After arriving at a deserted location among the mountains, Star Forge commented. "How about here? The mountains are not that tall, and you should be able to rest comfortably."
The dragoness circled the place and looked at it closely. The tallest peak was around 15,000 meters tall from the ground, nearing her own height. However, all the others were much shorter, reaching around her belly in height. Moreover, the terrain wasn't hardened to the point that it would bother her.
Without saying much, Yasenia landed on the location and created a massive earthquake. Some surrounding mountains had landslides occur from the vibrations, and when Yasenia swept the area with her tail, giant pieces of rock flew everywhere.
Star Forge and Qingzhe looked on with strange gazes as the massive dragon flattened the area and then circled it twice before smiling. "Great."
Without doing much else, Yasenia sat down, the rest of her body following as her wings folded onto her back. Then, her neck curved to place her chin on top of her claws.
Star Forge waved her hand, blowing all the dust clouds and rubble into the distance, cleaning the area with just a single gesture. Meanwhile, Qingzhe floated near one of Yasenia's eyes with a curious look. "Yasenia, did something happen?"
To be fair, she really wanted to praise Yasenia's dragon form. She was by far the most beautiful dragon she had ever seen in her life. Still, she could see that her mood was not right.
Yasenia's eyes were almost 2,000 meters wide, so when she opened them, Qingzhe saw a giant golden orb with a slit pupil looking straight at her. Honestly, it was intimidating even for someone of her strength. She was like a dust mote floating near Yasenia's eye. For comparison, you'd need to stack more than 1500 humans standing on each other's shoulders to reach from the bottom of Yasenia's eye to the top.
"Nothing happened…" Yasenia spoke casually before Star Forge stopped her.
"Yasenia, don't lie to us."
Star Forge reached Qingzhe's side and looked at the giant golden orb with a gentle expression. "I know something happened. So, tell us. I don't know about others, but you should at least consider us your allies within this sect, right?"
"Who knows?" Yasenia's lips arched faintly without any mirth shining in her eyes. "Sending me to a place with a Level 3 Abyssal Human who had a Level 2 Intent Domain is a bit… complicated for a quest that was meant to prove my skills, don't you think so?"
Star Forge and Qingzhe's eyes showed a trace of shock. Star Forge spoke up, her tone disbelieving. "That's impossible! We checked the sect, and we only found 13 Sixth Realm cultivators, with the strongest being a Level 2 Sixth Realm cultivator!"
"Oh." Yasenia didn't discuss it and answered with a single sound.
Qingzhe looked at Star Forge with a frown. "Yasenia wouldn't lie about something like that, and you know it."
After the dragoness confessed her age, Star Forge and Qingzhe's perception of Yasenia changed a lot. The sometimes playful and childish bursts were all clearly because, even if she was mature, she was still in her early years as a dragon. For all they knew, high-level dragons weren't even considered adults until they reached 500 years of age.
Yasenia noticed Qingzhe's tone and snorted once. "No need to treat me like a child. That was never my intention when revealing my age to you two. I just… trusted you. Now, I am not so sure if I did the correct thing." Closing her eyes, Yasenia commented indifferently. "If I had the strength that someone in my realm should have, everyone that went, me included, would've either died or become part of the sect you wanted to destroy."
Star Forge couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. 'We should've investigated more. How could a Demonic Sect be so easy to investigate and deal with?'
"Yasenia, I know that you are angry. And I know that you have every right to be angry. However, I need to know what happened and all the details to help you." Her tone was softer than ever. "I want to help you, and our friendship is not something I'd sell to do such a cheap thing."
Yasenia opened her eyes once more and spoke calmly. "I know. If I didn't understand that, I wouldn't have returned to the sect."
Qingzhe and Star Forge felt their hearts skip a beat.
"Moreover," Yasenia added. "It seems that you are all quite ignorant of the [Abyss] as a threat. If it were me, I would've gone personally to stomp the sect the second I knew that it existed."
"What do you mean?" Tai Qingzhe asked, confused.
Yasenia didn't keep them guessing anymore and explained all that happened and what the Abyss intended to do.
The two women listened to everything while feeling traces of fear during the entirety of the tale. Once Yasenia was done, both of them knew how deeply messed up the mission ended up being. Yasenia not becoming their enemy was already the dragoness being patient with them!
Star Forge opened her mouth and sighed. "Sorry. I should've never agreed to sending you out to test that ridiculous prophecy."
"Prophecy…" Yasenia hummed and asked. "Not the first time I heard about it. What is that prophecy about?"
After hearing Yasenia's tale, Star Forge didn't hide anything and spoke about it at length. "As you might've noticed, our Star Immortal Sect is in decline. It has been in decline since the previous two Sect Masters. The reason is that some of our core staff were killed during a war before they could leave behind their knowledge. Therefore, many of our sect's techniques and inheritances were either lost or left half-completed. Even I know that our teaching quality has dropped sharply since then."
Yasenia listened and blinked once. Then, using a bit of energy, she summoned a table with some wine cups on it. "That's a 20,000-year-old wine I've cultivated. My spatial ring has the ability to accelerate the growth and fermentation of things placed inside."
