Atop Star-Magnetic Peak, in the Star-Gazing Pavilion.
This was no longer merely a place for deliberations, as it had once been, but a core forbidden area layered with restrictions Han Li had personally laid down. Around the pavilion, the glazed tiles originally used to observe the stars had all been replaced with Ink-Sunken Wood, which could block spiritual sense. The walls were densely engraved with Aura-Concealing Runes. Even the spiritual energy flowing through the air was guided by a formation called the Void-Silence Formation, erasing every fluctuation of energy without a trace.
Han Li sat at the head of the room, his fingertips gently stroking a gray-white jade talisman that felt icy to the touch. Called the Thousand Faces Transformation Talisman, it had not come from the Star Palace. He had "borrowed" it from an organization of unaffiliated cultivators called the Sea Shark Alliance back in the Chaotic Star Sea. Though it was only a low-grade fourth-tier talisman, its strength lay in its ability to completely alter a cultivator's spiritual pressure, bone age, and even divine soul fluctuations. Combined with his minute control over the flow of energy through the Great Evolutionary Sword Art, it was enough to deceive even a meticulous examination by a Nascent Soul middle-stage cultivator.
Mo Ling stood quietly below him. He still wore a fitted black-and-gold outfit, his short, two-toned hair standing upright, while the dark-gold divine marking on his forehead flickered in the dim light. Although he was a young man who had assumed human form less than a year ago, the ancient pressure born of ancient god essence blood and grand void spiritual power made even this small space feel stagnant, despite his best efforts to restrain it.
"Mo Ling." Han Li did not raise his head, his voice calm and level. "The