Beastmaster of the Ages

Suishen Yao seemed even more agitated than Tianming. She knew the implications of Tianming’s achievements to the Three Exalted Houses. She pulled on his robes and shook him as she said, ”Do you know? You’ve essentially proven that your talents surpass the current generation of the Three Exalted Houses!”

”Oh... OH! I’m honored,” Tianming said, somewhat shyly.

”Honored? Do you know that nobody’s ever surpassed us in terms of talent in all the history of Myriadpath Valley and the Million Mundi? You’re the very first!” Her pink eyes shone utterly brightly.

”Well, I am your disciple, after all. Little Master, you must’ve taught me well,” Tianming said with a serious look.

”Shut up!” Suishen Yao rolled her eyes. Though she knew he was just flattering her, she still felt rather pleased at hearing it. She started feeling like Tianming was quite a decent person. Even after creating such a miracle, he didn’t let it get to him and still knew to attribute his success to her.

”Get up,” she said as she pulled him up.

Thanks to Suishen Yao, Tianming felt secure. Without anyone’s support, standing out like that might not necessarily be a good thing. Thankfully, the Three Exalted Houses are more or less united. However, there’s internal factions as well. The Suishen siblings who like me are still juniors, at the end of the day, so I’ll have to depend on Eminent Jiguang, who made me a Suishen ward even though Eminent Ranxing didn’t want to give me any official endorsement. That really helped.

He was a young black ring disciple who hadn’t even washed the ’stench’ of an outsider off of himself, yet he had obtained the top prize with a tenfold multiplier on top. Normally, there would be no assurance that Myriadpath Valley would properly reward him. And even if they did, was he powerful enough to survive with such a great haul? It was crucial that Suishen Yao and Eminent Jiguang were there for him.

If the Three Exalted Houses were united, they could easily dominate the Million Mundi and keep themselves reigning from on high. They shouldn’t have any need for geniuses from outer mundi at all. We only play a role if they have interests that the others don’t share.

That was the reason Tianming needed to spark conflict between House Suishen and House Yumo’s younger generation. It was only because of that that he had even gotten a chance to appeal to House Suishen in the first place. The more Yumo Yuanni hated Suishen Zhao, the more useful Tianming would be.

Either way, just looking at the rewards I’ll be getting today, all my hard work and dangerous encounters have been worth it! He had made it out with a great haul.

The audience talked about him for a full half hour without any sign of stopping. Despite his age, he was the most topical person in the entire valley.

If Li Fan learns about my status, he might just immediately lose his mind, he thought. Perhaps Li Fan would be thinking that Tianming was still hiding under Lan Yun’s wing, since others only saw him as a tainted beastmaster. However, Tianming had achieved overnight stardom and everyone was looking at him with shock and awe. Never had Myriadpath Valley been shaken to such a degree.

The many myriadpath saints and reverends smiled and clapped for him, especially those who weren’t from the Three Exalted Houses. They felt an additional ounce of sympathy for him. Some eminents were shocked to see that an outer mundi disciple had managed to eclipse even members of the three houses in talent. Discussions and debates endlessly raged on.

At the end, everyone turned and looked at Eminent Ranxing. One of the reasons for that was that House Suishen had profited greatly by making Tianming their ward. Additionally, he was the administrator of the Prehistoric Path this time around and it was time for the rewards to be given out. Eminent Ranxing had a partial core of the Myriadpath Celestial Formation that allowed him to adjust the merit points and springwater allocation for any individual’s myriadpath ring.

Tianming’s black ring, for example, also recorded his status as a Suishen ward and no longer denoted him as Lan Yun’s disciple. The reason Suishen Yao was only nominally able to take Tianming as a disciple was also because her name wasn’t officially recorded there. Upon Lan Yun’s death, Tianming’s status as a reverend’s disciple had been automatically annulled. He’d had no official status until he was recently made a ward.

”Father, time to give out the rewards?” Suishen Yao publicly asked as she pulled Tianming tight.

Eminent Ranxing didn’t need to change anything as the rewards had been previously programmed in, including Tianming and Suishen Zhao’s multipliers. All he needed to do was nod and the rewards would automatically be transferred.

Everyone waited to see if Tianming would report how many merit points he actually received. Eminent Ranxing waited for a long time after Tianming cleared the ancestral idol. Even though Eminent Jiguang said a lot of things to him, he didn’t respond in the slightest.

”Announce it!” Eminent Jiguang said as she nudged him.

Eminent Ranxing glared at her. This little sister of his had been born when his parents were much older, so they’d spoiled her from a young age. There was nothing he could do about her antics.

He stepped forward and scanned the audience. ”It’s been two months of grueling effort. First, I’d like to congratulate the talented top eight hundred disciples on their achievements and the rewards they earned by going through the Prehistoric Path.”

People cheered in response. Eminent Ranxing then turned to the participants themselves and continued in a stern voice, ”The top ten most outstanding teams from both the Maniverse and Fortuna Paths have been ranked. Those forty disciples shall receive rewards according to their final rank!”

In his summary, he didn’t comment about Tianming’s unprecedented performance at all. Tianming had a rough idea why the eminent didn’t like him, but others simply believed that he was overwhelmed with joy and didn’t want to say too much and appear biased. There was no need to boast about Tianming when he had already gotten him to join his house, after all.

Eminent Ranxing mustered his loudest voice and announced, ”The rewards for participating in the Prehistoric Path shall be immediately given out!”