Beastmaster of the Ages

In the wondersky realm, Tianming and Lingfeng entered the Violetglory Pagoda together for a challenge at the same time. Tianming managed to enter the third level like before. He saw a boundless sky filled with countless stars, each one a caelum of a departed senior. Unlike seniors who had died under unpredictable circumstances, those that managed to leave their caeli behind were considered to have led rather decent lives. After all, almost all of them had died at the end of their lifespan. Given how rapidly Tianming scanned through caeli, he needed a vast pool of them like there was in the pagoda, rather than the meager number he obtained in the Voidsky Realm.

"Since Orderia doesn't have a wondersky realm, unlike the Violetglory Star, the latter must be closer to the core of the astralscape of order where more power is concentrated. However, where in the world is it?"

It was said that the astralscape of order was so vast that nova source worlds spread out across it weren't able to see each other, or if they did, the stronger one would incite a war of conquest. That was the reason for the existence of outposts.

Given that Tianming was accessing the cultivation benefits of Violetglory Star despite being in Orderia, the battle arts he could use were nothing short of amazing. As he scanned through the caeli, he slowly paved his own path. Every day, he would be challenged by someone as powerful as a sixth-level constellier, given the level he was on. As for how long he could persist, it depended on luck.

"Lin Feng, it's actually you!"

"Wow, you're famous! I heard that many sects are looking for you in the real world. They even promised you cultivation resources!"

"Did you hear about the secluded old masters that have shown up to ask you to be their disciple?"

"Have you chosen who to side with yet?"

Many of the people that had challenged him recognized him.

"Given how you were able to challenge eighteen ancient idols straight, people say your comprehension abilities are unbelievable."

"Hmph, let's see how you fare in real combat."

Winning and losing were common affairs in the Violetglory Pagoda. The worst-case scenario for Tianming was that he would only be allowed to come back to the pagoda ten days after he lost. On average, he was only able to stay for two or three days, but that was still more effective than cultivating on the second level of the pagoda. As for the time he wasn't in the tower, he went hunting in the Voidsky Realm like the other participants. Since he only had to eliminate them by shattering their imperial star formation, it wasn't killing for real and he didn't feel bad about doing it.

"Still, it kind of feels like this competition is heavily based on luck. The rate of encountering other participants here has little to do with actual strength."

Using his Plundering Eye, he had a much easier time finding the other participants. About ninety percent of the billion people here were samsarans, so Tianming only needed to use Vitasteal against them. That was a move he could easily employ against those who were a whole stage weaker than him, thanks to the qualitative difference in their souls. Anyone with a first divine soul and below was easily controlled by Tianming. All he needed was to use Vitasteal on them and let his lifebound beasts do the rest. As such, he could easily take down thousands of samsarans at once. The problem was: where was he to find so many people gathered in the same place? The Voidsky Realm was fraught with hiding places, and anyone with a bit of sense would keep a low profile and try not to attract the attention of others.

"In essence, my encounter rate determines the number of points I get." Though Tianming felt like he was putting in quite a bit of work to raise his points, the imperial star ranking always had people who had way more points than him.

As a month passed, the names on the ranking kept on shifting. There were some that he recognized, but others were unknowns just like him. Currently, the top score on the stele was a hundred and eighty thousand—a single person had taken out that many enemies. Those in the top ten all had more than a hundred thousand points.

These days, Tianming spent most of his time seeking out enemies, apart from the time he spent in the Violetglory Pagoda. He had only just managed to get his thirteen-thousandth point, finally joining the other ten-thousand-pointers. Now, he was ranked around two thousand and eight hundred. People had long forgotten that he used to be in first place and stopped paying attention to him, turning their sights to those competing at the top instead. As for Yu Ziqian, even he could rank among the top ten thousand. Lingfeng and Xiaoxiao were also in the ranking around the eight-thousandth place, having some two or three thousand points.

The imperial star ranking now had around ten thousand names as the geniuses rose to the top. Every name had a sect beside it, and any casual examination would show that more than eight of the ten thousand ranked disciples belonged to the top ten sects. The Blueblood Starocean's disciples alone took up more than seven hundred places. As for the top hundred in the ranking, they were all from the first-rate sects without exception. It was a monopoly by the elite geniuses!

