Chương 159: A Baby Star

"I don't have much to offer," Astralis said, and his expression turned downcast as he gestured at the dying fragments of light floating through the space around us.

"This is a dying world after all. Our resources are..." I was about to respond to that when something strange happened. Astralis turned his head slightly to the side and his entire face changed, the sorrow now gone, replaced by this impish grin that had absolutely no business being on the face of an ancient divine messenger.

"But actually," he whispered to himself, "I have access to countless treasures that would make Qi Condensation cultivators drool with envy!" I stared at him for a moment.

"Azure," I thought, "what just happened?" Azure's amusement came through clearly even before he answered.

"Remember when I told you that inner world spirits can't lie? This is what that looks like in practice. They physically can't maintain a deception, their own nature forces them to immediately correct any falsehood they try to tell, usually in a whisper or something similar." Well then. That was going to be very useful going forward.

I looked back at Astralis who had resumed his expression of sorrowful dignity like nothing had happened, though the stars in his hair were twinkling slightly more than they had been before.

"So," I said slowly, "you do have quite a lot to offer." The stars flickered with what looked like surprise.

"How did you…" He stopped himself, and then let out a sigh.

"Yes. Fine. I do." Then his face twisted sideways into that grin again and he half turned away and whispered: "But as a mere Qi Condensation cultivator, there's nothing here you can actually take back with you anyway, hahaha!" I was beginning to understand how this worked.

"Is there really no way to store things in my inner world?" I asked. Astralis shook his head.

"It's a matter of cultivation level and yours is too low." I waited, but no whisper followed, so that one was actually true. Still, there had to be something worth finding here.

"What about materials for breaking through? Something that could help advance my cultivation level directly?"

"Your spirit has already acquired the elements needed for the breakthrough to the Elemental Realm," he replied, waving vaguely at the space around us.

"That's the only thing in this realm that could have helped you in that way." I frowned.

"It seems strange that there's nothing else..."

"You have to understand how this works," Astralis said.

"Cultivators need specific materials to develop their inner worlds and that process is different from how rouqin advance. Any resource that could have helped develop an inner world was consumed long ago in the creation and ongoing maintenance of this realm."

"Azure, is that true?" I asked internally.

"Yes," Azure confirmed without hesitation.

"And it makes sense when you actually think about it, this entire realm was built by a Civilization Realm cultivator, any resource capable of developing an inner world would have been absorbed into the realm's foundational structures over centuries." Disappointing but logical.

"But," Astralis said with a glint in his eyes, "if you wanted to, you could always try annexing this world..." My eyes went wide at that. My knowledge of inner worlds was still growing and had significant gaps in it, I knew annexation was something that existed because Wei Lin had mentioned it in passing once or twice, but the actual requirements and the process involved were complete unknowns to me.

Before I could get too far into thinking about the possibility, Astralis turned his head again with that now familiar expression spreading across his face.

"But little do you know," he whispered with barely contained delight, "trying to annex a world of this size will end up causing your own inner world to be absorbed instead! And then I get your life realm energy for free! Hahaha!" So that was what he was hoping for. Get me to attempt something completely beyond my current capabilities and then take whatever he wanted from the wreckage. At least he was honest about it, in his own way.

"Azure, your assessment?" I asked internally.

"Each inner world spirit has their own personality," Azure replied.

"This one is clearly on the mischievous end of the range."

"So even with the World Tree Sutra, annexing this world would be..."

"Impossible at your current level," Azure confirmed.

"Astralis knows far more about this than I do, and he seems confident that attempting it would result in us being consumed rather than the other way around." It made sense when I thought about it honestly. Trying to annex the inner world of a Civilization Realm cultivator while still sitting at Qi Condensation was not a meaningful attempt, it was just a creative way to end myself.

"Master, what are you actually hoping to gain here?" Azure asked. I thought about it.

"When I go back to the Two Suns world, I'll be focusing on mastering the blue sun's power. Since life realm energy functions, similarly, gaining real comprehension of it here could be valuable. It might even help me create beings in my inner world earlier than I otherwise could."

"That's practical," Azure agreed. I turned back to Astralis who was doing a fairly poor job of hiding his grin.

"What about life realm energy comprehension?" I asked.

"Is there a way to…"

"You don't want to try the annexation?" he interrupted, looking surprised.

"Are you sure? Because if you just…"

"No," I said.

"About the life realm comprehension." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. He pouted, which was a strange expression to see on an immortal being, and then sighed.

"It is possible for me to transfer what remains of the Celestial Sovereign's understanding of life realm energy." He opened his hand and sitting in his palm was a crystal that had clearly seen better days, cracks running all through it in every direction and small pieces actively falling away from the edges even as we looked at it.

"This Comprehension Crystal is all that remains." And then right on cue, he turned his head and the grin came back.

"But absorbing even this much comprehension will make you brain dead! And then I get to take that life realm energy of yours! The perfect plan!" I held back the sigh.

"Master, don't worry," Azure said.

"I can absorb the life realm comprehension first and then transfer it to you in amounts you can actually handle safely. He clearly isn't accounting for the possibility that your inner world spirit might be somewhat more advanced than what's typical at the Qi Condensation stage." He was right about that. The average inner world spirit at my level was barely sentient at all.

"Are there other comprehension crystals?" I asked Astralis.

"There must be more than just this one." Astralis shook his head and this time his expression held steady without any whispered correction following it.

"The Master was very specific, I can only give one away as a reward to each person who comes here. Everything else belongs to whoever becomes the new master."

"And how does someone become the new master?"

"There are a few ways," he said, and started counting on his fingers.

