The Stellar Empress sits in the lotus position as a barren world turns beneath her. As her qi flows through the solar system she allows herself to smile as she thinks back to the earliest days of her cultivation, before she developed her own heaven breaking method on the very planet below her. It is only her realm breaking qi senses that allow her to even perceive the black dwarf that used to be the planets sun.
It is thus fitting that her second home, the place that proved beyond all doubt that there were places far worse than her first home, will become part of the core of her next level of body cultivation while at the same time she forms the galaxy stage of her personal cultivation method.
With a frown, she stands up as her qi reaches the outer edges of the oort cloud and she is finally able to weigh the solar system. Several heavens leaping steps brings her to the black dwarf. There she reaches into her inner solar system to retrieve a couple of white dwarf cores she collected a few aeons ago.
Carelessly she tosses them on either side of the dead star before pushing her qi inside. Once she owns the two new additions the Empress nods, and begins sink into the dead star until she reaches the center. There she returns to the lotus position and begins to meditate as her qi begins to rotate inside her.
Outside her body, the qi saturated solar system begins to rotate in sympathetic action with the internal qi. As her cultivation begins to progress to the next level, there's no tribulation lightning, no retribution from the heavens, for the Empress has surpassed all those who could claim authority over her. Of the uncountable realms she's lived in, there are none that could claim to be above her, for is her Dao not that of the very stars themselves? Was it not her that enforced the mandate of heaven equally? Was it not her will that created the Empyrean realm for those that seek to transcend heavenly affairs?
Indeed, while there are those she could call peers, and even those whose understanding of their Dao exceeds even her own. Those that reach her level of understanding have left mortal and immortal affairs far behind them. For these ancient monsters, understanding the truth of existence is all that matters.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
After an unknown amount of time, the qi and matter in the solar system is spinning so fast that it has spread out into a disk of stellar dust.
Suddenly the whole disk seems to jerk as it begins to shrink. As it does, it begins to spin faster and faster around the only solid object that sits at the center of the disk.
On other worlds empires rise and fall as the Empress begins to glow from all of the qi and matter falling into her, but still she sits there as she examines her soul and her history.
As the disk reaches the orbit of the old planet, it jerks once as she comes across a deviation in her foundation. At half the orbit it jerks again as she finds and fixes a second deviation.
When the rapidly spinning disk shrinks to the diameter of the long gone black dwarf, the whole structure warps and buckles and lines of deadly energy lance out from her heavenly crown and abyssal pit as she almost loses herself in a mistake in her earliest foundation. A foundation that she'd thought she'd thoroughly destroyed before she began this path. After losing almost an entire white dwarf's worth of energy the disk smooths out and the lines of qi and energy cut off as her core implodes under the tremendous pressure she's placing on it.
As it does, her inner world explodes with light as it expands to encompass a galaxy of its own. For a brief moment, the Empresses body seems to collapse in on itself and disappears from mortal sight. A moment later it returns.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
The Stellar Empress opens her eyes and regards the small disk of matter surrounding her with interest.
"It seems I was right to add the second white dwarf. I would not have had enough matter to attempt a second ignition without it."
A sweep of her hand quickly gathers up the remains of the disk as she contemplates the black holes that have replaced her heart and heart dantain.
As she's examining her cultivation, a minor fluctuation in the now empty space catches her attention. Curiously, she heads to an apparently empty region of space and peers at nothing.
Extending a tendril of qi, she pokes the nothing and frowns as the qi passes straight through and out the other side.
"How curious. It appears to be invisible to qi, no wonder we couldn't find it."
Withdrawing her spear from her storage ring, the Empress gently pokes the nothing, and smiles as it feels like she's hit a solid wall.
"Maybe now I can find out what happened to my first home."
With a laugh, the Empress forms a jade slip and inscribes a message for one of her old disciples. After the slip has transformed into a bird and disappeared into the Empyrean realm, the Empress stores her spear and places her hand against the nothing before she moves.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
As the last students are leaving a locker corridor a loud bang echoes throughout the corridor as the door to one of the lockers rockets across the hallway and embeds itself in the wall opposite.
