Star Gate

Chapter 717: VIP Customer (II)

Li Hao understood!

Come to think of it, there weren’t many who focused on mental strength at this stage. It was known as mind intent and the aura in the modern era, but there weren’t many who concentrated on training them. Any who did so were martial masters.

Well, that... wasn’t necessarily the case either. There were also people like Ying Hongyue.

“Let’s go for the regular type,” Li Hao said after some thought. “Are their defensive capabilities strong?”

“Of course! It will be very strong for you, but it also depends on personal strength. The stronger you are, the more of its defensive capabilities will be activated. It’s not realistic to expect yourself to be invincible simply because you’re wearing armor.”

“Understood!”

......

Zhang Liang said nothing further and walked back out after a few moments. He tossed a storage ring to Li Hao. “There are twenty-three hundred sets of Battle Heaven Armor inside. This is a set of general’s armor...” He brought out golden armor and looked at it admiringly. “Only those ranked at generals and above are qualified to wear this. In the past... the commissioner of Military Supplies was assigned one...”

I could have a set if I was promoted...

“Since Military Supplies has extra sets and we’re in special circumstances...” Li Hao whispered, immediately understanding the deputy commissioner’s meaning.

“Do you want me to lose my head?!” Zhang Liang jerked his head up. The boy was no good soul. Li Hao was trying to tempt him into villainy!

Li Hao looked sheepish and continued to whisper, “Ah, yes, Deputy Commissioner. Can my twenty-three hundred sets of armor be further outfitted with two sets of silver armor and twenty-three bronze armor?”

“No... Silver armor requires commander-level approval and bronze armor requires clearance from the Supervisory Office. You can put forth nominations, but we lose contact with you after you depart the city and cannot assess your people. You’ll have to bring them in.”

Well, that was a bit of a pity. Li Hao put the notion out of his mind. He looked at the gold armor and dripped a droplet of blood onto it without being prompted. The armor vanished, reappearing over his body!

A great deal of new knowledge flashed through his mind—the basic functions of the armor. Other than the functions that the silver armor contained, there were a lot more that could be found within the gold armor.

Its range of communication was enlarged to fifteen hundred kilometers. That was incredible as five hundred kilometers usually encompassed one province. Fifteen hundred kilometers spanned an enormous amount of territory. It would not be exaggeration to say that Li Hao would be able to contact any Battle Heaven soldier within Silver Moon bounds. No matter where one stood, Silver Moon land did not seem to stretch beyond fifteen hundred kilometers.

The northernmost city was only one thousand kilometers away from White Moon City.

An enhanced communication range was only one of the benefits. There was another major difference between gold and silver armor in that gold armor could be transformed into anything. Silver armor could only remain as silver armor, but gold armor could be turned into a weapon.

Li Hao had fun testing the functionality of his new equipment, turning it into a spatula, a small knife, and then regular clothes. They all appeared remarkably lifelike and perfectly normal. He wouldn’t need to wear a trench coat over his armor next time, he’d just turn it into the trench coat.

“This is incredible!”

“Of course!” Zhang Liang seemed quite envious. “They were all forged by premier craftsmen, not regular people! This isn’t much either. Powerhouses above army commanders don’t even use armor. They have unique weapons personally forged by emperor-level existences. If they have the background for it, they might even have the Divine Forge Emperor make one himself.”

“The Divine Forge Emperor?”

“Yes, an ultimate powerhouse who was renowned for his prowess in craftsmanship. Other than those from Tranquil Star, all were welcome to go to him. The caveat was that they had a deep enough relationship to do so.”

“Why was Tranquil Star the exception?”

“Because they shared a feud with each other.”

“A feud?”

“You wouldn’t understand it if I spoke of it!” Zhang Liang wasn’t willing to go into the specifics. That was the conflict between the big guys. There was nothing to be said about that. Besides, it’d been so long that no one knew the situation now. Perhaps there was no feud anymore because... the big guys were all gone.

He didn’t pursue that line of thinking as that would only induce despair. Everyone firmly did not believe that this would be so. Such a massively powerful group of beings could not all perish like that! Perhaps they’d gotten lost, or perhaps it was so fun outside that they’d become completely distracted. Perhaps time flowed differently in the depths of space...

No matter what, no one in the Battle Heaven Army would believe that that group of people had lost the battle. They were invincible emperors! The Human and Martial King led them. No one could stop that assembly, absolutely no one!

Li Hao regarded the other with resignation. If you weren’t going to tell me anything, then don’t mention it at all. He was in a good mood after obtaining the gold armor, so he didn’t haggle with the deputy commissioner.

“Ah, I’ve also collected some treasures outside. Can I trade them in here?”

“We don’t accept trash!” Deputy Commissioner Zhang refused brusquely. “This is the army, not outside! You can trade them in only if you’re settling some missions. That’s why you were able to trade in the armor, because they were relevant to the missions at hand...

