Beastmaster of the Ages

”Auntie Hua, let’s go somewhere quieter.” After hearing about the order fragment, Tianming was quite interested in its benefits. He hurriedly got them to go where there were fewer people.

Even though Auntie Hua had suffered from xeno fatigue, she still had her order. After some time spent absorbing energy from the surroundings, she had recovered her tenth-astral orderan power. Clearly, she was more powerful than Beibei. While it wasn’t that impressive in Creektown, she could still protect herself to some extent.

”Understood, Benefactor.” She hurried over to a quiet valley. ”Benefactor, what’s this cold sensation that’s creeping up my body?” She felt lots of cold thing crawling up her, but she couldn’t see anything when she looked.

”They’re bugs,” Tianming said.

”Aaah....” The color drained from her face.

”Mother, don’t be afraid. They’re cute metal bugs,” Beibei said.

”Hahaha!” Tianming couldn’t help but laugh.

”Yin Chen, come out.”

”Okay fine.” Yin Chen had turned into many invisible cockroaches and begun spreading out through Creektown. It would take a few days for it to truly infiltrate the whole town, given its size.

”Focus on spreading out for maximum coverage, then tell me everything I need to know about Creektown, such as its history, hierarchies, feuds, and so on. I also want details on the auction for the order fragment.”

”Do you... think I’m... doing this... for free?” Yin Chen said, annoyed.

”How about I give you a nice scrubbing when you bathe?” Tianming said, rolling his eyes.

”That’s more... like it... yeah yeah!” Yin Chen perked up again as the countless invisible cockroaches scattered. The population of Creektown was only in the tens of thousands, while there were a billion Yin Chens. It would easily be able to surveil the entire town.

”Pay attention to Shi Long and his friends, as well as their whereabouts,” Tianming added.

”Shi Long... heard of... the news... and has... hurried to... the village!” Fortunately, Tianming was no longer to be found. As long as he had Yin Chen, it would be quite difficult for him, Auntie Hua, and Beibei to encounter Shi Long.

”My first priority is to find a place to stay. Creektown is large, but there are few people. It would be hard to permanently stay there without being discovered by Shi Long.” For now, Tianming had no choice but to wander around with the two silverfoxes. They hid themselves in the town until Yin Chen was done gathering the information they needed. The first thing it had managed to discover was that the Qi Family would be auctioning the order fragment to the highest bidder five days later at creekside. Only highly desired items would be auctioned off in the first place.

”In five days?” He would need soulstones to buy the order fragment. Soulstones were a crystallized form of xeno source, which could be used to quickly recover cosmoforce. They were the common currency of the Xenoabyss. However, Tianming didn’t have any of them, so it would be nigh impossible for him to acquire the order fragment through legitimate means. ”But I must have it. It’s simply too wondrous.”

He patiently waited for more information. Thanks to the population being only ten thousand, it wasn’t hard to figure out the extent of the relationships in town. Soon, he had a clear picture of everything; by the third day, he knew everything he needed to know.

The town had been rife with talk about the upcoming auction. There were a few notable pieces of information that were of greater import. Firstly, the Qi family had once been quite influential in Creektown, but they’d fallen from grace in recent years due to various issues. Secondly, the main cause for their fall was that two key figures in their family got xeno fatigue. One of them was the mother of Qi Huan, the leader of the family, and the other was his son. For the sake of extending his mother’s life and relieving his son’s pain, he had used everything at the family’s disposal. Yet their xeno fatigue didn’t cease or waver.

”The fact that the Qi Family is willing to auction off the order fragment means they haven’t given up. The son of the family leader, Qi Xuan, just hit five hundred years old and is a cosmic cartographer. He used to be the third most talented genius in Creek Martial Academy!” Reaching that stage at five centuries old put him on the same level as the most talented people in the Skydome Mundus, yet someone like that hailed from a small town in the Xenoabyss.

No matter how much the order fragment would sell for, all they could do was relieve the suffering of those afflicted by xeno fatigue. In most instances, the afflicted would simply be given up on, no matter their status. The Qi Family must be rather kind and sentimental for them to try alleviating their suffering anyway, no matter the cost.

Naturally, Tianming didn’t dare to be too careless in his quest for the order fragment. He made sure to thoroughly study all two-hundred-plus members of the Qi Family down to the finest detail.

Eventually, the day of the auction came. Tianming found Auntie Hua and Beibei a good place to take shelter before heading to the Qi Family manor. Before he left, he told Auntie Hua, ”The moment you get a signal from me through these bugs, spread the word that an outworlder that can dispel the fatigue is helping the Qi Family.”

He knew that he would be hailed as the only savior in the Xenoabyss. But before he could protect himself, he wanted to be careful. He would only send the signal to Auntie Hua to prevent the worst-case scenario.

”Okay!” The two of them didn’t know what would happen to him and were filled with worry.

After bidding goodbye, Tianming snuck toward the manor in the east of Creektown, taking advantage of his small, hard-to-spot size.

......

The Qi Family was a family of famous blazetiger specters in Creektown. There were many other specters of that type within the Xenoabyss. Blazetigers were white humanoid tigers with towering builds and piercing blue eyes. Their claws looked like blue blades, and their foreheads were marked with three horizontal black stripes and one vertical one crossing all three in the middle, reminiscent of the character for ’ruler’, and looked rather imposing. The most domineering of them in the Qi Family was Qi Huan, the leader of the current generation.

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1. 王 is the character described by the author. ?