Chapter 985: Divine Spirits (III)

All of the lights were on at the eight buildings, but the scene was very quiet as there was no one home.

“Why don’t you give a yell and see if there are more old friends present?” Li Hao looked at Yuming. “We don’t want to cause a misunderstanding, after all. We... won’t hold back if we encounter anyone who tries to seize our bodies.”

Yuming felt that these words made sense. Although he hadn’t discovered other survivors when he was here, he called out, “Are there any colleagues still alive? I’m Hu Xiao from the mental reincarnation department! Come on out if you’re in there!”

No response was forthcoming. It remained as quiet as ever.

“There weren’t many powerhouses in the research center.” Director General Wang looked around. “They might’ve all completely died. Let’s take a look at warehouse one for the moment and retrieve anything we need. We can slowly explore the premises later!”

The group nodded and followed Yuming toward the short buildings. One in particular loomed in front of them and a massive door blocked their way.

“Commander Li can open the door with your clearance!”

Li Hao unsheathed Stellaris without second thought and showed it to the screen at the door. The door automatically opened in a display of sophisticated technology.

The warehouse wasn’t the typical messy and disorganized storeroom that one might expect. Its contents were neatly labelled in a clear and straightforward manner. Labels were affixed above all manner of small storage spaces.

Li Hao quickly ran his eyes over the labels, stopping in front of a small room. “Sky canopies. Remaining: 13,260 pieces.”

“This is it!” Yuming declared joyously. “I didn’t think there would be more than ten thousand left! I thought there would be a few thousand at most...”

“More than ten thousand pieces...” Li Hao grinned as well. “There’s roughly three thousand cities across Skystar Dynasty. This is sufficient for a few pieces in each city! We won’t have to devote too much effort and resources into producing them anymore...”

“These things are too easily broken.” Yuming shook his head. “It’s best to have more of them, and it’s too few for each city to have only three pieces! It’s best for there to be a piece in every town and village—that’s the basic level of coverage! If we want full coverage, then each household needs to have one and treat it as a television. Only then is that full coverage!”

Li Hao clucked his tongue. That was out of reach! They would need several billion pieces to achieve that goal. Just the households alone would require more than three billion pieces. That in itself was out of reach for the dynasty.

Of course, they could treat this as a goal to attain in the future. At present, it would be good enough to have coverage in every city.

Li Hao turned his attention to the rest of the small rooms, captivated by what he found.

“Blood qi pills, bone tempering pills, bone strengthening pills, organ forging pills... Remaining: 127 recipes.” The young man clucked his tongue again. That was a lot of pills! Did the ancients like to take pills that much?

Yuming scrounged up a small screen from a random corner and brought it over with a smile. “I can’t believe this still works! This is a record of the warehouse reserves. The commander can look through it for whatever you’re searching for...”

Li Hao craned his neck with curiosity, but many of the items were beyond his comprehension. Despite knowing their names, he didn’t know what they were used for.

Yuan Shuo looked with him and suddenly exclaimed, “This is nice!” The old man pointed at a line item. “Schematics for a first rank energy train! I’ve read about this incredible invention in an ancient tome. Its speed can reach five hundred kilometers an hour! If we can utilize it throughout the dynasty, it will only take twenty-two hours to travel the eleven thousand kilometers from White Moon City to Skystar City!

“There are thirty carriages to each of these trains and each carriage easily holds fifty people. One trip can transport two thousand people from the north to Skystar City in a single day!”

“That fast?” Li Hao’s eyes widened.

Yuming hadn’t paid attention to this item before, but elaborated when he saw Li Hao’s interest, “It can travel up to five hundred kilometers per hour. That is actually not fast when taking into account the fact that it is powered by energy. It’s very fast for ordinary people, but not of much use for powerhouses.

“If it takes twenty-two hours to get to a battlefield when fighting erupts, then the battle is over by the time we get there! Of course, this infrastructure is useful for transporting ordinary people. If the construction schematics are here... let me think... They must’ve been preparing to build train tracks across Silver Moon back in the day, but didn’t have enough time to get to it.”

“This I know about,” nodded Director General Wang. “A lot of people later recommended that we directly build transportation gates instead, so the energy trains were set aside.”

“This is a great invention!” Li Hao was highly inspired. “We have a lot of supernaturals to draw from and can absolutely build tracks that run through the continents and seas. If we can build this kind of transportation tool, it will only take one day to travel from the four continents to the central region! That will fully facilitate the flow of people between the dynasty...”

Just one day was an astounding speed. Li Hao wouldn’t travel much faster if he flew, not unless he purposefully accelerated his pace. And before one could fly, it would take anyone at least a week to traverse the distance.

If one walked... that might be the end of them. Ten thousand kilometers could take a year of solid walking. Regular people wouldn’t make it in even a year.

