Master of the Stars

Chapter 376: Centennial Skill

Translator: Strivon

Emotional memories were often deep memories, yet recollection of them often appeared warped. In Luo Nan’s impression, his step back was a true and willful reaction. But this hot post’s analysis was reasonable and convincing. This presented a contradiction.

"Should I believe in the data? Or should I believe in the feeling?"

Luo Nan chose to believe in the former for the time being, but he still held onto some doubts. He continued to read on ahead, hoping to obtain reasons that were more decisive and persuasive.

By this point in the replies, the group of horn tooters were all exposed. The replies barely made its way back on topic, but it didn’t take long for the latter messages to head strongly off-track. Someone with the ID "Won’t Exchange Gold" posted an emoji with a fierce expression and clenched fingers along with three simple words:

"Well I’ll say!"

This Won’t Exchange Gold was certainly a famous person. There followed a long series of replies chained to his reply. They all quoted the content of his words, neatly forming a new core topic.

"Head Gold has finally revealed himself!"

"Queen Wu, Queen Wu. Careful of the hoodlum!"

"So it was Won’t Exchange Gold!"

"It was Won’t Exchange Gold all along!"

"Head Gold! This must mean that he’ll head to Xia City!"

Most of these comments were made three years ago. Some people called Her Majesty Empress Wu by her nickname back in the day. The atmosphere was very lively.

But this wasn’t the most explosive point. After several dozen cascaded messages later, a certain ID quoted Won’t Exchange Gold’s statement as well. The contents were simple. It was a string of ellipses.

But the simple dots encouraged a group of people with too much time on their hands to come crying and shouting over. The cascaded replies served as a commemoration. It was not surprising that they were lively. It was the following person who was truly the source of all evil, the originator of corruption.

Wu Zhao.

The situation in the past was unknown to Luo Nan, but today, Her Majesty Empress Wu’s ID was dyed in a purple-gold color. This represented that she held a most distinguished identity. It was a symbol of the Society’s veterans, powerful members, and people with true authority.

From her personal reply on, the comments had truly exploded. The dense overlap of posting time allowed Luo Nan to vaguely feel the fiery atmosphere at the time.

However, there was something very strange. There were still people who came to pay respects at this temporary hotspot even until today.

Luo Nan finally swiped to the very end. He saw that the latter replies were mostly, "Head Gold is dead. I burn offerings to him,” "Ambition isn’t far. The soul has returned,” “I don’t believe that Head Gold is gone. I will sit and wait,” and similar words.

Missing? This famous figure had been missing for three years. The scope of possibilities had shrunk to become extremely small.

Luo Nan subconsciously opened Won’t Exchange Gold’s personal page. The overall color was gray. But there were lines and lines of information describing ranks, positions, accomplishments, and honors. All this still remained. Looking at this, Luo Nan understood. Back then, Head Gold was also a purple-gold-level authority. He had been a Branch President and the Deputy Secretary-General of Headquarters. He was an elder, a veteran, of the first class. A B-rank strength assessment was low for him. He was truly in the B+ ranks. As for A-rank, that was left for the level of Extraordinary.

It was just that he had gone missing for several years. He must have missed the qualification certification procedure that occurred once every decade. The relevant status was temporarily frozen. The ID display also became average and mediocre. Only this locked page and the old posts back in the day still remained as vestiges of his existence.

Though Head Gold was described this way, Luo Nan seemed to have heard his name from somewhere before. It was probably from Bamboo Pole’s course, "Notes on the Major Characters of the World." Luo Nan shouldn’t have heard about Head Gold from anywhere else, but... thinking about it, there was a case of an extremely famous Extraordinary going missing in recent years.

The Maple Pavilion Case.

Luo Nan thumbed through Bamboo Pole’s materials, and his memories of Bamboo Pole’s lecture became clear.

This Mr. Won’t Exchange Gold was actually a legendary person. Rumor had it that he was a capitalistic tycoon and was the number one wholesaler after the war. His net worth was in the trillions. But by random chance, he awakened with supernatural powers. He became obsessed from this moment on, to the point of exhausting his entire fortune for the sake of further progressing in his cultivation.

Perhaps God was stirred by his resolution to throw away his money for the sake of cultivation, or perhaps the supernatural gift he awakened to was just that astonishing. Around the 80s, he stepped into the realm of Extraordinary, becoming the number one, the topmost existence on the planet.

He returned to his old business after this, entering the ocean of commerce and opening a chain of hotels called the Maple Pavilion. With his status being boosted by having brains and by being an Extraordinary, the hotel chain spanned the entire world in just a few years, rushing into the top one hundred. Compared to his fortune from his earliest days, his net worth at the time surpassed it.

There were no two ways about it. Mr. Won’t Exchange Gold was the real deal. He was a true life winner. He experienced successes and wonders.

