Back in the relative safety of his cave—which now felt incredibly small after the infinite starscape—Ye Xingliu could not contain his excitement. He laid the transformed compass on the floor, and with a thought, it projected its star map into the air above it. It was a breathtaking, three-dimensional tapestry of swirling nebulae, distant suns, and wandering comets, all rendered in shimmering silver light.
"Ooooh, pretty!" Little Comet zipped through the projection, its own light blending with the constellations. "It's like looking in a mirror, but a big, confusing one!"
Feng Shui'er stared, her jaw slack. "You... you really did it. You ate the heart of a forbidden relic and got a treasure that would make the Sect Leader weep with envy."
"Borrowed," Ye Xingliu corrected with a wink. "I'm just borrowing its sense of direction."
His focus narrowed on the map. The silvery needle was no longer a simple pointer; it was a navigator. It pulsed over a specific, desolate-looking region on the world map that was part of the projection—a vast, sandy expanse labeled Jade Basin Desert. A tiny, animated icon of a comet streaked across the map, and a countdown script appeared beside it.
Celestial Event: Fall of the "Laughing Vagabond" Comet.
Time to Impact: 3 Months.
Location: Jade Basin Desert (Blazing Sun Oasis region).
Ye Xingliu's eyes lit up with a familiar, wanderlust-fired joy. This was it. The first real destination chosen by his compass, not by chance or sect decree. A comet, a piece of the cosmos just like him and Little Comet, was falling. It was an invitation.
"Road trip!" he declared, his voice full of glee.
Shui'er, however, looked pragmatic. "The Jade Basin Desert? Do you have any idea how far that is? It's on the other side of the continent! And it's a brutal, spirit-beast-infested wasteland! You can't just walk there with a smile and a stolen apple."
"Which is why," Ye Xingliu said, his mind already racing ahead, "we need gear. Proper desert survival gear. A spirit-repelling tent, a self-refilling water gourd, maybe a nice wide-brimmed hat..."
"And how do you propose we pay for all that?" she asked, hands on her hips. "Your tournament spirit stones won't cover it. That kind of gear costs a fortune in Contribution Points."
Contribution Points. The internal currency of the sect, earned by completing missions for the Mission Hall. Ye Xingliu had exactly zero.
He grinned, utterly undaunted. The path was clear, and that was all that ever mattered.
"Then we start saving," he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "The Mission Hall opens at dawn. I hear they always need people to clean out the Spirit Beast Pens."
He said the last part with a completely straight face, then burst out laughing at Shui'er's horrified expression.
The road was calling. And the Wanderer would walk it, one Contribution Point at a time.
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