The third dawn rose dimmer, the mist heavy in the Hidden Veil Valley. The children gathered at the spring, their chatter subdued, as though even their small voices sensed something weightier awaited.
The Core Elder appeared in silence. His robe gleamed faintly, constellations drifting across its folds. His gaze lingered on each child before he spoke.
"Stillness roots you. Awareness shows you the sky. But to walk Astralis's path, you must feel its pulse. Come."
He led them into a cavern deep beneath the valley. The walls glimmered with silver veins until, at the center, the earth split open, revealing a river of qi that flowed like molten stars. Its hum rattled in their chests, low and alive.
Mei gasped. "It's alive!"
"The Bloodline Vein," the elder said. "Astralis's heart. Through it, the Ye endure. Without it, we would scatter like dust."
One by one, the children placed their hands upon carved stones encircling the vein.
Chenrui forced too much, qi flaring and sputtering.
Wen tried to trace patterns, only to lose the rhythm.
Mei giggled, claiming it "tickled like bubbles."
Shen stood steady, but his hand trembled faintly.
Qingxian whispered, "It remembers…" when silver threads flickered across her fingers.
Qingyi tried to memorize every pulse, brow furrowed in concentration.
Liangjun held longest, jaw clenched.
Liangfeng slipped into rhythm effortlessly, calm as stone.
Hanrui's crimson qi strained but did not break.
And Ye Xuan—when his small hand touched the stone, the vein pulsed once, a deep beat that answered him. The cavern hummed louder, then fell still.
The elder said nothing, though his eyes lingered on the boy, unreadable.
Seasons blurred. Mist and springlight became as familiar to the children as their own breath. Each day began in silence, then spilled into lessons and sparring, meals and laughter, quarrels and quiet revelations.
The elder taught them to awaken the gifts of their gaze—crimson, gold, violet, silver.
Chenrui's crimson eyes would flare with a wild, unfocused energy. The air before him would shimmer with heat before exploding in a concussive shockwave, blasting holes in stone walls. He would then stagger, dizzy and cursing, the back of his eyes throbbing with a dull ache.
Wen's golden Heaven's Sight, by contrast, was a tool of precision. He could pierce into the intricate runes etched into practice stones, the golden light of his gaze illuminating their deepest meaning. But when he held his focus for too long, the overwhelming flood of information would leave him pale, with a headache that felt like a hundred tiny hammers striking behind his temples.
Liangjun grew sharper each week, his golden stare becoming a tool of unyielding focus. In sparring, his gaze could cut clean through a false move, his opponent's intended strike exposed before it even began.
Qingyi's eyes missed nothing. Her gaze seemed to drink in the world, memorizing every detail. At the elder's command, she could look at a complex fighting form for a single moment and then repeat it perfectly, her movements a silent echo of the master's own.
The gifts of the eye also revealed what lay beneath the moment. Qingxian's silver threads of sight shimmered more often, a silent echo of the Bloodline Vein she had touched. Sometimes, she would whisper answers to questions no one had asked, her voice a fragile murmur as if listening to what lay beneath the moment. She would trace lines in the air that only she could see, as if her gaze wove a web of fate around them all.
Liangfeng's violet gaze pressed so steady and deep that it was unsettling. His gaze could cut to the heart of a person's qi, exposing their strengths and weaknesses without a single word. Once, the elder himself paused in the middle of a lesson, his calm demeanor faltering as the boy's gaze swept over him, as if seeing something he had never wanted to reveal.
Hanrui's crimson fire smoldered, a contained inferno beneath his placid composure. His gaze was a constant, low-burning flame that made the air around him feel slightly warmer. He never let the power flare out of control, a testament to his unbreakable self-discipline.
And Ye Xuan… his eyes shimmered with colors that shifted too fast, too deep to be seen by the others. The elder forbade him from revealing more than fleeting glimmers of it, but even so, the whispers spread among the children: the boy with the eyes of the mountain, the one who saw too much.
The Li siblings trained their lightning.
Shen's discipline shaped thunder into a steady spear thrust, his movements as precise and controlled as a well-aimed strike. Each of his blows was a storm held in check, a contained force that spoke of his quiet resolve.
Mei, by contrast, giggled as sparks leapt from her fingers, setting a stolen apple or spirit fruit aglow. "It tingles!" she laughed when scolded, her voice bright and unconcerned. At night, her two bound pigtails would glimmer with a faint, steady blue light, a silent testament to the storms she carried within.
That same wild energy followed her into sparring. They clashed across stone platforms and misted meadows—Chenrui always charging first, always falling hardest, and always shouting, "Next time!" Wen danced with clever footwork, but Liangjun's steadiness caught him. Mei darted in with sparks flying, declaring herself victorious no matter the outcome. Liangfeng struck rarely, but when he did, it landed like falling stone.
And always, sooner or later, they turned their challenges toward Ye Xuan. Chenrui came at him with flaring crimson eyes, Wen with golden sight blazing, Mei with lightning snapping from her fingers. One after another, they tried, bloodline gifts burning bright—yet one after another they ended in the dust, staring up at the quiet boy who had barely moved.
Ye Xuan never gloated, never boasted. He only bowed, cheeks warming, as if apologizing each time. But that didn't stop them. The more easily they were defeated, the more determined they grew to topple him.
Meals were chaos no matter the season. They sat cross-legged by the spring, trays of glowing spirit fruits between them. Chenrui argued until he turned red. Mei stole from everyone. Wen lectured about balance until Qingxian murmured, "The spring is listening." They hushed for a heartbeat, then burst into laughter again.
The elder's lessons shifted like the weather. Some days he taught breathing forms, the history of Astralis, or the rival powers of Heaven's Reach. Other days he said nothing at all, only let them sit until their small bodies ached and their minds grew quiet, until silence became as natural as breath.
And so the year passed. The children grew taller. Their gazes grew sharper. Their voices rang louder. They had learned to sit in silence, to glimpse the sky, to feel the vein, and to wrestle with the gifts carried in their blood.
But anticipation now coiled through the valley. For the next step awaited—
The Spirit Soul Awakening Ceremony.
That night, mist curled over the spring. Even Chenrui stopped boasting. Even Mei fell quiet. Their eyes lifted toward the stars, each child wondering what soul would answer when their turn came.
Ye Xuan sat apart. The springlight flickered in his eyes, and the hum within him had only grown louder.
It felt—as it always did—that Astralis itself was waiting.