Li Mu
Li Mu listened intently for a long time before the thunderclaps over the Thunder Beast Wasteland gradually died away.
Obviously, the battle between the Thunder Beasts and Fierce Wolves had ended＼(＞０＜)／.
Li Mu immediately took out his Infrared Telescope to observe. Sure enough, all the Fierce Wolves had left, and there were three fewer Thunder Beasts. One of their corpses had probably been dragged away by the Fierce Wolves, while a group of Thunder Beasts surrounded the other two.
Thunder Beast Meat was only valuable while fresh, so he couldn't afford to wait any longer.
Li Mu took out the loudspeaker again. This time, however, he didn't play wolf howls, but the sound of human gunfire. Just a few days earlier, this group of Thunder Beasts had been hunted by several Spark Hunters. Hearing gunfire now would surely send them fleeing in panic.
As expected, the Thunder Beast herd abandoned the two corpses and migrated away in the night.
Li Mu waited until the herd had gone a sufficient distance, then packed up his camouflage cloth and left the burrow where he'd been hiding. He took a steam-powered off-road motorcycle from the Seedship in his soul, started the engine, and sped straight toward the two Thunder Beast corpses.
The moment he reached them, he touched the bodies and put both into the Seedship's storage compartment.
Amid the engine's roar, Li Mu sped away in a cloud of dust.
Frostfire Titan Mech City wasn't especially large, but its diameter still exceeded five thousand meters, and it stood more than a thousand meters tall.
Yet despite its immense size, the fog obscured it so thoroughly that its outline only became clear from a few kilometers away. Chimneys all over the steel city belched white smoke. The buildings inside were densely packed and brightly lit, while sweeping searchlights barely dispelled the fog around it.
The city walls stood nearly a thousand meters above the ground and bristled with countless gun barrels.
Below them were several hundred meters of wheels and tracks, the main source of power for the Titan Mech City.
Although Frostfire City was a Spark City, its conventional power sources were Nuclear Energy and steam.
Steam was the primary source. Spark Energy was precious and had to be conserved, but there was another reason as well: in many fog-shrouded areas of the Spark World, electricity failed. By contrast, steam power, the most primitive form of power, was so adaptable that it was the Titan Mech City's most widely used conventional energy source.
Li Mu reached the side of Frostfire City and took an elevator to the city gate, several hundred meters above the ground.
The soldiers guarding the gate checked his ID Card and let him through.
As he passed through, however, a red beam swept over him.
That beam was the real inspection.
After pushing the motorcycle to a rental shop near the gate and returning it, Li Mu went straight back to where he lived.
Frostfire City was enormous, but weapons and factories occupied most of it, leaving the residential areas quite cramped. Housing in the neighborhoods farther from the factories was especially expensive. After walking for over half an hour, taking a winding route through the city, he finally made it home.
The fifty-story metal high-rise would remain structurally sound even ten thousand years from now.
Real estate developers on Blue Star would have flipped their tables in rage if they'd seen a building like this (╯°Д°)╯︵┻━┻
Li Mu took the elevator back to his small apartment and fixed himself a simple meal.
It was all canned food, the staple diet of the city's residents.
Fortunately, it tasted good, was nutritious, and was inexpensive. Frostfire City didn't exploit its ordinary residents. They were the foundation of the population, and a larger population meant more talent. No one could know whether a genius might emerge from a low-income family during the Awakening Ceremony.
If the city didn't treat ordinary residents well, how could it keep its talent?
Besides, ordinary necessities weren't expensive. Aside from the small living spaces and limited entertainment options, the city had a well-developed legal system. Ordinary residents were much happier here than they had been working nine-to-nine, six days a week, in his previous life.
At least housing was provided for free, and ordinary people didn't have to work too hard.
After eating his fill, Li Mu lay back in a rocking chair and began practicing the Spark Meditation Technique.
Spark Energy was everywhere in the Spark World. The Spark Meditation Technique was a universal method for tempering one's mind and sensing Spark Energy. Although he hadn't yet awakened an Innate Spark and couldn't absorb Spark Energy, he could use the technique to sense the Seedship in his soul.
The next moment, Li Mu's spiritual consciousness entered the Seedship.
Though only his spiritual consciousness had entered, it felt as tangible as a physical body inside.
Li Mu went to the storage compartment. He could move about freely there, but for the supplies he'd stored inside, time seemed frozen. The only way to end that stasis was to hold an item in his hand.
The two Thunder Beast corpses lay in a corner, beside a Chainsaw he'd prepared earlier.
After working for most of the day, Li Mu's spiritual form felt a little drained. Only then did he finish taking apart the two Thunder Beasts, sorting their bones, meat, and hides. He happily left the Seedship carrying a bone and a piece of meat (￣▽￣)／.
There were still two months until the Awakening Ceremony.
He'd already completed the Spark Academy curriculum on his own, so he could spend those two months at home eating the two Thunder Beasts.
With the Spark Body Tempering Technique helping him digest the meat and strengthen his body, he could finish even several thousand pounds of it (￣~￣)嚼!
Two months later, Li Mu savored the last piece of Thunder Beast Meat.
At that moment, he couldn't help admiring humanity's talent for eating. Many things in the Spark World tasted awful, even though eating them brought great benefits. For foods like those, Spark Professionals who specialized in cooking had developed all sorts of foolproof seasonings.
Even a novice's stew could be nutritious and delicious, leaving you wanting more ()棒.
After two months of arduous training, the Spark Body Tempering Technique had greatly strengthened his physique.
He could now exert two hundred pounds of force with one arm. That didn't mean he could lift two hundred pounds; it meant he could swing a two-hundred-pound weapon for an entire hour. That took more than strength alone—it required a combination of great endurance and a sturdy physique ().
Tomorrow was the day he would awaken his Innate Spark. Nothing mattered more today than getting a good night's rest.
Early the next morning, Li Mu got himself ready and headed to the Spark Academy.
There were no pedestrians or vehicles on the streets today, only Trolleybuses coming and going.
Just like the college entrance exams on Blue Star, everything in Frostfire City made way for the Awakening Ceremony today.
All Spark Academy students could ride the Trolleybuses for free.
Everyone else, even Spark Professionals, had to walk.
After about half an hour on the Trolleybus, he finally arrived at Frostfire City's only Spark Academy.
Frostfire City had a population of one hundred and sixty thousand, and on average, only about a thousand teenagers took part in the Awakening Ceremony each year.
Most of them received weak Origin HuoZhong. Fewer than three in ten had what it took to become professionals.
Having a poor Origin HuoZhong talent didn't mean one was unfortunate. At least they could live peacefully in the city and survive for two hundred years or more.
By contrast, the three in ten lucky ones with better Origin HuoZhong talents had only a thirty-to-sixty percent chance of surviving the next ten years. Even after that, they weren't completely safe; they had simply become seasoned veterans over the decade and learned how to stay alive.
At that moment, a long line had already formed at the Spark Academy's main entrance.
Li Mu waited in line for quite a while. Only after his identity was carefully verified was he allowed into the Spark Academy.
He followed the crowd through the underground passage beneath the academy's main building. Spark Professionals from the Frostfire City Lord's Mansion stood guard all along the way. Soon, the passage led deep into the Titan Mech City, through the underground factory district beneath the surface residential area, and finally to the underground core at the city's deepest point.
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