Beastmaster of the Ages

“You’re too humble,” Tianming said before he turned his attention to the bamboo tree. He focused and waited for the Eightmoon Swordsage to start the demonstration. Yueshen Hao, whose title was Prince Zhuoyang, watched with a cold expression, tilting his head at the imperial guide.

“Moving you away, eh? If it was back then, wouldn’t you have torn that person to pieces right away if someone said that to you?” the imperial guide asked.

“Imperial Guide, that was back then. Now that the new pet has come, everyone must submit without exception,” Prince Zhuoyang said with a beaming smile.

“Looks like you’ve grown up.”

“It’s nothing, really. There’s many pets that think themselves above everyone. In the end, they all quiet down anyway.”

“Quiet down?” She shot him a cold look.

“Forget it! I’m only going to be held back for a little bit. This fellow is only a quadbane, and even used blood pacts for his lifebound beasts. Now he’s being held back by symbiotic cultivation, so he’s probably reached the end of his potential at the Ascension stage. How’d he even get to where he is now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Either way, I believe he’s just a paper tiger. A simple touch would cause him to crumble.”

“Don’t act rashly. You can’t afford it if you break him,” she warned.

“I know! Well, he’ll be tossed once he’s no more fun anyway. It’s always the same. How troublesome.”

“How are you progressing with this technique?” The imperial guide changed the subject.

“I mastered the first move, but I still haven’t understood the second. It’s too hard, as expected of a fifth-realm divine art.”

“That took you a few years, right? It’s already decent. Others struggle to even start.”

“But of course.” Yueshen Hao cracked a confident smile.

……

Tianming didn’t care about the prince’s arrogance at all. There was only one person who could decide his fate: Sovereign Xi. Since she had given him privileges, he was no longer afraid of offending anyone so he acted without worry. All he cared about was getting strong enough to protect himself and those he cared about.

He pierced the Grand-Orient Sword into the bamboo and held his breath. Once he was close enough, the bamboo legacy formation soon unveiled its true form to him. The scene within the bamboo changed into a wide, bright moon. Everything else disappeared from the vision, leaving only the silver moon behind, within which a silhouette appeared with a sword in each hand.

“Listen up. This is a strike that kills. It has no flair at all, and its only function is to take lives,” said a voice that sounded more ancient than the Hexapath Sword God. “Strike in the night of the bright moon. One strike to startle, another to kill.”

The figure moved about at a startling speed under the cherry blossom trees.

“The first strike: Seaborne Moon.” The sword merely flashed. Tianming felt its sheer speed; when the sword reached its maximum acceleration, illusions began forming. It was like millions of moons were rising from the surface of the sea with the sword flashing brightly. Even the falling petals were slashed in half.

“Second strike: Sight Across Shores.”

The figure had mentioned that the first strike was to startle and the second strike was meant to kill. When the second strike came, the illusions changed. The ground split apart and the figure manifested eight sword-wielding totems as well. They were towering, armored figures a kilometer in height. Together with the figure, they rained down devastation, making it seem like hundreds of thousands of moons were crashing down onto the earth. Though the moves from the totems’ swords and the figure were completely different, they worked in tandem to form a sword formation.

Tianming watched, completely impressed. “Even though the divine moonrace isn’t currently that powerful, their ancestors were rather formidable.” The Moonnight Subdued Strike was testament to that.

“In comparison to the Hexapath Samsara Sword’s sword intent, this one isn’t that much more powerful. However, the completeness of the move and the coordination with totems make it much stronger in absolute terms.”

In other words, the Hexapath Samsara Sword was too limited by where it had originated. It lacked a true elite to properly explore the possibilities of its capability. Tianming was already impressed enough that the sword god was able to incorporate his imagination about the six paths of reincarnation into the move. It was too bad there was an upper limit to how far it could go.

No matter the intricacy of the move, the Moonnight Subdued Strike would be much stronger, and this was only the simplified version. The figure executed the moves again and again under the moonlight night, highlighting their intricacies. It was only superficially complicated, and its principles didn’t go that deep. Even then, the superficial manifestations allowed it to have enough power to be classified as a divine astral art. Not to mention, Tianming had a much easier time comprehending superficial complexity, unlike the Hexapath Samsara Sword, which required a true, deep understanding. If he could remember enough of the changing forms of the moves, he would be able to perfect it and unleash an even stronger strike.

