It wasn't long before Zane's escort arrived. A crystal beam flared down the Beacon, a dazzling pillar racing from the sky, touching the earth gently, soundlessly. Then it was gone, and it left a girl in its place.

She was tall, leanly muscled, dressed in dragonscale leathers. She had long, wild hair in a ponytail and sharp, pretty features. She didn’t look much older than Zane—though sometimes age was deceiving with these cultivators.

He felt the aura of some Godbeast Bloodline streaming off of her. Edged and fiery and proud, the sign of a dragon. And more—the pressure that came with a domain, clinging close to her even when she wasn't flexing it. Just standing there, she strained the world… she wasn’t just an Ascendant. She was something more.

“My name is Lin Rai,” she announced. “Sixth Direct Disciple of Sage Noughtfire, and the Ninth Princess of the race of True Dragons.”

She looked around, arms crossed, taking in the Beacon, the wood-and-stone skyscrapers, the oaks lining the walkways. She didn't seem much impressed.

Her scarlet eyes found his.

“You’re Zane Walker?” she said.

Zane nodded. “Hello,” he said.

“I’ve heard a lot about you.” She inspected him head-to-toe. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Follow me.”

She turned and strode back to the Beacon. The pillar flared back up as she came close. Without waiting, she went through and was gone.

He scratched his head. Then ambled after her.

The moment he set foot in the light, it was like he was shot out of a cannon. He was thrust into the endless blackness. He could feel forces rolling over him from all sides, like he was clay caught between two great invisible palms. Then he was beaming through space—or maybe space was collapsing around him, stretching, whipping by, the color all blurring to stark lines, streaking through the void—stars streaming past, faster and faster…

He was bombarded with clouds of essence speeding by, the way you might if you stuck your head out of a car window on a highway, hot fire and chilling ice and cutting wind, flecks of sensation—there was a growing sense of dizziness, a lurching deep in his belly…

It was over much faster than he expected.

He saw their destination in the distance: a triumph of orange-red-white, shifting and frothing, lighting up vast tracts of space all around it, a star bigger than any he’d ever seen, making the stars circling it look like mere asteroids…

“That’s the Phoenix Star,” said Lin Rai. Her voice came as though from very far away. “It’s the supergiant the entire Faction orbits. We’re entering Azure Flame territory.”

He could feel the difference. The space here was charged somehow, flush with Fire Law. It grew denser the closer they got.

They were slowing. The lines were resolving to stretched-out shapes. Overhead he saw a gas giant, bright-red at the base with angry yellows swirling all over it—fiery tornadoes raged across its surface.

He sped past another star, one that took up the whole left side of his vision—black-red, like the whole thing was molten rock, and around it lay planets of a similar shade, some dotted with volcanoes, others peppered with spires that struck out well past the atmosphere—little fires gleaming at their tips… that shot by too. There was another cluster of stars brighter than all the rest, as though made of distilled sunshine—

The path curved sharply left. There was a jarring lurch. This was not great for Zane’s belly, which was already not having a great time.

“Hrngg,” groaned Zane.

There was a sound, a feeling like a bubble popping around him in the astral plane. And then he snapped to a halt.

He wobbled out woozy. The world spun around him. For a second, he thought he might keel over.

“Right! I forgot to mention,” said the girl, flipping her hair. “The first time through intergalactic portal travel can be brutal, especially for Nascents.”

He blinked; it was quickly resolving, though—his head quickly clearing. His sense of balance was snapping back to him too. He could feel his Bloodline working at a low burn. Anchoring him.

He stood, quite surprised to find he had not face-planted.

She was still watching him. “Need some time?”

“I’m good,” said Zane.

She looked surprised—almost a little disappointed.

“Right,” she said. “You’ve got that Steel Godbeast Bloodline too, haven’t you?”

She gave him another once-over, frowning. “How’d you get them to bend the rules for you anyway? A foot in both Factions? Even I couldn’t do that, and I’ve got an Ancestor for a grandfather.”

Zane wasn't quite sure of the details himself. “It was mostly my girlfriend,” he explained. “She made the deals.”

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“Ah. Yes,” said the girl. “The new head of the World Tree Faction. How convenient.”

He blinked.

He got the weird feeling she was looking to poke him. “You know a lot about me.”

“…” Her face colored a bit. “Just what folks have been saying, that’s all.”

A pause.

“Well,” she said, recovering herself. She frowned at him again. “Don’t think you can keep doing whatever you like! You might’ve gotten away with bending rules and skipping lines before, but you’re an Azure Flame disciple now.”

“Sure,” said Zane. He wondered what she was so worked up for.

“And how’d you get them to give you the #1 spot on the Rising Dragon Scroll, anyway?” she snapped. Her eyes flashed. “I had to achieve Ascension before the age of thirty—the youngest in a millennium—and I only got to #12!”

“…I don’t even know what that Scroll is,” Zane said. “It just kind of happened.”

She stared at him. He blinked at her. She must have seen something in his big baffled eyes.

“You didn’t—I don’t know—bribe them, or something?”

“No.”

Now she was baffled too. She started looking at him with a burning curiosity.

“How’d you get here, exactly?”

“What do you mean.”

“This—”

She gestured around them.

“—Doesn’t happen by accident,” said Lin. “Since before I could fly I dreamed of being here! I was selected the most talented out of a seven hundred True Dragons in my brood. Won every Young Legends tournament there was—drank Nuwa’s life-draught for decades straight, studied the secret scriptures until my eyes bled, got the best tutors the Dragonspyre galaxy could offer, and even I barely made it!”

