Chapter 555

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

The armor was covered in scars, and the faint treasure light that once flowed had vanished without a trace. The entire armor was dull, 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.

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

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

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

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

"Coming to the two kingdoms to join the army, because of the blessing of military power and national power, I could promote myself to Jin Dan-level combat power, which made this mechanical battle armor even closer to being eliminated."

"Before, facing the Heaven and Earth Twin Ghosts, when the Somersault Cloud was destroyed, I could only use this mechanical battle armor as an aid for flight."

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

"In the battle with the Heaven and Earth Twin Ghosts, I discovered that flight ability is truly too necessary!"

"My previous vision and feelings were quite narrow."

"For normal combat, I must possess powerful flight ability."

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

For cultivators, flight is indeed a basic ability.

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

This is the norm.

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

He wanted extremely strong flight ability so that when he dealt with the Heaven and Earth Twin Ghosts in the future, he would have the ability to respond.

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

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

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

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

He scratched the back of his head: "Does the enemy let you go because you are weak? Does it mean that if 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 Ning Zhuo said this from the bottom of his heart.

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

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

After all, that was how he had come through. And in the battle for the Molten Immortal Palace, he had defeated Meng Kui, Zhu Zhu Xuanji, and others, and was the one who benefited the most in the end.

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

"He is only at the second stage of Foundation Establishment now, but by leveraging factors like military strategy, mechanism arts, Five Elements realms, etc., he already has the powerful combat power of the Jin Dan level."

"For such a cultivator to plot to fight against Nascent Soul-level powerhouses doesn't seem that abrupt."

If it were the ancient era, the hundred arts of cultivation were not developed. The main standard for measuring a cultivator's combat power was their own cultivation base.

In the middle period, the hundred arts of cultivation had many improvements; magic treasures, divine abilities, etc., became important components of combat power, leading many cultivators to be able to win battles across stages.

In the later period, the hundred arts of cultivation were like a hundred flowers blooming, like the military family's way of gathering the masses reaching a qualitative change, and the importance of cultivation base in terms of combat power dropped significantly again.

And now, in the prosperous era of cultivation, it is flourishing and thriving. Cultivation base is only one aspect that affects combat power.

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

Ning Zhuo smiled bitterly: "Boss, at this time... between us, stop saying polite words. I'm just an unlucky guy who encountered the pursuit of the Heaven and Earth Twin 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."

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

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

"Wearing it in battle feels like my mother is helping me; this feeling is quite wonderful."

"So, I want to modify it well, let it improve, and become my flight weapon to deal with strong enemies."

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

Ning Zhuo was obviously well-prepared and had a concept early on, so he said immediately: "First is its energy core; it was originally a Foundation Establishment pill, but I'm thinking, can it be directly replaced with a cultivator's Jin Dan?"

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 Jin Dan is very reasonable."

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

"It's just that Jin Dan is hard to find..."

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

"Before, Jin Dan might indeed have been hard to find. But Little Zhuo, don't forget, we are in the middle of a great war now."

"In the battle just now, fighting the Heaven and Earth Twin Ghosts, many Nascent Soul-level cultivators sacrificed themselves. I believe that Jin Dan-level cultivators must have sacrificed even more."

"Don't we have a large sum of battle achievements about to be obtained?"

"Just use it to exchange for Jin Dan from the two kingdoms."

"Even if the conquest of the Thousand Peaks Forest has reached now, the main army of the two kingdoms hasn't collected one. I don't believe the national treasury of the two kingdoms doesn't have any."

"It's just that we need to pay attention to how many battle achievements are needed to exchange for one Jin Dan."

"Other people's Jin Dan is an external object after all. National power bricks are the most beneficial to us. This opportunity to let a cultivation country open its national power bricks is quite rare!"

Ning Zhuo was reminded by Sun Lingtong and his eyes lit up, letting out a light "Eh": "Boss, since we can exchange for Jin Dan... can we exchange for a Nascent Soul?"

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

Before, 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 will be gone once used.

Using a Nascent Soul is different.

When the Nascent Soul consumes too much, it can operate cultivation methods to 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 stunned for a moment: "Exchanging for a Nascent Soul will be very difficult!"

"Because the Nascent Soul has self-will, it is quite taboo for a cultivation country to treat it as an item to be rewarded."

"This is no different from the demonic path."

"But Jin Dan is okay; many elixirs use Jin Dan as an ingredient. When setting up arrays, there are also those that use Jin Dan to fill the array eyes."

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 is no way to exchange for one, then just exchange for Jin Dan."

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

No wonder Zhao Xi is successful in the officialdom of the two kingdoms!

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

This is the expectation for Zhao Xi.

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

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

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

The Foundation Establishment-level body cannot carry the exertion of Jin Dan power. If used to a certain extent, it may even collapse and disintegrate on its own.

Sun Lingtong agreed with Ning Zhuo's plan. Because upgrading the body materials is what should have been done, and it is also imperative.

"Next is the modification focus." Ning Zhuo said this with a solemn look.

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

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

"To deal with Jin Dan-level and above cultivators, flight is necessary. This point is the foundation of combat."

"If it were on the ground, it would be too passive!"

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

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

Ning Zhuo thought about it: "To do long-lasting flight, of course, it must be biomimetic, which is the most natural and suitable."