“If the Hexapath Samsara Sword and Demise of Man-Earth-Heaven can achieve a superficial complexity rivaling this move, maybe they might be even stronger than the Moonnight Subdued Strike.”

Tianming knew well that worlds with nova sources were powerful because of their millions of years of legacy and high-level complexity. The world below suffered due to legacies that could no longer be passed down, which resulted in concepts never developing past certain levels of complexity. Not to mention, the weak spiritual energy made for a poor cultivation environment.

Now that he had Vita Prime, his cognition and perception were boosted to terrifying levels of clarity, which made superficial complexity really easy for him to comprehend. It was nothing but a math question. When he learned the trick to solving it, the rest was automatic. It was far easier than understanding the true essence and principles behind the move.

He watched the Eightmoon Swordsage’s movements. Despite the insane speed, he could slow the moves down and analyze them slowly and piece by piece, down to how the forces of the astral discs within the swordsage’s body were circulating and covering the swords. At the same time, he studied how the totems worked with the main fighter to achieve maximum effect. These were complexities that couldn’t simply be expressed by mere sword intent alone, unlike the Hexapath Samsara Sword. Instead, once he was able to match the precise details, he would be able to unleash the power of the move.

“In other words, divine arts like these are much easier for me now.” That was also the reason he had mastered Celestial Astral Punch so quickly, and he knew it was all thanks to his Trisoul Prime. Even with all the perks he had, however, it took him nearly a full day to fully understand it. At the very least, he had memorized it in full.

“I guess I’ll no longer have to come here anymore.” Meanwhile, Prince Zhuoyang had to come here time and again for years to continue his training.

“I’ll just have to practice the first strike some tens of times to execute it with correct form. The people in the astralscape really are impressive. They’re able to teach their descendants how to execute a move by showing them the form alone. They’ll be able to grow strong without understanding the true essence of the move’s principles.”

That wasn’t a slight against the method’s effectiveness, either. After all, might made right. Understanding in and of itself wasn’t inherently valuable. It took real insight to be able to make a move like that in the first place.

Now that he had finished studying the move, he took a deep breath and ended his cultivation. He then saw that the imperial guide and Prince Zhuoyang were still waiting for him.

“Did you master the move already, genius?” the prince asked, his arms crossed.

“Far from it,” Tianming said.

“Coming again tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

“You aren’t gonna try a little longer? It might just take you a day or two more.”

“Forget it, there’s no point.”

“I knew you shouldn’t have wasted your time,” Yueshen Qi mumbled, annoyed.

Tianming pretended not to hear it and bid them goodbye. “See you again if we ever cross paths.”

“See you again indeed!” he said, ‘see’ being the operative word.

Yueshen Qi was in charge of escorting Tianming away.

“Sister Qi,” Yueshen Hao called out.

She slowly turned back.

“Let’s meet at the usual spot tonight.”

Yueshen Qi’s expression seemed really distraught as she swiftly led Tianming away.

……

By the time they left the Moonnight Patio, it was already dark outside and Tianming roamed about Divine Moon Skycity alone. “Ying Huo, I figured something out.”

“What is it?” Ying Huo was still flying about in the lifebound space, marveling at its new form.

“The blood lake was filled with corpses. If I stay here any longer, I’ll definitely end up like that. Sovereign Xi wants me dead. Tell me then, how I can get her to save Feng, without resorting to completely subjugating her.”

“You mean to say that seeing the blood lake caused your fantasies about her to be completely dispelled?” Ying Huo teased.

“I never had such fantasies. I just wanted to understand her better to see if there was any other way. However, that no longer seems to be the case.”

“Then leave. Huiye Shi’s rescued already anyway. As for Feng, there’s no point forcing it if you have no better way to go about it. You got a battle art today to boot, so let’s escape with your winnings while you still can!”

“What can I do after escaping? Feng’s still surrounded by xenofiends.”

“If I knew, I’d be the boss instead of being treated like crap by you.”

“Shut up.”

Tianming looked toward the Xi Palace. “As long as Divine Moon Skycity is in order, Sovereign Xi’s plan for me will only keep on proceeding. I wonder if there’s anyone that can come in here to cause trouble for me to have a chance to act during the chaos?”

There was only one answer to that question.