"First, if any inhabitant of this world manages to reach Tier 9, they become the new master automatically." Given the state of this world and how thin the rouqi had gotten, that seemed like something close to impossible for anyone currently living here. Though briefly my thoughts went to Han Renyi, with his talent and the gains my presence had brought him, maybe someday, it was worth keeping in mind at least.

"We also have a special provision," Astralis continued.

"If someone shows the potential to reach Tier 9, I can administer a test for them and passing that test makes them the new master immediately without having to actually reach that level first."

"Second way," he said, moving to the next finger, "someone could get revenge for the Sovereign." I kept my expression neutral at that one. Not only would revenge against whatever had killed a Civilization Realm cultivator require power several major realms beyond where I currently stood, it would also require actually knowing what had happened to him in the first place, and Astralis had already made it clear that was something he couldn't explain.

"And lastly," his eyes gleamed in a way that I was already very familiar with, "by annexing this world! You really should consider trying it, I think you'd surprise yourself…" I ignored that and moved on.

"What about cultivation techniques? There must be records somewhere."

"Also reserved for the new master," Astralis said firmly, and no whispered correction came after it. That was less of a problem than he probably assumed it would be for me, I could gather techniques directly from the sects in this world and while they might not reach the depths of what a Civilization Realm cultivator had left behind, they would still contribute meaningfully to Azure's database.

"Before we do anything with the comprehension crystal," I said, "I need to know whether lending my life realm energy is going to cause me any lasting harm." Astralis considered that for a moment and then shook his head.

"A normal life realm cultivator would recover it naturally over time. But if your capacity is limited..." He let the end of that sentence sit there meaningfully. I thought about the blue sun sitting in my inner world. The capacity was limited yes but it recovered over time and that should be sufficient.

"What does the actual process involve?"

"The Starhaven Realm has three trees that function as realm stabilizing pillars," Astralis explained.

"Feeding life realm energy into them will help them recover and do their job properly. You've already encountered one of them, the Three-Leaf Clover Sect's Ancestor Tree." That explained a lot actually, the way that tree had felt wrong and right at the same time, the way it had responded so strongly to my presence, it was more than a sacred tree, it was one of the fundamental things holding this entire world together.

"The crystal then," I said, and held out my hand. Astralis placed the cracking crystal into my palm, very clearly still hoping something would go wrong for me in an entertaining way, but with Azure's help though this should be manageable. I turned the crystal over in my hand and studied it.

"I still feel like life realm comprehension alone isn't quite enough for what I'm agreeing to here."

"Oh?" Astralis raised one eyebrow and his expression shifted into something sly and calculating.

"Well, you're welcome to stay here indefinitely if you like. Provide life realm energy to stabilize the world, live comfortably among the rouqin, I could arrange something quite pleasant for you..." He spread his arms wide at the crystalline space around us. I shook my head and let my eyes drift to the images of the realm that shimmered in the fragments all around us.

"This is the Starhaven Realm."

"Yes, but…"

"A realm that specializes in star cultivation methods."

"I already told you," Astralis cut in quickly, "you can't have access to the Master's cultivation methods, that is completely non-negotiable…"

"I don't want his cultivation methods," I said.

"Then what…"

"I want one of the stars. For my inner world." The stars in Astralis's hair actually stuttered, like every single one of them skipped a beat at exactly the same moment. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again before he managed to get any words out.

"That's... that's..." He seemed to be having genuine difficulty.

"You can't just... they aren't simply..."

"This world was built using breakthrough materials," I continued.

"And those stars are part of that construction. They're basically concentrated breakthrough materials in their most refined form."

"But... but..." And then predictably his head turned and the whisper came out: "Actually trading a single star for life realm energy would be a fair exchange, especially since most of them are half-dead anyway..." He caught himself and turned back immediately but it was already too late and we both knew it.

"Impossible!" he declared, with what I had to admit was impressive commitment. Then, turning slightly: "Though maybe one of the smaller ones wouldn't actually matter that much..."

"The smallest one you can spare," I said reasonably.

"Absolutely not!" Then, turning away: "The third star in the Western constellation is already mostly gone anyway..." This continued for a while, Astralis cycling between firm refusals delivered with great dignity and whispered internal calculations about which star he could most easily part with without it mattering. Honestly, I found the whole thing more entertaining than I probably should have. Eventually something seemed to settle inside him, and he reached whatever internal compromise he'd been working toward.

"Fine," he said, managing to look simultaneously annoyed and satisfied with himself.

"One star. The smallest available. And you provide life realm energy to all three trees."

"As long as it doesn't harm me permanently," I agreed. He waved his hand and suddenly the night sky of the Starhaven Realm was spread out above us in full, and with a second gesture one of the smallest stars in the entire display, barely visible even when you were looking directly at it, detached itself from its constellation and drifted slowly down toward us.

Up close it was beautiful in a quiet way, no larger than a marble but radiating something that was pure and concentrated that made my inner world stir and respond to it like recognizing something it had been waiting for. Astralis held it out with obvious reluctance.

"Be careful," he said, and for once there was no mischief anywhere in his voice at all.

"It may be one of the smallest, but it is still a star." I took it carefully and held it in my palm and channeled the World Tree Sutra, feeling it reach out toward the star, the star pulsed once, then twice, and then began to sink into my palm and merge with my inner world like it had always been supposed to end up there. I felt it settle into its own orbit alongside the red and blue suns already waiting for it.

What having a star at the Qi Condensation stage would actually do to my cultivation was a question that could wait. Right now, it was time for the comprehension crystal. I closed my eyes and extended my spiritual sense toward it carefully. The moment I made contact, I felt something vast and ancient pressing against my awareness, a depth of understanding that made everything I currently knew about life energy feel like a child drawing shapes in dirt with a stick.

The crystal pulsed once, and then everything changed.