“But if you have no use for those items, you can search for a martial university that possesses its basic functionality. You might be able to trade them in there. Martial universities recycled trash back in the day! Some students weren’t strong enough, so they could only pick through garbage and trade it in for some resources...”

“......” Li Hao nearly choked on his own spit. I killed so many people, but what I’ve collected is trash? You’re joking! But the deputy commissioner had pointed out a path to him, he could trade them in at the martial universities.

“Martial universities...” The young man thought of the information that the Inspectorate had conveyed to him before. “Were there universities on Skystar Island?”

“Probably, I can’t remember. It would be very normal for it to have one, they were everywhere. The university’s scale and scope also remained to be seen. While there were martial universities everywhere, there weren’t truly premier ones. Skystar Island didn’t seem to have one. I would definitely remember if it did.”

Alright then, Li Hao was slightly disappointed. As expected, a ruin that the Lius willingly gave up was no good. He chatted a while longer with Zhang Liang, but he was the type to ignore visitors once they completed their trade. Since Li Hao had no further merits to his name, the deputy commissioner wanted to talk even less with him. Toward the end, he slumped over the table and refused to respond.

Li Hao inwardly cursed to himself—just you wait until I’m a real general! It’ll be too hard to make it to division leader since the one of the Ninth Division is still alive. I’ll just become the commissioner of Military Supplies and be your commanding officer! Just like Light Sword said, you can’t be bothered with me today, and I can’t be bothered with you tomorrow!

Inwardly keeping up a litany of complaints, Li Hao walked out of Military Supplies. His gold armor manifested as soon as he did so, appearing particularly domineering. Some Red Armors of the Supervisory Office and other soldiers immediately halted to salute when they saw him.

Damn that feels good!

It was nice to be wearing a body of gold armor. He didn’t return to the commander’s office to be scoffed at. Instead, he headed out of the barracks and straight for the city gates.

.....

“Congratulations!” chorused the three troop leaders at the gates.

“Although it is just a reinforcement troop, it’s still very rare!” offered the Seventh Troop leader. “But... you have too few people under your command! You need to recruit more people, Troop Leader Li!”

Li Hao’s Twelfth Troop only had three people in it. He hadn’t officially recorded the others, so only three were on the rolls. That was indeed a dismal number.

“I’ll bring my people back next time there’s a chance to,” Li Hao laughed. “I have three thousand sets of armor now, which means I can recruit three thousand in reinforcements!”

“Make sure they’re of high quality!”

“Of course!” Li Hao turned to the Seventh Troop. “Troop Leader Jiang, I accidentally obtained a ‘break’ incantation booklet in the outside world. Director General Wang said I should ask you...”

“The ‘break’ incantation...” Jiang Shixun thought something over before saying, “That requires the coordination of core origin dao. It borrows strength from a compatible great dao! It was strong before because it leveraged the mighty daos of those premier powerhouses. It probably can’t be used now to great effect.

“It’s not hard if you want to learn it, the hard part is making it powerful. This era likely doesn’t support core origin anymore, but some accommodations can be made...

“You know the aura, don’t you?” He glanced at Li Hao. “I see that you’ve grasped some sword auras. You can use the sword aura to nurture the break incantation. Whether it is the break or sword incantation, they focus on killing and offense. It’s a very good match with sword aura!

“You can also modify it appropriately. The old battle methods of our age are not a match for this era anymore. You do not need to learn in the prescribed order. In our era, even methods created by the Human King were sometimes swiftly outdated. Modifications were very normal.”

He felt that Li Hao’s powers of creation weren’t enough. There wasn’t a rule that said one must learn from the ancient books; ancient knowledge wasn’t automatically powerful. No one of the New Martial era continuously propagated old technology. Instead, they constantly innovated on a base of the known.

“I can nurture it with aura?” Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed!” Troop Leader Jiang replied matter-of-factly. “Just give it a try. “If not, nurture it with the supernatural locks. If not, use your blood qi, use flesh and blood, use mental strength... Try them all and see which leads to the best outcome. If worst comes to worst, you’ll just die from your body exploding.

“Powerhouses exploding in the pursuit of creating new martial achievements was a common sight back in the day. There’s not much of a problem if you prepare more life essence. Don’t be afraid. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake. Just give it a try. If you succeed and a new discipline of martial dao is taught, you’ll reap in both material and spiritual rewards! Isn’t that wonderful!

“Back in the day, the governor general of Southern Jiang created all sorts of martial disciplines. He named his system God Slayer, Immortal Slayer, Emperor Slayer, King Slayer... Just listen to how ludicrous those names sound! Yet, they became mainstream later on. It’s fine to be weak, just be daring enough to do what you think!”

These words provoked a reaction out of the other two silent troop leaders.

“That eminent senior suffered his fair share of jeering,” the Ninth Troop leader said coldly. “Therefore, I do not recommend choosing such... mortifying names!”

“That was because he wasn’t strong enough at the start,” snorted the Seventh Troop leader. “Look at the martial discipline taught by the Human King. Do you dare jeer at it?”

“......” No one responded to him.

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