"Simple shapes belong to brute force, relying on the fierce and violent push of Jin Dan 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 is a ground combat mecha; now that it is being modified into a flight-based prop, besides the wings, the body 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 reach the final result.

The result is that the ends of the shoulder armor no longer tilt up, but are changed to a streamlined drooping shape.

The waist is thinner, the arms and legs are lengthened, the arms can closely fit to the sides of the body and can be fixed. The heels of the legs can extend out fin-like shapes, which can help the cultivator adjust the flight direction.

Arrays were also designed under the feet, using talismans to press the array eyes; when necessary, the talismans can be ignited to burst out strong thrust.

The key design part is the wings.

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

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

The golden swallow has a very high speed limit, 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 doesn't have this drawback. Because acceleration and explosive power can be strongly assisted by Jin Dan and talismans!

This is the powerful and excellent part of mechanism arts—it can make up for weaknesses with strengths.

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

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

Modifying the appearance was very easy; Ning Zhuo used the mechanism platform and finished it very quickly.

Talismans and arrays were not rushed to be added; Ning Zhuo first put it on and conducted low-altitude tests.

The test was initially successful.

The shape of the Cang Tie Han Jia is excellent, capable of breaking through the atmosphere and effectively reducing wind resistance.

Ning Zhuo began to design the arrays.

The most basic core of the array is the energy core part.

It must be designed from here before there can be follow-ups and extensive expansion outward.

Because it is no longer a Foundation Establishment pill, but a Jin Dan, the old parts of the energy core must all be discarded.

Considering that the attributes of the Jin Dan are unknown, Ning Zhuo thought about it and decided to adopt the structure of the Five Elements Jin Dan turntable.

This concept comes from the old Foundation Establishment pill inlay slot on one hand, and the Five Elements Spirit-Turning Disk on the other.

The Five Elements Spirit-Turning Disk is one of the props Ning Zhuo harvested while breaking through the levels in the Molten Immortal Palace.

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

Combining the design concepts of the two aspects, Ning Zhuo integrated them and quickly created the Five Elements Jin Dan turntable.

There is a groove on the turntable to inlay the Jin Dan. As long as the Jin Dan belongs to the Five Elements, the turntable can convert its magic power into the other four elements.

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

He arranged a Sharp Arrow Array on the golden swallow wings to break through the air. He arranged an Evergreen Array on the waist and abdomen for endurance. Inside the Cang Tie Han Jia, he engraved a large number of Return Flow Arrays to balance and adjust the air pressure inside and outside the mecha. He designed a Fire Spraying Array at the soles of the feet, which could allow the mecha to accelerate.

And he arranged an Earth Cover Array on the helmet to enhance defense.

The mechanism platform played a powerful role again, allowing Sun and Ning to quickly engrave various array patterns on each mechanical component.

After splicing it together, the brand-new Cang Tie Han Jia only retained the internal spine part, and all other places used brand-new precious materials.

Array patterns—after linking, Ning Zhuo began to activate the arrays one by one.

The arrays all passed at once without any problems.

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

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

Because all the arrays were designed most conservatively, the test results were also very good.

Tested more than thirty times in a row, only five times had situations. They were all small situations, such as the fire spraying propulsion force of the foot arrays being inconsistent, which needed adjustment. Another example was that during long-distance flight, the knee joints were prone to bending, leading to high wind resistance and heat, which needed to solve local high temperatures; otherwise, after one battle, the knees would be scrapped first.

The inconsistency of fire spraying force was easy to solve. Ning Zhuo pulled out a new array pattern, linked the two foot fire spraying arrays, and adjusted their fire spraying degree.

Besides this, Ning Zhuo also modified a small part of the foot fire spraying arrays, making these two arrays sense each other. Doing this also played a role in adjusting the inconsistency of force.

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

After a large amount of improvement, a Frost Return Flow Ring was added to the knee joints, perfectly matching the Return Flow Array, solving the overheating problem.

The Fire Spraying Array at the soles of the feet was upgraded to a Departing Fire Tongue-Spitting Array. The propulsion ability of the Departing Fire was more than ten times that of before.

The Sharp Arrow Array on the golden swallow wings was upgraded to a White Tiger Breaking Army Array. This uses talismans as the main focus and acts as the array eye.

The Evergreen Array at the waist and abdomen was moved outside, freeing up the original position for the Return Flow Array.

Ning Zhuo specially designed a mechanical rope and arranged an Evergreen Array on the rope. After wrapping it around the waist, the activation of the Evergreen Array could also benefit the whole mechanical body.

The Return Flow Array, which was originally limited to the inside of the Cang Tie Han Jia, was upgraded to a Two Forms Return Flow Array, internal and external Yin and Yang, which is more conducive to adjusting and balancing the inside and outside of the mecha.

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

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

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

Ning Zhuo first changed the materials and then changed the structure of the golden swallow wings. Before it was two-fold, now it is three-fold!

After the golden wings stopped failing, Ning Zhuo optimized the curvature of the flying wings in subsequent tests.

He performed tolerance correction on the Five Elements Jin Dan turntable.

In the spine part, twelve Divine Split Mirrors were arranged, which was more conducive to control.

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