"There are no wild magics, only undisciplined hearts."— Elder Sorceress Lyra of Doral'enne, Foundations of Arcana, Vol. II
December 29, 1969, The Training Courtyard of the Azure Clouds
In London, time was measured in ticking clocks and train schedules. In the Jade Lotus Empire, time was measured in the bruising of ribs and the rhythmic intake of breath.
Vega stood in the center of a training ring paved with white jade. The air at this altitude was thin, crisp, and smelled of snow that had never touched the dirt. His chest was heaving, sweat cooling rapidly on his skin despite the magical heating of the courtyard.
Opposite him, Ming Yue looked entirely too fresh. She wore loose training silks of midnight blue, and she stood with a stillness that made Vega's nerves itch.
"Again," she said.
"I'm bleeding," Vega pointed out, wiping a trickle of crimson from his split lip.
"You are leaking," she corrected calmly. "It means you are still too solid. Water does not bleed when you cut it. Smoke does not bruise when you hit it. You are a Metamorphmagus, Vega. Why are you fighting like a statue?"
She moved.
There was no telegraphing. One moment she was ten feet away; the next, she was inside his guard, her palm slamming toward his solar plexus.
Vega reacted on instinct. He didn't reach for his wand. he had learned on day one that wands were too slow here. Instead, he reached for the Hum in his blood.
Be lighter, he commanded his body.
He dropped his bone density. He softened his cartilage.
When Ming Yue's palm connected, she didn't hit a solid wall of rib and muscle. She hit something that gave way, like striking a heavy pillow. Vega absorbed the kinetic force, let it ripple through his fluid structure, and spun away, reforming his density as he landed a few feet back.
""Better," Ming Yue said, lowering her hand. "But your mind's still in the way. You wield your body like a clumsy sword, gripping too tight instead of letting the edge flow."
"Western magic is external," she lectured, picking up a wooden staff. "You pull magic from the air, push it through a stick, and force the world to change. Here, we breathe the magic in. We circulate it. We become the spell."
She tossed the staff to him.
"Defend yourself."
Walburga POV
Watching from a silk-draped pavilion at the edge of the courtyard was a tableau of cultural friction that would have been hilarious if it weren't so tense.
Walburga Black sat on a cushion of gold brocade, looking as though she were perched on a nest of scorpions. She held a porcelain teacup with white-knuckled ferocity, her lips pursed into a line so thin it was barely visible.
To her, this entire country was an affront. The magic was wrong (wandless savagery). The food was wrong (too much spice, too many vegetables). The geography was wrong (islands should not float).
But the worst part was that they were powerful.
She could not sneer at the Emperor. She could not insult the hosts. So, she swallowed her bile along with the jasmine tea and radiated a silent, screaming disapproval.
Beside her, Sirius was having the time of his life.
He was wrestling with a Fu Dog, a guardian spirit that looked like a cross between a lion and a pug. The creature was made of living stone and blue fire, and it was currently chewing on Sirius's sleeve while he laughed maniacally.
"Mother, look!" Sirius shouted, as the dog pinned him to the ground and licked his face with a tongue made of warm steam. "He eats magic! If I cast a spark, he catches it!"
"Delightful," Walburga said, her voice clipped. "Do try not to let the stone beast tear your good robes, Sirius. We are guests."
Regulus sat between them. He was sketching the architecture of the floating pagodas, his strokes precise and careful.
"It's not stone, Mother," Regulus murmured without looking up. "It's a construct of semi-corporeal spirit energy anchored to a physical lattice.
"Don't be tedious, Regulus," Walburga snapped, though she looked grateful for the distraction from Sirius's roughhousing.
She turned her gaze back to the training ring, where her eldest son was currently being beaten with a stick by a girl with vertical pupils.
"It is... unconventional," Walburga murmured to Magistrate Li, who was pouring her more tea. "For a sorcerer to engage in brawling."
"It is cultivation, Madame Black," Li said smoothly, his black eyes twinkling with an amusement that Walburga found abhorrent. "The body is the first vessel. If the vessel is weak, the wine spills. Your son has a very... interesting vessel. He changes it to suit the wine."
Walburga watched as Vega's arm suddenly elongated by three inches to snatch the staff from the air, his fingers shifting into talons for a split second to secure the grip.
