Chapter 69: The Tree of Memories
In the deepest depths of Li Yao's neural field. Within his sea of memories, an endless abyss.
A mass of countless memory shards formed an enormous crazy spinning vortex. It tore at Li Yao's soul without end!
"My name is Ou Yeming. One day, I will become the Leader of the Hundred Smelting Guild!"
"I, Ou Yeming, swear to all the gods in all the realms and universes that I will take all the members of the nine Demon Gates and behead them one by one and exterminate their whole families, leaving not even their dogs and chickens!"
"Godsword Lithe, Warblade Carnage Dragon, Spear Soul Devourer. I've finally crafted these three masterwork weapons capable of slaying those old Spirit Transformation Stage monsters!
"Senior Ou Ye, Senior Ou Yezi. Please craft me an artifact. I'm willing to pay you 10 floating mountains as compensation!"
"BOOM!"
Time went by as a blur. Li Yao didn't know how long he was stuck in the vortex of memories when suddenly he heard an earth-shattering loud noise that ruptured the entire vortex.
A bizarre object with the shape of a giant tree had actually formed in the depths of his neural field.
This "Tree of Memories" was formed from the countless pure crystal shards of memories. Each shard of memory flickered with clear scenes — they were the memory records of Ou Yezi's life!
Starting from the tree top was the time when Ou Yezi entered the Hundred Smelting Guild, when he was reduced to a low-level worker. Memories of when he suffered the torment of the Titan.
As time passed, the memory shards spread downwards, gradually changing to show the time when Ou Yezi became a Forge Worker. Memories of when he hammered and smelted day in and day out in the forging room.
Continuing downwards were Ou Yezi's memories of when he crafted rudimentary flying swords.
What came next was the invasion by the Demons. Memories of bloody battles all around.
This continued all the way until the base of the tree, where the memories changed to when Ou Yezi became the Leader of the Hundred Smelting Guild, having won success and recognition. It was a scene where his might made the world tremble.
All the memory shards were separated into three completely different colors.
The earliest memories from when Ou Yezi entered the guild to when he made it as a forge worker were flowing with light and overflowing with color. They shined bright, appearing to be utterly vibrant and alive.
The memories when Ou Yezi acted as a forge worker in the forge room lacked brightness and vibrancy, but they were still of various colors.
These two sections of memories took up nearly 1/10th of the total number of memory shards.
The remaining 8/10ths of memories were only of two colors — black and white.
The final tenth of memories completely faded into a mass of black fog, blurry to the eye.
"What's this?"
Li Yao's consciousness floated over to be in front of the giant Tree of Memories. He was astounded to the utmost point.
He never thought that Ou Yezi's entire life would unfold completely in such a bizarre manner before him, allowing him to see everything with just a glance.
"I understand now... Although Ou Yezi failed to possess me, his soul must be quite strong. He didn't disappear at that time. He actually concealed himself in the dark within the depths of my mind to wait for a suitable opportunity and launch a second possession!"
"I just don't know why, but when this mutated large-eyed ape launched an incomparably tyrannical mental attack it directly penetrated my neural field and completely shattered Ou Yezi's soul, turning Ou Yezi into countless memory shards!"
"Yep. Yep. This mutated large-eyed ape possessed an extremely high-level of intelligence. After it was beheaded by me, its hatred was to the maximum. It saved the last of its vitality for this unstoppable mental attack. Clearly, it wanted to strike me dead or at least strike me into becoming retarded!"
"I didn't expect it to actually cleave Ou Yezi's soul. In the end, both these two monsters suffered a sorry defeat, allowing me to fish up some benefits!"
"But the thing is, how shall I properly utilize Ou Yezi's memory shards?"
His heart stirred. Li Yao's consciousness floated to the topmost portion of the Tree of Memories, carefully searching through the memories.
Soon, he discovered a memory shard of a certain day, right at the moment when the Titan passed on to Ou Yezi the One-Hundred-And-Eight-Hands Chaos-Gale Hammer Technique.
Li Yao gazed at this memory shard with rapt attention.
All of a sudden, he felt his conscious be drawn by a great force. His vision turned black and he appeared once more on the large training field.
It was precisely the day shown by the memory shard!
The devilish looking Titan stood right in front of him. His hands, the size of iron hammers, rocked as he roared, "You bunch of idiots! Listen carefully to your elder here! Today, I shall teach you all the 47th hand, the Heart-Piercer Hammer! The profoundness of this technique stems from the word 'Piercer'. The key is to aim past the body of the target!"
"For example, if the enemy you're attacking is standing a distance of half a foot away from you, then you will need to take him for standing an entire foot away from you. Aim behind his body and exert force! Release all your strength and explode forth past their bodies! Run their intestines through completely! Come come come and take a good look everyone. See how each strand of my muscle fibers moves!."
Li Yao carefully observed the Titan's demonstration with wide bulging eyes.
The Heart-Piercer Hammer was one of the more complicated moves of the One-Hundred-And-Eight-Hands Chaos-Gale Hammer Technique.
The last few times training in the Dream of Grandeur passed by like a blur; he had forgotten everything completely by the time he woke up.
Li Yao certainly wouldn't forfeit this chance to watch this anew today.
