Chapter 1475: The Awakened
How did anybody get here so fast?
Li Yao was alarmed. He had thought that he was already quick enough. He had snuck in from the middle part of the Nuwa warship and reached this place after such a short period of time with his familiarity with the internal structure of the Nuwa warship.
Most other people crawled in from the tail of the warship. They were also fighting hard on their way. Li Yao had thought that it would take them a few hours to disperse on the warship and find this place by accident!
Who was the guy that was coming close? Was it a coincidence, or was it on purpose?
Li Yao eyed around and retrieved a stealth membrane suit from his Cosmos Ring as quickly as possible.
The biochemical combat suit that the Fire Ant King had provided him played a vital role in the battle to sneak into the Eye of Blood Demon. As long as he remained absolutely still, he would be almost completely invisible.
After putting on the stealth suit, hiding himself behind a pile of scrap armor of the Nuwa in a corner, and lowering his breath, heartbeat, and spiritual waves to the minimum with the Great Dream Tortoise Hibernation Arts that Gui Suishou had taught him, Li Yao stared at the darkness coldly both like a rock and like a ghost.
Soon, a shadow staggered out of the end of the pathway.
It was exactly the initiator of the operation to explore the mysterious Divine Palace, the mysterious Lead Eunuch Wang Xi!
How is it possible?
Li Yao's pupils constricted violently. He was truly baffled.
He saw with his own eyes that Wang Xi had crawled into the Nuwa warship from the engine tubes that were at the rear part of the warship. Unless he was absolutely familiar with the internal structure of this particular warship, how could Wang Xi have passed from the engine area through the complicated, labyrinth-like cabins on the warship to the command area after only half an hour?
At this moment, Wang Xi still had the appearance of a fair-skinned, beardless, middle-aged scholar, except that there was green brightness on his pale face, suggesting that he might have been poisoned.
There were blood stains everywhere on his body. A shocking wound could be found on his thigh, where the flesh was rolling up like the lips of a baby. The wound was absolutely vertical without the slightest slant. There was not even the error of a hair.
What a shocking sword aura! Li Yao secretly clicked his tongue.
He could not have been more familiar with the wounds of such a shape. Over the past months, he had witnessed identical wounds on many ferocious beasts that were used as targets for sword training.
In the entire Ancient Sages Sector, only Yan Liren's unstoppable sword auras could have left such a marvelous wound!
Wang Xi had a head-on clash with Yan Liren and appeared to have suffered an obvious setback?
That did make sense. Perhaps, Yan Liren was the only weirdo here who did not give a damn about the Cloud Qin Gold Statues. The sole reason that he had participated in the exploration of the Divine Palace was to practice his sword arts with the real experts.
Despite the wound on his thigh, Wang Xi had retreated in one piece when Yan Liren was attacking with all his might. It was evident enough of his remarkable Cultivation!
Wang Xi wobbled to the three silver gates. He craned his neck and observed for a long time. There was confusion on his face, and mysterious brilliance was flashing inside his eyes.
The magical equipment that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan had once used was strewn across the ground, but Wang Xi did not even bother to look at the weapons. His eyes suddenly lost focus, as if he was caught in memories a long time ago.
Exactly like Li Yao just did, he touched the three silver gates for a moment before turning around and studying the barriers to open the gates.
Take your time to study them! Li Yao sneered. Let's see how exactly you are going to open the gates that even I can't!
Wang Xi pondered for a moment. Then, like Li Yao had done, he also activated the unlocking interface of the gates.
The first thing to pop up was the facial recognition procedure. A cluster of gentle bluish brightness, which looked like a beautiful jellyfish, slowly surfaced.
There was no telling what Wang Xi was thinking, but after a slight delay, he stuck his own face into it.
Li Yao almost laughed out aloud. What was the guy thinking of? Did he think that any random guy could just swipe their face and enter such an advanced Nuwa warship?
As expected, the cluster of blue light wriggled on his face for a while before it turned red. The gates remained closed, showing absolutely no sign of opening.
The identification failed.
Wang Xi was confused. He rubbed his face softly and paced back and forth for a while. Suddenly, he dashed back to the pathway and examined for a moment. He then established quite a few alarm rune arrays on the pathway tirelessly. One of them was almost deployed to the bottom of the armor that Li Yao was hiding behind. Li Yao was so anxious that he almost failed to stop his cold sweat from running out.
What was the guy trying to do after taking so many precautions?
After setting up seven alarm rune arrays to ensure that nobody would break in, Wang Xi returned to the identification magical equipment on the silver gates.
