Metal Yang Qi

Two more days passed, and Wang An's original body flew alone to the South China Sea Launch Site.

At eight that morning, he took an official bus into the spaceflight visitor center.

Tourists like them now spent most of their time at the visitor center, looking at various spaceflight exhibits.

As the tourists in the several buses behind them gradually got off, Wang An stepped down and glanced back. A sea of heads was bobbing everywhere.

"Everyone, come over here. We're going to visit the spaceflight science center now. This is the latest space rocket model."

He had traveled light for this trip.

As soon as he entered the gate, a huge white rocket and the spaceflight science center lay before him.

It was essentially a 1:1 replica of a Long March 5 rocket. Its entire body was snowy white, and it stood dozens of meters long, with one main rocket and four auxiliary booster engines. Its overall bearing was like a rainbow, a sword laid across the earth.

The national flag, the words "Hua Country Manned Spaceflight," and the logos of several science and industry groups on it all spoke of a great nation's spacefaring ambitions and grandeur.

As more and more tourists arrived by bus, Wang An could clearly sense the yang qi throughout the space base steadily rising.

The yang qi here included the yang qi shed by Supreme Yang as it moved through different positions.

There was also the Living Being Qi of human bodies, which Wang An called Spirit Yang Qi.

In fact, he had previously tried to observe whether human bodies contained the same kind of energy as heaven and earth qi.

But after careful observation and experimentation, he found that they did, though there was too little of it, and it was too thin to be seen.

Only when large crowds gathered, as they did now, could he clearly observe the movement of Spirit Yang Qi.

Moreover, like Living Being Qi, this kind of Spirit Yang Qi could not be gathered and refined.

Unlike Living Being Qi, which remained fixed in one place and could not flow, the Spirit Yang Qi formed by large gatherings of intelligent beings like humans moved with the crowd.

He just didn't know what its specific effects were.

All the way from the visitor center to the spaceflight science center, Wang An kept observing the surrounding terrain and the flow of heaven and earth qi.

He found clear traces of the path along which some kind of heaven and earth qi flowed.

Perhaps this could be the heaven and earth qi with an Extreme Yang attribute compatible with the human body that Wang An was looking for.

Excited by his discovery of the traces left by this special heaven and earth qi, Wang An began recording the surrounding terrain and topography, as well as the direction in which the heaven and earth qi flowed.

In the end, he reached a conclusion: this special heaven and earth qi should have formed through the vaporization and combination of three kinds of qi.

Wang An was very familiar with two of them: Extreme Yang Qi and the Spirit Yang Qi unique to humans.

He surmised that another kind of qi had also taken part in the combination.

That was because, while touring the science center, he had clearly sensed traces of metal-attribute heaven and earth qi on its various space rocket and satellite models, recovered satellites, space program exhibits, and holographic theater, as well as on objects that introduced the achievements of Hua Country's space program as a whole.

Within this lingering qi, Wang An sensed an edge forged through a thousand hammer blows, an image of surmounting difficulties and overcoming dangers.

Perhaps that was why aerospace was something that corresponded to the imagery of Heavenly River Water.

Aerospace was where humanity placed its boundless imaginings of the galaxy and the starry sky.

And the rockets and engineering projects represented by these models, as well as the recovered satellites, had truly taken part, so they carried the faith of countless people in the boundless sea of stars.

It was thanks to these symbols and the faith of living beings that Wang An could comprehend the principles and rule runes matching the [Heavenly River Water] Dao foundation from the Mystic Qi he had refined together.

Gathering and refining the water qi in the Silver River Fine Dew in the early morning provided Heavenly River Water with its true water-attribute vessel.

Star Qi gave concrete form to the stars of the Heavenly River in the imagery of Heavenly River Water.

Greater Yin Qi mainly expressed time in Heavenly River Water.

The final strand of yang qi represented the logical foundation that yin was born when yang reached its extreme.

"All tourists, please proceed to the viewing platform. The rocket will ignite and launch in thirty minutes."

