442: Chapter 442 Rocket Soldiers

Tao Zhe's reaction was even faster than Su Mingyuan had anticipated.

He didn't even wait for Su Mingyuan to finish speaking before his hand had already reached for the communicator at his ear.

"Received. I will contact the Rocket Troops immediately."

Tao Zhe turned and walked to a corner of the Scripture Pavilion, lowering his voice to begin communicating with the base.

The signal for the communicator was not good in this stone chamber wrapped in Restrictions, and he had to adjust the frequency twice before it connected.

Su Mingyuan did not listen to what he was saying to the base, turning back to continue collecting Jade Slips from the compartments on the wall.

Chen Rong and Lin Wan were also working.

The two of them, one on the left and one on the right, moved along the wall, packing the Jade Slips from the Formation section into their Storage Pouches row by row.

Their movements were not fast, but fortunately, they were steady and without any collisions; the Great Xia currently urgently needed to supplement its knowledge of these cultivation worlds.

Han Li stood in front of the opposite wall; she was responsible for the Pill Formula section.

Every time she pulled out a Jade Slip, she would scan the title with her Divine Sense, then sort it into different boxes before packing them into her Storage Pouch.

With six or seven people working simultaneously in the entire Scripture Pavilion, there was only the faint sound of Jade Slips touching the stone compartments.

The Randan Spirit floated in mid-air, watching these people work for a while.

Then, he spoke.

"What is that 'troop' you were talking about just now?"

Su Mingyuan did not stop his hands, nor did he turn his head.

"A type of unit that specializes in unique weapons."

"What kind of weapons?"

"Weapons that can hit targets in the sky."

The Randan Spirit was silent for two seconds.

He floated next to Su Mingyuan, his translucent face showing clear disbelief.

"Kid, that Blood Moon is hanging in the sky, at least hundreds of thousands of zhang from the ground. I know your cultivation levels clearly; the highest among you is only at the Foundation Establishment Stage Late Stage, and the maximum distance for your Spiritual Qi projection is at most a few hundred zhang. I don't know what kind of weapon you are talking about, but with your cultivation level, let alone damaging the Formation eye, you can't even reach it."

Su Mingyuan placed the Jade Slip in his hand into the Storage Pouch, brushed off the dust, turned to look at the Randan Spirit, and grinned.

The expression couldn't be called a smile; it was more like the look a child has when hiding a good thing and being questioned by an adult.

"Senior Randan, I cannot explain this to you."

He thought for a moment and changed his phrasing.

"Think about it. If someone told you that a person could sit in a four-wheeled iron box and run faster than a galloping horse on the ground without using any flying Magical Artifacts or any Spells, would you believe it?"

The Randan Spirit frowned.

"What does this have to do with what we are talking about now?"

"And if someone told you that a person could fly into the sky, higher than a white crane, without relying on wind-riding techniques or flying Magical Artifacts, just by sitting in an iron shell larger than your Sect's main hall, would you believe that?"

The Randan Spirit did not reply.

"You wouldn't believe it," Su Mingyuan said, "because you haven't seen it. Just as I couldn't make an ordinary person who has never known what Spiritual Qi is believe that cultivation is real. Even if I explained how high the Rocket Troops can shoot, you wouldn't be able to understand it."

He patted the Randan Spirit's illusory shoulder, though of course, he didn't pat anything, as his palm passed straight through.

"You will know when you see it with your own eyes."

The Randan Spirit opened his mouth, then closed it.

The old man had lived for who knows how many years, and this was the first time he had been rendered speechless in such a way.

He couldn't come up with a rebuttal, but the disbelief on his face was clearly written.

In the corner, Tao Zhe's call ended.

He walked back, his voice filled with an irrepressible energy.

"Contact made. Two battalions of the Rocket Troops brigade on standby at Tianmen Base have received orders and are preparing to enter the Skeleton World. It will take about forty minutes to transport the equipment from the Main World, and Security Chief Zhao Ming is already coordinating the access priority at the portal."

