Chapter 533 - 515: The Sound of the Nian Beast

The Star Spirit descended slowly, as light as a snowflake and completely silent, yet it captured the attention of everyone in the room.

It hovered in mid-air, a formless, small orb of pure white light that swirled and flowed.

Its existence was composed of pure energy, devoid of the texture and warmth of a flesh-and-blood body.

Gu Ming gazed at the ball of light, involuntarily recalling the lingering sensation on his fingertips from their last contact.

’Was that... the silhouette of a tiny Elf?’

’Or was it a far more bizarre form of energy-based life, something completely beyond his comprehension?’

The halo of light concealed the answer, leaving only hazy speculation in its wake.

Professor Weng’s sharp gaze lingered on the Star Spirit for a moment before he nodded slightly, offering his professional assessment.

"It is indeed at the One-star Realm. Its energy core is stable and accumulating power... It seems to be progressing toward the critical evolutionary node: the division into a Two-star Inner Core."

The Star Spirit’s aura was unique. It was a notch above that of a typical One-star Pet Beast, and its Spiritual Fluctuation was far more profound. However, the ’Quantity Level’ of its energy had not yet reached the Two-star standard.

This state, somewhere between the two, was in fact its Foundation Establishment phase.

Professor Weng knew Gu Ming had published top-tier research, but a Pet Beast undergoing Foundation Establishment was still a world away from an established and renowned Seven-star Beastmaster like himself.

"Alright, I’m starting the audio."

As he spoke, Professor Weng activated the equipment.

He transmitted the signal to Gu Ming and Lu You, the two Beastmasters, via on-site Spiritual Energy monitoring headphones.

For the Star Spirit, however, he chose a more direct and High Tier method: transmitting via Divine Sense.

A strand of Spiritual Fluctuation, as fine as silk and carrying a unique frequency, silently emerged from between Professor Weng’s brows and gently enveloped the orb of light.

This technique directly injected the special audio data into the Star Spirit’s core consciousness as a highly compressed data packet, preserving the original information as much as possible.

Considering the Star Spirit’s rank was still low, directly receiving the full stream of information via Divine Sense might be too much for it to handle.

Professor Weng had a backup plan ready: a custom-made, miniature mechanical device hovered nearby, capable of converting human-audible sound waves into Spiritual Energy frequencies.

But he opted to try transmission via Divine Sense first.

For Prophetic Element Pet Beasts, this type of "encrypted information"—originating from a spiritual source and free from mechanical conversion—was more likely to fully trigger their innate Talent and preserve the ineffable "spiritual resonance" that might be hidden within the sound waves.

The audio data itself had been acquired using cutting-edge technology. It was an attempt to isolate and replicate a complex mixture of all ambient sounds from the grand background of the "Voice of the Divine Dragon" that had swept across the world on New Year’s Eve. The technical details are not worth mentioning here.

The instant the sound "played" in their minds, what Gu Ming and Lu You heard through their headphones was by no means a clear, discernible noise.

It was an indescribable, chaotic reverberation.

It was like billions of minuscule electric currents hissing and darting through a void.

It was also like a boundless ocean of information churning with silent, terrifying waves.

More than anything, it was like some colossal flying dreadnought streaking across the sky at an unimaginable speed.

The resulting atmospheric shockwaves layered upon each other, vibrating endlessly... Countless sensations blended together, forming a dizzying, chaotic torrent on a purely auditory level.

Trying to decipher it using only a human Beastmaster’s hearing and Perception would be like trying to track a single falling leaf in a hurricane—a hopeless and confusing task, making it impossible to extract any useful information.

This was where the role of a Pet Beast became undeniably crucial.

This was especially true for Pet Beasts that specialized in information perception, filtering, and in-depth analysis.

Their degree of specialization in this Domain was unimaginable to a Beastmaster not versed in this field; the gap in expertise was as wide as an ocean.

Gu Ming’s gaze naturally fell upon the small, faintly glowing cluster of starlight beside him.

The Star Spirit wasn’t one of these specialized Pet Beasts. Or rather, it possessed the right kind of Talent, but it hadn’t yet begun systematic training.

How much it could decipher would depend entirely on its innate Talent and a bit of luck.

The rhythm of the light swirling within the hovering Star Spirit began to change subtly.

The once uniform, gentle light began to pulse faintly, alternating between bright and dim, as if it were breathing, listening.

Then, at the core of the hazy light, an extremely blurry silhouette appeared—one that made Gu Ming’s heart skip a beat.

It looked like the face of a tiny Elf with delicate features, which flickered for an instant before vanishing back into the pure light.

’Is that... the Star Spirit’s true form?’

Gu Ming was stunned.

Before he could give it another thought, a strange sense of resonance emanated from the Star Spirit.

It wasn’t a sound, nor was it an image.

It was a more direct transmission of inspiration.

It didn’t pinpoint the specific frequency or time stamp where the Nian Beast’s voice was hidden within the chaotic sound waves.

Instead, it cast a unique "feeling" into the depths of Gu Ming’s consciousness—a "coordinate" in the darkness.

The feeling was like being handed a lantern in a boundless, inky-black sea.

The lantern’s reservoir was filled with a special, combustible oil.

And Gu Ming’s own consciousness and focus were the spark needed to light it.

The moment the spark touched the oil, a soft HISS echoed in the depths of his soul. A warm "light" with a clear sense of direction suddenly flared, dispelling the absolute darkness that shrouded the endless ocean of chaotic sound waves.

Through the monitoring headphones, the irritating, boundless cacophony remained unchanged; the absolute quantity of information had neither increased nor decreased.

But in Gu Ming’s Perception now, everything was different.

Because of the "light," he could now "see" the surging streams of "black," useless information flowing around him—information that had previously been completely indistinguishable.

They were still immense and complex, but no longer a field of utter Chaos.

A new-found mechanism for discernment, granted by the Star Spirit, ignited and activated within his consciousness, automatically turning its focus in the direction indicated by the "light."

His "gaze" pierced through the surface-level noise, allowing him to "see" the deeper, more hidden "currents" flowing beneath this black sea of information.

It was a source... a source of regular interference originating from a single, common point.

This was the origin of all the noise, the single cause for this entire effect.

Gu Ming’s consciousness followed the direction of this perceived "current," actively tracing it back against the flow.

His consciousness traveled through the informational void, skimming past countless bubbles of meaningless noise and delving ever deeper... Finally, in the furthest depths of the vast ocean of static, he "touched" the source.

It was a sound.

A sound completely different from all the chaotic, faint, and disordered background noise surrounding it.

It was clear and powerful, imbued with an ancient gravity that seemed to have traversed endless time and space, standing firm and unyielding at the very center of the Chaos.