Chapter 1117-1118
Chapter 1117 – A Little Gift
Zhao Hai felt that it was unfair. However, this unfairness wasn't for him, but for other people in the camp.
He was a newcomer to the camp, and the strength he revealed so far was only level 1. In this case, him living in a villa meant for level 4 experts was unfair to the other people in the camp.
With this thought in mind, Zhao Hai couldn't help but look at Tao Wang, "Big Brother, this isn't good. If I live here, what would other people think? I think I should live in the lower floors."
Tao Wang smiled and said, "Rest assured, those fellows wouldn't think bad of you. Don't underestimate those guys. Every one of them are rich. Don't forget that besides this building, there are also two residential areas in the island. Those who wanted to live in villas would have already bought their own. Also, since the Camp Lord wanted you to live here, nobody would dare say anything."
Zhao Hai smiled bitterly and said, "Then I'll have to thank Big Brother Tao. Big Brother, this little brother just ascended from the lower realms. So I don't have a lot of precious things. The only thing I can gift you are these two bottles of wine. These are the most valuable things I have right now. I also gave the Camp Lord two bottles of this wine. Please have a taste. Also, please have everyone in the camp have a taste of the wine. If they like the flavor, then our Bone Symbol Camp might open our own winery. I've also given the formula for this wine to the Camp Lord."
After he said that, Zhao Hai waved his hand and took two bottles of wine out as well as a spatial bag. Spatial bags weren't rare in the Machine Field. One could easily buy one as long as they practice at a certain level. Therefore, Zhao Hai wasn't afraid of taking one out.
Tao Wang understood what Zhao Hai wanted to convey. But regarding Zhao Hai's respectful manner, he happily received the gift. He received the two bottles as well as the spatial bag and said, "Alright. This Big Brother doesn't have a lot of hobbies besides drinking. I'll have a taste of your wine when I head back. I'll also send these wines to everyone. Don't worry, I'll tell them that these came from you."
Zhao Hai laughed and said, "Big Brother Tao is too polite. Come drink with me later. Right, I also have two other kinds of liquor. Take it back and have a taste." After that, Zhao Hai took out another two containers and handed them over to Tao Wang.
Tao Wang wasn't polite and stored the two containers into his own spatial item. Then he smiled and said, "Let's go and take a look at your house. We'll have a drink after you get settled." Then he led Zhao Hai along.
Zhao Hai's villa wasn't near the elevator. He was placed in the floor's best location. This location was beside a window, allowing its occupant to see the scenery outside.
Zhao Hai inspected his place. He didn't have much requests for his accommodation. As long as it was livable, then it was already good. The whole villa was divided into two floors. The land area of the villa was less than 100 square meters. There was also a small garden outside. The other villas on this floor were constructed the same way.
Tao Wang carefully introduced Zhao Hai to the villa. Although the house was very small, it was fully equipped. It even had a kitchen installed.
The upper floor had three bedrooms while the lower floor had the kitchen, living room, and bathroom.
After showing Zhao Hai the house, Tao Wang said, "Little Hai, although this house is quite small. You can rest assured. The Camp Lord has already prepared a good villa for you. As long as you get used to the Machine Field's density of spiritual qi, you can immediately move to that villa."
Zhao Hai smiled and said, "There's really no need to bother, this place is already good. Right, Big Brother Tao, can I use the kitchen here instead of going to the cafeteria below?"
Tao Wang smiled and said, "Of course you can. If you don't want to prepare your own food, I can buy you some robots that can cook for you. You don't need to worry about payment. The Camp Lord already made sure that you get everything you want."
Zhao Hai replied, "Brother Tao, I already have robots left them behind in the academy. I've already asked the Camp Lord to fetch them for me. Please help me deliver those robots here. As for other requests, my main task here is to adapt to the spiritual qi as soon as possible. As long as I can adapt to the spiritual qi, then everything is fine."
Tao Wang laughed and said, "This kid. Alright, then I will get you some food for now. You will also get your food delivered regularly. The Camp Lord wants to make sure that you won't get burdened with pointless stuff." Then after he said that, he left with a laugh.
Zhao Hai knew that Tao Wang was joking with him. So he just smiled and familiarized himself with the villa. He went to his room and took out the anti-monitoring device. After seeing that there weren't any surveillance device inside, he felt relieved.
However, he didn't enter the Space. He knew that Desbarres might come later on. So instead of returning to the Space, he sat down and condensed more formations.
After two hours, the sound of a car was heard outside the villa. Then quickly after that, Tao Wang's voice was heard, "Little Hai, Little Hai, are you there? Come here quickly." Zhao Hai went out of his villa and saw Desbarres and Tao Wang outside. Besides the two, nobody else was present.
