Beastmaster of the AgesBeastmaster of the Ages
Sun Xiaoyue and Jiang Xiu'er must be lovers of some kind. At the very least, they had some kind of special relationship, or Sun Xiaoyue wouldn't be so handsy with the girl. The man in blue was the leader, called Cang Jue. He seemed to have a high cultivation level, being a ninth-level cosmic cartographer. The other three were at the eighth level.
Tianming looked at their myriadpath rings and found the color combination rather interesting. Cang Jue and Sun Xiaoyue had gold rings, while the girls, Jiang Xiu'er and Mo Guhe, had black rings. It was a classic combination in Myriadpath Valley. There was no way Jiang Xiu'er's partner would be on the same level as her if she had a gold myriadpath ring.
Either way, the two girls, despite being black ring fortuna disciples, were much stronger than Li Fan and only two levels lower than Gongsun Yan. They could possibly be a hundred years older than the two guys in the party. Otherwise, there was no way the guys would be good matches for them.
While black ring disciples are discriminated against, it doesn't apply to pretty young girls, eh? As long as they aren’t married, they'll still be popular and surrounded by male gold ring disciples.
The four were discussing kicking Tianming out of the party as he was learning more about them. In the end, Cang Jue shook his head. "According to the rules, I have no right to kick him out as the team leader. He’s the disciple of a reverend, after all. But don’t worry, girls. I’ll be responsible for your safety during this mission. If anyone dares to show you two disrespect, I’ll discipline them."
"That's right! What's to fear? We can simply kill him once we go out!" Sun Xiaoyue said, rolling his eyes.
"No matter what, it sucks to have our trip ruined by running into someone as disgusting as him." Jiang Xiu'er was so displeased that it took Sun Xiaoyue a lot of coaxing to get her to calm down.
They didn't bother hiding their disdain for Tianming in the slightest, nor did he bother keeping up any pretenses with them. He didn't bother to greet or get to know them. They were just members to fill up his party, anyway; he couldn't care less if they were going to do this mission seriously or sightsee in Bluemaple.
It wasn't hard for him to read the dynamics of the party at a glance. The two guys, Cang Jue and Sun Xiaoyue, were friends, just like the two girls were friends, too. Sun Xiaoyue and Jiang Xiu'er were lovers, but Cang Jue and Mo Guhe weren't. Perhaps the couple was trying to set things up between the other two during this trip.
Once the last person arrives, we'll depart. I can just shake them off once we reach the destination. Tianming didn't want annoying bugs beside him anyway.
After waiting a few more minutes, the last girl, Jian Qinghe, arrived. Tianming was quite surprised when he saw her. "It's her?"
She was the girl in green he had seen in Battlesky Hall, the one with the formation-locked veil. The middle-aged man wasn't by her side this time. She wasn't too surprised to see Tianming there, since she had also received a mission briefing sheet. She wordlessly stood to the side when she arrived. Tianming couldn't tell what she was thinking due to her veil and Cang Jue didn't waste any words, either. The rest appeared to not recognize her.
Jiang Xiu'er pouted and said, "What's with the veil? Trying to act mysterious? How beautiful must you be to need to hide it in Myriadpath Valley?" She seemed to notice the gold ring on Jian Qinghe's arm and felt rather jealous. As for Gu Mohe, she seemed to have sensed some danger when she noticed the gold ring.
As they were leaving, Jiang Xiu'er whispered to Sun Xiaoyue, "Are you stupid? Next time, just pick a four-person mission for us."
"Weren't you the one that said that Bluemaple was a beautiful star?" Sun Xiaoyue said, glaring at her.
"I don't care. You're just stupid."
"Fine. You’re my wifey, after all! You're the biggest boss!" Sun Xiaoyue made sure to look at her assets as he said that.
"Idiot!" Jiang Xiu'er flushed red.
"When we get some time to ourselves in Bluemaple, I want to give them a nice squeeze."
"Go away! Forget doing that until we're properly married!" she snapped, rolling her eyes.
"Jiang Xiu'er, we're leaving," Gu Mohe said, turning back. She was standing right next to Cang Jue.
"I know. Don't worry, try to talk to Brother Cang Jue more. He can be a bit quiet, though."
Gu Mohe nodded with a slight blush.
Tianming wasn't that far off and felt rather annoyed that he was being treated as cumbersome luggage. Fortunately, Jian Qinghe was receiving the same treatment. Jiang Xiu'er's nonstop prattling was getting rather annoying. Tianming considerably hated her. She really thought that she was a goddess around which the world revolved. It was as if she thought all the men in the world should treat her like a princess just because she had a boyfriend.
For no good reason, Jiang Xiu'er turned to Tianming and Jian Qinghe and said, "Can you guys hurry up? Who asked you to take this mission for no good reason? I'm so unlucky...."
Jian Qinghe automatically filtered out the noise. Seeing the two of them ignore her made Jiang Xiu'er even more annoyed. She glared at Sun Xiaoyue once more and said, "It's all your fault for picking this rubbish mission."
Sun Xiaoyue was getting annoyed, too. "Fine. Once we get there, I'll kill them. Happy?"
"Do you think you can?"
"One’s a tainted beastmaster, while the other is a faceless girl. What do you think?"
"You're just bragging!"
"Just you watch!" Sun Xiaoyue felt rather angry after hearing all the complaints. He was wondering if he would be breaking up even before his friend successfully got the girl during the trip.
The group eventually made their way to the Myriadpath Celestial Formation.
"We should name our team, right?" Jiang Xiu'er said.
Cang Jue laughed, "I'm no good at naming. You should come up with something, Jiang Xiu'er."
"That's right," Gu Mohe said.
Sun Xiaoyue said, "My wife has tons of ideas! We'll let her do the honors!"
"Fine!" Jiang Xiu'er rolled her eyes and jumped when she got an idea. "I got it! All of us dream of becoming an eminent, so let's call ourselves the Four Eminents! One day, all four of us will become eminents."
"Four Eminents? Not bad." Sun Xiaoyue seemed to like it.
Cang Jue nodded. "Very well. We'll go with that."
Tianming was so speechless that he laughed. It was a party of six, but two were being treated as invisible.
The formation soon activated. Tianming walked ahead of them and said, "You four should stop dreaming about becoming eminents and focus on not dying in the Darkfiend Den."
Right as he finished speaking, the light of the formation enveloped all six of them.