Chapter 508 — Through the Era of the Empress

The helicopter landed not far off, and a slightly plump middle-aged man in a gray suit immediately led a group of medics running anxiously toward them.

"Elder Gu!!! Are you all right!!"

"Little Huo." At the sight of this plump middle-aged man, Elder Gu's face broke into a smile. "I'm fine."

"You're a step late—the old man's already been rescued, thanks to Shi Jin. He happened to be nearby."

The middle-aged man before them was the president of the Demon Capital Association, a Legendary beastmaster—Huo Di.

"Apologies, apologies, Elder Gu—we came too late." At that moment, President Huo Di's attention shifted abruptly to Shi Jin, who stood beside them nodding to him.

"President Huo, Elder Gu sent word through Bureau Eleven. I happened to be nearby, so I came first. But his condition still needs a full examination—I'll leave that to you." Shi Li.

President Huo's eyes went wide.

"Legend Shi Jin?!"

Holy hell.

Bureau Eleven—the one who'd come was actually this great figure.

He nearly suffocated.

As a Legendary, he was already entitled to know certain things, and he understood just how terrifying the young man before him was.

A single man who had slain two demigods!

The Cangwu Alliance's universally acknowledged strongest Legendary beastmaster.

Come to think of it, the first time he'd heard of Shi Jin was at the Taming Convention... Who could have imagined that in so brief a span of Time Imprint, this young man, the first talent Bureau Eleven had unearthed, would grow to such absurd heights?

The strongest on Blue Star!

That title—in Donghuang, likely not every Legendary even knew it, but he had, by chance, the channels to learn certain inside truths.

One could say it was acknowledged worldwide: even the legendary Shenyuan could not match the strength of the young man before him.

President Huo had never expected that the first to reach Elder Gu's side would be Shi Jin.

"Legend Shi Jin, understood. I'll take Elder Gu for a full examination at once." As President Huo finished speaking, Elder Gu beside him looked utterly bewildered.

What was this, Legend Shi Jin? What kind of bizarre title was that???

The old man could not understand why this boy Huo Di was acting so strangely.

The medics nearby were likewise baffled—they recognized Shi Jin too.

The world's Legend Shi Jin!

But why had President Huo addressed him as the Legend Shi Jin?

"Senior Gu, you should be fine now, but it would still be best to run a full examination." Shi Li.

First-tier cities had professional medical Overlords of Machinery, which, in professional terms, were something like a fusion of Can Bao and Lin. Shi Jin was already certain the old man was fine, but it was still better to follow procedure and give him a thorough professional checkup, so that he could understand his own condition more clearly, and so that Shi Jin would not have to worry.

"Very well..." Senior Gu nodded, and at the same time opened a mental link with Huo Di, a junior of his house whom he knew well.

[Little Huo, why did you just call Shi Jin a Legend?? What kind of bizarre title is that?!] The old gentleman was bewildered.

President Huo smiled wryly, then suddenly realized: Senior Gu had been exploring ruins for six years straight... He probably knew nothing at all of how the outside world had changed.

He gathered his thoughts and let the old man perceive them.

[Senior Gu, the Legend Shi Jin may be a newcomer to Bureau Eleven, but he has already taken up your title and become the strongest archaeologist of Donghuang, no—of Blue Star. Beyond that, two months ago he personally led three totem demigods and slew both Yun Han, the totem demigod who destroyed the Martial Emperor Dynasty, and the ancient abyssal sea demigod. He is already recognized across Blue Star as the strongest Legend, and even the Legend Shenyuan has decided to yield his place to him...]

[Senior Gu, the times have changed. The young man before you is the strongest human on Blue Star today.]

Gu Yun: ?????

The old man's eyes flew wide as he stared at Cen Yu. He had just been rescued, and now he suddenly seemed to have a heart condition.

Shi Jin: ...

............

One after another, the members of Bureau Eleven arrived in the Demon Capital. Senior Gu suppressed his emotions and submitted to the examination—chiefly because he himself suspected something had gone wrong in the way he took in information about the outside world.

"Shi Jin, what are you doing near the Demon Capital?" Lu Heng, having arrived, nudged Shi Jin and asked.

"Thanks to you, Senior Gu looks more spirited than I expected."

Shi Yan said, "I was just about to take a trip overseas."

"Oh? Where to?" Lu Yan asked.

"Phoenix Island, the power hostile to the Empress Dynasty—I mentioned it to you before. The Undying Dark Phoenix said it had sunk, but I still want to go look. What, want to come along?" Shi Yan.

Lu Heng shook his head. "Forget it, forget it. Invite me along once you've found it. I have far too much on my hands here."

"Well, all right, then (wonderful)." Shi Li: "Senior, once Senior Gu has finished his treatment, give him my regards. I won't linger here long."

Lu Heng: "In such a hurry?..."

"Archaeology, you know."

Shi Jin had chosen today to go to the dragon vein for a reason: this was the phase when the dragon vein was most active, and borrowing its power for time travel would cut the cost to the minimum. Any later and he would have to wait a very long while again—hence what people called an auspicious day.

..........

Location: the Space-Time Dragon Vein.

Once Shi Jin and the others finally arrived, Qi exerted her power, and a pink-white radiance enfolded every one of them—first flickering, then settling into stillness.

The past spacetime.

Year 955 of the Donghuang Calendar.

It was exactly the era after the fall of the Martial Emperor Dynasty—the Age of Totem Chaos!

In the eastern lands, the Phoenix Empire, seated in the Central Plains, was hailed as the strongest totem nation, holding the most fertile territories.

Around it stood a hundred nations—great and small totem countries and human cities, dotting the East.

One could say that at this time the East was a place of a hundred clans standing together, of warlords carving out their domains, of prodigies rising without end.

Among them, none were more renowned than the beast tamers of mixed Phoenix lineage...

The most representative of all was the daughter of a demigod, Princess Huang Xi of the Phoenix Empire.

...

Above a stretch of sea, chaotic and deathly still.

One figure after another, wreathed in pink-white light of spacetime, appeared out of thin air beneath the overcast sky upon this desolate little island.

"We're here, we're here! Qi, is there a time offset again?!"

"Wuu... this time we seem to have arrived a little earlier than planned."

"Never mind, never mind. A little early is better than late, in any case. Let's head over to Donghuang first and have a look." Shi Jin and the others pounced toward the lands of Donghuang like ravenous wolves, eager to size up the current situation in the East.

This time, Shi Jin and the others had several objectives... One of them was to retrieve the super-god-tier resource and plunder the Undying Dark Phoenix's Seven-Island Treasury all over again!

And another was to spoil the plot for the Empress—to let her in on the Undying Dark Phoenix's crooked schemes, and see what a mother-daughter devotion of the ancient variety looked like.