Zhao Hai quickly opened the door and asked the two to come in. Zhao Hai also discovered that Tao Wang was bringing several bags which seemed to contain things.
Tao Wang wasn't too polite as he directly went to to the villa's dining room. Then he put the bags down and took out its contents. What was inside were few meal boxes with food inside.
Looking at Zhao Hai's dazed expression, Desbarres laughed and said, "Little Hai, since it's your first day in the camp, I brought Tao Wang here to drink. So how about sharing a few cups with us?"
Zhao Hai replied, "Since the Camp Lord wants someone to drink with, then I will naturally comply. It's a pity that you brought me food. Otherwise, I would've prepared you some food myself."
Upon hearing Zhao Hai, Tao Wang suddenly smiled. Then he gave Zhao Hai's spatial bag back to him and said, "Little Hai, I already took the liquor inside and replaced it with food ingredients. If you want to make some food, then you can feel free to do so."
Desbarres and Tao Wang thought that Zhao Hai was boasting. In their opinion, a cultivating genius like Zhao Hai must have certainly focused his efforts on cultivating. In this case, how could he possibly know how to prepare food?
Zhao Hai didn't care about what the two thought. The thing in his mind right now was what Tao Wang just said. Then out of curiosity, he took his spatial bag and looked inside. And just like Tao Wang said, there were ingredients inside. There was meat, eggs, vegetables, and other things needed for cooking.
Zhao Hai looked at the ingredients and then looked at the food that Tao Wang and Desbarres brought. There were fried chicken, fries and so on. There weren't any special food. To be honest, Zhao Hai truly wanted to drink. But he couldn’t enjoy his drink with these foods.
When he drank inside the Space, he would have liquor and food prepared by Meg. At this point, Meg's cooking was a bit inferior if not on par with a master chef. And since Zhao Hai wanted country cooking, Meg prepared chinese cuisine for him.
And because of this, Zhao Hai had developed a particular taste. At this point, he couldn’t eat common dishes. Therefore, Zhao Hai took out some fish and vegetables and then proceeded to cook.
Seeing Zhao Hai's skillful actions, Desbarres and Tao Wang couldn't help but stare. They didn't expect Zhao Hai to actually know how to cook.
Before long, Zhao Hai completed two dishes. One of them was a cold dish, which was a home-cooked dish of Pu Ai. The other dish was a hot dish which was made with fish. Zhao Hai placed these two dishes on the table amidst Desbarres' and Tao Wang's surprise.
It must be said that even if the World of Cultivation was much stronger than Earth, it was still inferior to Earth in terms of cuisine.
In the World of Cultivation, everyone gave full priority to cultivation. Even if they had the same ingredients as back on Earth, they still wouldn't spend the time to research how to make better dishes. If people from the World of Cultivation had the time to research dishes, they might as well use it to research formations or other things related to getting stronger.
Because of this mindset, the entire World of Cultivation didn't have any deep understanding of cuisine. What people generally ate were simple dishes.
Home-made dishes like cold dishes didn't look any special. The hot fish dish, on the other hand, looked like it took a lot of work to prepare. Desbarres and Tao Wang were dumbfounded by the skills they witnessed.
In the past, when Zhao Hai was eating at the academy's cafeteria, he discovered that the dishes there weren't much to talk about. And after accessing the internet, he finally knew the level of cuisine here. Therefore, he decided to show off some cooking skills. It must be said that his cooking skill was only inferior to Meg's.
Desbarres looked at the two dishes and said, "Little Hai, did you just cook these two dishes? Where did you learn to cook?"
Zhao Hai smiled and said, "I studied it back home. Have a taste."
Tao Wang took some chopsticks and proceeded to eat.
Chapter 1118 – Level Up, Stellar Body Tempering Technique!
The people in the Bone Symbol Camp were aware that a new member had joined them. And that this new member was assigned a villa in the place where level 4 Experts live in. Although there was no point for them to go to the floor where the villas were, some of them still read about the floor. And when they heard the news, they couldn't help but feel uncomfortable.
Moreover, this new member seems to be a mystery. In addition to the time where he asked Tao Wang to give the members some wine, this person never appeared in the camp. It has been two months since then. And the number of people who had seen this new member could be counted on one hand.
It was also found out that in addition to not exploring the camp, this person doesn't leave his room most of the time. He would stay inside his villa every day. Besides his two robots as well as Tao Wang and the Camp Lord, nobody had ever gone to his villa. Also, Tao Wang and the Camp Lord were often seen visiting his villa once or twice a week. In the past two months, the two had visited the villa twenty times.
Also, every time Tao Wang and the Camp Lord left the villa, both of them would be red-faced, obviously drunk. This made the members of the camp even more curious about the person in the villa.
