Late in the morning of Day Twenty-Three, He Yun's terminal lit up on the table in the conference room at Star Alliance Headquarters. During a break in the meeting, he lowered his head to glance at the screen and saw a brief message from the Zero One system. It contained only one line: "An unidentified signal source has appeared outside the territory's Northern Boundary Line. It has stopped near the spatial passage entrance and is standing by." He read the line, turned off the screen, and did not show the information to anyone present. He slipped the terminal back into his pocket and sat quietly at the table, waiting for the next item on the agenda to begin.
The meeting resumed after the short break. From her seat, Councilor Qing pushed a document into the center of the table. Its cover bore the Council's circular emblem and a dark gray title: "Preliminary Assessment Recommendations on Including the Territory of Xu Wuyi, Lord of the Second Astral Battlefield, in the Formal Observation Registry." After pushing the document forward, she spoke, her voice clear and distinct in the quiet room. "Our department's Policy Research Office has completed revisions to the initial draft of this recommendation, incorporating the core data and conclusions from Counselor He Yun's report. If those present have no major objections, I recommend submitting this document for review as the basis for a vote at the next plenary committee meeting."
The participants around the table each read through the document's summary pages. After reading the full text, Lu Cheng set the summary back on the table, leaned against his chair, and said, "I have no major objections. However, for the section examining the structural differences between the Symbiosis Method and the ancient god method, I recommend adding an appendix of