It was a foundation fortress! Order turned from a spherical honeycomb briquette into a hive, then a city filled with orderly young bees that grew larger as the level of one's order grew. The level of control over one's order rose and overwhelmed other, lower-tier orders, resulting in a huge transformation that allowed foundationeers to suppress orderans and cosmic cartographers alike. Even though they were advanced cosmic deities all the same, foundationeers were far more powerful than other astral gods. They were gods among gods.
Xiaodao was still within the Flameyellow Coffin, but his reaper order had been converted into a fortress of reaper sword ki through the beehives within his twelve cosmic charts, marking a successful breakthrough.
"Amazing, Xiaodao!"
"You’re the only one to reach the Foundation stage in the Lin Clan since the two reges mundi of ages past!"
"Looks like, along with the ebons and Yi Daiyan, the Swordgod Lin Clan now ranks in the top three with our own foundationeer to match."
"The heavens are truly helping us!"
The council members shed tears of joy. The clan had languished for far too long, especially over the past hundred years. But recently, there were far too many things to be excited about.
"Xiaodao's breakthrough patched up our biggest weakness. We’re finally able to stand equally against the other two great factions!" They’d had to rely on the infinitum-class ships before, but now they were finally able to stand on par when it came to elite fighters as well.
Right as everyone was tearing hairs out from the threat Yi Daiyan posed and the devastation caused by the ebons and their beast wave, Xiaodao's breakthrough came shining through like a ray of hope. Most importantly, they wouldn't have to publicize his breakthrough just yet. Instead, they could keep it as a hidden trump card to be used at the most unexpected moment.
They expectantly waited for the lid of the coffin to open. When it did, a man with messy hair and clothes and the air of a drunkard jumped out of the Flameyellow Bloodsoul. Though he had wanted to make a cool entrance, he lost balance and almost tripped.
"Master, I know you're happy about your breakthrough, but you don't have to bow to us!" Tianming mocked.
"Yeah! Did you lose your stable foundation along the way?" Wudi said, laughing.
"Shut up!" Xiaodao stood back up. The foundation fortress vanished and returned to him. He clearly looked different from before.
In fact, he no longer looked like he was radiating sharpness and power. The order of the Foundation stage seemed to have brought him closer to his humble origins, giving him a lower-key appearance. However, Tianming could see that the density of his astrons was far higher than before, with each one shining brightly. The foundation fortress's ability to restrict also seemed to have a similar effect to Feiling's Perpetia.
"Did you really break through to the Foundation stage?" Lin Xiao and the others asked, unable to tell for certain.
"What do you think?" Xiaodao said, crossing his arms.
They all clicked their tongues at the show he was putting up. The fact that he was able to be so smug must mean that he had succeeded.
"Good."
"Quick, show us what you can do!"
"Xiaodao, let’s have a spar."
"You? Please. Know your place! Let Brother Tiger go!" Lin Xiong said.
"That's right! Sword in the Forest!"
Lin Xiao chuckled. "I'm already old, so I can't last so many bouts. I'm also not a fan of being bullied, so let Changkong do it."
"Me?" Lin Changkong was speechless. Since the others wanted to see it, he decided to go along with it.
They sparred within the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb itself, and Xiaodao didn't even need more than a few moves to subdue Lin Changkong. While the two of them hadn’t used their lifebound beasts, the power gap between their respective orders wasn't something that could be made up for.
"Looks like foundationeers are much more powerful than cosmic cartographers. No wonder it was so difficult!" Lin Changkong exclaimed. While he hadn't fought Shenxi Xingtian or Yi Daiyan before, he’d initially thought he would be able to put up some kind of fight. But it appeared that he had been a little too naive.
"I'm a beastmaster foundationeer, so I need good manna. It's a shame that we don't really have any ordered manna with a hundred apertures here in the Infinitum Mundus to get my beasts' star counts to rise above a million. Otherwise, I would be much stronger. Yi Daiyan aside, I should still be able to put up a decent fight against Shenxi Xingtian," Xiaodao lamented. Manna was far too important to beastmasters.
"Are you confident you'll defeat Shenxi Xingtian?" Lin Xiao asked.
Xiaodao shook his head. "I can't say for sure until I actually fight him. His taixi soul is no doubt powerful against the soul, and infinitum-class nova wildbeasts aren't easy to take care of either. Then again, it helps that I'm more of a focused single combat fighter given my swordbeasts, while he's unable to congregate all the power of his wildbeasts together."
Historically speaking, members of the Swordgod Lin Clan had an advantage over ebons in that regard. The other clan to have a similar advantage was the Greenhill Yushan Clan, who used soul disruptions to affect the control that ebons had over their wildbeasts.
"It's fine. At the very least, we've reached parity to some degree," Lin Changkong said, confident in Xiaodao's abilities.
"Wait, she crushed the sanctlighters alone? She's that powerful?" Xiaodao furrowed his brow when he heard it.
"That's right! Do you think you can stand up to her?" Lin Xiao asked. They all didn't know enough about the Foundation stage to tell.
Xiaodao shook his head. "Without the Infinitum Stele, I might not be able to easily break through a defensive formation. And even if I did manage to do so, I'd still suffer some damage from the combined attacks of astralships. Yet, she seemed to be completely unharmed and could even counterattack. She's much stronger than we thought."
"Then, once she attacks us...." Dongshen Yue shivered at the thought.
"She won't do that for the moment. First, we have two infinitum-class ships. Second, we have Xiaodao now. The luxdaemons aren't able to measure up against us in those regards. If she really comes for us and starts a war on two fronts, it’d be suicidal. Even if she manages to cause some damage to us, the ebons would take advantage of her absence," Lin Xiao said.
"Should we leave, then?" Everyone turned to look at Xiaodao.
"The fighting on Ebonia’s already started. Of the two factions, Shenxi Xingtian isn't capable of attacking us, while Yi Daiyan can only threaten us in single combat. As such, there's little chance that we'll be attacked," Xiaodao said.
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