Beastmaster of the Ages

The voice of the girl that suddenly appeared was clear and fierce. Li Tianming hazarded a guess that she was the ‘Qing’er’ Jiang Feiling had mentioned before.

She was dressed in a simple yet elegant blue dress that showed off her slender figure. She had smooth skin, beautiful thin brows that rested on top of a pair of lively eyes. Whilst she wasn’t that old, her body had developed in all the right places, with her blue dress accentuating lithe curves that weren’t any worse than that beautiful Liu Qing. To finish it off, she possessed an unruly aura.

When these two girls were side by side, one was like a goddess from a dream, unstained by the filth of the mortal world. The other was like a mortal princess, seven parts wilful, two parts cute and one part charming.

While Jiang Feiling with her luminescent skin was naturally more otherworldly, this overbearing and slender ‘Qing’er’ also had extraordinary looks.

Li Tianming hadn’t expected to meet such extraordinary beauties here in the wilderness. This ‘Qing’er’ wasn’t any less pretty than Mu Qingqing, and in fact even exceeded her in temperament.

Li Tianming had previously assumed that this ‘Qing’er’ was possibly a maidservant. However, now he knew he was obviously wrong. Her bearing and aura were unordinary, terrifying even. This was a demeanor born from possessing peerless talent. Even in Ignispolis, such a person was likely to possess a high status.

“Don’t scare him, Qing’er. He’s not a bad guy, he saved me just now when I was being chased by a wildbeast.”

“Is that so?” Qing’er finally relaxed her guard, before giving Li Tianming a once-over. “Alright then, shoo. Don’t have any untoward thoughts about Ling’er.”

“Your pretty face belies a startling lack of manners.” Li Tianming retorted.

Qing’er glared at him. “Come again?” Shocking beast ki that surpassed the Beast Vein stage began to pour out of her. It meant she was likely a Spiritsource beastmaster. All who could reach it so young would be famous figures in Ignispolis.

“Qing’er, don’t bully big brother. Let me tell you a surprise!”

“Big brother? Excuse me?” Qing’er’s glare became even fiercer. Li Tianming didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It seemed this girl had taken him to be a scoundrel who specialised in tricking naive little girls.

“Do you want to hear it?” Jiang Feiling pouted.

“Fine, go ahead.” Qing’er said helplessly.

“Just now, I used Spirit Attachment on big brother. Guess what synchronisation grade it reached?” Jiang Feiling blinked.

“Spiritual attachment? I told you to not just attach yourself to any random hobo!” Qing’er said, her head aching.

“I had no choice, a wildbeast was chasing me! Guess!”

Qing’er looked disdainfully at Li Tianming. “Hmm, a hobo from the countryside. I give it a grade two max.”

“Wrong! You definitely won’t believe this, but it was a complete synchronisation! Watch.” Jiang Feiling used Spiritual Attachment on Li Tianming again, and he felt that violent power course through his body again.

“Damn!” Qing’er was completely flummoxed to see it, and subconsciously slipped out a word that would have earned her some scandalised glances in public.

“See that? Complete synchronisation! I also feel like I’ve known big brother Li Tianming for ages.” Jiang Feiling smiled as she reformed, eyes sparkling as she looked at Li Tianming.

Qing’er ground her teeth, hurriedly dragging Jiang Feiling over to her when she saw how close they were. “Ling’er, you’re being too naive. Don’t always listen to other people’s sweet talk. He must have deceived you when I wasn’t around!”

“Nope, he was very polite.”

“Exactly, you’ve fallen for his trick,” Qing’er gritted her teeth and continued, “Let me tell you, men are bad eggs. Of course he’s nice to you, you’re pretty. But so what if there’s complete synchronisation? A hobo from the countryside will never make anything of himself.”

“Sister, how many men have you hurt by saying that?” Li Tianming was getting more annoyed with her as time went by. Were there really people like this who belittled others so much? No matter what, he really had helped Jiang Feiling.

“Looking to die?” Qing’er’s head snapped towards Li Tianming as she glared at him coldly, that high-born aura on full blast again.

“Qing’er!” Jiang Feiling got angry before Li Tianming did. He hadn’t actually expected this little fairy to be able to get angry. Though, he did notice she was quite cute when she got angry...

“Fine, let’s ignore him then. We need to return to Ignispolis already, we’ve been out for too long already.” Qing’er didn’t want to make her unhappy, so she quickly reined in her temper.

“Alright.” Jiang Feiling looked disappointed.

“Alright, you scoundrel, we’re leaving. I’ll thank you for helping Ling’er, but erase any other thoughts you have. Both of you belong to two different worlds, so don’t daydream. Just focus on your farming,” Qing’er spoke warningly.

“You don’t happen to have some issue up here, do you?” Li Tianming tapped his head.

“You scoundrel, I…” She gnashed her teeth in fury. How many would dare speak to her in this way in Ignispolis?

“Ling’er, where do you stay in Ignispolis? I’ll come look for you in the future.”

“Don’t tell him!” Qing’er covered her mouth before saying to Li Tianming, “What Ignispolis? With your background, really, just focus on farming and contributing to Vermilion Bird’s food supplies.”

“Let’s go!” After saying that, she felt her spirits lift as she ran away with Jiang Feiling. They quickly vanished into the shrubbery, leaving Li Tianming no chance to catch up even if he wanted to.

However, he still gave a chuckle. Those two girls were rather interesting.

Although one hadn’t been very polite to him, it was because she had her guard up against him and was afraid Jiang Feiling would be tricked by him. After all, that fairy-like girl was so pure that no one would want to see her sullied.