After the announcement came, the crowds all around began hurrying toward the viewing platform at the science center.

He could clearly sense that, because of this announcement, the Spirit Yang Qi in the crowd was beginning to show subtle changes.

When people reached the viewing platform, they saw the huge white rocket standing on the launchpad in the distance.

The emotions they conveyed-wonder, anticipation, longing for the starry sky, and imaginings of the galaxy-gradually changed the nature of the Spirit Yang Qi.

The spirituality within it, which represented higher intelligent beings, began to recede, and what slowly emerged in its place was a sharp, blazing faith.

As the launch time drew nearer, Supreme Yang also rose to the middle of the sky, pouring its explosive, bright Extreme Yang attribute, which shone over the whole earth, onto every person.

Wang An saw Extreme Yang Qi falling constantly all around, filling the entire launch site.

Below was humanity's Spirit Yang Qi; above was Supreme Yang's Extreme Yang Qi.

The two kinds of yang qi touched, intertwined, and steadily fused.

But Wang An did not sense any new heaven and earth qi being born. Perhaps that was because the crucial strand of metal-attribute qi was missing.

"All units ready. Launch countdown: ten, nine, eight, ... three, two, one. Ignite. Launch."

Boom.

Finally, the launch command was given. The space rocket's engines ignited, blasting out a high-temperature, high-pressure stream of gas at extreme speed.

The powerful thrust and airflow blasted outward, and huge clouds of thick smoke billowed up into the sky.

Wang An could sense that, as the engines began working, a strand of metal-attribute heaven and earth qi, imbued with a soaring drive to break through the clouds, spread in all directions.

As the rocket slowly rose, bursting out of the thick smoke and appearing before all the tourists, the crowd erupted in cheers and exclamations of wonder as one.

Amid those cries of amazement, the two streams of Extreme Yang Qi above and below caught the metal-attribute heaven and earth qi brought by the space rocket between them.

They steadily fused and mingled. This time, Wang An clearly observed the entire process of their combination.

The Extreme Yang Qi shed by Supreme Yang provided the energy, while the Spirit Yang Qi born of humanity served as a catalyst for the whole process.

The Spirit Yang Qi was not consumed in the actual fusion. Like a master craftsman, it slowly fused the metal-attribute heaven and earth qi with the Extreme Yang Qi.

It also infused the fusion with the faith within the Spirit Yang Qi: humanity's longing for the stars, spaceflight, the celestial bodies, and so on.

In the end, it forged this strand of Metal Yang Qi.

Looking at the cheering crowd, Wang An had no time to join in.

Instead, he closed his eyes and used his gathering and refining skill to draw the strand of Metal Yang Qi born in the distance into his body.

Wang An could clearly feel that gathering and refining from such a distance consumed an enormous amount of his mental energy, more than twice what he normally used.

When the first strand of Metal Yang Qi entered his body, he felt the sharp, blazing aura it gave off, surging upward and breaking through difficulties.

In Wang An's dantian, the strand of Metal Yang Qi immediately rose above the nascent sun of the [Innate Lesser Yang Sunlight Life-Nurturing Wondrous Qi], broke through the floating cloud of true qi, passed the silver moon of the [Innate Greater Yin Moonlight Spirit-Nurturing Wondrous Qi], and reached a place very, very far away.

It was like a satellite or starship in the sky, about to set out to explore the sea of stars, flashing with tiny points of light.

With no time to lose himself in the wonder of the strand of Metal Yang Qi and feel it further, Wang An immediately gathered and refined the few strands of Metal Yang Qi that were born one after another.

After more than ten minutes, Wang An had gathered a total of five strands of Metal Yang Qi.

At last, a person beside him noticed Wang An's face growing pale and looked puzzled and worried.

"Hey, brother. Are you feeling unwell? Want me to help you over there to rest for a bit, or call an ambulance?"

Only then did Wang An open his eyes. Having expended so much mental energy, he felt an aching pressure in his head.

"Thank you. I'm just a little tired. I can get back on my own."