Beastmaster of the Ages

Tianming didn't have to wait long for his foe to show up. The caelum first manifested as a puff of smoke, then coagulated into the figure of a youth of one and a half meters in height. He seemed only thirteen or so, by the standards of height of the Vermillion Bird Kingdom. He wore a green robe and had bright, glowing eyes. The skin that was visible through his clothing had dragonscale tattoos. He was obviously a beastmaster from Violetglory Star.

The minimum requirement to enter the wondersky realm was the Ascension stage, so the youth was at least on the same level as Tianming. For a random opponent to be that powerful must mean that the people here were of much better stock than the Divine Moon Realm.

"Lin Feng, I'm Long Qingyun from the Qinghe Dragon Clan of Myriaddragon Continent. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope to learn much from you." The youth's status didn't seem low, as was apparent from the dignity that radiated from his caelum. However, he held not one ounce of contempt or mockery for Tianming, who obviously looked older than him. Probably only the descendants of truly elite clans would be that well mannered and dignified. After all, those who loved to lord over others to feel a sense of superiority usually never made it far up the ladder, the divine moonrace for instance.

"Likewise," Tianming said with a respectful salute.

Long Qingyun returned the salute, then manifested a dragon-shaped halberd. At the same time, his tattoos turned into three lifebound beasts with more than a thousand stars. They were huge dragons, all of them green and burning with violet flames. These violetflame godcloud dragons circled around their master, causing his robes to wildly flap. They gave off an oppressive aura.

A youth like that actually had lifebound beasts that were far more powerful than Dugu Jin's. This was the difference between cultivators from a legacy clan with tens of millions of years of history that had access to a nova source and those on a continent on the Welkin plane, and for all Tianming knew, Long Qingyun could be just average at Violetglory Star.

Without another word, Tianming allowed Ying Huo, Meow Meow, and Lan Huang to come out for a fair fight, and didn't manifest his totems. They were fighting on Lan Huang's home turf anyway. Long Qingyun should be a second-level ascendant, so he definitely wasn't Tianming's match. As a result, their fight only lasted a few moments before a victor emerged. Before Tianming even had to make a move, his three beasts took down all his opponents.

"Lin Feng, you are truly among the strongest contending for a place at Violetglory Pagoda. I didn't think you'd be the first one I encountered. Looks like I have to wait another ten days," Long Qingyun said, a little crestfallen.

"It's no big deal. Do your best and come back again," Tianming said.

"May we meet again, fate willing."

"Farewell."

Right after that, the youth disappeared from the spherical formation. Following that, Tianming's vision turned white once more and a mechanical voice said, "Challenge successful. You have obtained the right to cultivate in the pagoda for one day. Please enter the first level immediately."

He was transferred to the pagoda in almost an instant.

"With the astralscape of order so vast, and there being so many people in the wondersky realm alone, I shouldn't have to worry about my Primordial Chaos Beast secrets being discovered. I should have a few more techniques scanned later to grow stronger and get more resources for myself."

Even though Tianming could already tread his own path through the Ascension stage from the Flameyellow Continent, there was no sense in not making use of the legacies of powerful races all throughout the cosmos. Not to mention, the stronger the people he encountered were, the stronger he would become.

He reappeared underneath an endless sky with countless stars, constituting nearly a hundred million caeli. This was just the first level of the pagoda.

"There's far too many...." This was what it truly felt like to have the entire sky in his arm's reach. He had a feeling he would never reach the end if he charged into it, even though it was only the first level.

"There's more than three thousand regions here alone... I'm only in one of them." All of the stars were god-level caeli of people long past, leaving behind their memories for those who came after to study. They constituted millions of ways and attitudes towards cultivation. There was bound to be one that fit each and every person.

