Chapter 2243 - Ranking Increase

Since getting to know Tianming, Lin Lele had found him rather mysterious. She had already witnessed his impressive performance many times, so that was nothing new. But when he hushed her, she hugged her arms and covered her Oldgod Ring quietly, wondering what was going through his mind.

After being healed by the Greenspark Tower, Tianming felt much better and was able to stand up again. There was no longer anyone there as they had all gone off to chase Shuntian Bohan, who had the manna.

"My blood has seeped inside... and the rock doesn't seem to be damaged from me crashing into it. It's definitely not normal divine ore." So far, the pillar showed no changes. A chunk of divine rock about a hundred meters tall wouldn't be that heavy. Tianming stretched both arms out to hug the black pillar and used the strength of his Fiendsky Arm to try to give it a push. Eventually, he managed to extract the finger from the ground it was embedded in. The black rock under it had a grade three or four divine pattern, but Tianming felt that the patterns on the finger itself were different.

"I'll put it in my spatial ring and study it later." As the battle hadn't ended too long ago, Yin Chen told him that people were still approaching to see what all the commotion had been about. Tianming put the pillar into his spatial ring. "It really isn't that heavy. At the very least, it's much lighter than the green skeletons." There were already two skeletons in his spatial ring, heavily weighing down his hand and greatly affecting his performance.

"It's just a stupid piece of rock!" Lin Lele complained.

Tianming asked Yin Chen about Shuntian Bohan's status and heard that he had managed to shake off Qi Qiling and run far away.

"Should we... give chase?" Yin Chen eagerly asked.

"I'll ask Sis Le." He directed the question to her.

"There's no point. I'm not his match." While she was unhappy about it, she gave up in the end. If even she wasn’t confident in being able to defeat him, there was no way Tianming could.

More and more, he was reminded that the gap between a god and an astral god was insurmountable. Lin Jianxing, Shuntian Bohan, and even Lin Lele were figures that could trample him beneath their feet. While it was only natural for a thirty-odd-year-old like him to not be their match, he was still annoyed nonetheless. "Power’s still everything at the end of the day. Even with Yin Chen spotting all the treasures that manifest within the Oldgod Domain, it's pointless if I can't defeat others to get them."

He needed the right tool for the job, and his body and cultivation were still inadequate to compete in this arena. Despite having easily taken care of Qi Hongzhen, Tianming was still humbled by Shuntian Bohan. He had to find his bearings and properly walk his path.

"There's still quite a bit of time in this event. I should calm down and focus on the advantages granted to me by the caeli." With that in mind, he returned to their hiding spot with Lin Lele.

"Oh? Sis Le, you got ranked," Tianming said when he noticed her disciple card's changes.

"How does it start?" she asked, not having seen it yet.

"Three and eight," Tianming said with a smirk. [1]

"Damn, could it get any worse?" Lin Lele was quite unhappy that she was ranked around the tens of millions like Tianming was, though she was still much higher at thirty-eight million. At least she was right in the upper-intermediate spot, and an orderan.

"In other words, there should be around forty million astral gods in the Infinitum Mundus. That really isn't a lot. Ebonia already has a population of a hundred trillion. Even heliacal-class worlds have populations of a trillion, thanks to their higher birth rate. Forty million is almost nothing in comparison to the population of an entire mundus." The reges mundi ranking wasn't limited to Ebonians, but applied across the entire mundus. Many elites from sanctuary- and ether-class worlds also had a spot.

"Sis Le, you have a separate ranking in the minor reges mundi ranking," Tianming reminded her.

"I saw it. Nine hundred and eighty-one, more or less what I predicted. There’s around nine hundred people that’re stronger than me according to the evaluation of the Infinitum Stele among all ten thousand, at least for now," she said. Competition was fierce if so many people were at that standard. Lin Lingxiao used to hold the fifth rank way back, which was quite an achievement. From that, it could be derived that there were around a thousand astral gods among the ten thousand geniuses of under a hundred years old, all of whom were from peak factions in the mundus. No doubt, they were infinitum-class geniuses.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Your ranking also rose, you know. You have a minor reges mundi ranking now, too. It's probably thanks to your earlier performance."

"Really?" Tianming hadn't noticed it. The first two eights of his ranking had been replaced with seventy-nine, and the rest of the digits didn't matter for now.

"Wow, I only broke through once, but my rank rose nine million places." Behind the numbers was another smaller set of numbers that was his minor reges mundi ranking. "Five thousand eight hundred and forty-four." He had been evaluated to be about average among all the participants there. There were around five thousand who were evaluated to be better than him.

"That's not particularly encouraging." He was still quite far off from being able to draw the limelight.

......

After returning to their hideout, Lin Lele still seemed laid back, even though she was ranked. According to her, the only worthwhile ranks to fight for were the top hundred. Getting into the top hundred was an act that could honor one's ancestors and raise one's reputation. For the most fair evaluations, a lot of combat data first had to be gathered before the evaluation could be made. Most of the battles in the later stages of the event would be centered around those people. Since Lin Lele couldn't hold up against the best of the best, she wasn't too pressured to seek out fights to raise her ranking. Thus, she didn't mind Tianming's long cultivation pauses.

She also noticed that he was even more insistent on not flashing her Oldgod Ring around after he brought the stone pillar back. Since the enforcers would have no good reason to come to him, according to the rules, he boldly started uncovering the secrets of the Oldgod Domain.

"What use does this rock have, anyway? It's nothing like the skeletons and it doesn't even have divine celestial patterns, let alone legacy formations." She was quite curious about how busy he was keeping himself.

Tianming smiled and said, "Why don't you give it a try?"

"Try, try, try...." She slammed a hard fist into the pillar, which shattered into small pieces! Tianming was completely dumbstruck; the pillar had been reduced to a pile of rubble.

1. Three-eight is Chinese slang for a busybody. ☜