69novels Chapter 227 Finding My Own Little Base
Chapter 227 Finding My Own Little Base
It's not surprising that Long You felt guilty. Although his departure was a very rational choice under the circumstances, to put it bluntly, it could be considered abandoning his comrades.
However, the people from Shrek Academy didn't take Long You's actions too seriously, or rather, they were quite rational. At the time, everyone was resting peacefully under Elder Xuan's protection, completely unprepared. Only Long You sensed the danger lurking beneath the calm, and only he was able to quietly and subtly obtain a plausible excuse for Elder Xuan to let them leave the scene.
Note! It was a reasonable decision to let him leave. It's clear from Xuan Lao's subsequent actions that the evil spirit masters of the Holy Spirit Cult had already planted various influence methods around him.
Imagine if Long You hadn't given a perfectly reasonable excuse, but instead tried to leave with the others in a completely illogical manner. Wouldn't Elder Xuan, influenced by the Holy Spirit Cult's pre-arranged methods, have interpreted this as a provocation, thus trapping everyone inside?
It's entirely possible.
Imagine everyone trapped inside a house, with all communication cut off, while outside, evil spirit masters from the Holy Spirit Cult are attempting to take action—that would be a certain death situation.
It could be said that the support from the Star Luo Royal Family, which was brought in through Long You's connections, actually saved everyone at Shrek Academy who was present at the time.
It was precisely because he was aware of this that Long You was able to maintain a relatively pleasant mood while browsing through the other information. Although there was a lot of sarcasm, a closer look revealed a trace of gratitude.
Having reviewed all the information, Long You had a fairly comprehensive understanding of the current situation. First, there was the Title Douluo-level evil soul master who had escaped. Perhaps due to severe injuries, he refused to forcibly cross the land border between the Star Luo Empire and the Sun Moon Empire. In any case, he actually ran towards the bay where Long You was stranded, seemingly intending to return to the Sun Moon Empire by sea.
If this Title Douluo evil soul master hadn't slaughtered an entire village on the way to recover from his injuries, and if Long You hadn't run away due to a strange sense of crisis, the two of them might have run into each other.
This news left Long You feeling lingering fear. He had no confidence that he could escape the clutches of a Title Douluo, a demonic soul master who had gone mad with bloodlust.
Fortunately, the Star Luo Empire proved reliable. With Duke Baihu personally leading the team, the Title Douluo evil soul master was subdued at sea by the Star Luo Empire. Although it's unclear whether these three individuals represent the entirety of the Holy Spirit Cult's forces involved in this incident, capturing all the forces that were openly revealed is already a significant success.
The second message was a report that everyone was safe. All members of the Shrek Academy team had returned safely to the academy, and Dai Yueheng had regained consciousness. Incidentally, under Electrolux's guidance, Huo Yuhao contributed a method to check for any lingering influence of evil spirit masters within the body. Using this convenient trick for using spirit power, Elder Mu, the academy's pillar of strength, carefully checked everyone's physical condition.
As for the final news, according to Long You's understanding, it could be considered a graduation certificate. The message was sent by Qian Duoduo, the vice dean of the Soul Guidance Department, who told Long You that he was now a formal inner court student of Shrek Academy.
As an inner court student, attending classes on time isn't a major concern; any questions can be asked at any time. Long You's resource exchange limit will also increase significantly. The only thing to watch out for is the speed of his cultivation progress. If Long You's cultivation progress can't be maintained, or if he stays at the academy beyond a certain limit and doesn't choose to stay and teach, then Long You's Shrek Academy career will come to an end.
After clearing all the messages from his phone, Long You felt a complete release of the pressure in his heart. Lying back on the large bed with clean sheets, Long You inexplicably felt sleepy.
However, he wasn't asleep yet, so reason hadn't completely left Long You's mind. Now that he had resolved the issues that concerned him, shouldn't Long You also address the pressure on those who cared about him?
It's relatively easy to communicate with the academy; they can just have the AI assistant, Bern, send a message. However, it's best for family members to personally send a video call request.
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On the outskirts of the far north ice plains, towering soul-guided powered mechs moved effortlessly. Two full months had passed since the conclusion of the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Tournament.
During these two months, the Star Luo Empire, in conjunction with Shrek Academy, launched a massive manhunt for any trace of evil soul masters across the continent, while simultaneously spreading information about the Holy Spirit Cult. As a result, both the Holy Spirit Cult and the Sun Moon Empire, the cradle of the Holy Spirit Cult, became somewhat universally disliked.
However, the uproar on the mainland had little to do with Long You. During these two months, apart from spending a week in Tian Dou City to add a few signature dishes to Long Ma's vegetarian restaurant, Long You spent the entire time near Ji Bei City, a northern border city of the Tian Hun Empire.
That's right, it's nearby, not in the city. As for the reason, the Long family's fortress occupies an excessively large area; there simply isn't enough space in the entire Far North City to house it. Therefore, the Long family, who didn't really rely on official protection anyway, simply built their family base near a hill outside Far North City, quite close to the Far North Ice Plains.
Long You had already put a lot of effort into the design of the castle, but after seeing the actual castle, he was still quite shocked and naturally had the idea of making the castle last longer.
If the goal is to ensure the castle's longevity, then many details need to be addressed with greater care. Especially since Long You doesn't just want a simple land-based fortress; he wants a super fortress complex capable of reaching deep space.
It was precisely because of the existence of this family fortress that Long You suddenly had a breakthrough in his thinking. Previously, Long You had been troubled about where to place the prototype of his future divine artifact! Now, Long You had the answer.