Not to mention, it was the first time he was studying their caeli's cultivation with his own caelum. Their caeli had recorded their whole lives. When he reached out for the first senior's caelum, the most obvious difference was the scope. The caeli of the divine moonrace's ancestors only observed events that happened in the Divine Moon Realm. However, the seniors of Violetglory Star had gone far and wide to different parts of the astralscape of order instead of staying huddled up at their home.

The sheer difference in attitude and approach made the two groups' caeli really interesting to compare. Expanding one's horizons was really important to any cultivator. The divine moonrace felt inferior to the celestial orderians above them, so they mostly turned to looking down on humans in the mortal world to cover up their own inadequacies instead. In a million years, that turned into an arrogant pride in their own kind.

"Only when one has seen many things can they go far in life." Tianming stretched his hand out to touch a caelum in the form of a purple star. It belonged to a senior called Gu Yuntian who used Skycloud Divine Will, something that was completely different to Tianming's own. Yet his viewpoints and experiences gave Tianming much to ponder about.

He began noticing something really terrifying: after scanning through all the contents of the caelum, only a breath's time had passed. It was quick to the extreme, taking no longer than a single glance. Looking down, he finally realized why: when his hands touched a caelum, the bane text on his body would flood across it. By the time the text returned to him, he already knew all that he wanted to see. This was more than a hundred times faster than when he did it before ascending. Perhaps he would be tens of times faster relative to other disciples in the pagoda.

"So, among Trisoul Prime, which I got after breaking the curse of Aeonic Grandbane, Terra Prime became my decapath era godswords, Vita Prime greatly boosted my comprehension regarding techniques and battle arts by enhancing my senses, and Caelum Prime gives me this unique talent?"

The experiences of ascendants were far more complicated than that of samsarans, yet he almost instantly absorbed them all the same. It sounded like heresy, even if experiences in caeli couldn't be directly emulated but only be used for inspiration. Even so, with his level of efficiency, spending one day in the pagoda for him would be equivalent to tens of days for other people.

"Looks like the reward for breaking the curse wasn't some explosive power up, but a huge transformation in all three parts of my soul instead! While the Primordial Chaos Beasts didn't boost the talent of my soul, Lifesbane did...."

His future was endlessly bright. He didn't just belong in the category of geniuses, he was a powerful elite! Most geniuses still died out, sooner or later, while the elites were the ones that truly prevailed.

Tianming took a deep breath to humble himself before embarking on many other journeys to learn from the predecessors' insights. He knew that to change the fate of his family and friends and help his parents escape being hunted down, being the strongest on the Flameyellow Continent was far from enough.

"Should I continue along the way for Imperial Will for the Ascension stage or shift to another one?" Tianming had been considering that question for the past few days. That was one of the two choices an ascendant would have to make.

"The first choice is to continue training Imperial Will. But now that it's a divine will, it'll only grow harder and harder and make my breakthroughs even harder. Alternatively, I can apply a completely new heavenly will on my astral discs to support Imperial Will and stabilize my astralforce.

"Cultivating a new heavenly will to become divine will will be much easier, and when it succeeds, I'll have two main divine wills in my astral discs. That can help me reach the peak of the Ascension stage or even beyond, but having one will alone also has its benefits! If I follow one divine will to the very end, there's a chance some new change will happen. I'll transcend the concept of godhood and become the most powerful being in the astralscape of order! Perhaps my dad's first life was a being on that level. While having two wills can speed up growth, it won't let me cross the last boundary."

The former was slow, but had much more potential. The latter was fast, but ended at a bottleneck. Most people wanted to take the first option, but usually relented and settled for the second.

"Given my talent, I should be picking the first option and sticking with Imperial Will until I reach the level of the Primordial God-Emperor. Then again, who said that having two wills would necessarily stop me? Can't I just do the first option for both wills? Follow both the wills to the end of their roads?"

With his horizons broadened, he gained a new outlook on matters. Instead of picking one or the other, he picked both. So what if Imperial Will was hard? He wouldn't be giving up on it yet. He would improve his divine will while cultivating a new heavenly will to become his second divine will.