“Let’s locate the schematics and see if we can build it with our current level of technology.” Li Hao was in a great mood. “Even if we can’t, there ought to be a hope of doing so if we use mysterious power to substitute for certain machines or technologies.”

This was when the benefits of the supernatural domain came to the fore. If various metals weren’t hard enough, metal supernaturals could step forward to harden them. Anything that was subpar or didn’t exist could be modified or created, so long as the supernatural was strong enough to do so.

What they lacked in technology, they could supplement with mysterious power.

New Martial hadn’t possessed as many tricks as modern supernaturals did. In that age, the physical body, mental strength, and blood qi were mainstream. No one commanded the motley array of supernatural abilities.

Yuan Shuo nodded in agreement and identified some other points of interest. “This place is a treasure trove!” He beamed broadly. “We should’ve come here earlier! A lot of our technological problems will be resolved if we empty out this place...”

Many of Li Hao’s ideas would be quickly turned into reality with the support of what was in the research center. Hence, Yuan Shuo was jubilant, but also slightly regretful. “Too bad that New Martial didn’t invest too much in Silver Moon back in the day. A lot of things exist only on paper and weren’t officially undertaken.”

“It wasn’t that they didn’t execute their plans,” Director General Wang shook his head. “But that there wasn’t enough time to do so. It’d only been a few years since we took up residence in Silver Moon. Another important point was that this place was technically the Sword Sovereign’s fiefdom.

“The Sword Sovereign’s approach was a more natural one that blended with the world. Anyone who moved from the main world wouldn’t be a weakling, even regular citizens were strong enough. Hence, there was no need to build these extraneous constructs.”

“These items are rotting away in the warehouse,” Li Hao laughed after he looked around. “We’ll take them all back with us! These are great treasures!”

Yuming didn’t say anything, despite the young man acting like a bandit. They could take whatever they wanted!

“Then we’ll come back for all of this later. Does the commander wish to visit the mental reincarnation department?” asked the boy. “There is some special equipment there that can help mental strength be reborn.”

Li Hao thought it over, then nodded. Since they were already here, it would be nice to take a look around.

The group quickly left the warehouse and headed for one of the buildings. Its doors were tightly shut; Li Hao waved Stellaris at it to open the door. Yuming swept inside, looking around with nostalgia.

“This is the mental strength reincarnation department. There were thirty-four members back in the day. They’re probably all dead now. The most important floor was the reincarnation floor at the top. I’ll take everyone up there for a look.”

The group wasn’t familiar with the subject, but interested nonetheless—particularly Director General Wang. They filed into the elevator and headed upstairs.

......

The top floor.

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The elevator doors opened. Yuming’s expression shifted as soon as they did so, Li Hao frowned. Director General Wang’s eyes widened and he grabbed at Yuming next to them!

“This has nothing to do with me!” the boy quickly protested.

However, the director general ignored him and immediately took Yuming into custody!

In the empty foyer, a figure sat up on a machine. Its presence was formidable and dense. Golden light sparkled in its eyes like it was a divine spirit. As it regarded the visitors, it spoke in an aloof, commanding tone. “Is it not inappropriate to enter another’s domain without invitation?”

Yuming’s face shifted through a variety of expressions; he didn’t struggle in Director General Wang’s grasp. Instead, he simply looked at the figure and demanded, “Who... who are you? Damn it, you’ve occupied the divine spirit’s body and taken possession through the mental reincarnation method! You’re not of my department!”

Li Hao was frowning as well. Someone had taken possession of a divine spirit’s body? So this body belonged to the divine spirit that those of New Martial killed, but another person’s mind occupied it?

The powerhouse was brown all over with golden sparks erupting from its eyes. He looked at Yuming and asked after a long moment, “Who... are you?”

Yuming had been able to keep his temper in check before, but now erupted, “I’m Hu Xiao, damn it! Who the hell are you?! Who granted you entrance to my department?! This place was sealed off when I left five years ago, how did you get inside??”

Li Hao didn’t say a word; he simply operated the supernatural characters within his body and summoned all of his supernatural locks. Yuming had been very confident earlier that there was no one here. And yet, a divine spirit had popped up.

The young man could sense some unique aspects about the figure in front of him. It seemed to contain a domineering earth aura. His own ‘earth’ supernatural character was trembling. In fact, his earth aura shook as well!

The god of earth?

A stern look entered Li Hao’s eyes. Were all divine spirits like such? Their mere presence alone greatly affected his earth supernatural abilities.

One thing to be thankful for was that the ‘dao’ character within his body emanated light to dispel these influences. His earth supernatural ability gradually returned to normal.

The world had bestowed the ‘dao’ character upon Li Hao. It was his reward for consolidating the great dao of the world and granted him immunity against these divine spirits.

Divine spirits... the Divine Nation of the west.