Recap: LY’s cheat is having memories of super strong cultivator from 40,000 years ago. He has chosen to go to the Grand Desolate War Institution’s artificer department for college. He issued a challenge to the Deep Sea University that he’ll make the crappiest department into the Refiners’ Holy Land.
New background: The Grand Desolate War Institution is famed for its combat departments. It is located in the wastelands which is where many fiend beasts naturally reside. As you move further away from the main parts of civilization, you’re more likely to encounter wormholes which connect this human world to a world where fiends live. There are frequent fiend/fiend beast waves that pour out and are somewhat like natural disasters. Fiends are intelligent like humans, fiend beasts usually aren’t intelligent and are animals.
Fiend rankings: Soldier, general, king, emperor. No further rankings known yet.
Arc 2: College
LY takes a train to college. He meets an experienced artificer, foundation establishment level, that he makes friends with. Along the train route, a wormhole opens up. LY helps out by repairing a rail gun. 6 people wind up having to sacrifice themselves before the big guns arrive to help save the day. LY is touched by their sacrifice since they chose to save the thousands of civilians instead of saving their own lives. The importance of the role of cultivators and civilians is impressed upon him. Due to getting angry at someone who disparaged those who sacrificed themselves, LY breaks through to qi refining and beats up the other party.
From the wormhole, there’s a lot of demonic energy that isn’t good for cultivators and typically needs clean up. LY finds out that he can convert it to good energy, and that his flying sword seems sentient and can also convert and absorb the energy.
LY arrives at the school. Him and those that are joining the artificer department get a late welcome since there’s project for mass-producible crystal armor that’s almost complete and is the masterpiece of the artificer department that will elevate their standing. It’s called Project Mystic Skeleton. As they’re heading towards the floating mountain where the department is located, the mountain gets blown up by the armor. Everyone in the department dies except those that came to pick them up.
After the explosion, everyone leaves the department, leaving only one professor and LY. The artificer department is allowed to stick around as long as a student is able to get the artificer license after a year. To do so, LY will need to get 40,000 school credits in one year to even attempt it. The previous fastest record was 1.5 years by PH. The next fastest was 2 by DLD.
Ly gets credits by taking classes. It’s too slow, so he uses a mind-accelerating chamber to help him digest the courses. Normally those chambers can only be used for .5 hours before qi deviation. He doesn’t have that issue because of his cheat. Due to prolonged exposure to the chamber, he becomes able to accelerate his mind to ~300% outside of the chambers too. After the first month, he has the most credits which gets him bonus credits. He then starts acting as a sparring for DLD to earn more credits.
LY is given a cauldron by the professor. He goes Skyrim mods on it, and completely revamps the cauldron to a ridiculous point. He incorporates almost everything he learns from the professor into it. The sect that makes the cauldron is responsible for checking to make sure that all modifications are safe. The inspectors are stunned. It’s rule safe.
A wormhole opens near a city. The big ships can’t fire their cannons since they’d destroy the city and kill civilians. All schools and sects that are nearby are called for help. LY joins the school as an artificer, wielding a gatling gun for his weapon. Since he has done a lot of training and sparring, he can carry it with ease. LY and his schoolmates rack up a lot of points. Their crowning achievement is killing a fiend general level fiend using lots of explosives.
LY gets a lot of school credits during this time. He figures killing fiends/fiend beasts is a good source of school credits. He goes hunting, decides it’s inefficient, and then invents the Fiend Beast Tracker. Using the Fiend Beast Tracker, he can figure out what beast he’s looking at and if it’s dangerous or not to fight it. He gets a patent on it. A company tries to buy it, but he doesn’t sell it to them because he wants the rights to improve upon it, not just to make money from it. The company is upset. They’ll pop up again later.
There’s a school competition between departments that’s usually just between the fists and weapons department, but LY wants to join since it’ll net him 10,000 points if he wins. It becomes a 1v2000 situation Through some clever scheming, traps, and plans, he winds up on top and reaches his goal of 40,000 points.
LY takes the test and meets Jiang Shaoyang, the first person his age that is as talented as him in artificing. Jiang Shaoyang is known as “Tenth Star” since he would be the tenth direct student under the most dazzling current artificer Jiang Sheng known as “Supernova.” They compete throughout the entire examination period. First is the written test, which Jiang Shaoyang wins. Since they finish early, they do a bit of friendly competition that winds up in a tie. In the second test, LY wins, making it 1:1. The final test is to repair a mechanical wolf. The vertebrae of each wolf is cracked and requires a metal that they aren’t given to repair as a trap to see if the examinees would notice. Jiang Shaoyang notices and asks the examiners where the metal is. LY doesn’t know you can ask the examiners for it, so he completely revamps his wolf into a tarantula instead which wouldn’t need a spine.
