For over a month since absorbing that freezing white orb from the ancient ruins, Gu Xiechen had been relentlessly busy, not even finding a moment to gauge his current strength. Now that the Special Operations agents were finally subdued and the training school for psychics was winding down, and with the imminent field test of the improved Thunder God III power armor for the Gu Corporation approaching, Gu Xiechen had rushed to the headquarters of Hardwo Corporation in Copenhagen.

Facing the giant testing machine, he took a deep breath. His internal True Qi remained utterly still; he relied purely on sheer strength to deliver a punch.

The punch was not exceptionally fast, but this was necessary to truly test the pure physical power his body now possessed—not kinetic energy generated by acceleration, but pure physical might.

His knuckles sank into the testing pad, penetrating a full three inches, until the fist could advance no further and an intense counter-rebound forced him to retract it.

The display screen flashed a number that shocked even him: Two thousand eight hundred tons!

After a long silence, he slowly planted a foot onto the testing pad. This time, his right leg plunged over a foot deep into the pad before it stopped. The number displayed made Gu Xiechen’s heart pound fiercely: Nine thousand five hundred tons of treading force. It was difficult to imagine the terrifying destructive power of a full-force sweeping kick.

Calming his mind, he switched the testing apparatus to a different mode, pressing his hands to his temples. Utilizing the psychic concentration method taught by Siren, he slowly marshaled all his mental power, condensing it into an almost tangible mental wave. He stared intently at the small spot of light in the center of the energy shield projected by the tester. Without engaging the amplification function of the Christal Orb, he directed the mental wave straight at the light shield.

A bowl-thick beam of blue laser shot from between Gu Xiechen's eyebrows. Accompanied by the sound of tearing air, the mental impact slammed into the energy shield. The meter-thick energy shield was actually blasted apart by more than a foot around the impact point. All the indicator lights on the tester flashed violently, and dozens of extremely fine light patterns swept across the shield. About five minutes later, the screen provided the data for this mental assault: One million seven hundred fifty thousand Standard Zakla Index points, representing a low-tier Earth mental ability!

“One point seven five million!”

If amplified by the Christal Orb, calculated at the previous sixty-fold amplification factor, Gu Xiechen’s mental impact value would exceed one hundred million!

Clenching his fists with double the force, Gu Xiechen excitedly punched toward the sky. His internal True Qi surged, circulating vigorously. He quickly modified the tester’s mode again, then stood steadily before it. He concentrated his entire mind, slowly and carefully condensing the True Qi in his palms. A faint, milky white cold energy slowly welled up in his palms, gradually turning his hands a pure, nearly translucent color. Within the transparent flesh and bone, only a few veins flashing with white light were vaguely visible.

%Shi Wan

His heartbeat, which had been rising from less than thirty beats per minute, gradually increased to three hundred beats per minute. Streams of cold energy, white as fine jade, continuously poured from his heart. The newly formed Hanyuan Daotai erupted with the strange energy drawn from that marvelous white orb.

The cold energy spewing from his palms suddenly became terrifyingly potent. Frightening cold power condensed in his palms, a massive amount of freezing energy desperately compressing toward the center. Gradually, quantitative change led to a qualitative leap. When the cold energy erupting from his heart also merged into that rapidly compressing stream, two faint, semi-transparent, milky-white flames ignited with a whoosh, enveloping his fists like viscous, molten glaze. Countless fine, ghostly blue ice crystals continuously erupted from the flames.

Every ice crystal that landed on the floor made a pat-ta sound as the alloy steel flooring was instantly frozen into countless shards. In the blink of an eye, the alloy floor around him was peppered with fist-sized craters. The craters were filled with alloy micro-particles so fine they resembled flowing water, emitting a faint, ghostly blue light.

“This is?”

Gu Xiechen had no time to ponder why the cold energy he condensed had turned into two faint flames, but the immense power contained within these flames demanded immediate release. With a deep shout, the sound of his exhalation thundered like a lightning strike, making the four walls of the testing room tremble. He lunged toward the testing apparatus like a fierce gale, slamming both fists onto it with full force.

With two crisp puffs, the test pad—capable of withstanding a peak Mercury-level strike—now bore two human-head-sized holes. Two dark-blue “” were slowly dripping from the apparatus. Where the “” dripped onto the ground, a square meter section of the alloy floor let out a crisp sound and also transformed into flowing micro-particles.

