"Is there not a stable Cultivation art?" Li Yao asked.
"Of course, there are stable Cultivation arts," Han Te said, "but stability means conservatism, and conservatism means weakness. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If we practice the stable Cultivation arts while other people practice the radical ones, the odds of them being mentally deranged will be higher, but before they are mentally deranged, they will be stronger than us, and they will be able to rob us of our food, clean water, and all the other resources. They can even tear apart our bones, eat our flesh, and drink our blood!
"In order to survive, we have no choice but to practice the more radical Cultivation arts. Even if they do have fatal flaws, there is no time for us to bother about them."
The Coloured Glaze sighed, too. "In fact, Dad and the other 'old grandpas' in the village have all thought about perfecting our Cultivation arts and fixing the fatal flaws. At the very least, they tried to integrate some of the arts that were both stable and powerful. For that, they even summoned all the experts and old grandpas in the villages nearby. But it was useless.
"It is partly because of the lack of resources and competition. More importantly, as the new-generation old grandpas arrive from the sky, they often bring more powerful and, of course, more unstable Cultivation arts.
"Yes. The new-generation Cultivation arts are more and more dangerous. They are highly harmful to the body when they are trained. Most people are unwilling to practice them.
"But there are always people who take the risk. Even if nine out of ten trainers are mentally deranged, as long as one of them succeeds in their training and their capability soars, it is very possible that they will monopolize all the resources in the hundreds of square kilometers nearby and even annihilate all the other villages.
"To resist the bullying of such lunatics, we have no choice but to turn ourselves into lunatics and train with them. Such a vicious cycle is perhaps the destiny of the Land of Sins and the sinners. Nobody can get rid of it."
Speaking of which, the two little fellows both bit their lips and fell silent.
Only the dust on the two sides of the shuttle was still flying backward, making loud noises.
"What a perfect laboratory for new magical equipment and techniques!"
The mental devil clicked its tongue in amazement next to Li Yao's soul. "By throwing 'relief assets' to the ground irregularly and controlling the quantity of assets precisely, it will be easier to manipulate all the sinners in the Land of Sins and make them struggle on the line of life and death. They will not all starve to death, but they will have to fight each other for the tiniest resources!
"Through the old grandpas who fall from the sky generation after generation, the dangerous and unstable techniques and magical equipment that need to be experimented on are all 'gifted' to the sinners. There is no coercion at all, and the sinners are asked to volunteer as the 'experiment mice' of the Immortal Cultivators.
"Every time a technique is tested, and the flaws in the actual battle are all discovered or even fixed by the sinners, new techniques that are more radical, more powerful, and more unstable will be released and enter a new round of testing.
"In the life-and-death competition for survival, somebody will always take the risk. As long as one of them chooses a new technique, other people will have to follow them. This is an arms race!
"The Desolate Worlds, the Bloody Worlds, the Elysian Worlds, and finally 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky'. The seemingly progressive four worlds give the sinners a slim chance of hope. Like a carrot hanging on the head of a donkey, the sinners are tempted to train themselves crazily without caring about the cost. Despite knowing that the arts that they practice are riddled with flaws, they still do not care about them.
"It is needless to say that the quests issued by the City in the Sky can partly maintain the reign of the Immortal Cultivators in the Land of Sins and partly collect tremendous real-battle data. It is almost killing two birds with one stone!
"What a marvelous design! It's much more efficient than forcing the slaves to train themselves with swords and chains in a simple and crude laboratory!" Li Yao exclaimed in astonishment.
Li Yao's soul was somewhat cold. He was about to speak when he suddenly heard the two little fellows exclaiming at the same time, "Look, Grandpa Yao, look! That is Manjusaka, the City in the Sky!"
Li Yao boosted the senses of his soul to the maximum and looked at the highest point of the sky.
At this moment, the dark night had already fallen. However, under the surging radiation dust, the night sky was still glowing in various colors, as if clusters of fireflies were dancing crazily.
Above the glowing lights, at the edge of the high canopy, a red star was glittering and blossoming like a chrysanthemum.
Brilliance was pouring down like a waterfall. It looked both like upside-down flames and the long hair of a banshee, dancing in the night wind.
"Manjusaka, the City in the Sky …"
The young man looked at the night sky in a daze. His eyes were occupied by the brilliance that was as enchanting as fire. He could not help but open his arms at the red star. "I will certainly go to Manjusaka. I will!"
"I'm told that seeing Manjusaka at the beginning of the night will bring good luck for an entire year. I hope that Dad and Han Te can recover soon. I hope that the village can pass the 'Bliss Ceremony' safely. I hope that everybody can be safe."
