Chapter 555

A silver-gray mechanical battle armor hovered silently in mid-air.

The armor was covered in scars, and the faint precious light that once flowed had dissipated without a trace. The entire armor was dark, all kinds of talismans were exhausted, and because of extreme use, the armor was on the verge of collapse.

It was precisely the Cang Tie Han Jia.

Unlike Ning Zhuo stood in front of the Cang Tie Han Jia, arms crossed, frowning and thinking.

The battle with the Heaven and Earth Ghosts benefited him greatly. It was not just the harvest of various spoils, but also that after Unlike Ning Zhuo survived such a life-and-death battle, he had deep feelings and saw too many of his own shortcomings.

"The Cang Tie Han Jia was left to me by my mother, consuming Foundation Establishment pills, allowing me to have Foundation Establishment-level combat power while in the Qi Refining stage."

"But with my promotion to the Foundation Establishment stage, this mechanical battle armor was rarely used."

"Coming to the Two-Note Kingdom to join the army, because of the blessing of military power and national power, I could promote myself to Golden Core-level combat power, which made this mechanical battle armor even closer to being eliminated."

"Previously facing the Heaven and Earth Ghosts, in the situation where the Somersault Cloud was destroyed, I could only use this mechanical battle armor as an aid for flying."

Thinking of this, Unlike Ning Zhuo said to Sun Lingtong on the side: "Boss, I plan to modify the Cang Tie Han Jia and turn it into my flying tool."

"In the battle with the Heaven and Earth Ghosts, I discovered that flying ability is really too necessary!"

"My previous vision and feelings were quite narrow."

"For normal combat, I must have powerful flying ability."

Sun Lingtong heard this and couldn't help but turn his head to look at Unlike Ning Zhuo: "Normally speaking, Little Zhuo, you are only at the second stage of Foundation Establishment; you can practice flying."

For cultivators, flying is indeed a basic ability.

Qi Refining cultivators cannot fly with swords, and Foundation Establishment cultivators can fly with swords, but their own magic power cannot support it for long.

At the Golden Core level, cultivators can fly with swords for a long time, travel long distances, and begin to master escape light. But the Golden Core power consumed by escape light is too fierce and cannot be sustained.

This is the norm.

But what Unlike Ning Zhuo wanted was obviously not the standard under this norm.

He wanted extremely strong flying ability so that he could have the power to deal with the Heaven and Earth Ghosts when he fought them in the future.

Sun Lingtong knew Unlike Ning Zhuo very well and advised: "I say, we are only Foundation Establishment cultivators. Don't always think about fighting the Heaven and Earth Ghosts. This is too reluctant!"

"The more correct approach is to flee far away, hide, escape, patiently cultivate hard, and wait until your strength is close before engaging in activities."

"How can someone who is at the Foundation Establishment stage think about dealing with Nascent Soul cultivators?"

Unlike Ning Zhuo said "Ah," feeling a bit enlightened and a bit ignorant.

He scratched the back of his head: "Could it be that the enemy will let you go because you are weak? Could it be that because we are weak, we can only encounter enemies who are at the same level as us?"

"Reality is cruel."

"No matter how powerful the enemy is, we need to do our best!"

Sun Lingtong fell into silence.

He knew that Unlike Ning Zhuo said this from the bottom of his heart.

After all, since the latter was two years old, he had been thinking all day and night about dealing with the City Lord's Mansion headed by the Nascent Soul cultivator Meng Kui.

Unlike Ning Zhuo really didn't feel that there was anything wrong with this kind of thinking.

After all, this was how he had come through. And in the battle for the Lava Xian Gong, he had defeated Meng Kui, Zhu Xuanji, and others, and was the one who gained the most in the end.

Sun Lingtong thought again: "To be honest, Little Zhuo's combat power is indeed a bit abnormal."

"He is only at the second stage of Foundation Establishment in terms of cultivation, but by leveraging factors such as military tactics, mechanical arts, and five-element realms, he already has the powerful combat power of the Golden Core level."

"Such a cultivator planning to fight against Nascent Soul-level powerhouses doesn't seem so abrupt."

If it were in the early days, when the hundred arts of cultivation were not developed, the main standard for measuring a cultivator's combat power was their own cultivation.

By the middle period, the hundred arts of cultivation had made much progress, and magic treasures, divine abilities, etc., became an important part of combat power, leading many cultivators to be able to win battles across levels.

By the later period, the hundred arts of cultivation were like a hundred flowers blooming; for example, the military path of gathering the masses reached a qualitative change, and the importance of cultivation in the composition of combat power dropped significantly again.