What the people in the camp didn't know was that Tao Wang and Desbarres didn't only visit Zhao Hai to drink. They were also monitoring how Zhao Hai was adapting to the spiritual qi.
Seeing the rate of Zhao Hai's adaptation, Desbarres and Tao Wang were ecstatic. Others would take one year before adjusting to the density of spiritual qi, but Zhao Hai only took one month.
However, Tao Wang and Desbarres were clueless about something else. Besides adapting to the Machine Field's density of spiritual qi, Zhao Hai's strength had also experienced a breakthrough.
Zhao Hai had already adapted to the spiritual qi density a month after entering the Bone Symbol Camp. Moreover, he felt that he was going to break through. Because of this, he looked for a chance to go out of the camp and look for a desolate place. Then he arranged a spirit gathering formation and attempted to break through. The Myriad Stellar Transformations Yin-Yang Art's piritual qi requirement for breaking through from the first layer to the second layer was simply terrifying.
After breaking through to the second layer, Zhao Hai's spiritual force underwent a huge enhancement. Originally, the most he was able to use were hundred-layer formation sets. But after this breakthrough, he was now able to use one thousand-layer formations. This made him equivalent to a level 6 Mage.
This breakthrough didn't only improve Zhao Hai's strength. The second layer of the Stellar Transformations Art gave him a technique. The technique was a set of fist martial arts with an unusual name, Stellar Body Tempering Technique!
The fist technique with a peculiar name made Zhao Hai very curious. In the beginning, he thought that this set of fist techniques wouldn't have any use to him. After all, he had additional abilities that made his body beyond what most people had. His crystal body as well as his ability to become liquid metal was already very good. He thinks that this set of techniques was a bit weak!
But after he carefully looked through the Stellar Body Tempering Technique, he began to take it seriously. The contents of the book was too formidable!
The technique would let the user absorb the strength of the stars into their body. And this absorption didn't mean on the meridians or the skeleton. This was actually tempering on a cellular level.
According to the Stellar Body Tempering Technique, every human cell was a place to store energy. They were dependent and independent of each other in certain aspects. The Stellar Body Tempering Technique leads the power of the stars into a person's body, making it more sturdy and allowing it to store energy. As long as one can persist on practicing, eventually, each cell of a person would attain the power of a star. When that time comes, they would truthfully be unparalleled under the heavens.
This technique was unprecedented. It was like those heaven defying methods from the novels Zhao Hai read before. If it wasn't in his hands right now, then Zhao Hai might think that this method was too perfect to exist.
However, after seeing this technique, Zhao Hai couldn't help but hesitate. Did a perfect technique really drop into his hands out of thin air? It doesn't look like it.
By the end of the technique, its weakness was pointed out. And just like any body tempering technique, its disadvantage was the pain!
This body tempering technique requires one to use their own spiritual force to move the power of the stars and introduce it to their body. The power of the stars doesn't temper the flesh, the blood, nor the bones, but a person's cells, every cell in the body!
When practicing the Stellar Body Tempering Technique, one needed the ability to separate their consciousness and body. Otherwise, they would be in danger!
This separation between consciousness and body meant that one's spirit was separated from their physical body. It was similar to a soul leaving the body, but not exactly the same. When one’s soul left their body, their body couldn't move. However, the separation of consciousness and the body only meant that one's mental intent was outside the body. In other words, while being outside the body, ones' consciousness could still control their body as though it was a puppet.
Although the Stellar Body Tempering Technique explicitly wrote the dangers of using it, Zhao Hai still practice it. He now felt that the technique would be a great use to him.
Zhao Hai thought that with his crystal body as well as his ability to become liquid metal, this body tempering technique shouldn't hurt as much. However, he soon discovered that he made a mistake, a very huge mistake.
His body had multiple divergent abilities. HIs crystal body made his body incomparably hard, meanwhile, his liquid metal body made his body like mercury.
But because of this, Zhao Hai's pain was elevated when practicing. If other people's cells were like pieces of bread as it underwent the technique, then Zhao Hai's cells were akin to iron balls. Tempering this iron ball made it red hot, and as it was repeatedly hammered, this iron ball would eventually turn into a refined steel ball.
When Zhao Hai began practicing the technique, he began to understand why one would need to separate their consciousness from their body during tempering. Unless one separates their consciousness from their body, they would experience soul-wrenching pain, endangering their mental state.
Upon directing the power of the stars to temper his body, Zhao Hai felt his every cell in his body burning from pain much worse than being burned alive. He wasn't able to issue a punch before he fainted on the spot.
After he stopped practicing the technique, Zhao Hai began to think about how to succeed in practicing it. Separating his consciousness while controlling his body shouldn't be difficult. He could have his consciousness fly out of his body and have Cai'er possess it. However, Zhao Hai didn't do this. This was because he felt that achieving mastery on this process would provide him with a great advantage.