If there's no ready-made place, then build one yourself. Anyway, Long You is really not short of money now. After completing the upgrade of the family fortress with great strides, Long You received a very generous reward from the family's high-ranking officials, who were quite satisfied. With this generous reward, Long You can completely build a place in this vast far northern ice plain that is most suitable for this kind of artifact prototype that needs a lot of room to grow to settle down.
Long You has had the Star Core Tulip for quite some time now, and his design concepts and manufacturing methods are relatively mature. This is why he is currently heading towards the interior of the far north ice plains. Of course, with Long You's current Soul King level strength, he certainly wouldn't dare to go too deep. Therefore, Long You is now targeting places that can prevent most Soul Masters from wandering around, but don't have too many high-age Soul Beasts with explosive aggression.
To be honest, if Long You hadn't prepared beforehand, this site selection process would have been like finding a needle in a haystack. But during these two months building the Long family fortress on the outskirts of the Arctic Ice Plains, Long You was far from idle. Taking advantage of the harsh natural environment of the Arctic Ice Plains, Long You comprehensively upgraded his detection soul guides, especially his soul guide drones.
With the help of the Soul Guide Drone scanning the map, Long You has actually found several decent alternative locations. Now Long You is going to go and take a look at these alternative locations in person.
After spending a week visiting all the preparatory sites, Long You finally rubbed his head and returned to the first site he had investigated.
"This is a bit of a grudge! After spending so much time, not eating or sleeping well, we end up having to choose the first version? What kind of modern-day contractor is this! Besides, I'm the client myself."
After grumbling and complaining for a while, which slightly relieved his frustration, Long You began to conduct a more detailed investigation.
This is an ice lake surrounded by rocky hills—well, icy water. Normally, at temperatures in the far north, any lake should be frozen solid, but this ice lake shows absolutely no signs of freezing, which is quite a spectacle in itself.
"Phew, no matter how you look at it, this icy lake area is my best choice. I don't know what's inside the surrounding rocky mountains that can interfere with conventional detection. Only by getting close to detect it, or by deliberately looking for unusual locations, is it possible to find this icy lake."
However, the land area in this glacial lake region is really limited! If I want to do anything, I'll probably have to do it at the bottom of this glacial lake. The construction difficulty isn't too bad, after all, my overpowered grandfather has already created a super low-end version of the engineering robot, so it doesn't seem so unacceptable for me, the overpowered one, to create a more useful underwater engineering robot.
The problem now is, are the lake's inhabitants easy to deal with? I've been standing by the lake for so long, shouldn't they at least show themselves? At the very least, let me know what kind they are, okay? If it's a lake full of mollusks, I'll have to consider moving.
"How is it, Bourne? Are our Lightbringer Iron Warrior Scouts ready? It's time for a more in-depth exchange."
Having trekked across the vast snowfield for a whole week, surrounded by nothing but white expanse, Long You admitted that he was under considerable psychological pressure. It was only because he had Byrne, his communicative AI assistant, that he felt comfortable enough to leave the icy plains and find a way to calm down.
"Prepared, but do we really want to explore so recklessly? Although this is only the outer edge of the far north ice plain, we have no way of knowing the depth of this ice lake in front of us. Who knows if there might be some high-age soul beasts inside?"
"What should we do then? Go back and get reinforcements? Set a startup and return time, and let's leave first. That's pure white iron; even the teeth of a soul beast would find it incredibly difficult to damage."
"Your will, sir."
After the towering soul-guided power mech left the shore of the frozen lake, the lake, which had been as calm as a piece of transparent crystal, rippled slightly before returning to its calm state.
In fact, Long You really overestimated the patience of his neighbors. After noticing the frequent visits of the soul-guided mecha (compared to the monotonous life of the past decades or even centuries), these future neighbors had already been eager to come out and investigate. However, Long You himself was completely unaware that these future neighbors had already shown up.
After Long You piloted his Soul-guided Powered Mech to create distance, Guangming Bai Tiezhe completed the startup process and, with the tracks turning, entered the frozen lake as smoothly as possible.
However, it was clear that Iron Warrior's careful actions were destined to be in vain. The master of the frozen lake was now in a state of extreme curiosity. With such a big surprise falling into his lap, why not quickly start playing with it?
In other words, Longyou is currently unable to receive the signal images transmitted back by the Bright Iron Warrior due to the special shielding conditions of the Ice Lake area. Otherwise, Longyou would be in a state of utter despair! A perfectly good warrior detector has been used as a collision ball by a group of invisible turtles.
In other words, it's clear that cerium, a rare metal, is indeed hard enough. Otherwise, given its current state of being held in the mouths of these turtles as a chew toy, Longyou would have to consider how to carry out the recycling work.
Half an hour later, having once again escaped from the mouth of a curious turtle, the Bright Iron Warrior activated its evacuation mode. The sudden engine noise startled the large turtles that had been surrounding the Bright Iron Warrior, causing them to not only re-enter their formless and shapeless state, but also causing a noticeable fluctuation of soul power to spread throughout the entire frozen lake.
In other words, Long You didn't install overly clever auxiliary intelligence on the Light-Bright Iron Warrior. Otherwise, given the current situation, the Light-Bright Iron Warrior might simply shut down and pretend to be dead, and Long You would lose the best means of understanding the situation in the frozen lake.
Perhaps because the Radiant Iron Warrior hadn't damaged the lake's ecosystem, the giant turtles living in the lake ultimately refrained from attacking the Radiant Iron Warrior as it continued to rise and relentlessly approach the shore, choosing instead to watch it go.
After the Bright Iron Warrior left the frozen lake, Long You, two kilometers away, received a faint signal. Upon receiving the signal, Long You immediately began to walk towards it.