And now, in the prosperous era of cultivation, flowers are blooming and fire is cooking oil. Cultivation is just one aspect that affects combat power.

Sun Lingtong shrugged: "Little Zhuo, do whatever you want. The normal standard doesn't apply to you; you are a genius!"

Unlike Ning Zhuo gave a bitter smile: "Boss, at this time... between us, don't say polite words. I'm just a loser who encountered the pursuit of the Heaven and Earth Ghosts."

"What else can I do?"

"I can only do my best and try hard to make myself strong so that I can deal with such a strong enemy."

Unlike Ning Zhuo looked at the Cang Tie Han Jia intently: "Boss, the Cang Tie Han Jia was left to me by my mother, and I have feelings for it."

"This time, it was also it that helped me again in the battle."

"Wearing it to fight is like my mother helping me; this feeling is quite wonderful."

"So, I want to modify it well, let it improve, and become my flying weapon for dealing with strong enemies."

Sun Lingtong asked curiously: "Then what is your preliminary modification plan?"

Unlike Ning Zhuo obviously had a plan in mind and had already conceived it, so he said immediately: "First is its energy core, which was originally a Foundation Establishment pill, but I was thinking, can it be directly replaced with a cultivator's Golden Core?"

Sun Lingtong was stunned for a moment: "This should be possible."

"Think about it, our Ten Thousand Mile Wandering Dragon needs a Nascent Soul as an energy core. Raising the standard of the Cang Tie Han Jia's energy core from a Foundation Establishment pill to a Golden Core is very reasonable."

"Right!" Unlike Ning Zhuo said, "In the design plan for this part, I am focusing on referencing the Ten Thousand Mile Wandering Dragon."

"It's just that Golden Cores are hard to find..."

Sun Lingtong interrupted immediately: "Pah, what's this?"

"In the past, Golden Cores might have been hard to find. But Little Zhuo, don't forget, we are in the middle of a war now."

"In that battle just now, fighting the Heaven and Earth Ghosts, many Nascent Soul-level cultivators sacrificed themselves. I believe that Golden Core-level cultivators will surely sacrifice more."

"Don't we have a large amount of military merit about to be in hand?"

"Just use it to exchange for Golden Cores from the Two-Note Kingdom."

"Even though the conquest of the Thousand Peaks Forest has reached this point, the Two-Note Kingdom's main force hasn't collected one yet. I don't believe the Two-Note Kingdom's treasury doesn't have any."

"It's just that we need to pay attention to how much military merit is exchanged for a Golden Core."

"Other people's Golden Cores are foreign objects after all. National power bricks are the most beneficial to us. The opportunity to let a cultivation country open its national power bricks is quite rare!"

Unlike Ning Zhuo received Sun Lingtong's reminder, and his eyes lit up, and he gave a light 'eh': "Boss, since we can exchange for Golden Cores... can we exchange for Nascent Souls?"

"With a Nascent Soul, we don't need to consume spirit stones to drive the Ten Thousand Mile Wandering Dragon, but use the Nascent Soul instead."

Previously, Sun and Ning used fire essence. Later, when fire essence was insufficient, they used spirit stones.

But whether it is fire essence or spirit stones, they are consumables, and they are gone once used.

Using a Nascent Soul to drive it is different.

When the Nascent Soul consumes too much, it can operate cultivation techniques and absorb the surrounding spiritual energy to recover.

Not only that, the Nascent Soul using its own magic power is much more efficient than purely consuming fire essence and spirit stones!

In short, using a Nascent Soul is very cost-effective.

Sun Lingtong was slightly stunned: "Exchanging for a Nascent Soul will be very difficult!"

"Because Nascent Souls have self-will, it is quite taboo for a cultivation country to treat them as items and reward them."

"This is no different from demonic paths."

"But Golden Cores are okay; there are many elixirs that use Golden Cores as medicine. When setting up arrays, there are also those that use Golden Cores to fill the array eyes."

Unlike Ning Zhuo said 'oh': "So that's how it is."

"I'll still contact the Three Generals Camp first, no, contact Zhao Xi directly, and see through him if it's possible to exchange for a Nascent Soul."

"If there's no way to exchange for one, then just exchange for a Golden Core."

Last time, Zhao Xi exchanged the Three Walls Treasure Exchange Talisman for Unlike Ning Zhuo, with extremely high efficiency. This kind of ability to handle things left a deep impression on both Sun and Ning.