As the students all turn to face the noise, a statuesque beauty wearing flowing chinese robes steps out of the ruined locker with an inhuman level of grace before freezing in place. Her knee length, curly hair, carefully bound in flowing bunches with jade clips keeping the hair from straying from its styled look.
It doesn't take long for those students to start making phone calls or recording video.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
The Stellar Empress stops to spread out her spiritual senses across the world as the portal flickers closed behind her. At the same time she dives into her memories, searching for the reason why this all seems so familiar.
Around her the mortals stand at a safe distance as they gawk at the presence of an immortal, as they do everywhere they go. An understandable precaution, even if it is one she has oft wished was not needed. However, they are all so fragile that the barest of careless brushing would cause mortal injuries from all that have passed into the first heaven.
Turning her head up, she looks through the roof of the building and contemplates the lack of heavens in this realm. Has no one ever climbed towards immortality here?
As she's contemplating this mystery, an armoured man carrying a flimsy shield approaches her and speaks in a harsh tongue, "赫伯特小姐,赫伯特小姐,请你跟我去。"
The Empress ignores the mortal while she contemplates what she can sense while she searches her memory for why it seems familiar. The mortal repeats their bleating before daring to lay hands on her clothes.
She would commend the mortal for their bravery, however, the barest twitch of her arm results in a sickening crunch as her sleeve catches his shield and breaks his arm before impacting his chest and sending him flying down the corridor.
Turning to face the mortal, the Empress tsk's, "Have you no sense? You do not touch immortals unless you are certain you are close enough for casual interaction."
As she approaches the downed mortal, another armoured mortal shouts, "勿复近也。 赫伯特小姐,你若续近,我们将迫禁你。"
With her second step, the mortal shouts, "此君之末戒也。" as another mortal starts to drag the fallen mortal away.
A moment later they start to spray some noxious liquid towards her. With a sigh she flows around them before leaning down to touch the fallen mortal on the forehead, her finger easily passing through the flimsy mortal materials that make up the helmet. As she floods the mans body with the barest fraction of qi, she absently heals the mans arm and clears out the accumulated impurities of a mortal life while she reads his history.
Apparently, this is a world called Earth Bet in the local language. They also believe her to be a person called Taylor Hebert. Given that she remembers searching for that portal during her climb to the heavens, she can't say they're wrong. If she hadn't found that error in her foundation, she wouldn't even have remembered that.
With the mans mind in her inner world, the Empress leaves the building, pausing briefly to examine the mortals outside as they're arrayed around the exit she used. One of the mortals wears a suit of red clothing that seems out of place amongst the other mortals. Maybe he's a cultivator.
A glance at the darkened sky reveals a large moon, easily the size of a small world. With a single step she goes from the mortals world to their moon before sitting down to examine the memories she copied.
Most of the memories are fed to the black hole at the center of her inner world, as she does not need to run the risk of polluting herself with a new personality.
The earliest memories she keeps for the moment, as being able to communicate with the mortals will cut down on the irritation. Though it comes with its own problems, as if they can talk they always assume they can demand too. Though, maybe she's spoilt by everyone speaking the language of the heavens. The other memories she keeps are those of Taylor Hebert. Maybe she can use them to help her find a specific grain of sand in the desert.
While she's contemplating, the world above her turns 18 times.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
Once she returns to the settlement she arrived in, the Stellar Empress stops half a li above the ground as she searches through her spacial ring for mortal currency, or at least something that the mortals would recognise as valuable if she cannot find something.
As for why she's doing this. Halfway through her step back it occurred to her that she could probably accidentally killing mortals if she wore some mortal clothes. Then it occurred to her that she might have some mortal clothes in her ring, only it turned out she didn't.
As she's investigating, a mortal approaches her from the city below, buoyed by some unseen cultivation. A brief flicker of her qi shows the mortal to be a young woman.
