Beastmaster of the Ages

”Let’s start symbiotic cultivation together.” Tianming placed one hand under his head to cushion it and used his other hand to beckon the little one over.

”Cul... cultivation?” It spoke with a really babyish tone of voice and a completely blank look.

”That’s right!” Tianming nodded.

”Is it... like this?” The moment it said that, its spiritform melted away and fused with the coffin before gathering once more at Tianming’s chest, forming a single gray eye. Unlike the dead-fish eye from before, this gray eye was lively and curious and even had lashes. It was cute and creepy at the same time.

It wasn’t that important of a distinction. Tianming could already fuse with the other beasts, so being able to fuse with Eighth wasn’t out of his expectations. In fact, he could feel through the fusion that a web-like trace of the world formed within his body. Like quiet streams, they spread across his entire body and channeled a new kind of energy through it. He could feel that he had interfaced completely with the energies from his beast that was a whole world in itself.

Next, he needed to use the ghoulish energy it had stored up so far and expend it completely to raise its level! Tianming felt the birth of a new kind of energy within him as it consumed lots of nova source, flameyellow void essence, and xeno source without any discrimination at all. It seemed to surpass the limits of space itself as it absorbed all those energies into the body.

”Do you have a cultivation codex?” Tianming asked. The little fellow was really timid, so he didn’t dare to talk too loudly to it.

”Codex? What is that?” The gray eye looked around curiously.

”Ohh....” That told him what he needed to know: Ji Ji, the seventh Primordial Chaos Beast to hatch, didn’t have any codex to speak of. However, it was still able to form a unique symbiotic relationship with Tianming that was distinct from those of the other lifebound beasts. It wasn’t out of the question for the eighth beast to be like that too.

Eighth’s energy began to circulate within Tianming’s body. He could use the energies directly, just like the genesis ancestral nova source that Ji Ji provided him with, without having to refine away at it. Eighth was able to level up on its own without even using anything like manna.

Tianming remained lying on his back as he felt the energy within him grow nonstop until the order formed. When that same stream of order formed within Eighth as well, Tianming finally had ten streams of order within him.

”Huh?” Tianming had never expected that the spherical honeycomb briquette of the order would attach itself to his stomach, which wasn’t one of the heptastar astral organs. Even so, that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. After it was fully attached, Tianming felt that the final missing piece of his constitution had been fulfilled. ”My heptastar astral organs and my stomach have completed my body!”

Ying Huo, Meow Meow, Lan Huang, and Xian Xian fused with his four limbs. Bai Ye and Bai Ling resided within his brain. Ji Ji’s astral power flowed through his entire body, and Eighth awakened his stomach.

”The stomach is a point of conversion. I wonder what kind of order it is....” The order that had just formed was in its simplest form, gray but pure.

”Deathsoul order,” Eighth replied gingerly.

”Deathsoul?” Tianming recalled that Sixth’s order was based on life, the lifesoul order.

”It’s for the transformation of the soul after death,” Eighth added.

”Is it referring to how the vita assimilates something after reaching that world and transforming into a ghoul?” Tianming asked.

”Yes,” Eighth said with a nod. Timid as it was, it didn’t shy away from providing basic information about itself.

”Lifesoul and deathsoul....” These two phases seemed like parts of the cycle of the birth of souls, extinguishment, transformation, and conversion.... Sixth mainly wielded soul power, but Eighth’s energy was a transformative power from the world of the dead. It was a strong distinction.

Tianming continued to gain insight on the deathsoul order with Eighth, transforming and elevating it. It transformed from a briquette to a full-blown hive, then into a fortress of death, a gray sea, and finally a gray star. When he was done, Tianming’s stomach suddenly had a huge appetite. Eighth’s energy continued to rise nonstop throughout the process until it reached parity with its siblings, surpassing even Ji Ji’s genesis ancestral nova source and becoming the strongest source of energy in Tianming’s body! Then again, that was not counting omnisentient power.

”Eighth’s power is similar to Ji Ji’s in that it dwells in my body. I can tap into them directly using completely different techniques. As long as Ji Ji’s order grows, I’ll be able to absorb energy directly from nova source. Eighth’s energy comes from a different world entirely, and I won’t even need nova source....”

More often than not, he would be surprised by the capabilities of his beasts once he got familiarized with them. He was almost done with symbiotic cultivation and had slowly gained quite a lot of insight from the deathsoul order.