Beastmaster of the Ages

There was something that Li Shenjian didn’t understand: why did it seem like Tianming, Xiaoxiao, and Lingfeng didn’t need legacy caeli to cultivate at all? Most of the caeli of the sect were under the Veildragon Palace’s control, while the Seven Dragon Imperials only had a small portion of them, which were the ones spread out across the seven thousand Earthdragon peaks. Caeli of that caliber weren’t too different from those of the Azuresoul Palace, and the amount of caeli available to disciples within the Redlotus Worlddragon Formation numbered even fewer. Transferring caeli into the formation would take quite some time, so being protected had come at a huge opportunity cost for developing disciples.

Even then, Li Shenjian figured that the caeli of the outer sect couldn’t possibly be good enough. If Tianming and the other two were to quickly cultivate with proper guidance, they would have to leave Whitesource Peak, yet he’d been waiting for two months now and nothing had changed. The three of them hadn’t taken a single step away from the peak.

“Perhaps they know that I’m trying to get at them, so they’re holed up for now and waiting for the incident with Long Wangyu to blow over…. Then again, I can afford to wait, but can devilishly talented disciples like them afford to not cultivate using proper caeli?”

Thus, Li Shenjian continued waiting. Tianming’s goal was to take Qingyu away without incident, so there was no benefit to dealing with Li Shenjian right now unless getting to him would somehow let Tianming approach Long Renshe. Li Shenjian would never be able to imagine that Tianming was currently surrounded by nearly a hundred caeli imperius inside the wondersky realm, focusing entirely on his cultivation while Yin Chen served as his eyes and ears in the real world, allowing him to evade countless dangers coming his way.

On the ninth level of the Violetglory Pagoda, there was a gigantic red star to the left of Tianming, covered in angry flames. Even his caelum was able to feel the heat from the flaming star, whose flames seemed to take the form of a gigantic face. This was the caelum of the Radiant Sovereign.

There was a dark blue star to his right, which seemed like a beautiful core of nova source. Its surface was seemingly covered by an azure sea that was actually formed from countless blue electric snakes. Huge waves thousands of meters tall could be seen all across this star, the sounds of which resonated with his caelum. This caelum belonged to the Empyrean Sovereign.

The two sovereigns were from the two ruling powers of the Violetglory Star respectively. They used to be archnemeses that fought each other countless times in the past, but now they were nothing but egoless manifestations of heavenly laws, guiding the same junior on his path through the Constellation stage.

“It’s great to not have to fend off a challenger once every ten days.” Tianming could forget all unnecessary distractions and focus on his divine will, heavenly path, and the laws of the universe. Sometimes he felt like he was an infant being taught how to walk by the caeli of these two old sages. One of them explained his teachings with passion, while the other was gentle and understanding. Together, they helped him learn to walk, run, swim, and eventually, to fly.

“Sovereigns truly are on a different level.” If solarians were on the level of normal soldiers or generals, sovereigns were no different from emperors. There were always few who could take up that position in every group, and only groups with enough subjects would have a sovereign leading them. Even if they didn’t have a divine will that emphasized rulership like Tianming’s, which allowed him to directly tap into the power of his subjects to fight, the strength of sovereigns was still dependent on all of the lifeforms under their rule. The Primordial God-Emperor was the one who pursued the path to its peak, and his shadow could be seen in the lives of many other sovereigns. Being guided by the caeli of people like these allowed Tianming to have a new understanding of what it meant to be a ruler.

“The sovereigns of the Violetglory Star might be better than those of the celestial orderians. The celestial orderians only rule over totemancers, while the sovereigns here ruled over all kinds of subjects, including specters and beastmasters.” That allowed Tianming to diversify his scope of learning. His cultivation had stagnated for a time when he was at the Azurecloud Continent, but now his Lifesbane Will was making impressive progress. It took only another two months for him to break through to the sixth level.

There was a pleasant surprise that came with the breakthrough: his Lifesbane Will had also generated its own constellation! Before this, in every one of Tianming’s albi, the sword-shaped divine wills turned into a black and gold imperial star when the constellation manifested, stabilizing his five-layered astral discs and the astralforce within greatly. Now, the new constellation manifested under the astral discs in the form of a gigantic vortex of black and white stars, almost like a spiral galaxy that resembled a yin-yang diagram. Like a huge spinning disc, it supported the five-layered astral discs above it, interacting with the pandemonium constellation and giving Tianming’s albi even more stability. The unique nature of the constellation definitely had something to do with his Aeonic Grandbane and totems.

“It’s called the cyclic constellation….” Tianming wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the Prime Tower or Li Muyang’s Cyclic Mirror. The name just occurred so naturally to him. His Imperial Will seemed to correspond to pandemonium, while his Lifesbane Will corresponded to the cycle of reincarnation. He knew that this constellation was just the start; the rest was still incredibly hard to grasp.

……

When he returned to the real world, Tianming summoned both of his constellations. On top was an imperial star dominating all other stars with its golden light. Below was a rapidly spinning yin-yang disc that seemed to scatter black and white stars from its side, making it look like Tianming was at the center of a storm.

“What in the world is the power of the cycle of reincarnation?” His Imperial Will focused on domination. He studied it for a long while and finally ascertained what it could do. “It looks like another incredible miracle!”