Beastmaster of the Ages

Yu Ziqian humbled himself with his usual smile on his face.

"What's up?" Tianming asked.

"Oh, I was just bored. Since we were lucky enough to meet, let's talk about life and get to know each other better!" Yu Ziqian leaned back against Lan Huang's large horn and looked into the distance. "When the Voidsky Realm opens, heroic youths gather. I wonder how many top geniuses will be born this decade!"

The horizon he looked toward was warped by the heat thanks to the hot air. Normal people wouldn't be able to endure weather like this at all.

"Does the Azuresoul Palace have information about the Myriad Solar Sects?" Tianming asked.

"Of course! Even though the many sects and empires hide their geniuses before showing them off at the event, there's still traces. Azuresoul Palace's intelligence gathering wouldn't miss out on them!" he said proudly.

"Then let me have it," Tianming said, stretching his hand out.

"What?"

"The information." Tianming smiled, cradling his chin.

"Boss… This won't do. It's forbidden to spread the information outside the Azuresoul Palace…"

"It's fine, we'll trade. It'll be a win-win."

"Fine!" Yu Ziqian took out a small formation from his spatial ring. "Most people among the billion contestants are cannon fodder, so they aren't recorded. We only have files on the best of the best. There's around a thousand of them. We have information about their abilities, uniqueness, power levels, and even their pictures."

The formation looked similar to the one the divine moonrace used to record battle arts. The Moonnight Patio engraved those formations on the bamboo trees. However, the ones in Orderia were much more complicated and could archive all the information about so many people.

Without a word, Tianming took the intelligence formation. He now had a certain understanding of the enemies he might have to face. Having experienced what he had at the Divine Moon Realm, he knew how bad it was to have completely no support or backing, like he did now in Orderia. If he wanted a chance to grow powerful, he needed to find a backer. There could be no talk of dignity before that.

So his first goal was to join the Sky Palace and become someone people couldn't just casually offend. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to look into the 'experiment', faced with cultivators that had been around for hundreds, or even thousands of years. At the very least, he also had to join the tournament to find out the general strength of the people he'd be competing against.

The intelligence formation was an amazing thing indeed. Fortunately for Tianming, most contestants would be under the age of thirty. He believed he and Lingfeng would have a fighting chance. Based on what he heard from Yu Ziqian, the tournament could last anywhere from three months to a year, so they had enough time and wouldn't be swarmed like before. Tianming inspected the inner part of the formation and found that it was split into thousands of regions, each of them with visuals of the top disciples of the Myriad Solar Sects and details about their abilities. The first entry was Yu Ziqian.

It read: Yu Ziqian, normal human. Fourth-level constellier. Top genius of the current generation in Azuresoul Palace. Peak pill-refining talent. Chief disciple. Master: Defender of Azuresoul Tower, Jiang Qingliu. A famous master will bring forth an amazing disciple, his future potential is limitless and he's a candidate for Sky Palace. The rest is a secret!

Tianming was speechless when he finished reading. "Who made this entry?"

"My master…" Yu Ziqian awkwardly said. No wonder it was the first entry. Though the rest was secret, it was already good enough that it revealed his level.

"So you're a fourth-level constellier?"

"Well… sometimes, I guess! Just consider it boasting." He did say that Azuresoul Palace was a second-rate faction. That being the case, a fourth-level constellier like him was its chief disciple. That was a good benchmark for the rest of the youths in the other factions. In Orderia, anyone under thirty were considered youths, while those under fifty were considered young adults. They were still quite far from the Voidsky Realm, so Tianming had time to continue reading up on potential foes.

"Boss, didn't you say it's an exchange? Where's your information?" Yu Ziqian asked.

"Oh? I don't have any."

"Damn, you were messing with me!"

"You have a problem with that?"

"No. Boss, I have a feeling you might not belong to any faction or empire at all. I think you might've inherited a legacy from a lone-wolf elite, right?" That would explain why his new friends seemed rather unknowledgeable about the world, and even needed his information.

"Don't overthink it. Our background is normal, and we're still far from being as powerful as a fourth-level constellier like you," Tianming said with a smile.

"Stop rubbing salt in my wounds…"

"I'm not. You'll definitely rise when the time is right," Tianming said, patting his shoulder.

"I'll take your word for it then."

……

The group had traveled for three days so far. The further up the river they went, the denser the flaming clouds above. Fierce, hot gusts blew above the river constantly.

"So Orderia doesn't have a wondersky realm." That was the conclusion Tianming had come to from the information he could squeeze out of Yu Ziqian, who hadn't even heard of the divine wondersky race.

There was a small grey egg in Tianming's palm that kept excitedly bouncing every day. "Little one, there's no use being impatient. I heard that there's only two places that lead into the suncore, one's in the celestial orderians' territory and the other's at the Sky Palace. I can only give you the nutrients you need after joining the latter."

The egg jumped and rammed into Tianming's head.

"Be nice." He carefully grabbed it. Suddenly, he heard a sharp sound. He was panicking, for the egg had cracked! "What?! Without enough power to fuel the hatching, you'll be ruined!"

Panicking, he hurriedly let go. When he opened his eyes to look, he saw that the egg wasn't cracked at all. Instead, it had split into two that looked and felt completely the same! Both of them had two small black dots.

"Which one of you is the Fifth?"