Beastmaster of the Ages

Chapter 3423 - Oblivion Variant

From mortals to ascendants and astral gods, one's body turned from flesh to one of albi, and then to astrons. Tianming was well aware how large a shift it was going from a lower to higher lifeform.

"So does the next step involve turning into an astral giant?" Tianming didn't quite know what to make of it. He was worried that his body wouldn't be able to shrink anymore should he truly turn into an astral giant one day. When Feiling returned to him, he didn’t want her to be the relative size of a mere doll!

"I must be overthinking it. She's the master of Perpetia. Once she overcomes her nirvana tribulation, she might be much stronger than I am! Maybe she'll be the one to crush tiny old me!" The thought of being flattened like an ant between her hands gave him a chill.

"Forget it, I should focus on the here and now and cultivate as hard as I can." The monochrome planet was an order, so there must be some way for him to observe it.

"With this in hand, maybe I don't even need to go to the Grand Myriadpath Ruins anymore. Can’t I just return to Infinitum and cultivate this way? Thinking about it, a personal piece of order that's comparable to myriadpath idols must be much better than all the caeli of the Grand Myriadpath Ruins combined! And I'm willing to bet that those in Myriadpath Valley aren't able to tap into the orders within the idols to cultivate, either." If they had indeed been able to do that, they would be far more powerful.

He took a deep breath and relaxed his caelum, allowing himself to properly observe everything within the planet-class order.

"It's far too big! There's too much information to pay attention to. The profundity of order in a single tile of land far outstrips that of valley lord caeli! I can't even imagine how much content is contained in this!"

Tianming's caelum flew past one bee-headed person after another as he observed the universe around him. Countless bee-headed people filled the planet, constructing many hexagonal forts, all complete with defensive walls and towers built of hexagonal bricks. Every single fort had twelve towers, which were arranged in a hexagonal formation.

In each continent that Tianming could see, there were many hexagonal forts. How many more could the whole planet contain? He couldn't help but wonder, "The leap from a fort to a planet is too much. Is there perhaps an intermediate state of order between the two phases?"

Either way, he was sure that he had obtained a really valuable treasure. Even if the spherical divine astralship had managed to elude him, the value of this planet-class legacy order would be enough to drive the entire Myriadpath Valley wild.

After observing a few of the forts, he came to a conclusion. "The value of this single planet-class order is far more than all the legacy caeli in Myriadpath Valley combined!"

His net worth had just outstripped the entirety of Myriadpath Valley's. This single item would ensure that his cultivation wouldn't reach a bottleneck even in the event that he was exiled from Myriadpath Valley.

"At the end of the day, observing legacy caeli and orders is just a way to stabilize cultivation. It still isn’t nearly as fast as using springwater with order fragments." Tianming knew that he couldn't take his former cultivation speed for granted. When he had been on the Prehistoric Path, he’d still been a cosmic cartographer, hence his rapid growth. Now that he was a foundationeer, it was a given that things would slow down.

On top of that, he’d noticed that the planet-class order had a slightly different function from the myriadpath idols. The idols were like tutorial programs that had a predetermined syllabus for a cultivator to master. The planet-class order, on the other hand, was a dense library of content that offered no guidance or spoonfeeding. He would have to rely on himself to discover what would help him and what wouldn't amidst all the content it held. While it wouldn’t be as fast as the myriadpath idols guidance, it was still a huge deal for Tianming's Foundation-stage cultivation.

"As for that fortuna-class divine astralship, I might have to wait until I obtain the bloodline of the lost people of the Yin-Yang World before I can activate it...." He had no idea where to begin where that was concerned, so he had Yin Chen keep an eye out for any clues while he focused on cultivating using the order of the monochrome figurine.

If Yin Chen found baleflame or other cultivators from House Yumo, Tianming would pause his cultivation to deal with them. He wouldn't completely kill them, but would instead choose to let their subsouls slowly crumble.

All in all, the time spent collecting baleflame and hunting Yumos didn't amount to much and he spent most of his time within the monochrome planet order.

"I just happened to use up a grade-nine order fragment from Antiquitas Mortis, so I can't really count on them anymore. I'm lucky to have found something like this in time." If he hadn’t been so lucky, he would have been stuck at the first level of the Foundation stage for decades!

As time passed, he carried out his routine without much deviation.

***

The top-rank cultivator of the Maniverse Ranking, Yumo Qiangming, returned to Myriadpath Valley after a month, transferring through the Myriadpath Celestial Formation. Once he was back, he and Yu Nu immediately took action.

Yumo Qiangming quickly used his transmission stone to inform his father, Eminent Diyan, to hold an urgent assembly of minor zenith seniors and above. "Dad, I saw an astralship-like object in the Yin-Yang World! I think it's fortuna class!"

Eminent Diyan immediately cut the call after summoning Yumo Qiangming back to Yumo Cave posthaste. By the time his son returned, all eminents of minor zenith and above had been waiting for him at the plaza outside their ancestral hall for some time.

After the death of Eminent Baigui, House Yumo only had nine eminents of that level of power remaining. Some of them were of rather advanced age, as well, being from the same generation as Yumo Qiangming's grandfather.

Among the group, Eminent Diyan didn't take center stage. Instead, the one who did was an old crone. She was clad in a loose, twilight-yellow robe and in her hand was a staff that was capped with a horrifying skull. Her eyes were pale white and her posture was crooked. Though she was old with wrinkled skin, her insidious, baleful aura made her seem particularly sinister, even among the starblood-refining members of House Yumo.

Much of it was thanks to the unique bloodline of the oblivion variant, a bloodline that was even rarer than Eminent Diyan's impermanence variant or Yumo Qiangming's bloodfiend variant. It wasn't that oblivion variants were stronger in pure might, but they did have much better vitality and endurance. [1]

"Senior Madame!" Yumo Qiangming hadn't expected that the old lady who had retired backstage would actually show up after hearing about what he had seen.

"Speak!" said the old crone, glaring at Yumo Qiangming.

1. 'Oblivion variant' here might alternatively be translated as 'Meng Po variant.' Meng Po is a figure in Chinese mythology that serves the 'soup of oblivion' to souls so that they forget the memories of their previous lives before reincarnating in the afterlife. ☜