The Fire Folk were one of the oldest categories of life in this universe. They were far older than the Earth Folk of rocky planets, the Wind Folk of gas giants, and the Water Folk of distant planets.
This was easy enough to understand. After all, the earliest celestial bodies born in this universe had been stars.
Planets, meanwhile, could only appear after the universe had produced enough elements heavier than hydrogen, after the birth of the second generation of stars.
The most ancient Celestial Favored Clans had been the Heavenly Gate Demon Spirits and the Fire Folk. But to the Celestial Favored Clans, they had all been followers of the Celestial Great Saint. In that era, no one cared about the differences between races, much less their relative strength. Thus, ancient Celestial Favored Clans were not necessarily stronger than newly emerged ones, and Celestial Favored Clans newly joining this circle of civilization had countless opportunities to catch up with those ancient remnants.
Yet corresponding to their long history was an evolutionary process impossible to investigate.
The human race had a greater interest in "observation" than in "governance." The Immortal Alliance's century of observation records contained many records proving that biological differences existed even among the Fire Folk. The many force fields restraining their physical bodies could also display distinctions between "complexity" and "simplicity." The intelligence provided by the dragon race further demonstrated this.
But the Fire Folk were a species without fossilized remains.
Stars that burned without interruption for billions or tens of billions of years were equivalent to providing every Fire Folk with a free cremation. This atmosphere, hotter than flames, was the seedbed of their birth and the grave of their eternal sleep.
Even the tracks they left behind would be burned away by their homeland.
The