No wonder Zhao Xi is successful in the officialdom of the Two-Note Kingdom!

So this time, even knowing that the Nascent Soul matter is taboo, he still kept a glimmer of hope.

This was his expectation of Zhao Xi.

Unlike Ning Zhuo continued: "Besides replacing the energy core with a Golden Core, most of the materials of the Cang Tie Han Jia need to be replaced with Golden Core-level, or even Nascent Soul-level materials."

"I have three mechanical pedestals, all at the Nascent Soul level. I also have a large batch of precious materials in my hand, so processing materials and making semi-finished products, mechanical accessories, and parts is not a problem."

After the energy core was upgraded, the original body of the Cang Tie Han Jia lagged behind a lot.

The Foundation Establishment-level body is difficult to carry the exertion of Golden Core power. Using it to a certain extent will even cause it to collapse and disintegrate on its own.

Sun Lingtong agreed with Unlike Ning Zhuo's plan. Because the upgrade of the body material was something that should have been done, and it was also an inevitable trend.

"Next, is the focus of the modification," Unlike Ning Zhuo said, his eyes showing solemnity.

While gesturing with his hands and pointing at the Cang Tie Han Jia, he said: "I plan to add a pair of wings to the Cang Tie Han Jia, modify its mechanical structure, retain its mechanical art 'Wind and Thunder Move,' improve the mechanical art 'Cang Dragon Fighting the Sky,' and cancel the mechanical art 'Iron Clothes Cold'."

Sun Lingtong thought about it and expressed his agreement again: "Our Somersault Clouds were all destroyed, and even the magic treasure-level Black Iron Cloud is gone."

"To deal with Golden Core-level and above cultivators, flying is necessary. This point is the basis of combat."

"If it's on the ground, it's too passive!"

"You want to improve the Cang Tie Han Jia to achieve this goal. This is very good, I fully support you, but how exactly do you do it?"

"Is this pair of wings to mimic which kind of bird, or just make a simple shape and push it through an array?"

Unlike Ning Zhuo thought for a while: "To do long-lasting flying, of course, it must be biomimetic, which is the most natural and suitable."

"If it's a simple shape, it belongs to brute force, relying on the fierce and violent urging of Golden Core power."

"I still want to take the technical route, hahaha."

Sun Lingtong nodded and smiled.

The two began to bury their heads in designing the blueprints together.

The Cang Tie Han Jia itself was a ground combat mecha; now it needs to be improved into a prop mainly for flying. In addition to the wings, the shape of the Cang Tie Han Jia itself also needs to be modified.

Sun and Ning first designed separately, then compared with each other, and finally made trade-offs to make the final result.

The result was that the ends of the shoulder armor no longer turned up, but were changed to a streamlined drooping shape.

The waist was thinner, the arms and legs were lengthened, the arms could closely fit on both sides of the body, and could also be fixed. At the heels of the legs, fin-like shapes could be extended, which could help the cultivator adjust the flying direction.

A rune array was also designed under the feet, using talismans to press the array eyes; when necessary, lighting the talismans could burst out strong thrust.

The key design part was the wings.

Sun and Ning were worthy of having a tacit understanding; both chose the swallow wing shape. It's just that the former used a spring swallow, and the latter used a sea swallow.

After the two combined, and then matched with the brand-new mecha shape, the final wing shape was biomimetic to a golden swallow.

The golden swallow's speed limit is very high, and the maximum speed is quite exaggerated. The disadvantage is that its explosive power is insufficient, and the acceleration is not fast enough.

But placed on the Cang Tie Han Jia, it didn't have this drawback. Because acceleration and explosive power can be strongly boosted by Golden Cores and talismans!

This is the powerful and excellent place of mechanical arts—it can take what is strong and make up for what is weak.

Since it is golden swallow wings, naturally using gold-element materials is the most suitable.

At the beginning of the design, Unlike Ning Zhuo didn't have special requirements for materials, so he first used one of the most widely used materials—gold essence.

Improving the appearance was very easy, and Unlike Ning Zhuo finished it quickly with the mechanical pedestal.

Talismans and formations were not rushed to be added; Unlike Ning Zhuo put it on first and conducted a low-altitude test.

The test was initially successful.

The Cang Tie Han Jia's shape was excellent, capable of opening the atmosphere and effectively reducing wind resistance.

Unlike Ning Zhuo began to design the formation.

The most basic core of the formation was the energy core part.

It had to be designed from here before there could be follow-ups and widely expanded outward.

