Beastmaster of the Ages

Not long after, Tianming found himself standing in front of the Violetglory Pagoda. He looked up at the top of the tower that pierced through the clouds. All he could see were the first and second layers, while the other seven hid above the clouds.

“A hundred caeli imperius, huh? I wonder if the celestial orderians have that many.” As he looked to the skies, he let his ambitions soar. “So far, Mu Sha, the fifth ranker, hasn’t accepted my challenge. I should check out the higher levels of the pagoda and see if it’s any different from the Azuresky Bridge.”

Tianming and Lingfeng stepped into the tower together. This time around, they didn’t have to issue a challenge for a spot on a specific floor, nor would they have to fend off challengers to stay on their floors. Being rankers in the top hundred bracket, there was a violet glow around them that was visible to others. Though, even without the glow, quite a few people had already started paying attention to them despite them having just left the Violetcloud Battlefield. They shot them envious and worshipful glances. Even these higher life forms of the Violetglory Star began looking up to them.

……

Tianming finally reached the sixth level of the pagoda. Strong light shone down on him from above. Looking up, he saw a sky covered in purple stars, each of them gigantic beyond measure, like nova source worlds. However, those were actually caeli belonging to solarians.

Transitioning from a constellier to a solarian was a critical part of cultivation. It was said that one could only unleash the true power of the nova source after reaching the Solar stage, becoming something like the sun itself and wielding the light and power of gods.

Even among the countless life forms on a nova source world, those that managed to become a solarian were no doubt among the strongest of the strongest. Tianming knew that the ones around him were also solarians because he was currently at the Azuresoul Sword Mountain’s Sword Training Ground. In fact, most of the solarians of the sect gathered at the Azuresoul Sword Mountain, with the sect’s other territories being populated only by those who probably wouldn’t even reach the Constellation stage in all their lives. Constelliers and solarians were in completely different leagues.

The advantage the sixth level of the pagoda had over the Azuresky Bridge wasn’t the quality of the caeli, but rather the number of them. There were so many suns hanging above that one couldn’t see the end of them. Each of them contained the entirety of the path a departed senior had tread, which juniors could follow along.

“Let’s start! I hope the forebears of the Violetglory Star will help me with what I’m currently struggling with.”

The focus of every person’s cultivation was different, so merely looking through the experiences of others wouldn’t cut it. One had to ponder how that experience might line up with their own focus. This method of making progress required far more patience and solitude than consuming divine pills or caeli, but it was what Tianming was good at. He took a deep breath, settled down, and let his worries go. He pulled his mind away from the challenges he faced on the Azurecloud Continent, as well as the Violetcloud Battlefield.

“If the sixth level of this tower is useful to me, then I must join the top three no matter what! Perhaps even take first place!” The difference between first and second place was too big. It was the difference between access to the eighth and ninth level of the pagoda.

……

Three days later, explosive news spread from the Violetcloud Battlefield. Mu Sha of the Skyword Shrine had decided to accept Tianming’s challenge. Not only was he the strongest disciple of the third-ranked faction, he was also a skywolf royal and had high status in his sect. Every single person in the top ten was famous in their own right; they were adored by every budding disciple of the Violetglory Star.

The silent battlefield immediately erupted with chatter. Many people had entered the wondersky realm just to watch the battle unfold. Even though competition among the juniors wasn’t as intense as that of the senior solarians, Tianming and Mu Sha were both budding young talents that would define the generation to come. Watching their talent and trump cards on full display would surely be interesting. One could only imagine what kind of unparalleled lifebound beasts or totems they had, not to mention they still had room to grow and improve.

After Mu Sha accepted the challenge, Tianming had three days to go to the Violetcloud Battlefield. Once word of it got out, many young disciples went there to wait. The audience seats were filled to the brim in anticipation of such a grand show.

……

Tianming got a notification from the wondersky fairy within the pagoda. The response to the challenge had come faster than he’d anticipated. The problem was that he was currently in a crucial stage of his cultivation. He’d finally made some kind of progress after two months of arduous pondering, and he had to follow through with that train of thought and couldn’t exactly leave now.

“There’s still three days, so it won’t hurt to go there later.” With that in mind, he continued to search for the will to resist fate and destiny in the experiences of those solarian caeli despite knowing that it would only leave the audience members annoyed by all that waiting. “I don’t have a choice.”

He calmed himself and allowed the caeli to surround him once more. He had a feeling that his Lifesbane Will was quite different from his Imperial Will. “The traces of Imperial Will I see in these caeli concerns exacting even more control over many things, including seas and rivers, whereas Lifesbane Will focuses more on sympathy, empathy, and understanding…. To put it another way, it’s mutual resonance!”

He had finally found the key phrase. Resonance! Resonance with all sentient life in its rebellious struggle against fate!

“People in this world are segregated by power levels. There are the strong and the weak, the noble and lowborn, the rich and the poor, the rulers and the wretches. Some people are destined to be born with the short end of the stick in life, like grass struggling against a strong wind.

“Yet none of that is set in stone! In every person is the potential to change and improve. There will always be people and factions that rise and fall. There’s no eternal hierarchy in this world. Changing the status quo and surpassing oneself to change our destiny is an inherent desire in people. Everyone can empathize and resonate with that innate desire!”

He closed his eyes and hugged countless stars. “Godfather, the Li Saint Clan bravely struggles against the lifesbane curse, constantly being pushed to the brink of death and expected to crawl back stronger than before. Their innate wills must also be a manifestation of one of this world’s laws!”

He recalled the time he spent in the Grand-Orient Realm. He’d met important benefactors there that had changed his life by instilling in him the will to never settle, never relent, and to keep walking forward.

“The demise of the sky plunderers… the secret behind the Li Saint Clan being used as lab rats… I’ll shatter all those veiling mysteries with the will I used to break the curse!”

Resisting destiny, changing his fate, and resonating with all life!

“In other words, Imperial Will controls astralforce through pure domination and assimilation, while Lifesbane Will resonates with astralforce by blending in with it to control its power from within!”

Resonance was a new way that Tianming had never explored before, but he wanted to give it a try. Within his albi there were five astral discs, not including the Grand-Orient Vortices. Infernal, primordial, genesis, radix, and immortal. The five layers of different astralforce vortices orbited under the control of his Grand-Orient-Sword-shaped Imperial Will and the illusory tower that was the manifestation of Tianming’s Lifesbane Will. After making it past the mental bottleneck, Tianming left the wondersky realm and returned to Fairman Peak to start breaking through in seclusion!