Beastmaster of the Ages

The Infinitum Stele, even in its current form, was a powerful maniverse-class artifact. If Tianming dominated it without fusing it with the Grand-Orient Sword, he would have two weapons. Normally, he would only use his Grand-Orient Sword with the Infinitum Stele being reserved as a hidden trump card.

”Yi Daiyan used the dark mirror spirit to dominate the crippled artifact soul of the Infinitum Stele, and even then it took her quite a bit of effort. I wonder what it’ll be like for me.”

Tianming was connected to hundreds of trillions of omnisentient threads in Ebonia and glowed like a bright, brilliant star. In total, he should have more than a quadrillion omnisentient threads in the entire Infinitum Mundus combined, with most of them too spread out or far away. Not to mention, most of them were from mortals, so they couldn’t compare to the gods of Ebonia.

Still, with so many threads connected to him, he should be insanely powerful. The Infinitum Stele was a part of the Grand-Orient Sword, which used to be the weapon of the Primordial God-Emperor.

”Let’s see what happens when the successor of the Primordial God-Emperor comes to dominate you with a quadrillion omnisentient threads.” Tianming’s words caused the Infinitum Stele to rumble and hum.

The phantom of a butterfly-like beast manifested from the Infinitum Stele. It didn’t have a true form; instead, it looked like an image that flew around the surface of the stele at high speed. Then it folded its wings and prostrated itself before Tianming, letting out docile cries. The domination was instant! It seemed to have been waiting for a very long time.

The Infinitum Stele started shrinking until it was the size of a formless glowing sword without a fixed form. Tianming held it in his hand. ”Is the power within it a cosmic impulse? It’s far too volatile!”

Even in its formless state, it could unleash more power than the current Grand-Orient Sword. The power within the Infinitum Stele was sharp, destructive, and forceful! Tianming recalled how Yi Daiyan had utilized it to make a cage formed from black-and-gold sword ki to seal off the monster from the ancestral world.

Right as he thought that, the glowing sword turned into millions of sword projections and formed a cage. Each strand of sword ki let out a sharp, hissing sound that could easily dazzle those who heard it. Its transformation made it a completely different beast compared to the Grand-Orient Sword.

Since it’s already under my control, I should use it separately for now, and only in critical situations. If I’m truly in dire straits, I’ll fuse it with the Grand-Orient Sword. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to keep it on him. He had wanted to carry an alternate weapon with him, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to care about Demoness Yin’s Bloodweavers.

”It’s heavy!” Tianming immediately felt the weight of the Infinitum Stele on his finger when he put it in his spatial ring. Fortunately, the spatial ring he used now was also a top-tier cosmic artifact and had enough volume to store it all.

Having dealt with the Infinitum Stele, he summoned his lifebound beasts back to him. Before he left, however, he decided to go to the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb to visit Moran. He had been so busy after rescuing all of them that he hadn’t found time to visit her.

The ship was parked in the Sky Palace Formation. All the denizens of the Sun were making merry as they rebuilt their new world. They were busy with all kinds of tasks.

Moran didn’t know what she should do, so she stayed near the ship. Tianming saw her almost right away. To avoid shocking everyone around her, she had fused with her forty-nine other sisters, who experienced the world through her eyes. She was leaning against the ship, wearing a long dress and basking in daylight.

”Little Fish!” Tianming called out.

Moran’s body shuddered. She had thought that Tianming was so busy that he wouldn’t be able to spare any time to visit her, so she was quite shocked to hear his voice. Her emotional turbulence only lasted the slightest moment, though, and she stilled her heart and turned to look at him with a faint smile. ”I’m here.”

Tianming was far too dazzling, as if he shone with the radiance of countless torches. He gave Moran a close look and smiled. ”Not bad. What level are you at right now?”

”Perhaps it’s because of the springwater from the Myriadpath Sourcespring, but I broke through all of a sudden in the span of a few days. I’m a seventh-level stellaminor now,” she said, blushing and keeping her head low. Her sisters were also of the same level, thanks to the unique symbiotic relationship they shared. ”I didn’t break through that much. I heard that some people went all the way from the Ascension stage to the peak of the Solar stage.”

”Oh, is that true? Isn’t my ’shower of love’ amazing?” Tianming chuckled.

”Shower of love?” Moran figured he was describing the springwater. He made it unnecessarily romantic, though.

”Look.” Tianming took out a white jade box. ”Here’s some more of that love. I’m giving you a bit more than the others got.”

Moran looked at the box and immediately knew that there was some springwater within. It was the springwater he had claimed from his stipend—more than a month’s worth of it, in fact. It was the last of what he had!

”Am I getting more because I’m not just a single person?” Moran accepted the jade box with shaky hands.

”It’s because you’re important to me,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes.

Moran bit her lip and hummed a quiet agreement.

”To be frank, apart from those ten kegs, this is the last of the springwater I have. I haven’t used a single drop for myself even though I had so much,” he said with a shrug.

”Ah....” Moran hurriedly handed the box back to him. ”I didn’t know this was so precious. I’d better return it to you.”

Tianming pushed back against her hands. ”What’re you talking about? I can get as much of this as I want in the future. You should use this. I’ll bring even more back when I visit again! You’re different from Ling’er and Xiaoxiao. Your talent doesn’t lie in fast breakthroughs. But even if you aren’t a peak genius in the astralscape, I want to forge you into a miracle genius by springwater and brute force!”

Moran blankly stared at him as tears flowed from her eyes. Her inky-green irises shook with emotion.

”Take it!” Tianming pinched her on the cheek. ”With this, you’ll be an astral god the next time we meet, but that isn’t enough. To wield infinitum-class divine wonders, you have to reach the peak of the Cosmic Cartography stage. The path you have to walk is still long. We’ll focus on raising the level of lifeform you are, first. Otherwise you’ll get infected if something like red dust comes along again.”

Hearing that, Ying Huo couldn’t endure it any longer and popped out of his lifebound space. ”Brother, you’re trying too hard to get that fifty-times pleasure. I’m almost touched when I see you act like that.”

Tianming stuffed it back into his lifebound space without even acknowledging its existence and turned his attention back to Moran.

”What’d Ying Huo mean by fifty-times pleasure?” Moran innocently asked.

”Oh, it means that I’ll be so happy once you become an astral god. Fifty times as happy as I am now,” he smoothly explained.

”Oh, I see....” She gave it some thought and resolve eventually appeared in her eyes. ”Don’t worry, we’ll do our best! One day, we’ll repay your favor.”

”Favor?” Tianming shook his head. ”All of you have long repaid me in full.”

She didn’t dispute that, though she felt that she had done far from enough to actually repay him. She merely kept it unsaid.

Tianming knew that he wouldn’t be able to change her mind anyway. ”I’ll have to leave soon. Focus on cultivating and say hi to your sisters for me.”

”They don’t want you to—” She immediately paused. ”Never mind, it’s nothing. Go do your thing. Ambition calls.”

”Yes, it sure does....” Tianming gave her one last look. ”Let’s hug!”

”Okay....” Moran walked into his embrace and let him pat her on the back a few times. It was an utterly innocent hug, a stark contrast with how seductively she had acted when she’d been drunk on the red dust.

Even so, it didn’t take away any of her figure’s allure. She was tall, slender, and had curves in all the right places.... All fifty of ’her’ were just like that. Nothing could possibly rival that kind of pleasure.

It was a shame that Tianming still had many things to attend to at Myriadpath Valley, as well as finding a way to the Ancient Oldgod Domain through the Xenoabyss. He bade Moran farewell and returned to the stareye with Fengqing Youmeng, finally headed back to Myriadpath Valley.