The vessel broke free of the Ninja World's gravitational boundary in the early hours of the fifteenth day.
There was no visible sign marking that moment—no boundary between light and darkness, no tangible membrane, no physical change occurring at the instant of passage. Zhi Li confirmed it through an inertial reference calibration device inside the vessel. Its reading underwent a minute deviation lasting roughly two breaths while she was making a routine record. The deviation fell within the device's design tolerance, but according to Zhi Li's recording habits, she marked it down and completed a synchronized inspection of all vessel systems while it lasted. Afterward, she wrote a line in the main console's log: Gravitational boundary crossed. All systems normal.
Light raised her head from the perception panel after Zhi Li finished writing that line. Her sensory range underwent a clearly perceptible expansion after crossing the boundary. It was not gradual. Rather, the edge of her sensory field suddenly leapt outward, as though an area once constrained by some spherical surface had abruptly been released, allowing her perception to extend outward at a faster rate. When she looked up, her expression briefly froze, as if her visual system and sensory system were undergoing a new calibration. Then she said, "The space here is much more open than inside the planet. So open that I need to relearn how to establish focal points at its edges."
Cang sat in the main seat without speaking. Throughout Zhi Li's record of the boundary crossing, he maintained a posture more fixed than anyone else aboard the vessel. His back rested against the chair, his head tilted slightly upward, and his gaze faced the vessel's forward view. The physical observation window showed a uniformly scattered backdrop of starlight in that direction. The stars were roughly