Some time later,
Cang helped Xia Li finish the reignition process and also transmitted the complete fusion-again procedure to him, advising him to buy a medium-sized nuclear fusion reactor to carry around with him.
The problem was that such things cost several million spirit stones at a minimum.
At Xia Li's current level, he simply was not qualified to buy one.
And a micro-scale fusion reactor would not provide enough output.
That was extremely annoying.
Fortunately, if Xia Li did not mind wasting spiritual energy, he could still convert spiritual energy into power and use that to trigger fusion again.
"Friendly reminder: this reignition only performed a pre-ignition. You still need to complete the final fusion process yourself. It is recommended that you do so in a secure location."
Cang had not directly activated the stellar golden core after it fell back into the state of a dim dwarf star.
As the Heavenly Dao Computer, Cang could calculate almost everything. He understood very well that if he sent Xia Li out in peak condition, it would be far too eye-catching.
By contrast, letting Xia Li leave looking drained and unsteady would be much safer.
Even if the sects and clans investigated him, they would not immediately identify him as the owner of a stellar golden core.
"Thanks."
Xia Li naturally understood what Cang meant.
This Overheat test had killed two birds with one stone.
It had gathered data, and it had made him safer.
If nothing else, this alone made it clear that Cang was distinctly biased in his favor.
Could this be considered a form of heavenly favor?
Leaving the quantum domain field, Xia Li walked down the long passage and returned to the main hall.
Power had already been restored.
Quite a few people looked at Xia Li curiously, because there were only a few reasons anyone would enter the Heavenly Dao quantum domain field, and the most important one was breaking through a realm.
Anyone who needed the Heavenly Dao Computer's help to do that generally had extremely solid foundations and was absolutely one of the strongest among peers of the same realm, with combat power far beyond their current stage.
Meeting those probing gazes, Xia Li did not hide the fact that his aura was unstable.
To everyone else, it looked like the sign of someone who had only just barely broken through.
Using the Heavenly Dao Computer to force a breakthrough had another known effect as well:
it could artificially pull growth upward before the time was right.
People who broke through that way always showed obvious instability afterward.
And so...
once those people sensed Xia Li's unstable aura, their eyes quickly moved away.
Some even showed looks of contempt.
Those who relied on the Heavenly Dao Computer to forcibly raise the quality of their realm would later have to pay a massive price to repair the deficiencies in their foundation.
Otherwise, their path was essentially finished.
And so, with no one disturbing him and no one paying him much further attention, Xia Li calmly left city hall.
No one knew what exactly he had achieved.
People always judged everything according to their own experience.
New Tokyo's Upper District was extravagantly prosperous, but Xia Li had no mood to stroll around and enjoy it.
He would not be able to stay on Earth for long this time.
Half an hour later,
in the basement beneath Benzoin Clinic in the outer lower district of New Tokyo,
Xia Li returned straight to Yagyu Chihaya after finishing his business.
The moment she saw him emerge from the elevator and sensed the instability of his aura, a trace of disappointment crossed her face.
"So... it failed? What went wrong? Do you need any help?"
"I do. How fireproof is this place?"
"Pretty good... what do you mean by that?"
Yagyu Chihaya looked at him in confusion.
Xia Li did not answer.
He simply took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
The stellar golden core activated at once and fusion began again immediately.
In an instant, a terrifying heat wave burst outward from Xia Li's body.
The basement temperature soared, and Xia Li's aura rose with it, climbing higher and higher as though some slumbering thing were finally awakening.
Then an azure-blue wave of flame exploded from Xia Li's body, flaring in the air before vanishing almost at once, like a coronal ejection from a star.
And when one looked at Xia Li again, there was no trace of weakness left in his aura.
It was powerful and blazing hot.
Simply standing near him was enough to be scorched.
"You succeeded? What level is that golden core of yours?"
Yagyu Chihaya immediately hurried forward to inspect him closely.
Xia Li did not refuse.
Instead, he used his divine thought to guide her divine sense through a full circuit of his dantian.