Because it was no longer a Foundation Establishment pill, but used a Golden Core, the old parts of the energy core had to be discarded.

Considering that the Golden Core's attributes were unknown, Unlike Ning Zhuo thought for a while and decided to use the structure of the Five-Element Golden Core turntable.

This idea came from the old Foundation Establishment pill inlay slot on one hand, and the Five-Element Spirit Turning Plate on the other.

The Five-Element Spirit Turning Plate was one of the props Unlike Ning Zhuo harvested when he broke through the levels in the Lava Xian Gong.

He had used it several times and had a deep impression.

Combining the design concepts of the two aspects, Unlike Ning Zhuo synthesized them and soon created the Five-Element Golden Core turntable.

There was a groove on the turntable for inlaying the Golden Core. As long as the Golden Core belonged to the five elements, the turntable could convert its magic power and convert it into the other four elements.

After designing the energy core part, Unlike Ning Zhuo pushed the deduction outward.

He arranged a sharp arrow array on the golden swallow flying wings to break the air. He arranged a constant green array at the waist and abdomen for endurance. Inside the Cang Tie Han Jia, a large number of return flow arrays were engraved to balance and adjust the air pressure inside and outside the mecha. A fire-breathing array was designed at the soles of the feet, which could allow the mecha to accelerate.

And an earth cover array was arranged on the helmet to enhance defense.

The mechanical pedestal once again played a powerful role, allowing Sun and Ning to quickly engrave various array patterns on various mechanical parts.

After splicing, the brand-new Cang Tie Han Jia only retained the internal spine part, and the rest of the places used brand-new precious materials.

Array patterns—after linking, Unlike Ning Zhuo began to start the formations one by one.

The formations all passed at once, without any problems.

Sun Lingtong sighed from the bottom of his heart: "If it were us setting up the formation, we would have messed up one or two formations. The mechanical pedestal is really easy to use!"

With the preliminary finished product, Unlike Ning Zhuo put it on and immediately conducted a test.

Because each formation was designed most conservatively, the test results were also very good.

Tested more than thirty times in a row, only five times had problems. They were all small problems, such as the fire-breathing propulsion force of the foot-sole formation being uneven, which needed adjustment. Or, for example, long-distance flying, the knee joints were easy to bend, leading to high wind resistance and heating, which needed to solve local high temperature, otherwise, after a battle, the knees would be scrapped first.

The uneven fire-breathing force was easy to solve. Unlike Ning Zhuo pulled out a new array pattern, linked the two foot-sole formations, and adjusted their fire-breathing degree.

Besides that, Unlike Ning Zhuo also modified a small part of the foot-sole formation, making these two formations able to sense each other. Doing this also played a role in adjusting the uneven force.

These two approaches worked together to prevent situations such as array patterns being destroyed during battle. Once there was an accident, at least there was a backup plan that could be used for emergencies.

After a lot of improvement, a frost return flow ring was added to the knee joint, perfectly matched with the return flow array, solving the overheating problem.

The fire-breathing array at the soles of the feet was upgraded to a Li Fire Tongue-Spitting Array. The propulsion ability of Li Fire was more than ten times higher than before.

The sharp arrow array on the golden swallow flying wings was upgraded to a White Tiger Breaking Army Array. This used runes as the main body and acted as the array eye.

The constant green array at the waist and abdomen was directly externalized, giving up the original position for the return flow array.

Unlike Ning Zhuo specially designed a mechanical rope and arranged a constant green array on the rope. After wrapping it around the waist, the activation of the constant green array could also benefit the whole mecha.

The return flow array, which was originally limited to the inside of the Cang Tie Han Jia, was upgraded to a Two-Yi Return Flow Array, with internal and external yin and yang, which was more conducive to adjusting and balancing the inside and outside of the mecha.

The performance of these formations increased by more than ten times on average, causing the performance of the entire mecha to skyrocket countless times.

But after Unlike Ning Zhuo tested it, he found problems again.

The gold essence material could not carry such powerful performance, and the golden swallow flying wings bore the most pressure, so they collapsed first.

Unlike Ning Zhuo first changed the material and then changed the structure of the golden swallow flying wings. It was two-fold before, and now it is three-fold!

After the golden wings no longer dropped the chain, Unlike Ning Zhuo optimized the curvature of the flying wings in subsequent tests.

The tolerance of the Five-Element Golden Core turntable was corrected.

In the spine part, twelve divine-splitting mirrors were arranged, which was more conducive to control.

At this point, the Cang Tie Han Jia was reborn!