Geniuses born across the various continents would be recruited by the first-rate sects, who promised them enough resources to move the talented youths from rural places. Youthful talent was the foundation of a sect's strength, and smaller sects had a really hard time retaining it, causing them to weaken over time. However, the larger sects that recruited people from the smaller sects would usually compensate and protect them. In that sense, the smaller sects didn't suffer much even if they weren't able to keep their talented disciples.

......

Tianming couldn't be bothered paying attention to the fierce competition over the top ten places. He knew that these people understood the Voidsky Realm far better than him and had the cooperation of their fellow disciples. The chances of competing with them in terms of number of enemies defeated was a pipe dream.

"There's no chance unless a million samsarans suddenly appear in front of me for me to defeat." Based on the state of the points now, the three thousand he got from the minorsky stele was just a small number.

The first-rate disciples continued their rampage across the Voidsky Realm. Oftentimes, they would gather up a lot of prey before sending them off for the slaughter. There was no competition at all, and Yu Ziqian was on the verge of crying. Though his pill recession phase hadn't passed yet, he was so far back compared to those on the top.

"Even if the phase passes, how am I to catch up?" he said, troubled.

Ranking high was much harder than he thought it would be. There were too many factors that made it unviable. He finally felt how hard it would be to be a lone wolf without any backing. "If I want to join the Sky Palace, I must rank in the top ten and gain the Azuresoul Palace's protection. Otherwise, things will get messy for me, especially with how everyone outside knows me now," Tianming mused.

Backing in the form of having a good sect was crucial. He had come here to look for such an opportunity, though he was worried that Qingyu wouldn't be able to wait that long. Not to mention, getting a place in the Sky Palace would affect the hatching of the fifth egg. He knew he couldn't afford to lose. "However, I can only enter the Violetglory Pagoda once every ten days, and only for two or three days at a time. Even after a month, I've only spent around eight days inside it. It's still not enough for me to make significant progress."

It wasn't that he didn't know that the standards he placed on himself were far too high. The strides he had made within this short time would take even top disciples six months to a year of cultivation despite their talent being not that much inferior to him, not to mention their simpler divine wills.

"All I can do with the caeli is observe the experiences contained within. I still have to be the one to make my own breakthrough." The most important part of cultivation was actually getting into the fray and expending one's own energy in battle. "I need to get used to how difficult it'll get. Easily getting my way all the time could cause me to lose my imagination in cultivation."

Though he hadn't been able to break through over the past month, he was at least able to stabilize his power at the ninth level, far more than Xiaoxiao did. Since their conversation that day, there was no longer anything lingering between them. Through his battles, he had gotten some three hundred thousand caeli for her. As their quality couldn't compare to those in the Violetglory Pagoda, he had no use for them.

Xiaoxiao continued consuming the caeli to nurture the talent she had gotten from the Archaionfiend, slowly building up her reserves. Her growth was quickly apparent, much to Tianming's envy. Naturally, the Archaionfiend was overjoyed at this. Though it didn't really have a say in the matter, the stronger Xiaoxiao got, the stronger it grew as well. Not to mention, it was more powerful than its beastmaster in combat, unlike most other beasts.

It had been a month, and Xiaoxiao felt so bloated she was about to explode. Tianming had fed her all the way from the Octasaint Sky level to the Orderian Sky level. Now, she was only one step away from becoming a constellier. "Is cultivation really that easy?" she mused.

"Get out of my sight!" Tianming said saltily. He was still struggling in his own cultivation troubles.

Then again, though Xiaoxiao was a twelfth-level ascendant, her actual power was lower than that. It would already be good enough if she could exert enough power to rival an eleventh-level ascendant. Her divine will was akin to an overfed fatty, having enough mass to rise up a weight class, though most of it was soft blubber rather than firm muscles. Tianming's Imperial Will, on the other hand, was a super-stiff sword.

Though, it didn't matter too much. All she had to do was to slowly cut the fat and lean up. More importantly, the Archaionfiend was filled with power. At the twelfth level, its abilities could rival even those of beasts of first-level constelliers according to Tianming's tests.