Zhao Hai used five days to fully achieve the separation between consciousness and body. But it still had to be said that he had Cai'er's help with this. He would have Cai'er control his body in order to feel the separation. Then he would slowly control his body with his own thought until he was able to fully use it.
After achieving this step, Zhao Hai began practicing the Stellar Body Tempering Technique. This time, he succeeded with his consciousness in the air while controlling his body. He began to control his body to execute a punch, and this time he didn't even feel a little pain.
This was where Zhao Hai began truly learning the Stellar Body Tempering Technique. However, practicing this method couldn't be done for days on end. At most, Zhao Hai can separate his consciousness for two hours each day. This was also his limit in practicing the fist techniques.
Now, Zhao Hai's daily schedule included practicing the Stellar Body Tempering Technique. Just as expected, this technique was really useful for him. After he began practicing the technique, his crystallization and liquefaction had been perfectly integrated to his body. In the past, when he used his crystal form, his body would become like crystal. And although he hadn't used it in a fight, he saw that his liquid metal form would make him indistinguishable compared to a normal human form.
But now, when Zhao Hai used these two forms, his body wouldn't undergo a drastic change. Although it would change his form a little, one could still see that it was Zhao Hai. Moreover, his body can now be as hard as diamond and also as soft as a mountain stream.
The advantages of the Stellar Transformations Body Tempering Technique didn't stop here. It also had a huge benefit to Zhao Hai's spiritual force. At the same time, his absorption of spiritual qi in practicing the Stellar Transformation Yin-Yang art had become much smoother and quicker.
Besides these harvests, in the past two months, Zhao Hai had also received the secret formation sets of the Bone Symbol Camp. When Zhao Hai opened the file, he saw that there were about 100 thousand formations inside. Using these two months, Zhao Hai was able to condense these formations. Now that Zhao Hai had broken through, he could easily condense ten thousand magic formations at the same time. His speed had become extremely shocking.
Not to mention the Bone Symbol Camp's formations, even the entire Machine Field's public collection of formations had already been condensed. At this point, the number of formation sets that Zhao Hai can use had reached an insane and uncountable amount.
But even if this was the case, Zhao Hai didn't think that he was unparalleled. This was simply impossible. He was clear that Mages in the Machine Field still fell short compared to other people in the World of Cultivation. In the other 5 realms, their strongest weapons were the people themselves. But in the Machine Field, their strongest weapons were battleships.
Because of this, while Zhao Hai was still condensing formations, the majority of his effort was practicing the Stellar Body Tempering Technique. Although he could only practice for two hours every day, Zhao Hai could still visualize how the fist techniques were used. The more he visualized, the more he felt the novelty of this technique.
There were two ways to use this set of fist techniques. One was to supplement the tempering of the body itself. Using the set of fist techniques to temper the body would allow the tempering to be done with twice the results and half the effort.
But the other way to use the fist technique was to use the Stellar Transformations Art to enhance it. This would make the fist technique a top-level technique against enemies.
Zhao Hai's Stellar Transformations Yin-Yang Art had now reached the second rank of the second layer. Each layer of the art was divided into 9 ranks. Before this breakthrough, Zhao Hai was stuck at the first layer, ninth rank. And now that he had broken through, he immediately barreled through to the second rank of the second layer. One could see how hard it was to break through from layer to layer.
Besides his cultivation level being promoted, the Space had also leveled up. Zhao Hai's Space was now level 150. Moreover, the spiritual qi of the Space had become equal to the Machine Field. And because of the Hundred Spirit Tree and the Tree of Life, the level was beginning to surpass the Machine Field.
The reason of the Space's upgrade was the increase of the spiritual qi density. As Zhao Hai adapted to the Machine Field's spiritual qi, the Space was also undergoing changes. As Zhao Hai's adaptation improved, the Space's level increased as well. And in the end, the Space stopped at level 150.
Naturally, it was impossible for there to be no benefits when the Space reached this level. The Space had recognized the Machine Field's spiritual qi to be medium-grade. So now, Zhao Hai can purchase medium-grade Cultivation Backgrounds as well as Science and Technology Backgrounds. As for Magic Backgrounds, Zhao Hai could now purchase advanced-level ones.
One shouldn't underestimate these backgrounds. Zhao Hai had benefited a lot with this upgrade. The science and technology background now allowed him to make mechs and battleships. As for the Cultivation backgrounds, high-ranked herbs can now be planted there. It even reached the point where the backgrounds can produce magical treasures.
It was because of all of these developments that Zhao Hai stayed inside his villa for two straight months. He was continuously practicing in the Space.