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“Sanmei True Fire!! Me??” Yang Hao stood there stunned. Of course, he had heard of it before, but those who could use Sanmei True Fire were always extremely powerful experts. Now he could do it too—had he actually become an immortal?
“You’re still far from being a deity,” Hunyuanzi seemed to understand Yang Hao’s thoughts, “but your combat abilities have indeed leaped forward. By current standards, your battle power is now about level six.”
“Level six??” Yang Hao was even more shocked. In the Emperor’s Army, even the top swordsmen in regular swordsmen units were only about level four. Level six was almost equivalent to the deputy commander of a swordsmen unit.
Thinking back just a few months ago, Yang Hao had been a poor student who couldn’t even pass basic techniques. Now, in the blink of an eye, he had become a top expert. It was simply too unexpected.
Seeing Yang Hao still沉浸在 sudden happiness, Hunyuanzi directly asked X13, “Little robot, you said those bugs eat gold?”
Translation:
Seeing Yang Hao still immersed in sudden happiness, Hunyuanzi directly asked X13, “Little robot, you said those bugs eat gold?”
“That’s right, they specifically eat gold,” X13 looked around but saw no sign of the golden-armored beetles. They probably thought Yang Hao was already dead and had returned to their nest. X13 wondered what Hunyuanzi was up to.
But Hunyuanzi was indeed a sly old fox: “Damn little bugs made us suffer so much. It’s time for revenge now.”
Yang Hao snapped out of it: “You want me to burn all the bugs to death?”
“Nonsense! How much true energy do you have now? You might manage to burn one or two, but the rest would swallow you whole,” Hunyuanzi schemed, “Your sudden progress, combined with the new technique I just taught you, will double your speed. We’re heading straight to the bugs’ nest now.”
Hunyuanzi really found the right method. After entering the Lingxu state, Yang Hao indeed felt light all over, as if filled with hydrogen. Whether walking or running, he could leap far with just a light step. Using the Feihua Huanying technique made him even faster, moving like a ghostly shadow.
Therefore, Yang Hao could arrive at the bugs’ nest before the returning beetles. Their nest was surprisingly unimaginative—they had chosen a large canyon. Within a few square hectares, the canyon was filled with beetle eggs and tiny, immature bugs.
“You don’t want me to burn down their whole nest, right?” Yang Hao hesitated, “I don’t want to kill recklessly. Look, these bugs don’t even look tasty.”
“Although your master loves to eat, I’m not interested in roasted bugs,” Hunyuanzi mysteriously revealed the truth, “I once heard that beasts feeding on gold usually produce a liquid called Golden Essence. It’s the essence left after digesting gold. When enough Golden Essence accumulates, it solidifies. Golden Essence is hard to melt, extremely heat-resistant, and has special properties, making it an excellent material for making cauldrons. But it’s generally very hard to obtain!”
“You mean there’s Golden Essence here?” As Yang Hao spoke, his acute perception skill already kicked in, allowing him to sense many spots in the canyon hiding the Golden Essence Hunyuanzi mentioned.
“I thought taking pills would make me an immortal,” Yang Hao couldn’t help but feel disheartened, “Turns out I’m still destined to be a thief.”
“Stop whining!!” Hunyuanzi assumed the master’s tone, “Take it if I tell you to!!”
“Who’s being aggressive!” Although Yang Hao grumbled, he still darted into the canyon, muttering, “Just wait till I roast you and my intestines together with true fire…”
“It’s done!!” With a loud shout from X13, two golden objects dropped in front of Yang Hao.
Looking at the two toy-like items before him, Yang Hao’s eyes widened. After going through so much hardship and consuming a lot of true energy, was this all he got—two tiny incense burners that could barely fit in one hand?
More than ten hours earlier, on the planet Suimian, Yang Hao had searched the golden-armored beetles’ nest for the Golden Essence Hunyuanzi mentioned. He had always assumed that so many beetles accumulating Golden Essence would result in a warehouse full. But who would have guessed that, after so much effort, he only found a piece the size of a fist.
This Golden Essence indeed looked unique. Though its color was close to gold, gold always looked lifeless, no matter how beautiful it appeared. But this Golden Essence seemed like a flowing living being, like living gold, seemingly capable of turning into liquid at any moment and slipping through one’s fingers.
After returning to the planet Laymon, Shuming went to the Lingfei Star Sea to negotiate the ransom terms for someone. Yang Hao returned to his hideout, exhausted and ready to fall asleep. Meanwhile, Hunyuanzi whispered instructions to X13 on using the Golden Essence to create new pill-making cauldrons.
However, the birth of the new cauldrons didn’t spark even a bit of interest in Yang Hao.
“No way, what is this thing?” Yang Hao weighed the so-called cauldrons in his hands. Each was no bigger than a ping-pong ball. Even children nowadays wouldn’t play with such low-quality items.
“This ‘thing’?” Hunyuanzi grumbled, “Let me tell you, these cauldrons are made from Golden Essence. For you, they’re groundbreaking items.”
“You’ve said that so many times,” Yang Hao quickly countered, “Every time you make something, you say it’s groundbreaking. Come on!”
“This time is absolutely different,” Hunyuanzi, who had worked tirelessly without rest, wouldn’t tolerate any doubt about his creation, “Do you know how precious Golden Essence is? Before the space age, finding beasts that feed on gold was a once-in-a-thousand-years occurrence. Now, you’re just lucky enough to get a piece. We must make good use of it.”
“The so-called Golden Essence is Gold Extract C9908I. Humans can’t extract it actively. Its black-market price is about ten million Empire Credits per kilogram,” X13 joined in, reciting a long string of data for Yang Hao.
Yang Hao blinked, slowly realizing, “You mean the Golden Essence I brought back from Suimian is worth tens of millions!!”
“Exactly!” X13 replied without emotion, as robots only cared about energy, not money.
“What the hell!” Yang Hao got angry, “You two bastards! You damned fools! You turned something worth tens of millions into this junk? How am I supposed to sell it now? To kids as toys?”
Indeed, the cauldrons in Yang Hao’s palm were incredibly light and obviously mixed with other alloys. Their value was probably less than a thousandth of before. In other words, that piece of Golden Essence had been completely wasted by them.
Yet Hunyuanzi showed no remorse, instead lecturing him, “You’re so young and already obsessed with money. How can you ever respect your master in the future…” Hunyuanzi rambled on, completely forgetting that it was he who had taught Yang Hao to earn money in the first place. After his lecture, he suddenly shifted tone and praised himself, “A master like me treats money as dirt. With such a large piece of Golden Essence, during our forging, we wasted as much as we wanted—both necessary and unnecessary. Not just ten million, even if these two Golden Essence Cauldrons were worth more, I wouldn’t care about the money at all.”
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