The display screen on the tester flickered, and a line of numbers floated out: Three point seven Standard Zakla Index! This was the force measured for this strike by the tester!

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“A joke! I shattered the test pad, and this strike only registered this little power?”

Staring at his hands, which were still emitting a hazy cold mist, Gu Xiechen seemed to remember something. The flame-like substance born from the cold energy, though appearing as fire, was actually the ultimate essence of absolute, chilling ice energy. Extreme high temperatures can melt objects into liquid, but absolute low temperatures can destroy the organizational structure of any object. Stone, wood, or hard metal—all would be shattered into the finest particles when facing this fire, becoming strangely fluid like running water.

“This is?”

After thinking hard for a while, Gu Xiechen paced around the floor, clutching his head. He was absolutely certain he had seen data describing this substance before, but too many things occupied his mind lately, causing him to forget.

After prolonged thought, he suddenly slapped his forehead and laughed, “Idiot! It’s the record in the Yunsijian Elder Yi gave me!”

When he was on Heaven Star, Elder Yi, who was adept at identifying Zhou Tian treasures, had imprinted all the records from the Zhou Tian Yi Bao Lu he could recall onto a Yunsijian and given it to Gu Xiechen. Amidst the intense fighting and scheming on Heaven Star, Gu Xiechen had treated the Zhou Tian Yi Bao Lu merely as fascinating trivia for amusement, only occasionally pulling it out to read a few chapters to pass the time during breaks between operations. It was in that Zhou Tian Yi Bao Lu that he had read similar documentation.

Hustling, he fumbled through his Xiao Qiankun Pouch, pulled out a thumb-sized Yunsijian, poured all his mental energy into it, and after a thorough search, finally located the origin of this terrifying flame.

Taiyin Xuan Yan—an innate object, the wondrous energy condensed from the first wisp of Innate Taiyin Qi in the world. It is the ultimate cold substance in heaven and earth, paralleling the Bi Taiyang Zhen Huo (Necessary True Solar Fire). While True Solar Fire is the extreme limit of Yang energy, Taiyin Xuan Yan is the limit of Yin energy. The Zhou Tian Yi Bao Lu even recorded that ancient cultivators, after collecting Taiyin Xuan Yan with magic artifacts, used it as a prime aid for artifact refinement.

“Taiyin Xuan Yan, artifact refinement?”

Gu Xiechen, his entire focus fixed on the description of Taiyin Xuan Yan, suddenly had an epiphany. He recalled the incantations recorded in the three silver scrolls left by Daoist Wo Chen.

It was truly a moment of divine inspiration. The incantations, so obscure and difficult to decipher on Heaven Star, now became crystal clear to him in an instant. Countless marvelous techniques descended upon his mind like a spring drizzle, rapidly being understood and absorbed. Of the three silver scrolls, one recorded Daoist Wo Chen’s insights on artifact refinement; one detailed the method for purifying raw materials using the Golden Crow Heavenly Fire; and the last one contained the methods Daoist Wo Chen inferred from his thousands of years of refinement experience for using Yin flames like Taiyin Xuan Yan in crafting artifacts.

Melting metal materials requires absolute high temperatures, but no matter how skilled the technique, some impurities inevitably mix into the finished product, impossible to remove even with Innate True Solar Fire, which cannot purify raw materials by one hundred percent. If one’s divine sense is powerful enough, one could evolve Taiyin Xuan Yan into a “sieve,” filtering the raw materials multiple times based on atomic size differences. What remains would be the purest raw material with completely identical atomic sizes, absolutely devoid of any impurities!

Not to mention refining artifacts using pure Yang flames like True Solar Fire or Golden Crow Heavenly Fire—all finished products must undergo a quenching process. How many precious materials and artifacts, swords forged through immense effort, were ruined because the final quenching step was mishandled? The rapid compression after the body’s rapid expansion from high temperatures, combined with impurities that couldn't be purged, led to uneven shrinkage ratios. The resulting sudden thermal expansion and contraction would destroy the artifact’s body and ruin the array patterns within, ultimately leading to failure and wasting countless materials and effort.