She shuddered. "It is a Black family trait. We endure it."
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Back in the ring, Vega was finally finding the rhythm.
Ming Yue swung the staff low, aiming for his ankles.
Vega dissolved.
For a heartbeat, his legs lost their structural integrity. They became fluid—literally. He mimicked the properties of the water he had seen Ming Yue stand on. The staff passed harmlessly through his shins as if they were made of gelatin, and instantly, he solidified them again.
The sensation was nauseating but exhilarating. It was was an evolution of skill level, not just changing his appearance, but changing state of matter.
Ming Yue stopped. She lowered her stance, her golden eyes widening.
"You are learning," she whispered.
"I'm cheating," Vega panted, reforming his bone marrow. "I can't block you, so I just... decided not to be there."
"That is the essence of the Imperial Dragon Style," Ming Yue grinned, showing her sharp teeth. "To be where the enemy is not."
She dropped her combat stance and walked over to him. She placed a hand on his chest, directly over his heart.
Her hand was burning hot. He could feel the dragon blood humming beneath her skin, a furnace that never went out.
"Close your eyes," she commanded.
Vega obeyed.
"You have the chaos," she said softy. "But you lack an Anchor. You shift so much you forget where the center is. That is why you tire. That is why you bleed."
She pressed harder.
"Find the Breath. Not the air in your lungs. The fire in your gut. The thing that stays the same even when your face changes."
Vega focused. He looked past the Hum, the shifting, violet ocean of his ability. He looked deeper.
He found it. A cold, hard point of gravity. The thing that was Vega. The thing that refused to be anyone else.
"I feel it," he whispered.
"Hold onto it," Ming Yue said. "Now open your eyes."
Vega opened them.
The world looked sharper. The colors of the floating islands were vivid. He felt the wind not just on his skin, but through it.
"Western wizards use wands to throw their power away," Ming Yue said, stepping back. "Here, we keep it. Try."
She gestured to a stone lantern at the edge of the ring.
"Don't cast a spell. Don't use words. Just... push."
Vega looked at the lantern. He felt the cold gravity in his gut. He didn't reach for his wand. He extended his hand, palm open.
Move, he thought.
He didn't plead. He didn't shape the magic into a specific charm. He just shoved his will out through his palm, using his Anchor to give it mass.
BOOM.
There was no beam of light. Just a distortion in the air, like a heat haze.
The heavy stone lantern didn't just slide; it disintegrated. The force hit it like a wrecking ball, pulverizing the stone into dust that scattered on the wind.
Silence in the courtyard.
Sirius stopped wrestling the Fu Dog. Walburga dropped her teaspoon.
Vega stared at his hand. It was smoking faintly.
"Crude," Ming Yue critiqued, though she looked delighted. "You used too much force. You pulverized it instead of moving it. But... effective."
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9.45pm Jade Palace, Jade Lotus Empire
Two night before the Blacks were due to return to the grey damp of London, Ming Yue stole Vega away from a diplomatic banquet.
She didn't ask. She simply appeared at his elbow while he was politely listening to a goblin ambassador complain about the exchange rate of silver, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him through a tapestry depicting the history of the Empire.
"Where are we going?" Vega asked, stumbling slightly as they emerged into a corridor he had never seen before. The walls here weren't wood or stone; they were carved from solid, translucent jade, lit from within by a pulsing, rhythmic light.
"To the Vault," Ming Yue said. She wasn't wearing her training silks. She wore a robe of shimmering, scaled armor that clinked softly, like coins falling on velvet. "Grandfather keeps the boring things in the throne room. He keeps the dangerous things in the dark."
They descended.
The air grew colder with every step, shedding the humidity of the clouds and taking on the dry, preservationist chill of a tomb. They passed terracotta warriors who turned their heads to watch them pass, their painted eyes gleaming with a sentience that made the hair on Vega's arms stand up.
"If we get caught," Vega whispered, his voice echoing too loudly in the tunnel, "my mother will actually die of shame. And then she'll kill me."
"Then walk quieter," Ming Yue shot back, not slowing down.
They reached a massive circular door made of black iron, etched with runes that hurt Vega's eyes to look at. They shifted and writhed, a locking mechanism made of living language.
Ming Yue didn't use a key. She bit her thumb.
