"I’m retired," Edward snorted. "You also didn’t answer my question, I note."

Rui turned towards the television screen that replayed the launch of the first wave of fleets into outer space. He found them to be more mundane than he might have otherwise expected, but the sight of fleet spaceships in space entering warp drive was a lot less alluring than a rocket taking off from Earth, like in his previous life.

"Why ask questions to which you already know the answer?" Rui raised an eyebrow, turning towards the old man.

He had started visibly aging after retiring, which meant that he had probably turned off the immortality he got from Rui, clearly a very personal decision that reflected a desire not to live forever.

"Hmph, damn mind-reader," the old man snorted.

"I didn’t even need to in order to know that you know why I am choosing to act this way," Rui replied blankly.

"...You seek Gaian Civilization to grow stronger and more dominant than it is." The man knowingly mused, sipping his tea. "And you think it can’t do that while your shadow looms over them, hm?"

Rui sipped the tea comfortably. "This is some good tea, really. I’ll have my secretary import this."

"And you want human civilization to grow stronger because, let me guess, there is something coming that you fear human civilization may not be ready to handle," the Britannian Prime Minister remarked knowingly. "And you want to whip Gaian Civilization into shape before it arrives, because you believe it may not survive as it is now?"

"I know for a fact that it wouldn’t survive as it is now," Rui replied.

The former prime minister raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Even though we have you?"

"It is because they have me that they’re not ready," Rui replied, shaking his head. "The reality is that I can’t protect Gaian Civilization at all moments. Even the intervals, for example, between my disappearance and my return, would be enough for any powerful foe to destroy Gaia in my absence. I can also be entangled with other powerful entities."

"Do there exist entities that can fight a Martial Transcendent for that long?" Edward raised an eyebrow.

"There may exist entities that are superior to Martial Transcendents," Rui replied with a glint of enthusiasm in his eyes. "That would certainly be... fun."

Edward didn’t miss the flick of excitement in his body language, snorting with a hint of ridicule. "And here I thought you had matured after becoming a father, but deep down within you is the same excitable lad that looks forward to an opportunity to flex his Martial Art."

"It is also partially that," Rui heaved a sigh, taking a sip of his tea. "The simple reality is that I have reached a stage of power where progressing any further is very difficult."

The former prime minister knew that he wasn’t lying, of course. Having known a Martial Transcendent himself for centuries, they truly existed in a wholly other dimension of power compared to anybody else.

"It will take time, but eventually, Gaian Civilization will grow strong enough to protect itself," he turned towards the screen as he studied the footage of the fleets of spaceships departing from the solar system and away. "And that’s good. It’s not healthy for children to always cower behind their parents."

"Do you intend to simply never intervene again?"

"No," Rui shook his head. "I have foreseen that there will come a day when they run into a foe that they simply cannot defeat with their own power and when that day comes..."

His ethereal eyes sharpened.

"...I will finally intervene."

Rui looked forward to that day. He knew it wouldn’t be easy finding an entity that thousands of Martial Sages couldn’t fend off, but eventually, they would run into something like that as long as they kept expanding outwards into the Orion Star Strand.

Most likely, based on everything that he had gathered, the Orion Star Strand contained powerful... presences within it. Using his Eye of Prophecy, he could foresee a wall.

A wall that Gaian Civilization would not be able to overcome without him.

Until they hit that wall, whenever and wherever it was, he would allow Gaian Civilization to grow stronger. He would have them overcome every obstacle themselves with their own power, creativity, and blood. This was the only way to create a mature interstellar civilization that could sustain itself rather than depending on handouts.

And only when they reached their absolute limit would Rui ever intervene ever again.

That was why he didn’t show his face even for such a prominent event, allowing his sister to handle all the public-facing jobs. He would become the distant Emperor, one whose face people would start forgetting, if he needed to. If that was what was required for humanity to grow up and out of his shadows, then he would gladly go that far.

He was starting to get really sick of the prominence, anyway. A part of him missed the days when he wasn’t burdened by the Kandrian Empire, even if he had chosen that path, and would still choose that path if given an opportunity to make a different choice.

"If your intention was to strengthen human civilization, then privatizing it was a good decision," the older man remarked, sipping his tea. "But it comes with risks, such as—"

"I’m aware of the risks," Rui remarked, his eyes never leaving the television screen featuring the launches of spaceships into warp drive. "But after seeing the gains in the past few months, I’m ever more convinced that they are worth the risks and that the risks can be mitigated. In the past few months, humanity has made more progress towards the stars than it has in the past nine years before that."

After all, the race to the stars was not a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination. People had been talking about the race to the stars for a very long time. Even after the Panama Continent returned to the true world, there was a race to see who could mobilize their forces to outer space.