This story originates from NovelFire. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"The Heavenly Dao Computer judged it to be humanity's first beyond ninth-grade golden core. It's called the stellar golden core. Overheat stage one can fight late Nascent Soul. Overheat stage two can fight Soul Transformation."
"Stage three can trigger gravitational collapse. Or I can emergency-stop the overheating by dumping the energy in a helium flash, which can kill peak Soul Transformation."
Xia Li briefly explained the Overheat mechanism, the feature that had made the imitation-star golden core so famous in the first place.
And in the stellar golden core, that feature had been magnified even further.
"I knew I was right about you. You've absolutely made history!"
"Yeah. The Heavenly Dao Council was convened too. I even met Yoren..."
Xia Li told Yagyu Chihaya everything that had happened.
He still remembered how much she had admired Yoren when she introduced him before.
At the time, Xia Li's opinion of Yoren had been rather ordinary. He had thought that although Yoren's contributions were not small, he still could not escape the corruption of capital.
Only now, after truly meeting him, did Xia Li realize how narrow-minded he had been back then.
Was Yoren's identity within the Corporate Alliance really something Yoren himself had wanted?
After listening quietly to the whole story, Yagyu Chihaya looked at Xia Li with such bright eyes that she was practically sending hearts.
"If you ever stop hanging around on Earth in the future, remember to take me with you. I want to go farm vegetables with Old Man Yoren too!"
"Sure."
Xia Li nodded.
No one knew what the future held.
Maybe one day he really would head for Proxima Centauri.
"Right. What next? Need my services?"
"Meaning?"
"Prosthetics, prosthetics! You've stripped off all your old implants. Now that you've stepped into Golden Core, your Heaven Chip should be upgraded too..."
"And then there's your golden core. A normal Spirit Core won't be able to suppress it at all."
"I'll contact Sister Ke in a bit and tell her your situation. Then we'll discuss how to match a prosthetic loadout for you. Send me your golden core data and your body data."
Yagyu Chihaya was clearly eager to outfit Xia Li.
For a prosthetics modifier, the more unique the subject, the more room there was to display skill.
The before-and-after data was also an important source for expanding one's own theoretical knowledge.
If one was going to modify, then one had to modify the strong and the extraordinary.
Only then could one become a true prosthetics expert.
"Sent."
"Good. But I still need a more detailed physiological profile. We need targeted testing. Come work out with me for a bit."
"All right."
Xia Li nodded.
But during the tests that followed, Yagyu Chihaya had to move in close to guide his posture.
That meant she was constantly being affected by the extreme heat radiating from his body, and before long she was drenched in sweat.
Her clothes were soaked through until they clung to her so tightly they might as well not have existed, and with her leaning in that close, Xia Li started having a very hard time keeping it together.
Still, he managed to endure.
Yagyu Chihaya was actually the first one who could not hold out.
"I can't do this anymore. It's too hot near you. Your body temperature is ridiculous. Are you trying to roast me into a dried corpse?"
"I'm going to take a shower. You'd better take an ice bath too and cool yourself off. I can tell you can't even bend over properly."
Yagyu Chihaya glanced below Xia Li's waist.
The place was like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
Xia Li immediately felt incredibly awkward.
"Well... ahem."
He coughed twice, then pointed at Yagyu Chihaya.
Of course she understood perfectly well why he could not bend over.
"Weren't you disgusted before? If you've got the guts, then don't get hard. Go inject yourself with a sedative. Or if you can't stand it, then come fuck me."
She still had that same attitude.
But Xia Li was not the same as before.
Now that he carried humanity's first beyond ninth-grade golden core, his confidence was surging.
For Yagyu Chihaya to keep mocking him at a time like this was practically asking for trouble.
"Looks like you've never seen a nuclear-powered piston. Jokes like this are one thing once or twice, but do you really think I have no temper?"
"I can't hold it in anymore, and I'm done pretending. I don't give a damn about any of that!"
Xia Li strode forward and grabbed Yagyu Chihaya by the arm.
"Uh... if I apologize now, is it still in time?"
"What do you think?"
Using telekinesis, Xia Li immobilized her, then dragged her straight into the break room.