Chapter Eighty-One: Forty-Eight People!

Come in. Meeting!

Once Dreadclaw had been cleaned, Yang Ye spoke in a calm voice.

In the cultivation chamber aboard the ship, more than two hundred and fifty practitioners had gathered.

After not seeing these subordinates for more than half a month, Yang Ye felt that they had all become a good deal sturdier.

He glanced over the crowd before saying flatly, “You all saw the two superstellar beasts outside, yes? They did not evolve on their own. They were artificially created.”

“Commander Ye, do you mean they were made by those mysterious practitioners from more than a hundred years ago?” Zhou Hun could not help asking.

“No.” Yang Ye shook his head. “They were created only recently. That black one was still a planetary beast a week ago.”

As soon as those words fell, Mao Li exclaimed, “How is that possible?”

“Commander Ye, you’re not joking with us, are you?”

“That goes completely against common sense!”

“If a beast can advance from planetary to superstellar in such a short time, then a person can too, right?”

...

Yang Ye’s words stunned everyone present so thoroughly that they even forgot their discipline.

Yang Ye did not blame them. If he himself had suddenly heard such a thing, he would have lost his composure as well.

“Shut up.”

At that moment, Long Xiaoqing spoke coldly.

The buzzing discussion vanished at once.

Yang Ye smiled. “Someone said it well enough: if a pig can rise from planetary to superstellar in a short time, then a human can too. Strictly speaking, humans are also star beasts.”

He paused, then continued, “Now there is an opportunity for all of you to reach the superstellar realm in a short time. But the side effect is that once you reach that realm, it will probably be very difficult to advance to the galactic realm in the future. And there is one more thing: after you reach superstellar, you will have to fight me. Most of you will die...”

Yang Ye explained the assessment to his subordinates.

When he finished, everyone frowned.

The practitioners on Earth were weak.

The practitioners from the stars were strong.

The chance of passing the assessment was very slim.

“Commander Ye, I’ll go!”

Zhou Hun suddenly stepped forward, saying with unwavering determination, “I’ll go too!”

Mao Li also stepped out.

Soon, more than half of them stepped forward.

The remaining few either feared death, or had accepted drug-based modification and could only remain at the superstellar level.

No matter how poor a practitioner’s talent might be, there is always a dream in the heart of becoming a peak powerhouse.

Stellar, superstellar, galactic...

Beyond that, many more realms still awaited them. How could they possibly stop at superstellar?

Seeing so many people step forward, Yang Ye felt gratified.

Still, he emphasized, “You all know that once we pass the assessment, the world we will face in the future will no longer be Earth. It will be a vast cultivation world beyond anything you can imagine. That world is magnificent. If you stop at superstellar, it would truly be a pity.”

After Yang Ye finished, the crowd fell silent for a moment, and more than a dozen people stepped back out.

Clearly, those dozen or so had made their decision in a moment of hot-blooded impulse.

Yang Ye would never waste resources on people with such uncertain resolve.

In truth, this was also a test.

Nezha had only said that after being modified by Super One Hundred and One, it would be very difficult to advance to the superstellar realm in the future; he had not said it was absolutely impossible.

Yang Ye did not mention that point.

“Commander Ye, thirty-six superstellar cultivators? There are plenty of such people in the secret realm. There’s no need for Commander Ye to risk your life with us, is there?” someone asked.

Yang Ye shook his head. “I’ve never pinned my hopes on anyone else. Besides, after entering the secret realm, we may have to kill a few more, and the number will only go down.”

Zhou Hun and the others knew that among the superstellar experts Yang Ye intended to kill, there was the Jiang family patriarch.

In addition to the Jiang family, there might also be superstellar experts among those great families Yang Ye had led people to wipe out.

“Right now I don’t have much in the way of resources. With twelve years, I can barely train forty-eight people. We’ll decide by lottery.”

After saying that, Yang Ye asked Mao Li to bring three decks of playing cards.

Exactly one hundred and sixty-two people were willing to join the modification program.

Yang Ye shuffled the three decks and said, “Anyone who draws an ace, king, queen, or jack will join the modification plan. Come up one by one and draw.”

No sooner had he spoken than Zhou Hun stepped forward first and drew a card from Yang Ye’s hand.

He turned it over, and his eyes brightened. With a smile, he said, “Good luck. I drew a king.”

Mao Li followed right after and drew a card as well. After turning it over, she smiled. “My luck isn’t bad either. It’s a jack.”

The two of them stood off to the side.

The rest came forward one after another to draw.

The odds were a little less than one in three.

Those who drew a qualifying card naturally stood aside in delight, while those who did not hung their heads in disappointment.

Forty-eight people were quickly selected.

Three days later.

On the deck of the Sky Patrol, the practitioners who had not been drawn in the previous round stood by the rail, curiously watching the sea ahead.

The sea before them was churning wildly, the water turbid.

Above that stretch of water, Ninety-Nine was circling at low altitude.

Suddenly, a giant shark burst from the sea.

It was a stellar-level beast.

As it leapt clear of the water, Ninety-Nine swooped down, passing close beside the shark.

With a sharp hiss, the shark, dozens of meters long, was sliced cleanly in two.

The shark fell back into the sea, but it did not die at once. Its upper half writhed violently in the water, and the blood pouring from its body instantly stained a large stretch of the sea crimson.

At that very moment, Zhou Hun suddenly burst out of the water, drove his fist into the shark’s head, smashed through its hard skull, and tore out a stellar beast core.

He looked at the red beast core in his hand, then promptly stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed it.

After swallowing the core, Zhou Hun plunged back down into the depths.

Hundreds of meters beneath the surface, forty-eight practitioners in total, including Zhou Hun, were battling a massive number of sea beasts.

Sharks, octopuses, sea serpents, crabs...

Every sea beast in this area was at stellar level.

The reason such a large cluster of stellar sea beasts had gathered here was, of course, that Long Xiaoqing had driven them over.

To herd these beasts, Long Xiaoqing had already reverted to her true form.

As for Yang Ye, he stood on the seabed with his arms folded, watching his subordinates fight the sea beasts.

Whenever someone was in danger, he would step in to help.

The stellar sea beasts within dozens of li were quickly wiped out by Zhou Hun and the others, and the beast cores within their bodies were also taken out.

Like Zhou Hun, the moment they obtained a beast core, these fellows who had been injected with the Super One Hundred and One serum immediately swallowed it.

The energy released by the beast cores was swiftly absorbed by their bodies and by the stellar bodies within their sea of stars.