Lightly swiping his finger across his spatial ring, Xia Fei retrieved the black metal case and the triangular trinket.
*Snap!*
The triangular key fit perfectly into the metal hexagonal lock, and a faint mechanical sound was heard. Several seconds later, the lock slowly unlatched!
Taking a deep breath, Xia Fei grabbed hold of two ends of the casing cover and lifted it. Phantom and Pod were beside themselves with nervousness, uncertain just what could be inside.
The cover was heavy, and Xia Fei used his two arms to lift it slowly, just in case that there was any defensive mechanism inside the case.
*Creak!*
The mysterious black case had been completely opened!
Xia Fei was slightly disappointed, as what lay before his eyes was not some superweapon but rather a stack of papers.
These whote construction blueprints had all been bound together as a booklet, and the case itself was well sealed. These papers were also far from ordinary and were made from some special sisal material, weather resistant and looked brand new despite their age. Even the print on these papers looked as if they had just been inked.
Xia Fei casually skimmed through these sheets of paper, sipping on his tea as he sat on the floor of the cultivation room. His eyes became more and more incredulous and turned into shock once he was done reading one full page.
Xia Fei devoted his fullest attention to both training and reading, while Pod and Phantom were positioned beside him, curious about what he was reading but unwilling to bother him.
Xia Fei read quickly, and that had to do with his superhuman mental reaction time. After half an hour later, Xia Fei had already finished skimming through the tens of thousands of blueprints. At the bottom of the case was a black metal plate, one square meter in size that had both words and patterns carved on both sides.
“So that’s what these are!” Xia Fei set down that metal plate as he exclaimed.
“What? What exactly are these?” Phantom curiously wondered.
Xia Fei did not answer him but merely pulled out another stack of papers from his spatial ring and placed them together before proceeding to flip through a few pages.
“They’re the same!” Phantom gasped.
He noted that the blueprints that Xia Fei kept were consistent in both the wording and structure on what he found from inside that black case, except that the blueprints from the black metal case had cramped words all around, the images depicted were clearer and their description more detailed.
“Qin Mang once handed me a set of blueprints of the Titan superwarship, but it’s only for the hull. We also found its radar system and pulse cannon systems from the Black Abyss. Meanwhile, the ones inside this black metal case are the complete set of blueprints for the superwarship.
“I already examined everything. Defense, engine, energy source, air purification, anti-detection systems… The blueprints for all those are here.”
Phantom was ecstatic. “Does that mean that you can begin manufacturing a Titan superwarship?! That’s great news, but I wonder why the ancient humans would bury these blueprints so deep underground…”
Lighting a cigarette, Xia Fei answered in a heavy tone, “It’s not that simple. I’ve done a simple calculation before, and the cost of manufacturing a Titan superwarship is astronomical. I’m afraid that it may not even be completed in several hundred years. Plus, it will need a shipyard even larger than the size of a planet. Even if we have all that manpower, our present technology simply can’t reproduce every part of the warship. It’s simply too astoundingly difficult.”
Phantom nodded. “You’re right. The Black Bat radar is but a simplified version of the Titan’s radar system, and even with the concerted effort of you, Harris, and Porter, you guys didn’t succeed fully in the simplification. That alone goes to show just how high the production requirements are.”
Xia Fei was silent for a good while as he snuffed the cigarette out. “What I’m even more shocked about is the original intention of manufacturing a Titan.”
“Original intention? Isn’t a warship manufactured for war? What else could it be?”
Xia Fei shook his head as he pointed to that black metal plate. “According to what’s written here, the Titan-class superwarships are for fighting against a group of super experts in the universe.”
“You mean the Law Adepts?”
Xia Fei nodded.
Phantom was even more puzzled by now. “Using warships to fight against Law Adepts? Is that even possible? One is a sapient lifeform who has cultivated to the peak of martial arts prowess, while the other is a machine. They basically have nothing in common.”
Xia Fei responded, “According to records, during an even more ancient era, these Law Adepts once lived with the common folks, but due to how heaven-defying they were, they practically ignored all sense of law and rules. Wielding such great power in their hands, the common people were nothing more than ants in their eyes.”
Phantom sighed. “Of course. Ever since I witnessed the strength that Yujiang and Yuhua wielded, I’ve even become somewhat tired of this world. Not to mention the fact that I’m already dead, even if I were alive, there’d be no way I could reach a ten thousandth of their power. I used to be a living being of blood and flesh, yet how could there be such a big gap between me and them?”
Xia Fei continued. “That’s the same situation as last time. On one hand, there were the Law Adepts acting lawless, trampling on the commoners’ lives as they wished. On another hand, there were the commoners who felt as if they could never surpass these experts, so they gave up and were no longer willing to focus on cultivation.
“This progressed until the people’s cries of discontent were everywhere, while these Law Adepts also complained about how there were fewer and fewer sprouts to nurture, with both sides severely polarized.
“Thus, some of these Adepts who had the foresight decided to band together and find an empty space where all the Law Adepts of every race could live together, no longer meddling with the commoners.”
Phantom stroked his chin. “Yujiang and Yuhua said that they’ll be taking you into their circle to practice the Three Laws. Could that have been that space you just spoke of?”
Xia Fei replied, “I can’t be sure, but the possibility of that is high.”
Phantom was very curious about this mysterious world of adepts, and he kept asking questions about it.
