Chapter 1753 - Prime Wonder
The first level of the Prime Tower was entirely snow white and empty as Tianming had removed the Soul and Purple Towers from it. Even today, they still played pivotal roles. He then ascended to the second level, where the Greenspark Tower used to be. His recent battles, however, hadn't utilized it much. So far, nothing about the Prime Tower looked different except for an additional thing on the second floor: a flight of white stairs. It led up to the third floor.
"The third floor is open?" The Grand-Orient Sword itself had five layers, while the Prime Tower had three floors. When he had obtained a minorsky steele back at the Voidsky Flame Pillar, a new crack had appeared in one of the five heavy doors within the sword, allowing Tianming to see a boundless imperial star.
The third floor of the Prime Tower was just as mysterious. He immediately ascended the stairs and stepped into the seeming void. Light s.h.i.+fted around him until he found himself in a white room once more, though it was smaller than the two floors beneath it. There was a tall, white tower in front of him that looked slightly different from the Prime Tower. The Prime Tower was a three-layered tower, while this was a nine-layered paG.o.da. It was quite long and slender, like the original Prime Tower, and seemed even more ancient. Every floor had a single window, upon which ancient text could be seen. Tianming didn't know how to read it, but he knew that all nine characters on the floors were formed by dense divine celestial patterns.
"Windows?" Tianming bent down to give them a closer look. Apart from the lowest floor's window that seemed slightly translucent, the other eight were surrounded by white fog. The fog on the first layer seemed slightly less dense. "Huh?"
He saw the silhouette of a person draped in white robes, heavily weighed down by countless chains, with his back facing Tianming. The word 'prime' was written on the back of his robe. Was that a person or a sculpture? Why would he be imprisoned within? The person looked a little like a monk. Tianming then recalled the existence that had told him of the Aeonic Grandbane.
"Senior?!" Tianming gasped, as the person within was only as large as his thumb. But given how the nine-layered tower itself was only up to his knees, it wasn't surprising. He paused for thought before picking the tower up to get a closer look at the figure within. Even after calling out a few times, there was no response.
"This probably isn't a real person." Looking at the other sides of the tower, he soon noticed that the word on the first layer seemed blurrier than before. He stretched out his hand and rubbed it a few times and it actually came off. Then the tower began to shake and a window burst open, letting out a white fog. The robed figure within turned into fog and came out, slamming into Tianming and making his world spin.
"Huh?" He was stunned for a moment and he immediately retracted his caelum, letting his vita rea.s.sume control of his consciousness. Suddenly, he was back in the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb. He looked around and noticed that the Prime Tower had changed in his hands. It was growing taller, with each floor turning into three separate floors. Eventually, it became a nine-layered tower with open windows on all the floors. Aside from the first floor, the ancient characters on the other eight still seemed intact. The Prime Tower had changed, possibly being restored to its original form.
"Senior, why are you on the second level now?" Tianming looked at it blankly. The first floor was now empty and the fog on the second floor seemed a little less dense than before. The figure still sat there in chains, unmoving, but the angle was different. His back was no longer directly facing Tianming; instead, one of his ears was visible. Tianming tried rubbing off the ancient text on the second floor, but it didn't work. Perhaps the first floor just happened to be unsealed when he had tried it the first time. There didn't seem to be any other changes apart from its appearance. As he mulled in thought, the Prime Tower suddenly melted into a white liquid and entered his body.
"What in the world?" He noticed that his albi had changed. The white liquid seemed to infuse every single one of them. Tianming's Lifesbane Will was also shaped like the Prime Tower, which stabilized his five astral discs, yet this liquid was different as it was a physical object. Every single droplet was a part of the tower, and when they entered his albi, they served to reinforce them. However, it didn't just seem to be as simple as strengthening his albi. His expression changed as blinding white light poured out of his body. It sounded like a collision of stars. The sight and sound startled everyone on the s.h.i.+p.
This was the largest change to his physical body that Tianming had ever experienced. Even absorbing sword ki was merely an act of storing it in his albi, but this time, the Prime Tower changed every single one of them. Even though it wasn't visible to the naked eye, he knew that every albus in his body was being reforged into the shape of a nine-layered tower. Eventually, his body was a composite structure made up of countless towers. He looked the same on the outside, but in reality he couldn't be more different. Countless divine celestial patterns appeared on every single tower-albus. Tianming knew that the patterns had come from the character he had rubbed off. They didn't vanish, but had instead appeared all over him. In other words, unlocking a layer of the tower would cause the ancient text to spread in the form of patterns. They didn't seem to do much individually, but all the albi combined gave Tianming a shocking revelation.
"Is this... a divine wonder?" It was a formation crafted in human fles.h.!.+ He didn't have that kind of talent at all, yet the Prime Tower had changed his albi, giving them divine celestial patterns that combined into a formation in his person. Even though it was only a basic one, for now, there were still eight layers of the tower, each of them sealed by an ancient character made up of complex patterns.
"It looks like divine wonders aren't exclusive to divine wonderians, but are available to anyone with a high competency in formations.... To think that one would manifest from fusing with the Prime Tower...."
From that day onward, the Prime Tower itself had disintegrated and taken the form of a formation in his body. Tianming now had another trick up his sleeve. Unlike the Imperealm Sword Formation, which had the Grand-Orient Sword as its base, this divine wonder was embedded in his body. The Imperealm Sword Formation itself was relatively weak, as the Grand-Orient Sword was incomplete, but the formation made up of countless albi was sure to be powerful.
"Start!" He could control the formation as he willed. It began gathering the nova source from all around him and forming a field. Blinding white light shone all around him and turned into an illusory representation of the Prime Tower.
"Looks like the divine wonder can increase my defense by quite a lot. It's a portable defensive formation. I wonder if it can do much more?"
When he thought it, a kilometer-tall manifestation of the Prime Tower appeared just like Weisheng Xi's chess pieces had. They were manifestations of a formation's power, but behaved like physical objects with actual ma.s.s. Tianming could move it however he pleased. "This must be far heavier than the chess soul wonder, huh...."
He lightly moved it, placing it on the ground, but that alone caused the s.h.i.+p to shake and lose control. "It's like I'm carrying an entire mountain with me, and this is only the first level! No doubt, it can grow even more powerful. Even now, it's already better than Weisheng Xi's divine wonder. This will surely prove useful. Let's call you my prime wonder, then." Now he had attainments in beastmastery, totemancy, and divine wondermancy.
He wondered if his body could serve as a divine astrals.h.i.+p now that he had a divine wonder. He knew how crazy the real sizes of the Prime Tower and the Grand-Orient Sword were, and that this divine wonder was only in its infancy. "Perhaps one day my body can be as fast as the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb and as powerful as the Kilostar Capital." So far, the Prime Tower hadn't been nearly as useful as the Grand-Orient Sword, but this miracle seemed to completely change Tianming.