either, he was just focused on the fact that opening 360 might be too hard. He hadn’t thought that opening a small circulation might complete a dao meridian combination all the same.

Judging from Sky Sword’s words, they had a plan in mind.

“So the seniors are thinking of creating your own supernatural abilities only after you complete the thirty-six?”

“Yes.” Sky Sword nodded. “360 dao meridians are just the outer tracing of the sword. I’m thinking there may be more dao meridians. This is a road without an end and we would like to see what kind of result shows itself when that day arrives. It just isn’t the proper time just yet.”

Alright then. The young man wouldn’t say anything else since everyone had their own thoughts in mind.

Li Hao was starting to think that his own organization of the great dao was imprecise. Lumping all of the unattributed power in one sector was not a good idea. They could be further delineated.

However, even he himself hadn’t finished the manifestation of his unattributed abilities. Take the blade, spear, sword, and halberd as examples... They should all have their own sectors.

Blade dao should be in one sector, sword dao in one sector...

Only through this kind of division will there be more order to the dao universe.

“There may be a base station nearby.” Up ahead, the redwood tree’s shadow suddenly trembled. “This terrain is different from what I’m familiar with, so I am unable to be certain. However, there’s a unique ripple to all base stations and I’m sensing some. I don’t know if this is the place.”

Li Hao walked up to the deck and commanded the earth dweller to rise from the ground so he could look around. They were still in the central region and the redwood could only detect a general direction. It couldn’t be precise. This made the search very difficult.

The young man wanted to ask nearby powerhouses to see where there might be ruins. Finding one ruin easily meant locating another.

“It’s enough that we have a general location!” said Vice Head Qi. “Commander Li, don’t you have armor issued by the army?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Let me take a look at your gold armor.”

Li Hao took out the tattered suit of armor. It wasn’t that useful to him these days as it had limited defenses. It’d been nearly ripped to shreds a few times in recent battles.

“Military issued armor relies on the existence of the nine base stations to maintain their communications,” said the vice head when he took the armor. “The nine base stations are the core of all transmission systems in Silver Moon world.

“Each base station is located in a unique position with a special function. Even after being sealed for countless years, they are still able to maintain military communications!”

An antenna rose from the armor when the man did something to it. This was something that even Li Hao hadn’t discovered before.

“This is an emergency transmitter,” explained the vice head. “I’m going to send an emergency transmission. That will create some ripples, which should lead us to the closest base station. We’ll be able to find it if we know the general area we’re looking in.”

Li Hao nodded. Matters proceeded much more smoothly with this ancient’s help.

Vice Head Qi immediately activated the emergency transmission; a peculiar ripple undulated outward.

Li Hao closed his eyes to follow it. A moment later, his eyes shot open and he looked to the left. There seemed to be an answering ripple coming from it.

“Over there!” The earth driller followed the direction of his gaze. It stopped in front of a lake before long.

“There it is!” The redwood heaved a sigh of relief. “I can sense that there is a plan spirit absorbing energy here. It looks like its guardian is still alive.” It looked around the premises. Although the environment had greatly changed, it could match certain features. “This may be the eighth base station. I guarded the seventh. If my memory is correct... There were nine guardians for the eight stations back in my time, but eight were Apexes. Only one was an Immortal, and that may be the only one alive.”

Li Hao inclined his head and also probed the surroundings before sending the earth driller into the water. A vortex swirled in its depths.