The woman comes with conversational distance before saying, "Hi, have I seen you somewhere before?"
The Empress looks up from her ring as she keeps searching and cocks her head to one side, "It is unlikely junior sister, as I arrived in this world a mere 18 days ago. I have been residing on the local moon while I gained an understanding of this world."
The mortal pulls out a black device and starts looking at it, "Huh? Sister?"
The Empress smiles gently, "I believe it is a term of respect towards a 少者耕耘者."
The mortal shakes their head, "I have no idea what you just said. Anyway, I'm Glory Girl."
The Empress inclines their head minutely, "I believe that in your tongue, my name would be The Stellar Empress."
Glory Girl looks a little surprised, "Isn't that a little pretentious?"
The Empress shakes her head, "While I have not held the position of Empress since I created the 虚幻境界, the title is mine. And as my 道 is that of the universe, I am the Stellar Empress. Surely they still teach these concepts in the mortal world."
"I have no idea what you just said. Oh, hey, I know where I saw you, you're Taylor Hebert!"
The Empress uses a touch of qi to gently pull the device the mortal just turned around to show her. Curiously she looks at the picture of herself along side a much younger girl that could have been her back in her mortal life. She ignores the mortal as she says, "Hey, it's rude to just take stuff."
After a moment the device goes black, so she looks up, "It is less rude than accidentally breaking your hand or killing you. It is one of the compromises I had to make when I laid down the laws of the heavens." The Empress floats the device back, "Just as I also laid down a law about stealing from mortals."
"You're just as mortal as I am."
The Empress shakes her head, "While I cannot sense your cultivation, I can still tell that you have a mortal body behind your impressive shield. My own body has not been mortal for a very long time. As for that girl you showed me, it could have been me when I was mortal. However, I am yet to find those memories."
"Right, whatever. According to PHO, the PRT would like to talk to you. Also, I meant to ask, what are you doing hanging around up here anyway?"
The Empress chuckles, "I was trying to find some mortal currency, as I fear my current attire would lead to far too many accidental injuries."
"You're joking, right?"
The Empress stretches out the hand without her ring as she pulls out a diaphanous silk scarf and allows it to drape over her hand. "If you can take this scarf from my hand, you may keep it."
The mortal girl does something with her device before putting it away and cautiously flying forward to grasp a fluttering end. When the end doesn't stop, the girl winces and shakes her hand, "What the hell?"
Grabbing it further up, the mortal strains to so much as lift the scarf away from vertical. After a couple of minutes trying, she asks, "What the hell is that made from?"
The Empress smiles, "The silk of a mortal spider that lives on blue stars. They have become very hard to find since I proved that mortal creatures still held value to immortals. To turn it into a usable garment, it has to be woven with qi, otherwise it is useless for all but those of the highest heavens."
The mortal scowls, "Let me guess, that one isn't woven with qi."
"Of course, as I made it for my own use."
"Ah ha, I have found some spirit gold and spirit stones. I seem to remember they're used in the mortal world as currency. Aren't they."
As the Empress switches the scarf for those items, the mortal gapes at the gold coin that's the size of her palm, "What the hell! We haven't used gold for over a century, and never something that big."
The Empress nods, "Is it still valuable? As maybe I can use it for barter."
The mortal mutters, "You could buy out a store with that." More loudly she says, "Look, I have some money with me. I'll buy you a cheap tracksuit so you don't accidentally murder everyone, and then we can go to the PRT and they can sort out everything else. How's that sound?"
The Empress looks at the mortal girl consideringly for a moment. Then she flicks the coin over towards her, "No, I will not be indebted to you. For I do not know how long I will remain in this world. I will pay you that gold coin, and you will purchase for me the finest silks. You may keep one tenth of the value of the coin for yourself."
The mortal licks her lips, "I'll, uh, I'll need to get it appraised first."
The Empress waves her hand negligently and sinks down into the lotus position, "I will wait here until you are done."
