In space, Thuram was onboard his Ares-class interceptor, traveling back to the capital ring at high speed. The journey to visit Qin Mang in the Endaro Star Region, which had him setting aside everything, was sort of a holiday to him. After all, he was not the type to stay in the office. If possible, Thuram wished that he could travel around like Xia Fei did, living a life where no two days were the same.
After ordering his secretary to pay off all the outstanding funds to Xia Fei, Thuram scratched his bald chin and smiled to himself for a few moments. Sure, the headquarters had the money; the funds he was managing just in the weapons and equipment department were in the trillions each year, but what made him happy was Xia Fei’s change of pace.
After a few moments of thought, Thuram decided to video-call Qin Mang.
“Old thing, Xia Fei just spoke to me a few moments ago,” Thuram said, smiling.
“Oh, what was it about?” asked Qin Mang.
“The kid wanted me to pay my outstanding procurement order for the expansion of his company. Seems that your plan worked well. It’s as if Xia Fei was a whole new person; he seems extremely excited.
Qin Mang nodded. “Xia Fei has always been a curious one; it’s just that he’s never had any specific goals other than trying hard to get stronger. Although it’s not a bad idea, it’s a bit too general. With me giving him a clear and specific goal, of course, he’s now more proactive.”
Thuram let out a heart laugh before lowering his voice. “Still, it’s just as you said; if Xia Fei’s really working hard because of that, it’s a good thing whether he succeeds or not. Surely, they wouldn’t have thought that you would do such a thing.”
Qin Mang curled his lips and said plainly, “I wanted to be unpredictable. Everyone would think that, after being revived, I would hold it closer than ever, but I quickly passed it to Xia Fei on purpose. It’s just that he’s not fully developed; I still can’t tell if he’ll have the ability to protect himself before I die.”
Thuram sighed. “I thought you would change as you got older, but you’re still the same ‘Living Hades’ you’re known for during your prime. Anyone who dares get on your bad side can never rest easy.”
…
Vampire broke free from Earth’s orbit and headed toward the endless space.
The interplanetary internet for VIP users had incredible functions; it was not long before a bunch of results about the six-leaf rain lotus appeared.
Xia Fei inspected the results on the projected screen. A VIP user could query all of the Alliance, so the results were a good representation, but the price in the tens of billions made Xia Fei quite uncomfortable.
“Forget it. There’s bound to be a six-leaf rain lotus in that place I told you about. When I was training there years prior, I found it in a valley. At the time, the few rain lotuses were still growing and not ready for picking; they should’ve matured by now,” said Phantom.
Xia Fei nodded and entered the destination in the navigation panel.
It was not just the development of Quantum Holdings that needed to be fast-tracked; Xia Fei’s training also needed to be improved. Just thinking about the legendary Titan-class warship was enough to make him incredibly excited.
Since Xia Fei sustained severe backlash when he forcibly opened his seventh brain region, ultimately losing his ability to cultivate, he needed to consume medicine constantly to help himself.
Luckily, Xia Fei found a plant called skywing firebird on Heritage Planet, which helped him to reach the Star Domain advanced stage and even let him be considered to be of the even higher Star River rank, as well as obtain a second ability: psychokinesis.
Successfully cultivating two abilities to such a degree like what Xia Fei had obtained was an unprecedented achievement, so there was no experience or anything that could guide Xia Fei’s cultivation. As the first dual-ability user, Xia Fei had to rely on himself to explore and practice his skills.
Through these and after obtaining two abilities, his training grew even faster; even his ability to absorb medicine was greater than before.
More importantly, Xia Fei discovered that his originally damaged seventh brain region was slowly recovering. Perhaps he would be able to increase his rank without needing any medicine at the cost of a slower cultivation speed in the future. Phantom estimated that it would take at least a thousand years to heal his seventh brain region with the rate this was going.
Xia Fei laughed at the slow rate of recovery, yet he did not give up hope. Once fully opened, the mysterious seventh brain region would develop in unexpected ways. The average people could not obtain two abilities, yet Xia Fei had managed to do so. Phantom had once said that Xia Fei’s brain damage would never heal; although it had not fully recovered, at least it was developing in the right direction.
Xia Fei could not begin to tell what his seventh brain region would give him, and for now, all he could do was wait. Currently, the toxins in his body were slowly disappearing, and it was time to consume the next batch of medicines; thus, Xia Fei followed Phantom’s instructions and started searching for that weird and wonderful plant called the six-leaf rain lotus.
“I can probably reach the upper end of Star River rank after this batch of medicines, right?” Xia Fei asked as he lit a cigarette.