“That does sound like a lot,” agreed Zane.

“How are you, some—some random pre-Integration meathead—”

“Hey,” said Zane.

“—one of Noughtfire’s disciples?! And don’t you know how long I’ve dreamed of cracking the Rising Dragon Ten?!” She was all red-faced now.

A pause. He wasn’t sure what to tell her.

“If you want my spot on that list thing, you can have it,” he said, since she seemed pretty hung up on it.

She made a choking noise.

There was a long pause.

“Wait. Are you… you’re serious?”

“Sure,” said Zane agreeably. “I don’t mind.” He didn’t even know what it was until a week ago. He still wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure it did much.

“No—I mean, are you really—” She gestured to him up and down, twitching a little. “You’re really just… some guy.”

“I’m Zane,” said Zane. “Nice to meet you.”

Then she rubbed her temples, and took a deep breath, and visibly deflated.

“…Nice to meet you too,” she mumbled.

Zane waited patiently.

“You know,” she said at last, looking back up at him. “You’re not who I was expecting.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you’d be more like my cousin Haxorax, I suppose…” She muttered.

“About how I got here,” said Zane, who had been contemplating the matter. “I have an answer.”

“Yea?”

“I was bigger than everyone else,” he explained.

“…” She groaned. She massaged her temples a little more. “None of this makes any sense!”

Which was strange, because it made quite a lot of sense to him.

A pause.

“…I’m supposed to be giving you a tour, aren’t I?” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“…Right, then.” She turned, swept out an arm, gesturing at the wide-open space. “Err. This is the Lightning Constellation. It’ll be your home for the foreseeable future,” she said.

They’d emerged on some kind of asteroid outpost, it looked like, hovering in space. They got a good view of the whole star system from here, spread out in front of them—massive, swirling heavenly bodies wreathed in shrouds of wispy fires.

“You’ll occasionally go out into the Azure Flame Faction proper, where you’ll trade, or accept the annual dungeon quest, which every disciple must undertake, or participate in a duel or tourney. But all you’ll need is here.”

She pointed at the first star. “That there’s the Soul Forge.”

It was one of the biggest stars there. Swirling storms of plasma crackled across its surface, shifting slowly. Electric arcs curved so far out of it they looked like solar flares. Broad, blinding streaks of white churned amid a sea of restless, vivid purple.

“It’s Noughtfire’s personal forge,” said Lin. “He’s also one of the foremost artificers in the Galaxy—really the best outside of the Steelheart Conclave. Though you’ll have no use for that star now, unless you decide to pick up soulsmithing, and even then, that’s after Ascendant. Noughtfire might forge something for you there, though.”

She said all this in a bit of a daze. She was coming out of it now though.

She pointed to the next star, or cluster of stars. “This one’s more relevant. Those are the three tribute stars. See that first one?”

Zane nodded.

“That one’s called Voltra.”

It was the biggest of the bunch, and it looked kind of like Earth’s own sun, just purple and bigger.

“It gives off massive amounts of Stormfire essence—it’s our generator,” she said. “That energy is harnessed by the tribes and clans of its surrounding planets, which they use for energy. Hundreds of millions live there. And they donate massive amounts of that gathered essence to Noughtfire and his disciples… which includes you now, by the way.”

She looked at him sidelong. “The estate set aside for you—Stormhaven—orbits that planet. There you’ll have about fifty million folk donating essence to you. At your current stage, you’d gain at least two Levels a day sitting there passively.”

“Huh,” said Zane. “Cool.”

“Some of the other disciples have home planets in that system too. Those next two stars—” She gestured to the stars just beside Voltra. “—aren’t relevant to you now, and you’ll need special permission to access them. The first is ‘Ferrum,’ the material tribute star…”

It looked a lot like Voltra, just with a little more silver mixed into its purple surface. And it was more volatile too—tons of flames struck out so wide they nearly touched its planets.

“—which bombards its planets with massive amounts of Stormfire radiation, inducing vicious storms. These infuse its mineral deposits with potent energies… the Sage mines those planets for raw steels, which he uses in crafting treasures.”

Actually that did seem a little relevant to Zane, who was wondering if those steels could be eaten. But Lin was already moving on, rattling off planets.

“Then there’s the treasure tribute star, Lithara…”

A sister star to Ferrum, green rather than white and more mellow. Zane swore the planets orbiting it looked pretty green too, at least from this vantage point—were those forests? Sure enough—“Its planets carry a host of ancient forests and ruins with mutated flora and fauna. It’s a useful spawning ground for certain treasures. Some other disciples, like Burnwater, keep treasure farms there.”

She moved quickly past them to the last cluster. “And finally—and this one you'll find most relevant—the killing field star. Ragnos!”

The star was massive, the color of Mars, marked a deep bloody red. That red shrouded it too, spreading throughout its star system, touching the many dark planets in its orbit.

“Ragnos has the best training you can get. In this galaxy and anywhere—it's perfectly suited to Stormfire,” she said. Her eyes brightened. “Six planets. Each more brutal than the last. Stormfire Skills level orders of magnitude faster there than anywhere else, and evolve to greater heights too. A star-wide array will teleport you out if you take a fatal blow. Each planet is a spawning ground for Monsters that’ll challenge your Stormfire. Each presents a new kind of danger… though as you are now, I doubt you can even get started on the first planet. I would have trouble getting past the third. And the whole star system’s only been cleared once before.”