Star Forge and Qingzhe looked at those two cups with smiles on their faces while their hearts settled down. They understood that this was Yasenia's way of telling them that she didn't blame them.
With a cup of wine in hand, Star Forge explained a bit of the Star Immortal Sect's past and the place they were inside. "The world we are in is called [Blue Pearl World]. The name comes from the extensive oceans that cover the distance between continents. Each continent has its own name as well, and the number of continents is in the hundreds. Our continent is the [Star Mountain Continent]."
Yasenia's scaly eyebrow rose, interest clear in her draconic eye. Star Forge noticed and smiled. "That's right. This continent was named after our Sect in ancient times. That's how influential we actually were."
"You really declined since then," Yasenia commented, making both women smile wryly.
Star Forge continued. "The continents usually can participate in competitions for resources and other types of benefits so that they can increase the energy purity of their place. As you know, the higher the energy quality, the easier it is to cultivate, for new treasures to be born, secret realms to appear, and many more things. Now, the [Star Mountain Continent] is ranked 209th. We are considered a low-class continent."
"Hm~." Yasenia asked, curious. "How are continents divided?"
"Oh, it's very simple." Tai Qingzhe smiled. "From the 100th to 199th, they are called medium continents. Beyond that, they are all low class."
"What about above the 100th position?"
Having expected Yasenia's question, Star Forge commented. "Beyond that, you can find the heavyweights of the world. To reach that height, the world needs to have at least one Law-Creator cultivator. When you reach the 40th position, there must be at least one Demigod or Demigoddess among the Law-Creator cultivators. And for the top 10 and beyond… I am unsure. You can't visit them without being a High-Level Transcendence Realm cultivator."
Yasenia was stunned. 'I was lucky, then. Had I landed on any of those continents, I'd have been in deep trouble.' Curious, Yasenia asked. "So… What position did this continent reach in ancient times?"
Star Forge commented. "From what I know, the highest position we've ever reached is the 79th position.
"Huh?" Yasenia was baffled. "Doesn't that mean that you had Law-Creator Cultivators? How did they disappear without leaving a powerful legacy?"
Star Forge smiled wryly. "They did leave behind a legacy, but it is locked behind Secret Realms, talent tests, and many other layers of precautions. Not everyone is qualified to receive them." She added. "My strength comes because I gained part of the legacy when I was young and participated in a Secret Realm as a rogue cultivator."
Yasenia hummed. "I see." Thinking that Tatyana might be searching for her, Yasenia asked. "Can high-level cultivators come to lower-level continents?"
"They can." Star Forge answered, but then she smiled. "Don't worry, though. There is no reason for a high-level cultivator to come here because our resources are limited. If anything, they might come to participate in a Secret Realm they suspect of having Law-Creator Realm inheritances."
Yasenia hummed and raised her head. Even while lying down, her head rose for thousands of meters, beyond most mountaintops that surrounded her. Looking into the distance, Yasenia became thoughtful. 'If everything Star Forge said is true, leaving this sect will be too disadvantageous. Only through a relatively influential sect on the continent will I have access to the highest-end resources of the continent. Still…'
Yasenia frowned, her gaze thoughtful. 'Why are there Abyss-related monsters here? I thought that in higher realms, everyone was knowledgeable about them and hated them. Or… did Mirrory and Valeria refer to the Ancient Heavenly Layer with "Higher Realms"? Perhaps, for powerful creatures like them, the Sublime Heavens are nothing but low-level Heavenly Layers.' Yasenia sighed. 'I should've asked for specifics.'
Qingzhe looked up with awe into her golden eyes. She couldn't help but admire the gorgeous creature, more so when she knew that she had defeated a Level Three Transcendence Realm with a Domain equivalent to a Second Level Intent Domain. Such strength was truly abnormal!
"So, tell me more about this prophecy of yours."
Star Forge flew up to elevate her body to Yasenia's head's height, and Qingzhe followed closely behind. "Well, this prophecy was cast around 100 years ago, and it says the following: Once the Moon and Sun meet the stars. Once the Moon and Sun land within our land. Our people will reclaim the inheritance from the stars. Only when Celestial might eliminates evil will our sect shine beyond our past glories."
Yasenia's eyes became thoughtful for a few moments. 'Around 100 years ago… during that time, I had not started my cultivation journey seriously and was still a slave of my Heavenly Fate.' As she pondered, her eyes shone with understanding. 'Ah. No wonder, no wonder. If Fate went according to what was planned, I would've become the puppet of the "Sun" and "Moon". Those two would then notice Qingzhe or her family and use them as a base to restart their empire. With their methods, reaching the top of this world is a matter of time…'
Now everything finally clicked, all the puzzle pieces falling into place. 'Still, the fact that I arrived at the place that they were supposed to come shows how strongly that Heavenly Fate affected me back then. Even now, with all my Fate Strings cut, I was guided here through sheer remnant forces of my previous Fate.'
Yasenia sighed and muttered. "What do I do with this…?" Her lips arched in a money-grubbing smile. "I guess that I could steal their opportunities and get rich~. Hehe."
Star Forge and Qingzhe couldn't help but give her weird looks. 'Why does she look as if she is going to steal something from someone?'