The girl put her hands together and prayed in silence. "Please protect the poor sinners, Manjusaka!"
"I suddenly remember that I once saw the name 'Manjusaka' in a notebook of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures in the Heavenly Refining Tower."
Deep inside his soul, Li Yao said to the mental devil coldly, "Manjusaka seems to be a strange flower that grew in the Stupa Sector in the early years of the ancient Cultivators. It is also known as the 'Flower of the Other Shore' by the locals.
"It is a strange flower that is both glamorous and venomous. It has both the glamor of the setting sun that is as red as blood and the pure beauty that is as white as snow.
"According to the legends of the locals, the flower grows on the banks of the Nether River and the Nether River. It emits a sweet fragrance that can make people enjoy momentary ecstasy. They will cross the Nether River in a daze, step into the Nether River, and fall into the eternal cycle of reincarnation.
"In the notebook of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures of the Hundred Smelting Clan, there is no comment on such a legend, but it is also believed that Manjusaka boasts a very strong hypnotic and hallucinogenic effect. It can paralyze one's nerves and even soul, allowing them to die with a smile in bizarre dreams. All in all, it is a very dangerous material."
"Isn't that perfect?"
The mental devil smiled. "The Immortal Cultivators named their laboratories after 'Manjusaka'. Isn't it indicative of the ending of the sinners? Think about it. If a sinner can practice almost eighty kinds of Cultivation arts that have serious flaws at the same time and luckily survive, even boasting unparalleled strength, breaking through all kinds of barriers, completing all kinds of arduous missions, accumulating tremendous contribution points, and finally being able to enter 'Manjusaka', take a guess. What kind of fate will await him in the crimson City in the Sky? Will he become an 'angel', or will he be dissected for studies to unravel the mysteries of his body and figure out why he can overcome his many shortcomings? "
"… Just like Han Te's sister?" Li Yao asked.
The mental devil grimaced. "Maybe."
After a long silence, Li Yao said, one word after another, "We have to go to Manjusaka, the City in the Sky!"
"Exactly," the mental devil said.
"If Manjusaka is really the control center of the 'planetary-level magical equipment experiment base', there must be a piece of 'high-molecular layer-by-layer scanning magical equipment'. Chances are that there are abundant resources that can help us advance rapidly. Of course, we have to go to Manjusaka and loot it!"
"There's also 'Starlight', the mysterious resistance organization of the Cultivators, and the legendary 'lost Cultivators'."
Li Yao said. "If the Land of Sins is really an overwhelming laboratory that can never be escaped from, it will not be strange that the people here will instantly turn into Cultivators after they learn the truth!"
"But we must be very careful and not expose ourselves," the mental devil said.
"Since this place is confirmed to be a laboratory of magical equipment and techniques of the Immortal Cultivators, there must be a lot of surveillance systems. On the Heavenly Rails that surround the entire planet, there may be crystal cameras with extremely high precision that can identify every corner on the ground.
"The 'Desolate World' that we are in is at the bottom level of the Land of Sins. I don't think that the surveillance here is very thorough. It is a place where people are allowed to brutalize each other and to raise 'elite test subjects' in the same way.
"After we reach the Bloody Worlds, the Elysian Worlds, and even Manjusaka, we will certainly be faced with the surveillance and ubiquitous prying."
"Therefore, we might as well bring the two little fellows with us."
Li Yao smiled. "Although the techniques that the Immortal Cultivators use for tests have fatal flaws and hidden problems, they are indeed powerful enough. The two little fellows who are barely more than ten years old are already above average experts by the standards of the Federation!"
Under the illumination of the crimson light of Manjusaka, the three of them drove out of the city ruins with their own concerns. After rushing for more than an hour in the wilderness in silence, they returned to the Village of Peace.
"Grandpa Yao, the territory of our village is up ahead!"
In the Land of Sins, robbery, murder, and looting in the wilderness were nothing out of the ordinary. The two little fellows had been shuddering on their way back with their wariness raised to the highest level.
It was not until they saw a metal plate stuck to the ruins, on which the word 'Peace' was painted, that they finally took a long breath in relief.
Up ahead, however, was a boundless lake. The sound of surging tides could vaguely be heard, as if they had come to the seaside.
Li Yao had observed the environment from the high vantage point. He knew that this place was still very far away from the ocean. The lake that was hundreds of kilometers in diameter must've been formed by quite a few overlapping craters that were filled with rainwater. Perhaps it had melted with the river in the past, allowing the flowing water to flow in incessantly and maintain the vitality of the lake.
Looking far away, he could vaguely see that at the center of the lake, dozens of rusted, iron-shelled ships had been connected into a tall, splendid fortress.
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