Phantom nodded. “If we really find the six-leaf rain lotus, I believe it’s enough to reach Star River rank, possibly even break the barrier of 10000m/s. This is a hurdle; there are many speed ability users out there who have never been able to break this speed limit their entire lives.”
Xia Fei gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice, “No matter what, we’ll see after we obtain the six-leaf rain lotus.”
Phantom pressed his lips together, for he was slightly worried. The six-leaf rain lotus grew on moist and rainy planets. It took hundreds of years to germinate and thousands of years to flower; it was an extremely rare medicinal shrub.
Now that Xia Fei was able to utilize such rare materials, if he wanted to continue to cultivate, he would have to search for even rarer medicinal herbs, and it would only get harder from here.
After returning to his room, Xia Fei practiced his Crafty Thrust. As he became more familiar with these sorts of assasination techniques, the time he spent training Crafty Thrust also shortened. It was just like doing revision every day; after a quick practice, he shifted his focus onto the two other important techniques: psychokinesis and the Beast Spirit Codex.
Psychokinesis would improve along with the improvement of his speed ability. Comparatively, speed ability was quite simple and there were not any shocking techniques to it. After all, all it did was improve agility and reaction time. Psychokinesis was quite different; other than brain wave control, there was something else just as important: skills.
Demon Axe was one of the said skills. It was a burst-type skill, dramatically improving the strength of brain waves for a few moments, allowing forceful and explosive manipulation of objects.
However, this put a great strain on the brain and could cause irreversible damage. Xia Fei, who had strong control of himself, never used Demon Axe if he could avoid it. Before his psychokinesis reached Star River rank, forcing its usage would certainly cause some sort of damage, and the gains were not worth the losses.
Xia Fei shut his eyes, his brain waves emanating from him like many invisible tendrils of energy. His psychokinesis was incredible, and anyone who barged into his room would certainly be shocked, for the books, tables, and chairs were flying around the room under his control.
It was just like a game; Xia Fei raised the items into the air and carefully manipulated them to chase one another.
This actually took quite a bit of brain power, for each item had to be flying in the air constantly. Even manipulating Celestial Moon was not as difficult since it comprised eighteen disk blades that would charge toward one target. Moreover, Xia Fei was almost manipulating fifty items in his room, a lot more than what Celestial Moon had to offer.
“Fifty-one!” Phantom exclaimed. “Xia Fei, you’re now able to manipulate fifty-one things. This means that your control of your brain waves is becoming more precise.”
Xia Fei did not comment in response as he was fully focused on using his psychokinesis, so much so that Phantom’s words did not even register.
Finally, chaos occurred when Xia Fei tried to manipulate the fifty-second object; the objects that were chasing one another collided.
“Failed,” Xia Fei said in a deep voice.
He returned everything to their original positions, then he activated his psychokinesis, having the items chase after one another again.
Other than training the number of items, Xia Fei would also train the strength of his psychokinesis. It was just as simple; he had a set of alloy dumbbells, weighing two hundred kilograms each, in his room, and just like an athlete, Xia Fei would raise and drop each of them using his psychokinesis.
Xia Fei gathered these training methods himself, which were miles better than the ones introduced in the books. Moreover They would not be affected by the venue or machinery, meaning that he could start training wherever and whenever.
After this, Xia Fei still had to cultivate the Beast Spirit Codex. Although he could control a majority of animals in the third stage and could form contracts with them, in the face of a ferocious beast like the six-winged skylord, his strength in the third stage was simply not enough.
There was a Thanatos-class carrier in perfect condition somewhere in the Wild Star Region awaiting him, and once he was able to mentally overpower the Black Star Phantom Bat, Xia Fei would claim the capital ship for himself sans any hesitation.
Of course, the Alliance did not allow an individual to own such a powerful warship, so registering it under his name was still a problem that needed to be addressed.
It was almost as though there was a Titan-class ship awaiting him in the vast space. Xia Fei was completely enthralled by the superwarship that only appeared in legends. It did not matter how tough it was as long as he could achieve his dreams.
By the time Xia Fei finished his Beast Spirit Codex training, he had spent fourteen hours without a break, yet it was not the end of his day, for he still had to read through Introduction to Robot Coding and look more into the super-radar system blueprint to get it into production as soon as possible.
This was Xia Fei’s daily routine; even the president of the Alliance might not even be half as busy as he was.
In order to reach heights ordinary people could not, one must put in effort that ordinary people would not. Xia Fei understood this well, and after seven days of consecutive work, Xia Fei finally reached the planet with year-long bouts of rain, which Phantom had directed him to.