The examiner from the Deep Sea University isn’t convinced that LY should pass this portion, so they have LY’s tarantula fight Jiang Shaoyang’s wolf. The tarantula wins by exploiting Jiang Shaoyang’s mentality. Jiang Shaoyang is convinced by this loss. After talking a bit with LY, he decides to quit Deep Sea University and shaves his head. He drops the moniker “Tenth Star” and wants to be known as “Sun” from now on.
LY goes back triumphant and the artificer department is allowed to stay afloat. A new batch of students that were inspired by LY join the department. LY partners up with a sect that’s struggling financially to sell the Fiend Beast Detectors.
With most things squared away, LY refocuses his attention onto Project Mystic Skeleton, the mass-producible crystal armor. The professor talks him into taking crystal armor lessons during summer break so that he’d be able to operate the crystal armor when they finish their prototype. LY does so and becomes near the top of his class after some initial struggles. As the course ends, the final challenge is to kill fiend beasts. Top ten highest scores get certified. LY goes to a mountain, and there’s another storm, cutting off his contact from the teachers and the other students.
Trapped deep in the mountains, LY stumbles across a group of fiends that are trying to enslave a lion dragon fiend beast. The fiend group notices LY but don’t take him seriously since he’s only qi refining. He kills his two pursuers. LY winds up finding the lion dragon fiend beast surrounded by other, weaker fiend beasts. It had escaped the fiends temporarily, but it had a soul-controlling nail stuck into it. Severely weakened, it and the other fiend beasts are killed by LY. Knowing that the fiends are coming, LY takes some scales and blood and attaches bombs onto the fiend beast’s core. When the fiends arrive, they get close and get blown up. Only the commander, fiend general Wang Ji, and the two fiend kings survive. Wang Ji kills the two fiend kings to recover his strength. LY barely survives and promotes to qi refining 11th level, only about three steps away from foundation establishment.
LY comes back and is lauded for having miraculously survived for so long in the mountains. He does not get the official armor license. LY hears that the Fiend Beast Detectors aren’t selling well. The company LY rejected earlier is putting pressure on that sect and slanders LY’s invention. LY eventually goes to PH for help, and with PH’s help and financial backing, the Fiend Beast Detector becomes a financial success. LY also attributes his survival to the Fiend Beast Detector. Instead of selling it to cultivators, it is sold to civilians that live in cities in the wastelands. Some extra functionality is added for better civilian survivability.
LY realizes he has feelings for DLD. He starts to romantically pursue her, but she pushes him away. Eventually he wins her over. They start dating.
It is announced that most likely the Federation and the fiends are going to war soon. Mass-producible crystal armors are now needed more than ever. It’s a race between crystal armor makers to see if they can get the government contracts. Deep Sea University is the first one to make an announcement about a mass-producible crystal armor; however, it’s much more expensive compared what Project Mystic Skeleton which is based off of common materials instead of heavenly treasures.
The entire grassroots movement amongst artificers comes to help and make Project Mystic Skeleton a success. LY figures out why the explosion occurs and fixes it. Meanwhile, other crystal armor makers show off their products.
There is an expo for where crystal armors get to be put on display and compared. LY is put in charge of demoing the armor. It is demonstrated that the mystic skeleton crystal armor isn’t necessarily as strong/durable as the others, but it is still very strong and durable and much cheaper. Eventually there’s a competition where the armors are supposed to survive against a battleship for 10 hours. LY decides to take control of the ship instead of trying to hide and endure the ships attacks and barrages. LY captures the battleship along with the majority of the government contracts. “Supernova” Jiang Sheng grudgingly admits his respect for LY.
When the competition ends, LY is approached by one of the observers and is given a card related to the Secret Star Association. He is told that he’ll understand what the card means when he reaches foundation establishment. LY is able to take a peek into the card, but isn’t able to do much else with it.
Time passes by. LY reaches peak qi refining. DLD has gone somewhere else to train. The fiend army launches an attack, trying to get their foot past the doorstep. Seven cities are attacked, and LY hurries to one of them. There’s a teleportation device being set up there. LY fixes a rail gun to destroy nearby fiends and save soldiers. He then destroys the teleportation device as Wang Ji is trying to come out of it. Wang Ji is severely injured, but as a peak fiend general, he was still able to beat LY back before needing to run away. In the end, the fiends are beaten back, and because of the fight, LY breaks through to foundation establishment. Wang Ji discovers that it was LY who foiled his plans back in the mountains.
Now that LY is foundation establishment, he graduates from college. Instead of taking a teaching position he goes off to join the Secret Stars Association which is no longer so secret since war is approaching and the Federation needed propaganda.
beehugger 