But when refining artifacts with Taiyin Xuan Yan, why would quenching even be necessary? The artifact body is condensed to its extreme; its texture is maximally dense, containing no impurities whatsoever. Furthermore, Taiyin Qi is the softest and toughest energy. The expansion and contraction ratios of the artifact would be absolutely balanced and perfect. Wouldn't the success rate of artifact refinement increase tenfold? Moreover, because there are no impurities inside, the artifact’s texture would be significantly denser than one refined through melting, meaning the artifact’s grade could intrinsically increase by one to several levels.

An ultimate energy like Taiyin Xuan Yan was the supreme choice for a master refiner!

Alas, Daoist Wo Chen toiled his entire life and only managed to collect a single spark of Golden Crow Heavenly Fire. He could only dream of what Taiyin Xuan Yan looked like.

Placing the Yunsijian back into the Xiao Qiankun Pouch, Gu Xiechen recalled the three volumes of Daoist Wo Chen's legacy he had comprehended, and he smiled with joy.

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Opening his left hand, True Qi continuously surged toward his palm. A faint thread of Xuan Yan, no higher than three inches and only as thick as a finger, silently spewed from his palm. Water molecules in the surrounding air instantly turned into countless blue ice crystals that rained down upon contact with the Xuan Yan, burning more ghostly blue craters into the alloy floor.

In a spacious storeroom within the underground base, the brothers Banruo and Mo He sat cross-legged in a corner, practicing their respective Zen martial arts. However, their attention was clearly not on their cultivation. They merely allowed their True Qi to circulate freely within their bodies, focusing all their attention on Xin Jia and Zhao Yi, and the others.

Billrocks and other researchers were operating the Hercules I power armor as it entered the storeroom. Xin Jia was grinding his teeth, tearing apart a square sheet of gold foil, thirty centimeters on a side, with his bare hands. He tore off a piece of gold the size of an inch in diameter and handed it to several subordinates sitting cross-legged nearby, their palms blazing with fierce flames. These gold lumps quickly melted into liquid gold, which was then drawn out into extremely fine golden threads that flew toward Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi was holding a sharp dagger, carefully carving complex array patterns onto a Hercules I power armor. His companions quietly picked up the golden threads and inlaid them into these array grooves.

Once a Hercules I was covered with simple Five Elements Defensive Arrays, Billrocks piloted the armor to another corner of the storeroom. Several of Xin Jia’s subordinates were busily working there with grunts of effort. They forcefully smashed a Zakla crystal, grinding it into a standard regular pentagon, and then inserted it into the various nodes of the defensive arrays.

Each armor had twelve Five Elements Defensive Arrays of varying sizes, and each array required five thumb-sized Zakla crystals to be embedded. When everything was completed, Billrocks and the others piloted the armors to a painting booth nearby. The bearded captain and several trusted subordinates were working there enthusiastically. They used ugly sheets of galvanized iron to cover the defensive arrays on the armor, securing the iron sheets with lion-head nails, and then sprayed them with dull, matte paint.

Some of Xin Jia’s subordinates were busy at a crude metal forge. The forge held a heavy, sharp greatsword, over a meter long. They were forcefully carving patterns onto the blade, and complex array patterns gradually appeared on the surface. These arrays were also designed by Zhao Yi, consisting of the simplest Lightning Attraction Array and the Sharpness Array.

The Sharpness Array could increase the keenness of cold weapons; the Lightning Attraction Array could summon a thin bolt of lightning to attack the enemy upon striking. These greatswords were the standard weaponry for the Hercules I armor. After inscribing these two arrays, the blade's destructive power could be more than doubled. In a recent test, wearing the armor, Billrocks had cleaved through a thirty-centimeter-thick alloy steel plate with one strike using this modified greatsword.

Mo He, who had been cultivating, suddenly sighed, “Damn it, I don't believe that bastard Gu Juechen’s Thunder God III can be stronger than our Hercules. Why be so cautious and careful?”

Banruo shot Mo He a glare and sneered, “It’s not that simple. The Corporation is clearly colluding with Gu Juechen, but the Corporation’s strength lies in electronic security. When it comes to developing power armor, they absolutely lack the technical foundation! General Hecomus’s backing Corporation specializes in massive engines; their technological depth in satellite engines for power armor development is definitely inferior to Mr. Billrocks and his team!” Reminder for halftime break

Characters Update

Monthly Tickets!!! (To be continued)