Chapter 148: Heavenly Immortal Tortoise
〖Congratulations, Goal Complete: Survive to the present age within the River of Evolution. Time elapsed: 1.2 billion years!〗
〖Through cultivating and surviving in the River of Evolution, your Beast has learned the following Skills:
Era 2 · Survival Instinct. Era 3 · Hardening. Era 4 · Adaptation. Era 5 · Environmental Assimilation. Era 6 · Endurance. Era 7 · Undying Shell. Era 8 · Primordial Resonance. Era 9 · Primordial Archive!〗
〖Your Beast has cultivated: Life Nourishment, Primordial Sense, Primordial Barrier, Primordial Manifestation.
Your Beast has comprehended the following techniques: Primordial Cycle Art, Life Refinement Art, Primordial Body-Tempering Art, Life Restoration Art, Primordial Concealment Art, Primordial Sensing Art, Life Nourishment Art, Energy Compression Art, Primordial Energy Conversion, Life Transfer Art, Primordial Barrier Art, Primordial Domain Art, Primordial Manifestation Art, Life Reconstruction Art, Primordial Rebirth Art...〗
A long list, still scrolling.
Techniques are advanced abilities.
To comprehend any means the Beast had the principle down to its depths. To comprehend this many? That was a level of profundity, unmeasurable.
Who could have imagined cultivation could earn a creature this kind of worth.
So many Summoners spent decades evolving their Beasts, and couldn’t even dream of reaching this point.
But this sort of thing came down to how you cultivated, and where you cultivated.
Both of those happened to be where Luke’s strengths lay.
Without his Dimensional Workshop, he will never get into another world, and without that, there’d have been nowhere to cultivate his beast this far.
Dare say the Branch and Path Amigo took was the hardest path among all beasts.
Since Amigo was done, Luke was allowed to take his beast.
After taking Amigo, he ensured his beast was fine.
Amigo’s appearance had changed a great deal, but what Luke cared about more was his condition, because after a journey like that, he’d need time to recover.
Fortunately, Seraphina could look after his Soul and Spirit.
Before long, Amigo stirred awake in the Workshop.
Luke checked his status.
〖Species: Heavenly Immortal Tortoise (Mythic Rank)〗
〖Type: Support〗
〖Level: 9.5 | Potential: 9.9〗
?!?!
"That’s not possible..." Seraphina murmured under her breath, eyes going wide, her lips trembling.
This was the first time Luke had ever seen Seraphina wear an expression like that. It was as if she’d come face to face with something that outranked even her.
Luke assumed she was rattled by the 9.5 Level.
9.5 was practically brushing the ceiling of Amigo’s Potential, next to nothing short of max level, you could call it max level.
But what had shaken Seraphina wasn’t the Level at all, but it was Amigo’s new identity.
Heavenly Immortal Tortoise!
"I thought you were just an unremarkable Astral Tortoiseling. How did you become the Heavenly Immortal Tortoise...?" she asked Amigo, who’d only just woken.
By Seraphina’s English, there’s only one Heavenly Immortal Tortoise, while there are more than one Astral Tortoiseling.
The former Astral Tortoiseling replied, "Excuse me, Master, who is this?" in an innocent tone, but also with a hint of shrewdness.
He didn’t even glance at Seraphina as anything worth minding!
Seraphina bristled.
"I am Seraphina Seraph, an Empyreal Angel with the highest Potential among—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know what you are," Amigo cut her off. "I’m asking what you’re doing here."
Seraphina’s head exploded like a star out of frustration.
"Amigo, she’s my second Mythic-rank Summon. An Empyreal Angel," Luke explained.
"What?! Master, I’ve only been gone a week, and you’ve already replaced me?"
"Don’t get ahead of yourself," Luke said. "Both of you are indispensable to me. And there’s also the new arrivals— Bo and Lan. Now that we’re all one family, I don’t expect anyone playing favorites. You two need to look out for each other, get along, and don’t make things difficult for me."
"Bo and Lan..." Amigo pondered slowly. "Sounds familiar. Where are they? I’d rather rapport with them than with this girl here."
"You!" Seraphina exploded again. "Fine then, friend, let’s see me put you in your place right now!"
She pressed down a spiritual burden on Amigo that was strong enough to even affect the physical and break your bones.
But Amigo didn’t so much as flinch. Not a shudder in his body, not a blink of his eyes.
Seraphina was stunned, but she tried again, attempting to force her way into Amigo’s body by possessing him. However, she couldn’t get in. Amigo’s Spirit kicked her back out, like brushing off an unwelcome guest.
Meanwhile, Luke didn’t intervene because he knew Seraphina couldn’t hurt Amigo.
