Out in the vastness of space, the Star Compass felt different than it had in the confines of the white room.

Lin Yi stood atop the circular stone disk. It hovered steadily beneath his feet, its four rings turning slowly at the edges. Each ring settled into its direction with a quiet certainty, as if the compass itself was engineered to always know its precise location in the universe. The north ring aimed directly at Blue Star. He’d simply thought of his destination before stepping onto the disk, and the compass, without a moment’s pause, had aligned itself and lifted off.

Then, it moved.

Not with the deliberate slowness he might have expected. Nor even at the speeds of techniques like Heaven Step or Boundless Step. Instead, the compass surged through space, making those advanced movement techniques feel like a leisurely walk. The surrounding stars blurred into streaks instead of distinct points as the disk ate up the distance from the outer boundary of the Allheaven Expanse to Blue Star’s own system.

Three days.

For three days, he remained on the disk. The vacuum of space, oddly, had none of the expected environmental effects on an unprotected body. This suggested the compass had a passive environmental protection field, a standard feature rather than something specifically listed. He didn’t bother to confirm it. He was alive and moving, and that was all that mattered.

He put those three days to good use.

The memory pearl, in its current state, offered impressions instead of fully structured knowledge. Yet, even these fleeting glimpses proved valuable, painting a picture of the Aethel-Sun race, the basic layout of the Middle Domain, and the wider cosmological framework in which the Celestial Emperor had once moved. He allowed these impressions to surface naturally, not pushing against the sealed layers or trying to access anything beyond what his current cultivation level allowed.

His thoughts turned to the note.

Then to the true blade, now tucked away in the sub-space he accessed through the golden vine tattoo on his wrist. The Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade, however, stayed at his waist. The true blade, for all its power, wasn’t something he fully grasped yet. Relying on a weapon he didn’t completely understand, especially when reliability was crucial, felt unwise.

He thought of Wang Hao. And Shen Rou. Of Celestial Legion, and Heavenly Phoenix Academy—all the things that had once defined his life before the Allheaven Expanse had so fundamentally reshaped his understanding of his place in the universe.

On the third day, Blue Star finally appeared before him, no longer just a navigational coordinate but a clear, visible sphere. He angled the compass toward Celestial City, and the disk began its descent.

---

His landing brought him to a rooftop, right on the edge of Celestial City’s academic district.

The city hadn’t changed. That came as a slight surprise, considering how much else in his life had shifted; the city’s very sameness felt out of place. The same wide streets stretched out below. The tower heights were familiar. Even the low hum of fifteen million people going about their daily lives, with the distinct undertone of a city boasting a large hunter population and all the specialized infrastructure that entailed, was exactly as he remembered.

He stepped off the compass, letting it dissolve back into the sub-space through his wrist tattoo, then simply stood on the rooftop, taking in Celestial City.

He stood at Level 230.

He was half Aethel-Sun.

He carried a blade so unique the lower domain system didn’t even have a tier for it. He also had a dragon egg, which he suspected would become a significant problem at some undetermined point down the line, and a marble holding the compressed remnants of a shattered moon—something he intended to keep far from his regular inventory.

Beyond that, he possessed sixty-seven mythical-grade skills, an Abyssal weapon, five open guardian slots in his halo, and a jade count that had been assessed during the Sub-Class Awakening event, in those final moments back in the white room with Xu Ling.

The assessment result for his jade count had popped up as a system notification while he was transitioning back to Blue Star.

He looked at it again now.

---

[Sub-Class Awakening Event — Duration Complete]

[Your jade count: Four Hundred and Fifth Place — Global Ranking]

[Assessment: Pending — Cultivation level insufficient for Ascension]

[Note: Sub-Class Awakening has been reserved pending. The awakening will trigger automatically when cultivation requirements are met.]

---

He read the ’pending’ status without much outward reaction. Sub-Class Awakening reserved until his cultivation level caught up. He couldn’t ascend because he had spent his time there helping someone else advance their level, leaving his own at 230 rather than the higher bracket ascension apparently demanded.

With that, he then stepped off the rooftop.

---

Heavenly Phoenix Academy’s residential block lay a mere seven-minute walk from his landing spot. He took it at a normal pace, no movement techniques, simply absorbing the city. It was the kind of looking one does at something deeply familiar after an absence long enough to reveal details previously overlooked.

He was nearing the residential block’s main entrance when a voice drifted out to him from an open fourth-floor window within the building.

He recognized both voices before their words even fully registered.

Wang Hao: "The event ended a month ago. Everyone has returned... but Lin Yi hasn’t. I’m telling you, he’s not dead. So stop saying that."

Shen Rou: "I’m not saying it because I want it to be true. I’m saying it because the situation demands honesty. There were hunters in that event capable of killing someone at his level. There were no safety protocols beyond the standard beacon system... and there was no record of his beacon ever activating."

Wang Hao: "He entered that event already above level 100, when the requirement was level 100. Do you understand what that means? It means he was already operating at a level most of those hunters would never reach, even at their peak."

Shen Rou: "And yet, there were hunters in that event at level 170... level 180... even above 190. People far stronger than him, capable of ending his life—"

Wang Hao: "Don’t finish that sentence."

Shen Rou: "...with minimal effort. I don’t want that to be true. But not wanting something doesn’t make it impossible. Wang Hao... it’s been a month. No contact. No beacon. No trace of him at all. We have to—"

Wang Hao: "No."

Shen Rou: "We have to consider—"

Wang Hao: "I said no. He is not—"

Shen Rou, quieter: "Wang Hao... it’s been a month. Even for him..."

Wang Hao: "Even for him, nothing. He came back from everything else that should have been impossible. He’ll come back from this too."

A silence.

Then Shen Rou, very quietly: "I hope you are right. I genuinely hope you are right. But—"

"But what?"

Both of them froze.

The voice that had cut them off belonged to neither of them.

It had come from the doorway.

Lin Yi stood there, in the entrance to the fourth-floor common room, looking across the table at Wang Hao and Shen Rou.

Wang Hao simply stared.

Shen Rou stared too.

A full three seconds stretched out, utterly silent, with no one moving.

Then, Wang Hao shot to his feet so abruptly his chair scraped backward three feet across the floor, and the sound that escaped him wasn’t a word, but it conveyed everything he meant.