The Titan went into a horse stance. With a howl, his aura thundered out to form a giant humanoid figure. The crushed rock beneath his feet splashed randomly as his feet stabbed deeply into the granite floor!
Meanwhile, the muscles all over his body bulged out like vipers scattering around. A strength like the tides rushed into his right arm. His fist pounded out and the air exploded forth with seven sounds of "Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang" in succession!
A series of seven circular ripples tore through the air as the fist pierced by!
"The Heart-Piercer Hammer can tear the air when it is trained to the limit, creating sounds of explosion. I can only tear the air seven times. The experts in our guild can tear the air 17~18 times with a single fist. Their strength can penetrate through even a giant boulder, turning the insides of the boulder into powder!"
The Titan had spoken with immense satisfaction. His eyes bulged open once again and faced Li Yao with a roar, "Ou Yeming, come over here! This senior will properly teach you!"
Li Yao's heart jumped. He jolted telepathically and his body went light for some unknown reason. His soul had actually separated from Ou Yezi's body and fled out, transforming into a semi-transparent humanoid figure that floated in the air. He watched Ou Yezi walk miserably in front of the Titan to suffer from abuse.
"So it was like this all along! This memory shard can already be used completely as I please! I can incarnate as Ou Yezi and personally experience scenes from his memories. I can also take on an observation role and admire his life leisurely!"
This discovery caused Li Yao to be greatly excited.
Below, the Titan exploded forth with a fist that shot like lightning. This was no training; this was an excuse to vent on Ou Yezi.
Li Yao watched with a frown and spoke in his mind, "These fists are too fast; I can't see them clearly at all. How can I learn from this? If only I can go back in and use slow motion."
He felt his vision change as this thought floated in his mind. Time had actually rewound back to half a minute ago, back to the moment when Ou Yezi was just called by the Titan to go up front.
And also, the movements of the Titan and Ou Yezi were abnormally slow. Every single explosive fist, every flowing movement of muscle fiber, were captured very clearly by Li Yao.
"That's it. The muscles of the two legs follows the rotation of the body to create strength together. So this is the key to the Heart-Piercer Hammer. This Titan really doesn't explain things clearly; it's clear he's keeping things to himself!"
Li Yao could not help but let out a whistle. He had discovered that this memory shard was completely under his control, causing him to be incomparably excited. He can freely manipulate the time speed and position.
Li Yao watched the scene in slow motion repeatedly for 7-8 times. In the end, he even merged with Ou Yezi's body and experienced things from Ou Yezi's point of view 3-4 times. Finally, he mastered this Heart-Piercer Hammer move through careful study. He had completely assimilated the technique down to his marrow!
"This memory shard has already been completely digested and absorbed. I will never forget it. But how do I exit from it?"
As this thought just emerged in his mind, the surrounding scene exploded and crumbled. Li Yao's conscious appeared once more in front of the enormous Tree of Memories.
"Can it be? Are all these memory shards all accessible for observation as I wish? To study from? To digest and assimilate?"
Li Yao's soul jolted fiercely. With a long whistle, he threw himself towards a middle stage memory of Ou Yezi in wild joy... The memory of Ou Yezi crafting the Godsword Lithe!
"As long as I learn how to craft a Masterwork weapon such as this, I'll be able to walk arrogantly across the Federation... No, the entire Heaven's Origin Sector!"
Li Yao yelled and crashed headfirst into the memory shard and a "Clang Dang" sound actually rang out. A black ripple emerged on the memory shard. His soul had nearly crashed into pieces. He tumbled rolling backward.
"What's going on?"
The crash made Li Yao confused and lost. The pain pierced to his soul. He rubbed his head with a confused shout, "Why can't I enter this memory shard?"
He was unwilling to give up, so he orbited to a few memory shards to the side, circling them for a few rotations. He tried carefully to enter several times, but he was completely unable to.
He tried to enter over a hundred memory shards before he discovered a common pattern.
All these memories were from Ou Yezi's middle and late stages of life, which can also be referred as nine-tenths of the tree that are in the two colors white and black and the black mist memories.
These memories all include the remnants of Ou Yezi's powerful soul. He wouldn't be able to probe them easily.
Only the bright vibrant colored memory shards and the clear multi-colored memory shards were accessible.
Anyway, there are some differences between these two memory shards... The bright vibrant colored memory shards were already under his complete control. He can choose to take either a personal or an observational role for these shards. He can even increase or decrease the speed of time, to the point where he can replay the memories over and over.
And in the ordinary multi-colored memory shards, he can only take on the role of an observer to watch Ou Yezi's memories pass by slowly. He lacked all control.
Li Yao pondered for a long time until it seemed like he figured out the principle behind all this.
"In the early stages in the life of cultivation, Ou Yezi was an only an ordinary person. His soul wasn't that powerful, so I am able to freely probe his memories. But later on, his actual strength grew more and more powerful, and his soul grew stronger and stronger as well until the end when he became a grandmaster. The memories of that time contain an inexhaustible magical power. They're something that the present me obviously can't pry into as I wish!"
"However, as my actual strength slowly grows, my soul will also become more and more powerful. Eventually, there will be a day when I can take Ou Yezi's entire memories. I'll swallow his memories drop by drop until they completely turn into my memories!"