Azure Star Realm

The call ended.

Xu Wuyi set the communicator on the coffee table and walked back to the window.

Sunlight shone on his face, warm and soothing. White egrets flew over the river, their wings flashing in the sun.

He was thinking about a question he had considered long ago.

What exactly was a Celestial Being?

It was not power, nor was it a realm. It was a qualitative transformation in one's life form.

Second-tier Martial Artists were still "using" rules. Rules were tools, weapons, methods.

Third-tier Martial Artists were rules themselves. Their bodies were vessels for rules, their breathing the operation of rules, their very existence the external manifestation of rules.

He had seen this principle in the records of the True Dragon Star Realm and in the legends of the Southern Martial Star Realm, but seeing and comprehending were two different things.

He knew the definition of a Celestial Being, but he did not know what it felt like to be one.

It was like someone who had never eaten an apple. You could tell him that apples were sweet, crisp, and red, yet he still would not know what an apple tasted like.

Right now, he was that person who had never eaten an apple.

He knew the definition of a Celestial Being, but not its essence.

So he needed more information. Not definitions, but descriptions, details—the things only those who had truly touched the threshold could write.

And only the True Dragon Star Realm and the Azure Star Realm possessed such things.

He turned around, walked back to the training mat, sat down, and closed his eyes.

Waiting.

Waiting for news from the Federation, waiting for the Azure Star Realm's response, waiting for that door to open.

Three days later, Lu Shaoyuan's encrypted call came through.

"The