Three Elders

The officer surnamed Wang stepped out of the stealth reconnaissance ship and stood behind Xu Wuyi. The old scar on his face looked somewhat twisted beneath the nebular glow, and his expression was complicated.

"Grandmaster Xu, are you really planning to fight your way into the Southern Martial Homeworld in half a month?"

Xu Wuyi did not answer. He returned to the shadows of the outpost wreckage, sat down again on the rock where he had been sitting earlier, and took the deep-purple sphere of light from his storage pouch, placing it on his palm.

The sphere's glow was especially dazzling amid the dim wreckage. Silvery-white patterns flowed rapidly across its surface, peaking once every three seconds and dipping once every three seconds.

"We'll talk about what happens in half a month when half a month arrives," he said calmly. "For now, we find resources. I've marked more than a dozen mining zones and cultivation bases in this region. We'll clear them one by one. Take what we can, record what we can't, and let the Federation move the rest later."

The officer surnamed Wang opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but when he saw Xu Wuyi's calm face, he swallowed the words back down.

He turned and returned to the reconnaissance ship, starting its engines. The vessel rose out of the crater and hovered several meters above the asteroid's surface, its hatch open as it waited for Xu Wuyi to board.

Xu Wuyi did not move.

Sitting on that rock, he raised the sphere before his eyes and carefully examined those silvery-white patterns.

Order perception slowly followed the paths of the patterns, going over every spiral angle, rotation speed, and crossing frequency once more.

Then he did something.

He put the sphere back into his storage pouch, rose