Everything had fallen into place. All that remained was to wait.
It was time to make a trip back to the Star Boundary.
As long as the Star Boundary's hidden crisis remained unresolved, he would never be able to rest easy. By his reckoning, it had been roughly fifteen years since he left. Before his departure, the Star Boundary had already been unstable — the Heavenly Laws and Earthly Rules had suffered severe damage. He and the other Great Emperors had done what they could to slow the Star Boundary's collapse, but those measures were ultimately treating the symptoms, not the root cause, and could fail at any time.
So much time had passed. He had no idea how things stood back in the Star Boundary now.
Here at High Heaven Palace, the construction could proceed with or without him. All Yue He needed to do was stay behind and coordinate with Master Wuliang.
And by the time he returned from the Star Boundary, the Nine Heavens Grand Formation should be fully set up. The timing worked out well enough.
With that decision made, he summoned Yue He and quietly explained the matter to her.
Yue He didn't try to stop him, but she did say, "If the Young Master wishes to go, that's fine. Take either Chen Tianfei or Lu Xue along. With one of them to watch over you, I'll feel much more at ease."
Yang Kai was still only at the Emperor Realm. Travelling through the Three Thousand Worlds would surely be fraught with danger. Having a Fourth-Order Open Heaven cultivator as a guard would spare him no small amount of trouble.
Yang Kai smiled and shook his head. "No need. High Heaven Palace is short-handed as it is. Fei and Lu Xue are both important assets. With them here, things will move along faster. I'm just going back to handle personal matters — I won't need them."
Yue He naturally wouldn't accept that. She immediately proposed that if he wouldn't take Chen Tianfei or Lu Xue, then she would have to go along herself.
That was even less feasible. She needed to stay behind and work with Master Wuliang on the formation. Anyone else could leave, but she was absolutely indispensable.
The two argued for a good while, but Yue He refused to budge an inch. She simply could not bring herself to let Yang Kai set off alone, and in the end, Yang Kai had no choice but to relent with a sigh of resignation.
Yue He settled on sending Lu Xue to accompany him. As a woman, she was naturally more attentive to details, and having her by Yang Kai's side would make it easier to look after him.
"Let Guo Ziyan go along too," Yue He added.
Yang Kai couldn't help but laugh. "He's only a Second-Order Open Heaven. What would he even do there?"
Lu Xue was at least Fourth-Order and could prove useful in a pinch. But a Second-Order Open Heaven like Guo Ziyan was a bit too weak for the task.
Yue He huffed. "I don't care. If you're taking Lu Xue, you're taking Guo Ziyan!"
Yang Kai looked at her for a moment, then suddenly understood. He could only nod. "Fine, the two of them it is."
He sighed inwardly. High Heaven Palace was in desperate need of manpower, and here he was dragging away two Open Heaven cultivators. It really wasn't ideal. But there was nothing to be done — he simply could not overrule Yue He.
Before departing, Yang Kai produced a fruit that shimmered with an iridescent glow and handed it to Yue He.
Yue He took it, her delicate brows furrowing. "This is..." Under her senses, she could detect an incredibly dense wellspring of World Force emanating from the fruit.
"A World Fruit."
Yue He's beautiful eyes went wide. "This is a World Fruit?"
She was a Fifth-Order Open Heaven cultivator, so she had certainly heard of World Fruit before. But wasn't this kind of divine treasure supposed to exist only in legends? She could never have imagined that one day she would not only see one with her own eyes, but hold one in her hand.
"This is a mid-grade World Fruit. After I leave, find a time to refine it. It will be enormously beneficial to you," Yang Kai instructed.
He had a full sixteen World Fruit in his possession, but only three of them were mid-grade. Mid-grade World Fruit was best suited, without question, for Fifth-Order Open Heaven cultivators. Consuming and refining one would allow them to advance directly to the Sixth Order. Fourth-Order and Third-Order cultivators could take them too, but the benefits would be considerably smaller. As for Sixth-Order Open Heaven cultivators, even consuming one would have no effect.
"Did you get this from the Ruins of the Immortal Ascension?" Yue He asked in surprise.
She knew better than anyone what Yang Kai had gained in the Great Ruins Boundary, but she had never heard him mention obtaining World Fruit. The only possibility was the Ruins of the Immortal Ascension.
Yang Kai nodded.
"Young Master, this is far too precious. I can't accept it." Yue He pushed the World Fruit back toward him.
Yang Kai said, "I told you to use it, so use it. I've got plenty more of these."
"You're lying!" Yue He pouted. "I may have never seen a World Fruit before, but I know that each person only gets one chance in their lifetime to obtain a fruit from the World Fruit Tree... Wait, how do you have so many?"
Even as she spoke, Yue He stared in astonishment at Yang Kai's palm, where several more World Fruit had materialized.
Yang Kai chuckled. "Believe me now? If your cultivation improves, it'll benefit High Heaven Palace too. It's a shame that most of my World Fruit are low-grade and don't have much value. If they were all mid-grade, I could rapidly produce a whole batch of mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators."
Yue He asked in puzzlement, "How could low-grade World Fruit have no value?"
Yang Kai replied, "A low-grade World Fruit can at most allow a warrior to advance to the Third-Order Open Heaven. What value does that really have?"
Yue He let out a laugh. "Young Master, that way of thinking is wrong. It's true that a low-grade World Fruit can only raise a warrior to the Third-Order at most, but it increases their upper limit of potential. And that kind of benefit is something no amount of money could ever buy."