But normal people didn’t know of the world of experts. Though Won’t Exchange Gold had opened his hotel chain in the eighty-eight major metropolises of the entire world, he felt that this wasn’t enough. He began to operate and open his hotel chain into the Wilderness, to do business with the vagrants.

In the beginning, he really did manage to succeed in operating a few hotels. He gained quite a bit of reputation among the vagrants. But he rushed to the Wilderness yet another time to inspect the new hotels, and this time he suddenly encountered an accident and went missing.

According to the results of the investigation at the time, Won’t Exchange Gold’s disappearance location spanned a mountainous area of nearly two thousand kilometers. Nothing remained in this area. A powerful force had pierced the earth’s crust, detonating a dormant volcano and changing the the terrain.

Though the power of Extraordinaries was oh so terrifying, it was no f***ing use at all in this situation. Those who were missing remained missing. During the lecture, Bamboo Pole had mentioned this person. He wanted Luo Nan to understand that Extraordinaries weren’t some omnipotent gods.

It was really quite the coincidence. The specific time that Won’t Exchange Gold went missing was within twenty-four hours of his posted message in the reply chain. It was the last trace of him in a public setting, right before he left the metropolis and entered the Wilderness.

The message could be considered his last words, in a sense.

Luo Nan finally understood why there was an extraordinary amount of chained replies in such a boring topic. It was actually due to such a reason. The end of a twisted legendary tale was clearly hidden within.

Luo Nan sighed. He couldn’t but be emotionally affected. He sighed again and closed this meaningless analysis post, not wishing to look at it for the time being.

If a youth, whose greatest goal in his life was to become an Extraordinary, were to encounter such a situation, he would be depressed for a day and a half. Fortunately, Luo Nan’s goal was a bit distanced from this realm. Luo Nan adapted a bit, no longer looking at the posts. There were other references available to him.

Luo Nan had yet to go over the teaching materials and notes that Papercut had sent. He prepared to spend half the afternoon to learn. But he discovered something unexpected after opening the materials. The teaching materials actually centered on the reality recording, and it was integrated much more closely.

There was nothing to say. Luo Nan could only boot the reality recording while linking reading mode. He began to work hard.

The teaching materials naturally did just a passing mention of the beginning ’cutscene.’ It mainly started after the discovery of the pleated boar, when practical combat began.

Sure enough, things were as Papercut said. They were both materials, but Her Majesty Empress Wu’s personal explanation of teaching materials was much more detailed. It also went much more in depth than even the best replies and posts on the network.

In the morning, Luo Nan was able to train the Condensation Ring to a certain level in a mere two hours of time. Because of this, Luo Nan held some fixed suspicions toward the difficulty, practical combat power, and so on of the entire set of the Dripping Sword technique.

However, Luo Nan was forced to reassess his own superficial understanding when he saw the teaching materials that Her Majesty Empress Wu had personally created.

Her Majesty Empress Wu performed a decisive analysis toward the foundation of the Condensation Ring as well as the five auxiliary structures. She even described her thoughts when making the video, supplementing it with many applications of the technique, involving a variety of real combat environments, unexpected circumstances, changes in techniques, and so on.

Luo Nan could feel that Her Majesty Empress Wu used the Condensation Ring as a foundation, and atop this foundation she easily added or subtracted auxiliary structures. She even increased or decreased the Condensation Ring itself. She focused on the enemy’s eyes and mouth, the two parts where one could do the most damage. From here, one could create over a dozen main categories and hundreds of types of killing techniques.

Luo Nan didn’t really understand some of the other categories, but his forehead sweated after a short few words involving the nervous system. A tiny little water bead, through various forms of nerve stimulation, could realize deadly, delusional, paralyzing, torturous effects, among others.

Every single move all possessed strong maneuverability... as long as your control ability could reach a certain standard. As such, there were countless permutations and boundless limits. It was simply inconceivable.

It was a pity. It was really a pity. Papercut, this fellow, didn’t have a gift in this area, and his interests weren’t high as well. His recorded notes were a bit superficial. It looked like he didn’t really enjoy it.

Luo Nan just hated himself for feeling diffident last night. He had just wanted to stay out of hot water when faced with He Yueyin’s admonishment. He wasn’t able to obtain the video file of the Heart Searing Blade into his hands. He even skipped the Dripping Sword.

He looked through the teaching materials and notes from beginning to end once more. He wished to continue, feeling unsatisfied. He needed to go through all the materials once more.

He didn’t expect to discover something at the end of the notes, however. A video material. It wasn’t long, around three minutes in length. It was a summary speech made by President Ouyang. Papercut had recorded it on a whim at the time.

There were a hundred or so people sitting in the ring-shaped conference room at the time. The backbone force of the branch had converged here. Luo Nan raised his eyes to look, and he found a few familiar faces.

Ouyang Chen and Her Majesty Empress Wu were standing in the center of the conference room. A little to the side, Old Man You was sitting in his wheelchair, taking his own corner of space. The three big shots of Xia City neatly presented themselves. This mid-level training course was already top-notch in standard.

