Beastmaster of the Ages

”Didn’t I already tell you? You’ve returned home! There’s no way you wouldn’t be familiar with it!” Tianming mysteriously said.

”Returning home....” Long Qian’s voice shook. Her eyes scanned the flaming fields beneath. She wasn’t crying, but tears still poured out of her eyes nevertheless.

”Once more, the Sun is your home from now on. Apart from the overflowers who have to fight with me, the others are free to settle down and cultivate! Build your new lives here!” Tianming announced. The dragonoids were still shaken, but his words helped calm them down.

”Big Bro, I’ll strive to reach the Overflow Stage! I want to go out and fight with you!” Long Chen excitedly said.

”No problem!” Tianming said. He flew the ship into the Sky Palace Formation and landed there. The door opened and Wudi and the rest had been waiting outside for them.

”A warm welcome to all of you!”

Jingyu and a group of others festively sang and danced out there. Tianming and Qingyu, on the other hand, rubbed the tears of joy from their eyes. The heavy atmosphere around the Sun had finally turned merry.

”Go ahead! Run, fly, swim, do anything you want!” Tianming told Long Chen.

”Can I?” Long Chen fell flat on the ground and grasped the yellow dirt beneath him, feeling it fall through his fingers. It was all too real!

”Of course!”

”Then I won’t hold back! Let’s go, Xiao Hei!” He flew across the yellow sands of the Sun with his dragon. The descendants of the flameyellow divinities had finally returned to their ancestral home after countless years of separation. Their hearts completely resonated with the Sun.

”It’s still a bit run down, but we’ll build it up together with everyone,” Tianming said.

”We will!” they all answered. From the look in their eyes, they had completely fallen in love with the place and saw Tianming as their savior, even despite the fact that he was only a foundationeer.

”Thank you,” Long Qian said.

”Alright, enough with the pleasantries. Come with me to pick out some manna!” Tianming said. He had seven lifebound beasts, so he needed seven of the best ones. Long Qian, on the other hand, had a nine-crest beast, so she needed nine. Qingyu needed twenty and Wudi needed thirty, so Tianming would let them pick later. For now, he and Long Qian were the ones who most desperately needed to strengthen their beasts. Her combat capabilities were amazing, while Tianming needed to unlock more of his Primordial Chaos Beasts’ bloodline chains.

”After you,” Long Qian insisted.

Tianming didn’t hold back and started with the 8000-aperture manna. Bai Ye and Ji Ji didn’t really care for elemental aspects, while Ying Huo and the rest’s aspects were rather straightforward and basic. He didn’t have a hard time picking seven of them at all. The most impressive ones were fire- and lightning-aspect manna, each with 8888 apertures and perfect for Ying Huo and Meow Meow! Perhaps Jiang Linxi’s beast also needed those aspects as well.

”I hope these two big brothers will be able to rise together.”

The other manna had at least eight thousand apertures as well. At the end of the day, ordered manna was more useful to the beasts that hatched early. The ones that hatched later already had pretty impressive constitutions or unique properties, so manna didn’t change the way their power was expressed or channeled much. Instead, mass was more of a factor.

Ji Ji was the prime example of one such beast. It’d always only had its few key abilities without gaining more. Ying Huo, on the other hand, had unlocked too many to count.

Once they finished picking out manna, Tianming decided that he would go into seclusion.

”Godfather, Sister Qian, you can deal with the rest of the manna however you please. There’s no need to keep any unused! Let our brothers and sisters use them all up, especially the good ones. The overflowers have priority based on their achievements!”

Everyone cheered at the announcement.

”This way, the combined might of all ten thousand of us will grow by at least 1.5 times. We still have heavenly shackles, but we won’t be at a disadvantage against people on the same level anymore,” Long Kui emotionally said.

”Once our beasts catch up, we might even be able to fight above our level!” Long Qian said.

Flameyellow divinities were strong to begin with, and with the resources in place, the heavenly shackles were all that was left holding them back.

”Is there a way to break the shackles?” Tianming asked.

”It’s impossible! Nobody’s managed to break through that limit. Nine is the most anyone can do,” Long Qian said with a sigh.𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

”What about that cosmic god slave in Starmoon Haven? Didn’t he break through it either?”

”That’s right! His beast only has nine crests, while his foes have more than twenty!”

It seemed that Qingyu and Wudi’s crest numbers weren’t that ridiculous after all. ”Wow, that fellow’s amazing!” Someone managed to become a cosmic god even under the limitations of heavenly shackles. Who knew how much he would have achieved if it weren’t for them?

Xeno fatigue can easily be dealt with. If I can undo heavenly shackles as well, that’d be awesome.... Ying Huo and the others had already begun to assimilate the manna. Tianming, on the other hand, looked at the blood sigils on the backs of the dragonoids in deep thought.

***

During the next few days, the dragonoids’ beasts had undergone immense changes. Long Qian’s black nine-headed dragon had eighty million stars in its eyes and grew twice its original size! Its bloodline was a noble one to begin with. As for the other overflowers, their beasts had star counts of more than twenty million.

”These manna were meant for the overflowers of the Scorchmoon Cult. We have much fewer people around, so we had more to share between us!” The legion of dragonoid warriors had grown much stronger indeed. ”Once the Scorchmoon Cult’s members see them, they’ll be outraged.”

Tianming had run a test and tossed a few hundred middlekin stars into the Sun’s core. The Sun did grow somewhat in size, but heliacal-class middlekin stars only had a limited amount of energy. I think I need an infinitum-class middlekin star for this to work. I heard that the Cosmic God Palace has also descended....

As soon as Ying Huo and the rest finished assimilating their manna, they would leave for their next fight! And the dragonoids finally had access to a ship that would allow them to come and go without alarming any people, as well as a base at the Sun. Tianming had plans to forge them into a capable army!

If I can reach out to the cosmic god slave in Starmoon Haven, it’d be ideal!

***

After a while, Ji Ji and Bai Ye were the first to finish assimilating their manna. ”How do you feel?” Tianming asked in anticipation.

”Nothing much,” Ji Ji said, rolling its eyes.

”Well, my mass increased. What were you expecting?” Bai Ye snickered.

Tianming felt as if the manna had been wasted on them. To his sixth and seventh beasts, his own breakthroughs were more effective at strengthening them than manna. Only Ying Huo, Meow Meow, Lan Huang, Xian Xian, and Yin Chen remained.

”Looks like they’re about done!” Five gigantic figures emerged from his lifebound space, blocking out the skies. ”Did you grow stronger?”

Tianming had a feeling that that was the case with only a single look. ”Once I engage in symbiotic cultivation with them and advance to the ninth level of the Foundation stage, we’ll be able to go back to the Middlekin Star Ruin!”