Chapter 445: Kermis Visiting
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
Li Yao was almost baffled. Even skills could be mass produced and sold?
Pondering for a while, he decided to insert the skill card back to the slot of the crystal processor and reactivated the engineering crystal suit named "Rockman".
The crystal suit had been designed for the purpose of dismantling and maintaining large starships in the vacuum of space. But the residents of Black Iron Town had added alloy plate armor and chainswords to it to make it a usable tool in a combat.
Since it could be manipulated by an ordinary fighter, Li Yao had no trouble wearing it at all as an expert Exo.
After reading the tutorials of the Rockman in three minutes, Li Yao took a few steps forward stumblingly.
The Rockman seemed no different from the crystal suits that he used to wear, but it felt much more soft and gentle. Li Yao felt like he was soaked in a hot spring and couldn't tell that he was wearing a large crystal suit weighing more than ten tons.
The buffer system and the assisting system are smartly designed. I barely need to exert my own strength. Every movement can be performed by the suit.
The comprehensive information processing system is quite advanced, too. Most of the information has been preprocessed by the crystal suit. Only the final outcome and the most crucial information are displayed. Together with the simple and straightforward operation menu, even ordinary people will know what situation they are in and what they should do to cope with it.
Although such a design may lead to monotonous tactics due to the lack of changes, it is something not unacceptable for ordinary fighters and low-level Cultivators.
Li Yao secretly compared Rockman with other crystal suits that he had worn and discovered that the operation pattern of Rockman was even easier than the 'beginner mode' in many crystal suits. It could almost be called 'auto mode'.
The Exo could choose from several combat styles, including 'assault', 'guerilla warfare', 'stall', 'remote attack', 'strength saving', and so on. Then, the crystal suit would act accordingly and automatically adjust the power rune arrays, defense shield, and the crystal reactor.
The Exo could also input simple instructions such as 'attack to the left' or 'defend on the right'. Their crystal suit would immediately complete the instructions.
Such a mode significantly improved the independency of a crystal suit and diminished the importance of the Exo. It had both disadvantages and advantages.
For experts such as Li Yao, he disliked the dull, boring combat style where the crystal processor took care of everything; he preferred to handle all the information he needed personally.
From the wind and direction of a breeze a hundred meters away, to the activation level of one of the runes on one of the thirty-two power rune arrays on his back… Everything must be under his control so that he could pick one of the thousands of possible combat plans at his will.
Such an 'auto' crystal suit was like a puppet with strings. Most of its movements had been preset. All the Exo had to do was to cooperate and do what the crystal suit asked to.
It may not be a big deal if the Exo was faced with a mediocre enemy. But the experts were likely to notice the pattern in the attacks and eventually locate loopholes.
But Li Yao had to admit that, for ordinary fighters and low-level Cultivators, such an 'auto mode' might be their best choice.
After all, not everyone had the talent required to be an expert Exo. They were hardly likely to encounter the real formidable enemies, too.
Even if they were engaged with a real formidable enemy, they could simply crush the enemy with their advantage in numbers!
Therefore, although he was not particularly fond of the crystal suit himself, Li Yao still paid his respect to the designer of such a crystal suit.
At this time, Li Yao noticed that, right beside the attack and defense instructions, there was another row of brilliantly shining buttons surrounded by right gold lines.
The words on them were the three moves comprised in the 'Peak Fighters Luxury Bundle'.
Black Tiger Explosion, Tiger Devil Slash, and Tiger Satan Heart Piercing Barrage!
Li Yao was greatly interested. He locked onto 'Black Tiger Explosion' with one of his telepathic thoughts and triggered it softly.
In a moment, a transparent phantom seemed to break apart in front of his eyes. Intense spiritual waves and telepathic thoughts were ringing around him. The Rockman produced a shrill sound, with an intimidating aura surrounding him. New reminders appeared on the light beam, asking him to carry out certain movements with his arms and torso.
Li Yao crossed his arms and pushed forward. He had barely exerted any of his strength when two streaks of immense spiritual energy blew out of the crystal reactor furiously like Zhang Heiniu just did, except that the black swirl of spiritual energy reached more than thirty meters away!
As I expected, not only does the 'skill card' store the instructions of a certain move, it also contains one of the telepathic thoughts of the Cultivator who produced it. The Cultivator must have spent a lot of time and effort on it. It is as authentic as their own attack. Quite impressive!
Greatly satisfied, Li Yao took off his crystal suit. He said to Zhang Heiniu, after thinking for a moment, "The most important thing about Black Tiger Explosion is not how much force you exert to push it out, but the inward helical strength when you are punching. You should 'swing' your strength instead of 'pushing' it out. Try to understand it. The damage of your attack should be able to be increased by 10% after you do."
"Thank you very much, Master!" yelled Zhang Heiniu in excitement.
Li Yao smiled. Pondering for a moment, he said to Mu Ping, "Mayor Mu, I would like to make a deal with Black Iron Town."