Xia Fei collected his thoughts before saying, “To put it simply, the lowest-grade warriors are called ability users, only able to live among the common people. If they don’t have the good fortune, they will never know of the Law Adepts’ existence, and at most, they can cultivate till they reach the Immortal rank in their lifetime.
“Meanwhile, in order for the Law Adepts to ensure that their heritage can continue, they embed lines of thoughts where the commoners live, choosing only the talented warriors to train further and to inherit their legacy. Upon completion, they will then have the chance of entering into the world of Law users, becoming a true Law Adept.
“The sequence of experts in this universe should first be Ability Warrior, Heritage Warrior, and finally Law Warrior. The higher the rank, the more difficult it will be to cultivate. Similarly, their lifespan will increase accordingly. It’s said that a true Law Warrior will be rid of the shackles of life and obtain an eternal body.”
Phantom was sweating. He originally thought that the ability users were the peak of existence in the universe, and that an Immortal rank warrior would be the apex of the apex. As it turned out, this was merely superficial, and that there was yet another bigger and higher mountain to climb.
“I understand what you mean by Ability Warrior, the you now and the me when I was still alive, we both are considered Ability Warriors. I’ve seen Law Adepts; Black God of Night, White God of Day, Yujiang, and Yuhua, all of them ought to be Law Warriors, but what about the Heritage Warrior?”
Xia Fei smiled. “Actually, I’m a Heritage Warrior. I was merely unaware of it; that’s all.”
Phantom was surprised. “You’re a Heritage Warrior? What do you mean by that? I’ve been with you over the last few years, so how did I not know when you became a Heritage Warrior?”
Xia Fei answered, “Law Adepts will have eyes in the regions where the common folks live, similar to the situation when the Assassin Sect asked me to be their envoy, except while an envoy will be used to process orders, Law Adepts’ agents are tasked to search for exceptional warriors to impart with inheritance skills.
“This sort of inheritance can be obtained from Heritage Planets; just like Clean Knife whom we have met before, he should also be an inheritance disciple of some Law Adept.”
Phantom suddenly recalled what Clean Knife had told Xia Fei. How warriors who had been to Heritage Planet would be called Inheritors and how an Inheritor only needed to kill another Inheritor to enter Heritage Planet again, beginning another year of training until they finally obtained the Law inheritance.
Phantom nodded his head repeatedly. “I remember now. Clean Knife indeed said something about Inheritors. Back then, we were still so astonished over how he knew that you’d been to Heritage Planet.”
Xia Fei replied, “He and I are different. He’s someone whom a certain Law Adept intentionally wanted to nurture, while I am someone who stumbled upon it on the beaten path. Don’t forget that the Heritage Planet I visited was extremely desolate and I did not know how I ended up with my psychokinesis ability.
“The secret key toward activating Heritage Planet was also a relic I acquired from an ancient human, who lived far in the past. Given how abandoned that Heritage Planet was, while I unknowingly went on a trip to it and improved my cultivation, I had no clue on the twists and turns necessary to become a Law Warrior from a Heritage Warrior. From this point alone, I was quite lucky to have accidentally invited myself into Heritage Planet and to have made it out alive there.”
Phantom nodded. “We can say that you’ve truly beaten out an unorthodox path of your own. There’s clearly no Law Adept who has taken a shine on you, yet you barged into Heritage Planet and subsequently made it out alive, only to bump into Clean Knife, someone who was hoping to qualify for his second shot at his Heritage Planet. Too bad he failed in that.”
Thinking a little further, Phantom remarked, “Yujiang said that he’ll be taking you into their circle in three years’ time; doesn’t that mean that you’ll skip past this Heritage Warrior step and directly face the even stronger Law Warriors?”
Xia Fei nodded. Martial arts studies were very much similar to academic studies, requiring practitioners to steadily improve step by step. Skipping grades and entering into the world of Law-wielding old monsters would not necessarily be a good thing for Xia Fei.
By that time, those Law Adepts might just treat an insignificant speed ability user like him as no more than a freak. After all, Xia Fei was essentially a whole grade lower than everyone else there, but thankfully, Xia Fei had the Law of Chaos on his right arm that the Black God of Night had left behind, as well as one of the Thirty Immemorial Mystical Weapons, Peacock Blue, so at least there was hope for him to bridge the gap between himself and the others gradually.
“The average individual will forever see Law Adepts as threats, which was why the ancient humans created this Titan, hoping to use the gargantuan superwarships can go up against the power Law Adepts possess. In that way, the Law Adepts and the common people could live in harmony again,” Xia Fei said.
Phantom laughed. “Size and strength are hardly congruent when talking about martial arts prowess. I don’t think that the Titan superwarship, which is larger than a planet, will be able to go up against the strength of a Law Adept.”
“According to the data recorded in this case, it’s the Uran race, the strongest in the universe, who first researched and developed Titans, which have four sets of blueprints, separately known as the Avatar-class, Leviathan-class, Erebus-class, and Ragnarok-class. What we have on our hands is the Avatar-class Titan.
“I have no clue whether a Titan can go against a Law Adept or not, but according to what’s recorded on the files in this metal plate, the Uran race was soon wiped out after designing the Titan, and without any exception, all the other races who possessed blueprints of a Titan were eradicated,” Xia Fei said with a somber expression.