Su Mingyuan nodded.

"Have them deploy directly at the Fifth Forward Base after they enter, and wait for my orders."

"Already told them."

After Tao Zhe finished speaking, he rubbed his hands together, his excitement evident on his face.

Su Mingyuan glanced at him but said nothing.

He continued collecting Jade Slips.

After about another twenty minutes of packing, the Jade Slips in the Formation section and the Pill Formula section were basically cleared out.

Only a small portion was taken from the Cultivation Technique section, and all dozens of Jade Slips from the latter half of the chronicle wall were taken, while the first half was left untouched for now.

The Storage Pouches were bulging; Han Li's was already full, and the rest were all piled into Tao Zhe's spare Storage Pouch.

Su Mingyuan checked the time.

Eight hours and twenty minutes since entering the main vein.

"Prepare to withdraw. If the Formation eye of the Blood Moon is destroyed, then everything will be fine. If it is not destroyed, we must return to the Forward Base to prepare for the skeleton tide."

The team began to walk back.

They exited the Scripture Pavilion, passed through the Pill Pavilion, and headed up along the stone staircase passageway.

Chen Rong walked at the very front, the white light from his wrist lamp sweeping across the walls on both sides, swaying back and forth.

The sound of the mecha's footsteps echoed dully within the passageway.

The Randan Spirit floated in the middle of the team and did not speak again.

It was not until they walked out of the passageway and stepped onto the ground of the Elder Hall area again that the old man spoke up.

"Are you really going to wait here for those so-called Rocket Troops?"

Su Mingyuan said as he walked, "Not waiting here. Waiting back at the base."

"Regardless of where you wait," the Randan Spirit's voice became a bit more urgent, "do you know how much longer it will be until the Blood Moon rises?"

Su Mingyuan certainly knew.

They had already recorded several cycles of the Blood Moon. Twelve hours to set, twelve hours to rise, with an error of no more than three minutes.

Four and a half hours had passed since they set out, plus the hour or so it took to get here. If the return trip was faster, it would take about fifty minutes.

There were about five and a half hours left in the safety window.

That was enough.

But the Randan Spirit did not think so.

The old man floated in front of Su Mingyuan, turned to face him, and floated backward.

"Kid, listen to me. What you should be doing now is not waiting for any weapons, but hurrying to leave this place."

Su Mingyuan did not stop walking.

The Randan Spirit's voice rose by half a tone.

"Once the Blood Moon rises, all the skeletons here will awaken. Do you know how many Nascent Soul Stage skeletons there are in this Elder Hall area? Hundreds. Even if their cultivation dropped to the Foundation Establishment Stage after they died, can you withstand hundreds of Foundation Establishment Stage skeletons rushing at you at the same time?"

He glanced in the direction of the Pilgrimage Path.

"Not to mention those in the Outer Sect and Inner Sect. There are tens of thousands on the Pilgrimage Path alone. Although their cultivation is low, their numbers are there. When the time comes, this mountain will be full of moving bones from top to bottom; where will you run to?"

Su Mingyuan still did not stop.

He walked past a jade-colored skeleton half-crouching at the courtyard entrance; the skeleton's posture was exactly the same as when they arrived.

A Cultivator at the Nascent Soul Stage, the final posture before death.

Su Mingyuan looked down at it, then stepped past it.

"Senior Randan," he said, "you are right; our cultivation is indeed not enough."

The Randan Spirit thought he had listened, and was about to reply.

"But regarding the problem of insufficient cultivation," Su Mingyuan's tone was very flat, "we have known about it since the first day we stepped into this world. If we had to wait until our cultivation was sufficient before doing anything, we would still be squatting in the Main World's laboratory reading Jade Slips right now."

The Randan Spirit was stunned.

Su Mingyuan did not turn back and continued walking forward.

"There are many things you haven't seen."

When he said this, his tone had no fluctuation, just as if he were saying the weather was nice today.

"When the Rocket Troops arrive, you will understand."