Chapter 60: A Crazy Backdoor  

Strivon / Ash Editor: Geoffrey / Lancent

The entire room was in an uproar as soon as these words were spoken.

A second or two of paralysis!? That’s what he calls “not having too much killing potential”?

One second was enough to kill an enemy a hundred times over in the world of cultivation!

“Well, did he make the same modification on all his artifacts?” a cultivator asked with bulging eyes.

“Yep.” Xie Tingxian chuckled.

Numerous cultivators turned their heads to glance at the giant hologram. They discovered that it didn’t matter whether it was the Red Team or Blue Team, seemingly every competitor’s melee artifact was an artifact created by Li Yao. They carefully rethought the outcome and simultaneously gave a cold shiver.

This kid is really way too despicable, too shameless, too fearsome!

“That’s truly remarkable! He’s already learned the practice of ‘Opening the Backdoor’ of the Refiner circle at such a young age!”

A cultivator had muttered to himself and somewhat unintentionally swept his gaze at Xie Tingxian.

There was an unspoken practice within the circle of Refiners. A great deal of Refiners were used to leaving behind some super tiny special structures on their artifacts when crafting artifacts for their customers. Ordinary cultivators were completely unable to see these marvelous structures. But in the eyes of the Refiner himself, having these structures allows him to seize the “life-gate” of the artifact.

When the need arises, they can go through the life-gate to control the artifact.

In the circle, this kind of move was called “Opening the Backdoor”.

Initially, this was a method used by Refiners only to protect themselves and to prevent others from holding artifacts they crafted and conveniently silencing them right away.

After all, when compared to battle-type cultivators, the fighting capacity of Refiners are often weaker.

Anyway, these kind of practices became more and more common as time went on. It seemed that it became an open secret within the circle of veteran Refiners; it turned into an “unwritten rule”.

There was only one way to prevent the backdoor from opening in an artifact… To craft your own artifact!

But, the present was different than the old days. In the Ancient Cultivator Civilization of 40,000 years ago, all kinds of artifacts were utterly simple in nature. There were merely flying swords, throwing knives, and spatial pouches or so. An artifact like the Heaven Upheaval Seal would be considered complicated. Cultivators were certainly able to craft these themselves.

But as time progressed into the modern era, the social division of labor became increasingly specialized and divided. The architectures of artifacts became more and more complex. The subject of Artificing became a giant can of worms, a mysterious and profound subject. It was an extremely difficult subject to succeed in without spending over dozens of years of effort. And if one doesn’t have a gift for artificing, it would require twice the work for half the outcome, spending countless hours of bitter blood. Even then, one may not necessarily comprehend the mysteries of Artificing.

It was improbable for a common battle-type cultivator, who didn't have a hint of a gift for Artificing, to spend several dozens of years to study Artificing… Otherwise, when would they have time to fight?

Therefore, after considering the matter, they could only pinch their noses and endure through the clearly known artifact loophole. Or they could find a trusted Refiner to craft their artifacts. Or after having an artifact crafted, they could find another Refiner to crack the backdoor.

The offensive and defensive battle between the installed backdoor and the backdoor cracker was also a “battle” that was completely common to see in the Artificing circle. After going through several typical battles, every Refiner sought the honor of installing an uncrackable backdoor, or even an undiscoverable backdoor. The most glorious of all was to be able to discover and crack the backdoors left behind by others.

Of course, no Refiner would admit to any backdoors installed on his artifacts.

Xie Tingxian curled his beard. He shook and swayed his head, saying, “Man! Although Student Li Yao’s methods are effective, in the end, they go against the professional ethics of Refiners. It’s somewhat inappropriate! If he enters Deep Sea University, we will certainly properly educate him. How could he leave backdoors on his artifacts willy-nilly!?”

“Come on!”

Quite a few cultivators scowled at Xie Tingxian… Deep Sea University was the Holy Land for Refiners. At the same time, it was one of the headstreams of the loathsome behavior of “Opening the Backdoor”. It would be a wonder if they were to “properly educate him”. If Li Yao really did enter Deep Sea University, he would be just like a fish back in water. It wouldn’t take years before he became a backdoor expert!

Right when everyone was simultaneously speechless, another four blue dots, representing a scout group, strangely perished on the north side of Devil Flood Dragon Island.

What replaced them was a tiny red dot; the dot flickered tenaciously.

The second scout group had fallen into Li Yao’s evil clutches!

Besides the cultivators in the monitoring center, even the 2400 competitors in the hall outside all paid attention to Li Yao’s existence at this moment.

Despite the majority of the Blue Team charging through and slaughtering all around the middle section of Devil Flood Dragon Island, the two ambushes situated behind the back lines seemed to spell the arrival of a small change in circumstances.

“Who is this fellow!? He’s actually this awesome!? He took out seven Blue Team competitors in succession!”

“Something’s fishy here. It looked like the seven Blue Team members went somewhat retarded. They simply extended their necks, waiting to be killed. Can it be that this fellow is an expert in mental illusionary attacks? That he launched mental attacks against his opponents?”

“I know why. This fellow is from my school. His name is Li Yao. Although he looks ordinary and mediocre from the outside, in fact he’s actually a super ferocious person. Even Helian Lie can’t do anything to him!”

“He’s this amazing? Then I really need to pay good attention to him!”

Helian Lie had quite the fame in Floating Spear City and even in the surrounding few cities and towns. In this Limit Challenge Competition, his points ranking was always within the top 10. He was a renowned expert.

To be considered Helian Lie’s opponent, it was clear that Li Yao was not your typical sort of person.

“Ah! Again! He slaughtered a third scout group. These fellows are really too retarded. Come on and fight back! What are you all frozen for!? Are you waiting to be killed?”

“Hey you guys, do you think that this kid will continue slaughtering everything in his path? Will he bring forth a gargantuan counter attack?”

“That’s impossible. When teams face off, a single person alone is not enough. The Blue Team has the commander genius Gao Ye. They’ve already hold great influence. They won’t be rocked that easily. You guys look. Gao Ye has noticed that something’s off. He’ll make a response soon!”

The contents of the Red and Blue Teams’ communication channels were shown in real time on the hologram, so these retired competitors were also able to see the commander tactics of Gao Ye.

Gao Ye discovered that it has been a long time since he was able to contact the backline scouts in the communication channel. He determined that there was a valiant Red Team squad or a powerful Demon Beast behind the Blue Team’s backlines.

He commanded the majority of his army to cease attacking on the spot. He ordered them to be on alert and be on standby.

At the same time, he ordered the eight strongest combat units to combine by twos, to form a new scout group, and to completely sweep the backline for the fish that escaped the net.

“Everyone must be on high alert. Don’t let this temporary victory get to your heads. Until we completely annihilate the last of the Red Team, there’s still a chance of them making a comeback! Right now, there’s most surely a great enemy within our backlines. We must understand clearly what we’re dealing with. Let’s first eliminate this big enemy before we steamroll over the defeated enemy to the front!”

Gao Ye made his decisions quickly. His voice was calm and unhurried. He had quite the bearing of a general!

His tactics were quickly shown to be effective.

After annihilating the last scout group roaming around the north side of Devil Flood Dragon Island, Li Yao became tangled with a new scout group!

This scout group was formed from seven competitors. Each of them was as tall as an bull and as large as a horse. Their eyes were filled with vigor and energy. Their temples swelled and bulged. Their actual strength was incomparably powerful and daunting.

And leading the group was Li Yao’s acquaintance… Helian Lie!