On the northern overlook of the Floating Mountain. There, the cool alpine winds drifted across open meadow terraces, sat the delegation from the Upper Heavens.
Unlike the loud beastfolk clans who were already singing drinking songs, or the mortal emperors who had rolled up their silk sleeves to chop root vegetables, the Upper Realm immortals looked as though they had been carved from polished marble and left out in the cold.
At the center of the terrace sat Former Celestial Envoy Bai Ming. Clad in multi-layered gossamer robes spun from pure astral starlight and stitched with shimmering star-patterns, the ancient immortal sat with his spine impossibly straight upon a circular rush mat. Flanking him were a dozen high sky elders, their faces pale, severe, and utterly expressionless.
For over eight thousand years, Bai Ming had adhered to the highest ascetic traditions of the Climbed Divine Heavens. In their lofty sky palaces, the consumption of physical matter—meat, grain, root crops, or fermented fruit—was considered an ugly, degrading mortal impurity that fouled the spiritual spirit veins with living rot. An ascendant immortal sustained their ghostly vessel only upon Ninth-Grade Fasting Pills, water drops dews collected from the lunar zenith, and filtered stellar qi.
