Beastmaster of the Ages

"Are you insane? Even though astral holes don't have astralguard formations, the nova source coming from them is really wild. Not to mention, there could be quite a high number of elites there. The Ninedragon Imperial Tomb stands out too much and we'll be immediately discovered!" the Archaionfiend warned in a fright.

"Are you getting old or something? Since when have you been so careful and pensive?" Tianming said with a mocking look. Naturally, he wasn't going there to attract attention. The reason he dared to approach was that he had found a nice place to land the ship.

The collapse of the world that formed the astral hole was like the world had split in half, creating large amounts of rocks and debris floating around the astral hole. They formed a large collection of rings that resembled Lan Huang's Kilofold Rings. The rings themselves didn't give off any light, but they reflected some of the light that came from the astral hole. They looked like clouds surrounding the petals of the astral hole. They were made of asteroids of varying sizes, some tens of thousands of them even comparable to the moon in size. Tianming targeted one such asteroid to land on, as the size made it easy to hide the ship.

Eventually, they finally got close to the ground and Tianming tried for a perfect landing. He was enjoying his role as the captain of the ship and was earnestly doing it with his full focus. The ship slowly decelerated as it descended before eventually smashing a crater into the surface of the asteroid, giving the passengers another rough bump. Lan Huang, unprepared for the impact, went rolling around, smashing against the inner walls of the ship and ending up half dead.

"Well, it could still use some work, but it's much better than before! Nine out of ten!" Tianming confidently said. Then he had the ship burrow to the deepest point of the asteroid and parked it there. As he wasn't able to use the cloaking formation yet, that was the best way to hide it. Fortunately, there were many asteroids like this one in the rings, and given how there was no nova source nearby, people wouldn't usually go to them. Their risk of being discovered was quite low. Only then did the Archaionfiend breathe a sigh of relief; it had thought that Tianming was crazy enough to fly straight into the astral hole.

Eventually, the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb lay nestled in the middle of the asteroid and Tianming let go of the wheel formation. "Done deal!" He turned back to the rest and said, "We flew far, and I have no idea where we are either, but we finally found something that approximates a nova source world. Let's rest here for a bit."

"Alright." The others didn't have a specific destination either, and only wanted to leave Orderia. As the saplings hadn't had too much time to absorb nova source there, Tianming wasn't sure how far they could fly. At the end of the day, it would be safer to stop somewhere with at least some nova source. They also needed a change of pace for their mood.

"The astral hole world isn't too far from here. I think we only need ten or so days to fly there with our own bodies. I'll go there to check it out with Ling'er. How about you guys? Do you want to come with me or stay here?" Tianming asked. They would be able to communicate through Yin Chen, given the relatively short distance.

"Big Brother, Feng still needs a month or two of rest to detoxify, so he can't really be moving around. I'll stay here with him," Qingyu said.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. What about you, Xiaoxiao?"

When Tianming looked at her, she started for a moment and gave it some thought. "I think I'll stay here." The Archaionfiend had ingested far too many caeli, so it needed time to digest them.

"Alright."

It seemed that they were quite tolerant of long voyages, but Tianming couldn't stand it for too long. He was sick of seeing nothing but an endless sea of stars. "I need to see some land!"

He took his lifebound beasts along and hugged Feiling's waist tight as he went up the rocky surface of the asteroid. The splendor of the astral hole world was visible from where he stood.

"Man, staying cooped up in the ship was driving me cuckoo. Being out here is so much better," he said.

"Cuckoo? You already have a bird with you.... Oh, wait, you'll get more in time." Ying Huo came out and took the form of a chick. It stretched its wings and properly combed its 'hair'.

"What are you on about?"

"You stick to your one and only. I prefer to go around, even when I already have a long-time lover. We are not the same. I've tasted enough love lately. I plan to look past Yue Yue and explore this new world. Hopefully, I'll meet more avian beauties there," it said with a serious tone.

"How shameless can you be? Shuo Yue doesn't care about you at all."

"Sigh, you just don't get it, do you? It's called playing hard to get!"

Tianming ignored that stupid bird. He held Feiling by the waist and took out a divine artifact from his spatial ring, the Prime Tower! Since the Greenspark Tower had manifested, the Prime Tower was no longer that useful in combat, apart from its toughness. Thus, he hadn't had much time to use it. Yet it seemed to have reacted to something as the ship was passing by the astral hole.

"Why's there mist coming from the Prime Tower?" Feiling asked, her eyes filled with wonder. It was letting out some kind of white fog that surrounded the tower more and more, eventually making it blurry.

"Both the Grand-Orient Sword and Prime Tower are incomplete. There's a huge hole in their divine patterns. The changes might be a sign that the missing patterns have something to do with this astral hole," Tianming said as he gave the world another look.