…
In the next half month, Li Yao stayed in Black Iron Town, partly to collect all the useful information about the Flying Star Sector, and partly to study the 'auto' crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector more carefully.
In order to deal with the giant crab, several Exos suffered tremendous wounds, and two of them had perished on the spot. Almost all the crystal suits had been seriously damaged.
Some of the minor damage could be maintained by themselves. But the crystal suits with more damage had to be sent to a bigger town named 'Star Lord Temple' for examination.
Li Yao had proposed to maintain and also strengthen the broken crystal suits in exchange for one of them.
The style of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was different from the crystal suits in the Flying Star Sector after all. Also, it had been affixed with a lot of materials from Skeleton Dragon.
Skeleton Dragon had been an ancient deadly demon forty thousand years ago. Its body materials and the scraps of the ancient magical equipment it collected were definitely treasures that were not seen every day.
Although Li Yao had covered them up and nobody had noticed anything wrong in Black Iron Town, Li Yao was certain that, since this world boasted such advanced technology in crystal suits, it was quite possible that somebody would see through the secrets of his crystal suit after he reached the more prosperous places and encountered the real specialists of the trade.
If so, he might be blamed even if he did nothing wrong just because he had an unparalleled treasure. Somebody might covet the body materials of Skeleton Dragon and decide to hunt him down. It would be a great nuisance for him.
Therefore, Li Yao had made up his mind that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit would be his secret weapon which wouldn't be used unless it was absolutely necessary.
And when the secret weapon was to be used, all the enemies who saw it would have to be eliminated!
So, he needed a common crystal suit of the Flying Star Sector for his daily use.
Right now, he could make do with an engineering crystal suit. After all, he could always upgrade the crystal suit after he arrived in the more prosperous places.
Li Yao spent ten days maintaining all the engineering crystal suits and farming crystal suits. He had basically grasped the refining style of the preliminary crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector.
Although he hadn't completely figured out the complicated rune arrays inside the crystal suits yet, he found no major trouble performing the rudimental repair work.
Then, he started to modify his own Rockman.
Since it was an engineering crystal suit and wouldn't boast enough combat ability no matter how it was modified, Li Yao decided to go exactly the opposite way. He fully restored the characteristics of an engineering crystal suit for Rockman and added two extra multipurpose arms that were filled with all kinds of maintenance and refining tools.
The Rockman right now had four arms, with an enormous storage bag on its back which could carry bountiful magical equipment units and components. It looked somewhat clumsy and eccentric.
Purposefully, Li Yao didn't polish or strengthen the surface of his new crystal suit. He even left a few meteorite scratches and patches of rust undealt with, making the crystal suit look heavy, stupid, and utterly harmless.
In a battleground, it would fit every description of a standard logistic crystal suit for maintenance.
In accordance to the Rockman was the new identity that Li Yao set for himself.
Li Yao, twenty-three years old, born and raised in a minor relic at the periphery of the Flying Star Sector. Because of the poor transportation, he had never gotten in touch with the outside world, except for the stories that he had been told and the knowledge he'd learnt from books.
Since he had been living with the garbage in the relic since he was a kid, his talent for magical equipment maintenance was discovered very early. He was especially good at the maintenance and modification of beginner-level crystal suits.
Half a year ago, his hometown was destroyed by an unexpected rain of meteorites; only a few survived. He had since been wandering in several other space towns and eventually learnt more about the outside world, especially the information regarding Heavenly Saints City.
As a young man who desired to be a master in crystal suit refining, he was now striving to reach Heavenly Saints City.
There were more young men in the Flying Star Sector that had shared similar life experiences than specks of dust here.
Making their way to Heavenly Saints City was almost a ubiquitous dream for everyone in the Flying Star Sector.
Such an identity was both inconspicuous and hard to falsify. It offered a fairly plausible explanation for his maintenance and modification skills, too.
After he left Black Iron Town and marched into the depths of the sea of stars, no one would doubt his background.
Mayor Mu had told him that there would be a kermis in a bigger town nearby named Star Lord Temple during the last five days in each month. At that time, the fleets of dozens of towns and villages in this place would all take part in the kermis, exchanging news and bartering goods.
There was cargo that set off to the more prosperous places regularly in Star Lord Temple, too. The young men who wanted to make a living in the outside world often chose to take the cargo ships because of the fairly reasonable ticket prices. For those who were adept at certain skills and could work as sailors or mechanics, they could even take the cargo ships for free.
Black Iron Town had suffered tremendous losses. Not only were some of their own residents killed or injured in the battle, the professional guards that they had hired from Star Lord Temple had passed away, too. It was expected that they sent the dead bodies back.
Besides, the precious materials they retrieved from the giant crab could only be sold in Star Lord Temple.
Therefore, the kermis this month was something that they had to attend.
Li Yao offered to go with them. Mu Ping was worried about the safety issue since they would be carrying so many demon beast materials and therefore agreed happily.