Beastmaster of the Ages

Fifth Disciple Gongsun Yan sat outside the courtyard under a glowing tree, absorbing midsky essence to nourish his body. Revolving around him were eleven cosmic charts. The power of his order formed a neat cage around his body. Someone like him, who was younger than five hundred years old and nearing the Foundation stage, was easily in the top twenty among black-ring fortuna disciples. If he returned to his own mundus, even the foundationeer rex mundi there would have to act like his humble servant. In fact, he was even a level higher than the two-thousand-year-old Li Fan.

”I’ve messed with Eighth Brother quite a lot in the past decade. While he did learn to be obedient after his rough edges had been sanded off, he holds some of that rage without having been able to vent it. I doubt he’ll be able to advance his insight and understanding of order if he doesn’t resolve it. He’s been the youngest disciple for far too long, after all. I hope he doesn’t kill the new guy....”

At the thought of that, his lips curved into an odd smile. ”It’s an old custom of new disciples to be bullied by their senior disciples. Then again, those from the outside need to have their rough edges smoothed out to be able to survive, so it’s less bullying and more educating, I must say. This new disciple, in particular, isn’t just covered in rough edges, but outright spikes.”

Gongsun Yan himself had undergone hazing. He was the fifth disciple and four hundred and ninety-seven years old. In three years, he would become a maniverse disciple like his four senior disciples and no longer compete with other fortuna disciples. The thought of that caused him to sigh.

”The good days will be over soon.... Currently, I have an edge when it comes to the Fortuna Ranking. But when I turn five hundred, I’ll be competing against those around a thousand years old. People often say maniverse disciples have it the hardest between five hundred and a thousand years old. Only the most supreme of elites can easily survive it. I think it’ll be quite difficult for me!

”Then again, I do have time. As long as I reach the Foundation stage, I’ll have cleared half of the trial and be allowed to permanently stay in Myriadpath Valley. That’s the key! Cultivation in Myriadpath Valley is as easy as drinking water during the early stages. There are people who make more than ten breakthroughs in a year, after all.

”It isn’t hard at the Order stage, but at the Cosmic Cartography stage, even forming a single cosmic chart is so complex! In the early levels, it took only two to three years each, but now each one takes decades. My last cosmic chart might take a few hundred years! Foundationeer cultivation might be even worse.... No surprise, though. The Foundation stage is the universal bottleneck of the astralscape of order, after all. If one really manages to go beyond that, they’d be superior to astralsea divinities, right?”

Everyone in the many mundi struggled to reach the Foundation stage. The strongest among them gathered at Myriadpath Valley to keep making breakthroughs beyond that!

”There’s a dozen levels in the Cosmic Cartography stage, but the levels represent rather large distances. Each of them is about as hard as advancing four levels of the normal god stages. The closer one is to the end of their lifespan, the more desperate they have to be to take another step!”

Such was Gongsun Yan’s understanding of the lifelong struggle of cultivators in Myriadpath Valley. They were pushing themselves to the limits that they were capable of to stand at the top of the astralscape of order! ”Becoming a reverend or eminent in Myriadpath Valley means reigning supreme over everyone in the Mullion Mundi!”

That was the goal all cultivators in Myriadpath Valley aspired to. As he lost himself in his dreams, he heard the sound of fighting coming from Tianming’s courtyard and couldn’t stop himself from laughing. ”Eighth Brother really can’t hold it in at all. He got into a fight right away. How silly and simple of him.”

He shook his head and sighed. However, he didn’t expect the sounds to stop in almost an instant. ”Wait, why’d it stop so soon? Didn’t Youngest Brother defeat Huang Daoxiong? Why’s he such a pushover?”

He couldn’t help but turn and look toward the courtyard, only to see fireworks and starlight flashing in the sky. ”Someone must’ve been heavily maimed or killed for that many astrons to scatter!”

Gongsun Yan also heard an agonizing cry. ”Damn it! Gong Xuan, did you go mad?!”

He was speechless and immediately stopped cultivating. Then he rushed to the courtyard, cursing Gong Xuan along the way. A pale white energy appeared near his chest like Lingfeng’s Primordial Vortex. It was unique to the godspring race.

Godspringers were born with a vortex of cosmoforce near their chest, allowing them to control twice as much cosmoforce as normal cultivators. During the astral god stages, their godsprings would become true astralsea godsprings and have an even higher energy capacity.

As such, godspringers, like the godshades, were normal humans who didn’t have lifebound beasts, totems, or divine wonders, but were able to hold up to those cultivators all the same. In fact, the divineglorians from Violetglory were descended from godspringers, but the world was a mere heliacal-class one so Princess Shenyu’s talent was definitely incomparable to Gongsun Yan’s.

There was quite a substantial number of normal human cultivators like godspringers in Myriadpath Valley. They numbered almost as many as specters and totemancers. In fact, they made breakthroughs much faster than totemancers and beastmasters, with Gongsun Yan being a typical example of their race.

With a loud growl, Gongsun Yan charged into Tianming’s courtyard and immediately let his cosmoforce spread out. ”Gong Xuan, what the hell are you doing?!”

Right after that, he froze. Gong Xuan was nowhere to be seen! He only saw Tianming, who was putting his astral-bloodstained sword away. Gong Xuan had scattered into dazzling fireworks.

Gongsun Yan knew that he was dead for good. His astral organs felt like they were going to explode as he widened his eyes at the sight of the cold, ruthless youngest disciple, who stared back at him with smog-filled eyes. Tianming’s aura and demeanor struck terror deep in his psyche.

He was more shocked by the fact that Tianming had dared to kill a senior brother right after joining them than the fact that he was even powerful enough to do so! Gong Xuan must have never expected that a small little altercation would make Tianming go for the kill! Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone down so easily.

”Li Tianming, how dare you kill a fellow senior disciple after you just got taken in?! Do you not fear death?!”