She pressed the bead of bright, sizzling blood against the center of the door.
Clang.
The iron groaned, a deep, sub-sonic sound that vibrated in Vega's teeth. The runes flashed red, tasted the dragon blood, and retreated. The door swung open.
The room beyond was vast, a cavern hollowed out of the floating island's bedrock.
It was filled with floating islands of its own, chunks of rock suspended in the air, each holding a treasure. There were swords that wept tears of blood. There were scrolls that whispered. There were jars containing storms that had been bottled during the previous dynasty.
"The Emperor's personal collection," Ming Yue announced, stepping onto a floating stepping stone. "Most of this is forbidden. Some of it is cursed. Don't touch the red jade; it eats memories."
"Noted," Vega said, keeping his hands firmly in his pockets. "Why are we here, Ming Yue?"
She hopped to a central platform where a single pedestal stood, bathed in a beam of moonlight that was being funneled down through a shaft in the rock.
"Because you are leaving," she said, her voice serious. "And the West is cold. You need a hearth."
She pointed to the pedestal.
Sitting on a cushion of black velvet was an egg.
It was large, perhaps the size of an ostrich egg, but the shell wasn't calcium. It looked like obsidian glass, deep and glossy black. But beneath the surface, faint veins of electric blue pulsed rhythmically, like a heartbeat made of lightning.
"A Panlong egg," Vega breathed, stepping closer. The magic radiating from it was intense—a static charge that made his skin prickle.
"Not a Panlong," Ming Yue corrected. "Panlong are river spirits. This... this is a Lei-Shen. A Thunder-Spirit."
She picked it up. She held it with both hands, the blue light reflecting in her golden eyes.
"It was found in the crater of a lightning strike on the highest peak of Kunlun three hundred years ago. It has never hatched. It is waiting."
She turned and held it out to him.
"Take it."
Vega hesitated. "This is an Imperial treasure, Ming Yue. I can't just—"
"It is a rock until it wakes up," she interrupted. "My family has tried to wake it for centuries. We are fire. We are heat. This egg does not want fire. It wants the wind. It wants the storm."
She shoved it into his hands.
It was heavy. Dense. And it was warm.
The moment Vega's skin touched the smooth, black surface, the egg reacted. The blue veins flared bright, pulsing in time with the Hum in his blood. The Quetzalcoatl feather in his sleeve vibrated, singing a high, clear note of recognition.
Wind, the egg seemed to whisper. Sky.
"It likes you," Ming Yue smirked, looking satisfied. "It tastes the chaos in your blood. It tastes the Void."
"How do I hatch it?" Vega asked, staring at the object. He felt a fierce, sudden protectiveness over it. It wasn't just an object; it was a life, sleeping and waiting for permission to exist.
"You don't hatch it," Ming Yue said, turning back to the door. "Keep it close. Feed it your magic. Let it feel the wind. When it is ready, it will break. And when it breaks, Vega Black..."
She looked back over her shoulder, her smile sharp and wild.
"...try not to let it eat your owls."
December 30, 1969
The Summit of the Vermilion Peak
The air at twenty thousand feet didn't just lack oxygen; it lacked forgiveness. It was a thin, razor-sharp medium that tasted of ice crystals and unfiltered starlight.
Vega stood on the edge of the Vermilion Peak, the highest point of the central floating island. Below him, the cloud layer stretched out like an endless ocean of white silk, broken only by the jagged, drifting archipelagos of the Jade Lotus Empire.
"You are shivering," Ming Yue noted. She was standing on the very lip of the precipice, her red silk robes whipping violently in the wind. She looked entirely comfortable, as if the sub-zero temperature was merely a suggestion she had chosen to ignore.
"I'm adjusting," Vega lied through chattering teeth, pulling his fur-lined cloak tighter. "My blood is still convinced it's in London."
"London is a puddle," Ming Yue said, raising a hand. "Look."
She didn't cast a spell. She didn't utter an incantation. She simply made a slashing motion with her hand, a command given to the atmosphere itself.
The clouds below them didn't just part; they were torn asunder.
A massive rift opened in the white floor, miles wide, revealing the world beneath the floating islands. But it wasn't the ground Vega saw. It was a second layer of the empire, suspended halfway between the earth and the sky.
It was a wall.