He suddenly bulged his eyes and took such a long breath that his chest was rising high.
A series of cracking noises echoed inside his body, which sounded both like his bones being weirdly twisted and like his muscles and veins breaking, growing, and condensing again.
As he slowly exhaled all the air from his body, a weird scene happened.
Ivory mist flowed out of every pore on his body and enshrouded him like a great cocoon.
Creepy chewing noises came from inside the cocoon, accompanied by low moans.
When the mists were gradually gone, his face, physique, and demeanor had gone through drastic changes!
He had changed from the handsome middle-aged scholar to the plain-looking but plump female assassin Long Yangjun!
What—what technique is this? This is too sophisticated. How can the guy transform freely from a male to a female so quickly? Is he a man or a woman? Is he half a man and half a woman?
Li Yao was so shocked that his eyeballs almost dropped to the ground.
The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators could control the secretion of hormones inside their bodies at will. If Li Yao stimulated the secretion of the estrogen in his body and suppressed the secretion of the androgens such as testosterone, perhaps he would be able to change his body figure as well and gain the secondary sex characteristics that were similar to a female.
However, the process would take months if not years before the preliminary changes took effect. Also, there would not be any fundamental difference except that he would look more feminine than before after the changes.
The mutation of Wang Xi or Long Yangjun had far exceeded what a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator could achieve.
"Hu..."
Wang Xi had no idea that somebody was peeping at his metamorphosis nearby. He looked quite relieved, as if he had gotten rid of a burden and a camouflage, and took a deep breath in relief.
Although the physique had changed, the female assassin Long Yangjun was tall and strong. Therefore, the previous clothes still fit pretty well.
She smiled and touched her brand-new face before she leaned toward the blue light ball again.
Wang Xi's face was buried in the blue ball, leaving her graceful body outside. She had no idea at all that a highly dangerous enemy was lurking right next to her.
However, Li Yao did not plan to attack her immediately because he could not have been more curious about Wang Xi's uncanny behavior.
Beep!
A crisp beep echoed deep inside the blue ball a moment later. The ball then turned green, hinting that she may proceed to the next procedure.
She had passed the test of the facial features recognition!
Li Yao was utterly dumbfounded, as if he had been struck by lightning.
How was it possible?
The Nuwa warship had crashed there a hundred thousand years ago. Also, the bridge was under the protection of the highest level. It was certainly the case that only the few key crew members could pass the facial features recognition!
How was Wang Xi, a local of the Ancient Sages Sector who lived a hundred thousand years later and theoretically could not have had anything to do with the Nuwa warship, accepted?
Li Yao was baffled!
When he looked Wang Xi's face, even she did not seem to expect that she could pass the test. Both surprised and delighted, and with a hint of intense confusion, she even let out an exclamation.
Taking a deep breath, she put her hands into the light ball as per the instructions on the identification interface.
Li Yao felt that his heart was heavy again.
It was obvious that the operation menu of magical equipment on the Nuwa warship was written in the language of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan.
Although it was somewhat similar to the common tongue of human beings nowadays, there were still major differences. Their language was constructed in a unique way by transforming three-dimension into two-dimension. The information contained in one character could be more than ten times than in the common tongue of modern human beings.
The Star Glory Federation had collected a lot of primeval characters on Kunlun. After five years of arduous studies by historians and linguists, they had finally managed to get a general idea of the primeval language system and understand the basic meaning denoted in every character.
Even so, Li Yao had to resort to his guesses a lot when he recognized the characters, and he could only understand the general meaning.
Wang Xi, on the other hand, seemed to have no trouble at all reading the instructions on the operation menu.
It reminded Li Yao of the map of the Divine Palace. How exactly did Wang Xi learn how to parse the map of the Divine Palace and how to operate on the layers of complicated menus?
Beep!
When Li Yao was thinking, Wang Xi passed the palmprint, voiceprint, and iris tests successfully. The only thing left was a dynamic password.
In front of the hundreds of glittering runes, she was dazzled and at a loss again.
However, her helplessness was soon replaced by weird epiphany a moment later.
The brightness inside her eyes grew clearer and clearer, and she was more and more at ease, as if something frozen inside her body for the longest time was thawing and about to break out of the shell.
Wang Xi's hands turned into two clusters of gray fog as she tapped the virtual runes as quickly as lightning as if it were her conditioned reflex. She inputted all the three dynamic passwords after only one second!
Hiss!
The largest silver gate in the middle, after uttering a high-pitched noise, split apart from the middle and retreated toward the center helically!
The gate to the bridge had been opened!