“I’m sure there’ll be more chances for us to meet.” Li Tianming didn’t feel worried he wouldn’t be able to find them. Qing’er was definitely some famous figure in Ignispolis with her strength, and Ignispolis just so happened to be his next destination.

Li Tianming summoned the little chick back out.

“Li Tianming! How could you hide me away like that? What unspeakable things did you do, you savage? Unbelievable, as your lifebound beast, this is an eternal stain on the awesome Ying Huo’s honour.” The little chick immediately started jabbering when he was released.

“Shush. Am I that sort of person to you?”

“Duh. I have seen you stick your hand in your pants...”

“God dammit! I’m going to strangle you!” Li Tianming attempted to seize it to vent the disappointment after the girls left.

“I curse your future babies to not have butts!”

“I curse you to fly solo forever!”

“I curse your pecker to fall off!”

Man and bird jumped about as they quarreled, but they didn’t slow down their search for clear spirit grass. Li Tianming only had one stalk, and he needed much, much more.

……

Three days passed and Li Tianming had delved into the depths of Red Twill Mountain. Trees stood tall and the ground was littered with shrubbery and fallen leaves. Under such circumstances, it was impossible to guess where a venomous pest or wildbeast may be lurking.

He hadn’t found any clear spirit grass, but he had quite the assortment of other spirit herbs. They were all important resources in this wildbeast territory. Anywhere where spirit herbs grew would always have fierce beasts and venomous pests living there.

As for any spirit herbs that grew using sunlight and possessed a fire-type nature, they would directly consume it. They were actually cultivating faster than in Flamehaven.

In the past, he had taken years to reach fifth level Beast Vein, but it was accomplished in twenty days this time round. The strong points of Primordial Chaos Beasts lay not in their might when they were born, but in their talent and fortune. So far, they had only excavated less than one ten-thousandth of the Aeternal Infernal Phoenix’s potential.

“Clear spirit grass!” One evening, they crested a ridge to reach a flat area.

Many sorts of vegetation and weeds were here, but clear spirit grass was a spirit herb and was easily identifiable even when mixed together with weeds. There were over ten stalks of it here, which was more valuable to Li Tianming than a whole pouch of spirit gems. It was enough for him to comfortably bring his mother to Flameyellow Scions Institute.

The heavens really didn’t turn their back on people who tried.

The pair quickly sped over. “Mother will definitely be happy if I brought so much back!”

“Danger!” When they approached it, a streak of blue suddenly assaulted them. That blue might very well be poisonous, and as a general rule of thumb, a poisoned body was more troublesome than flesh wounds from blades.

They quickly backed up and avoided the attack. When they came to a stop, they realised a black scorpion was next to the patch of clear spirit grass. It was as large as an eight-person table, its two pincers reminiscent of two hammers. Most fear-inducing was the blue tail held aloft, covered in a thick blue exoskeleton with a sharp stinger that was covered in an obviously poisonous blue liquid.

That blue streak was likely that blue tail.

“Wildbeast!” Li Tianming frowned. He felt something was off about this scorpion, and on closer inspection, he realised the eyes lacked the telltale savagery of wildbeasts, but was instead filled by a human-like coldness. “No, lifebound beast!”

“It’s the Blue-Tailed Scorpion, a five-star lifebound beast.” Li Tianming remembered reading about this lifebound beast’s data before.

The subject of lifebound beasts’ species and type was endless, but it was still a compulsory course for any beastmaster.

Li Tianming had started from young, but it was still difficult to recognise every single lifebound beast, because just too many kinds had appeared in history.

For species, lifebound beasts could generally be divided into the categories of avian, terrestrial, bug and fish.

However, it didn’t end there. There were also reptiles(tortoises, crocodiles), amphibians(frogs, salamanders), shellfish(snails, squids), annelids(earthworms, leeches), cnidarians(jellyfish, sea anemones) and so on. While these species looked weak, they weren’t necessarily so. Some jellyfish and tortoise lifebound beasts could be eight or nine-star.

In fact one of the mightiest powerhouses in the Flameyellow continent, had a nine-star lifebound beast that was technically an earthworm, but was called the Earthhell Hornwyrm.

Lifebound beasts also had types. They ran the gamut from metal, wood, water, fire, earth, lightning, wind, light, dark, poison to others like star, shadow, explosion, moonlight, illusion, sound, purification, life, transformation, berserker, control, steelclad and broodmother.

Types were the most basic characteristic of lifebound beasts. Metal, wood, water, fire, earth, lightning and wind were known as elemental-types.

Elemental-types took up over ninety percent of all lifebound beasts, but the more unorthodox ones could be even more frightening, like the rare broodmother-type, of which ant and bee queens would belong to. They could spawn large numbers of offspring to act as an army.

Largely speaking, any lifebound beast could be fixed into the box of ‘species’ and ‘type’, like Li Xuejiao’s Flaming Hawk was a fire-type avian beast.

Liu Qianyang’s Lightning Bolt Cheetah would be a lightning-type terrestrial beast.

And this Blue-Tailed Scorpion was a poison-type arachnid beast!

Poison-types could be considered one of the more unorthodox types. It may have lacked the raw power of the elements, but it was definitely scarier when the poison entered your body.

However, if there was a lifebound beast, there was always a beastmaster.

As expected, the next moment, a thin young man in long, green robes ran over and landed in front of Li Tianming. Right on the clear spirit grass.

Li Tianming frowned.