All those Techniques and all those Skills — did she think he’d cultivated them for nothing?
Did she really believe she could push around a 9.5 Mythic-rank Beast on a whim?
Luke warned Seraphina before that there are beings out there who can withstand her power. And here was proof, standing right in front of her.
"How is this possible..." she murmured. "No one’s ever..."
"Because my body isn’t as simple as you take it for," Amigo said, smug. "What you pressed down on me just now was a kind of Spiritual Suppression. But after countless years cultivating the Primordial Path, my Spirit and my body have long since grown used to bearing vast amounts of Primordial Energy. The Primordial Body-Tempering Technique lets my body carry that weight without yielding, without breaking. And when you tried to force your way into my Spirit, you ran into much the same thing. My energy doesn’t just flow through me and pass on. Through the Primordial Circulation Technique, it moves without pause, strengthening every part of my being, one layer after another."
Seraphina frowned. "And if I just hit you instead?"
"Then I’ll use Hardening and build the toughest shell there is," Amigo answered.
Only then did Seraphina understand that Luke’s praise for Amigo hadn’t been empty words.
But she wasn’t beaten yet.
This time around, she carried one of the Primordial Twin Forms and brought it to Amigo with a bigger smile on her face.
"This is Lan. One half of the Dark Dragon King’s Primordial Twin Form. Still feeling invincible?"
One look, and Amigo’s eyes went wide.
"Aah! Master, get her away from me! Immortal Fire will kill this Heavenly Immortal Tortoise!"
Seraphina burst out laughing. "All that fuss, and you fold to one baby dragon?"
"Hey, watch what you’re saying! Immortal Fire would burn you too!" Amigo shot back.
"Come back and say that once I hit 9.5!" Seraphina retorted.
Each summon had their own point.
What Seraphina was saying was that Amigo wasn’t the strongest, but Amigo had just proven he was stronger—at this moment.
But the real question Seraphina wanted answered was this: was he naturally stronger, or just a matter of his Level being high for the moment?
And what would happen once she herself cultivated up to Mythic-rank 9.5?
Meanwhile, Luke didn’t care who was stronger than whom.
In his view, each had its own strengths.
His summons covered all three categories of summons: Combat, Support, and Auxiliary. This is why they had their own strengths.
But Luke felt like once Seraphina evolved to the limit of her Potential, it would be a calamity on a cosmic scale.
At Mythic-rank 4.0, she can influence things on a planetary level. When she evolves past that, the scale to think in is no longer planetary.
Seraphina can accomplish this by finishing any of her conditions.
In the Insect World, Seraphina is more likely to witness more births. This is better than Earth because life is prolific here and there are many insect races.
In the Insect World, Seraphina can also witness 100 acts of cruelty by seeing their hierarchical divisions, like insect slavery.
Also, Seraphina can do condition 2 in the Insect World.〖Condition 2: Let the beast cultivate for one week where at least 100,000 people pray.〗
This one now looks even very easy to accomplish.
This means three Paths at once, a sign that Seraphina’s ceiling was higher than that of any summon/beast out there. But that doesn’t undermine Amigo.
Luke had no business saying "Astral Tortoiseling" anymore.
Amigo was now the Heavenly Immortal Tortoise.
His body had grown to the size of a go-kart, six legs, a shell of strange design, three eyes that looked connected to another Dimension, and scales rippling with river-like light.
Curious just what "Heavenly Immortal Tortoise" actually meant, Luke summoned the system.
〖Species: Heavenly Immortal Tortoise (Mythic)〗
〖Type: Support〗
〖Rank: 9.5 | Potential: 9.9〗
〖Skills: Primordial Evolutionary Origins〗
〖Description: The only Heavenly Immortal Tortoise in existence that cultivated for 1.2 billion years and can exercise every stage of evolution. The Heavenly Immortal Tortoise has seen no limits of knowledge and can comprehend infinitely every fundamental aspect of existence. 〗
How to couple with the fact that his once timid turtle, who used to be afraid of every little thing, was now an immortal, and only a few things can harm him?
Also, it came as a surprise because Amigo is a beast in the first plane.
Luke assumed immortality is something you get in the second plane or a plane higher.
Which means his beast has a bigger fish to fry.
But Luke must level up himself as the summoner because you can’t bypass planes without the summoner putting in the work. But activating Supreme State is a shortcut to know your beast’s potential with respect to planes.
Unfortunately—Luke was a beast armor summoner.
The Skills other Summoners had access to, he couldn’t unlock, so even Supreme State was something he could not activate.
However, this is not a problem.
He will simply level up himself normally.