This made Luo Nan harbor greater expectations toward next year’s training course in the spring.

Generally speaking, the concluding speech of a presenter was often quite vapid. They were mainly for adulation, possessing no real meaningful content. At first glance, Ouyang Chen’s path of speech was like this as well, but the method and gravity of his assessment was to Luo Nan’s liking.

President Ouyang said, "In the modern research of supernatural powers, fifty years have been spent starting from nothing to create the division of categories we have now. Within this period of time, over seventy thousand different types have been counted when it comes merely to the application of skills. Good and bad mingle, like bud and sand flowing together. Crooks are mixed in with honest folk, like fish and dragons being mixed in together. I believe that the overwhelming majority of them don’t possess any practical value that can be passed on for the far future.

"These skills are either so simple and crude, so many and complex, or so profound and difficult. There are no exceptions to this. In the future, we will probably only be able to view them in museums. Through these museums, people would sense just how barbaric growth has been for our era.

"But last year, I saw Lady Wu release the Dripping Sword. Its requirements for use aren’t high. Its energy consumption isn’t large. The overwhelming majority of mentally slanted Awakened can use it. However, to use it well, to use it sufficiently, and to use it at the desired level, isn’t a simple matter.

"Upon witnessing today’s class, I am more confident than ever that this simple technique can squeeze out an Awakened’s potential completely dry and exhaust an Architect’s imagination. Even those at the level of Extraordinary can unearth things of value from here."

The conference room in the recording went into a bit of an uproar, clearly showing that the Society members were quite unwilling to accept President Ouyang’s high evaluation.

Ouyang Chen soon explained himself, "It may appear that the Dripping Sword doesn’t touch upon anything essential, but by relying on six simple structures for the interference of the mental to the material plane, an exceptional amount of variations can be realized. It is like a fundamental element of matter. An entire world can be created.

"We should be paying attention to the core of this technique, the Condensation Ring. It possesses inconceivable possibilities. Through an extremely concise structure on the micro level, it can realize a highly efficient gathering of water molecules. It can completely take the place of the Extraordinary ability ’Enter the Micro.’

"How can it act this way? I don’t have the answer for now, but this technique, which turns the simple into the complex, the complex into the simple, a shifting between the simple and the complex that is done at will, is extremely mature, complete, and high-level. It is so much that I believe it to be an accomplishment a hundred years ahead of its time. Even at its present stage, there is nothing to add or remove. There is nothing to be picky about.

"As a user, I know that it is so, but not why it is so. But as a researcher, I am forced to bow and pay respects to this genius and marvelous design."

The President Ouyang truly did turn toward Her Majesty Empress Wu, who held a faint smile, and bowed.

The recording ended here.

"...Truly kickass." This crude expression of admiration was delivered to both Her Majesty Empress Wu and President Ouyang.

The following was an inaccurate description: A water molecule’s diameter was approximately 0.4 nanometers. Even with Luo Nan’s stormlike increase in soul strength, in terms of precision, he could barely access the micron level. There was quite the distance to the nanometer scale.

Who knows how long it would take to effectively gather water molecules in normal circumstances with Luo Nan relying solely on soul strength.

But nowadays, there was this small basic structure that could do this. Luo Nan was unable to clarify the marvels within it at all with his current level of systematic understanding.

His puzzlement was hard to dispel, yet he was full of admiration. A certain thought had even pass Luo Nan’s mind: It seemed acceptable to bend one’s head toward this legendary woman.

Half the afternoon passed by the time Luo Nan finished going over the training materials and notes. The tiny bead of water, gathered by the Condensation Ring, still remained by Luo Nan’s side. It was still the size of a fingernail, the maximum limit of its volume.

According to Her Majesty Empress Wu’s thoughts, Luo Nan’s method was that of an arduous and thankless type. But even that legendary lady would never expect Luo Nan to have a production line producing a steady, uninterrupted flow of soul strength.

In the case of spending one’s income, Luo Nan didn’t need to budget his money in his situation where income and spending were completely out of proportion. He just needed to have the will to spend, and things were fine.

He stirred telepathically, controlling the bead of water himself. It was like a sword-ball from novels. It jumped and flew, moving freely as Luo Nan pleased to and fro in the room.

This manifestation of supernatural power gave off a greater sense of accomplishment than the silent and stealthy Siege Hammer technique.

Only half the day remained for Luo Nan’s closed door cultivation. The plan couldn’t keep up with the changes. Luo Nan’s cultivation plan fell far from expectations, since Luo Nan had dedicated much time to wiping his own butt.

Now that the Dripping Sword had become the greatest unexpected gain, it should be firmly grasped. What about the star atlas transformation of the Format Pyramid? Wasn’t that a big bother?

In any case, Luo Nan already developed a keen interest, and even some feelings, for the Dripping Sword.

One always treated the savior of one’s life quite well.