A Great Wall, constructed not of grey stone, but of white jade and black iron, stretching for thousands of miles through the air. It coiled like a sleeping dragon, linking the lower floating islands in a chain of fortifications that defied physics.
And on the wall, marching in endless, synchronized lockstep, were the soldiers.
Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. They weren't flesh and blood. They were terracotta, gleaming with enchantments, their armor painted in vivid crimsons and teals. They held spears of bronze that crackled with lightning.
"The Eternal Army," Vega breathed, the scale of it making his head spin. "The Terracotta Warriors... the Muggles think they are buried in a tomb in Xi'an."
"The Muggles see the husks," Ming Yue said, her golden eyes burning with pride. "The Emperor Qin Shi Huang did not build an army to rot in the dark, Vega. He built an army to conquer the heavens."
Ming Yue turned to him, the wind tearing at her dark hair.
"You learn history in your castle, do you not? What do they teach you of China?"
"That the dynasties fell," Vega said, watching a squadron of ceramic soldiers take flight on stone hawks, patrolling the Jade Wall. "That the magical families went into hiding. That you signed the Statute of Secrecy."
Ming Yue laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound.
"We signed nothing. The Statute is a Western invention, a treaty for those who are afraid of the mundane world. When the Qing dynasty fell on the earth, the Jade Court simply... ascended."
She swept her arm across the horizon.
"This is the Xia Empire. It has stood unbroken since the First Emperor drank the Elixir of Life and realized that the earth was too small for his ambition. We do not hide from the Muggles, Vega. We live above them. We let them have the dirt. We kept the clouds."
Vega looked at the expanse. It was overwhelming. The sheer density of magic required to keep this civilization afloat, to animate a million clay soldiers, to weave bridges of moonlight, to suspend mountains in the sky, was astronomical.
It made the Ministry of Magic in London look like a village council.
"Why?" Vega asked. "If you have this power... why stay up here? Why not rule the world below?"
"Because the dragon does not concern itself with the affairs of ants," Ming Yue said simply. "And because the sky has its own enemies."
She pointed upward, to the deep, bruising violet of the zenith.
"There are things in the void, Star-Child. Things that hunger. The Void-Whales. The Star-Eaters. The Wall is not built to keep the humans out. It is built to keep the cosmos back."
Vega felt a sudden, profound shift in his perspective.
He had been worried about Voldemort. A man recruiting school children in a Scottish castle.
Standing here, watching an empire that had weaponized the sky to fight cosmic horrors, Voldemort seemed... small. Provincial. A petty warlord fighting over a sandbox.
"You look troubled," Ming Yue observed, stepping back from the edge.
"I feel small," Vega admitted. "I'm worrying about a wizard who calls himself a Lord, while you are fighting wars against eldritch entities."
Ming Yue walked over to him. She placed her warm, burning hand on his cheek.
"Do not mistake scale for significance, Vega," she said softly. "A viper is small, but its venom can kill an emperor. This 'Lord' of yours... if he seeks to break the balance, he is dangerous. It does not matter if he rules a puddle or an ocean. Chaos is Chaos."
She leaned in, her golden eyes piercing him.
"But remember this view. When he tries to frighten you with his darkness, remember that you have seen the Sun set on an empire that has never known night. Remember that the House of Black is old, but the Sky is eternal."
She pulled back, her expression shifting from ancient sage to mischievous girl in a heartbeat.
"Besides," she grinned, showing her sharp teeth. "If he becomes too much trouble, you can always ask me to drop a mountain on him. We have plenty to spare."
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They took a wind-current back down to the main palace, gliding on a disk of solidified air.
Vega watched the Great Wall of Jade recede, the terracotta armies becoming specks against the white clouds.
He touched the Ring on his finger.
Arcturus had sent him here to learn trade. Ming Yue had taught him the scale of civilisations.
The magical world was vast, terrifying, and ancient. This Voldemort, whoever he is, is just a man. A powerful man, yes, but a man playing at godhood in a world where real gods still slept in the mountains.
Let him call himself Lord, Vega thought, the Hum in his blood settling into a deep, granite resolve. I have walked with Dragons. I am not afraid of snakes.
He looked at Ming Yue, who was laughing as she banked the wind-disk through a flock of paper cranes.
"Faster!" she challenged.
Vega grinned, the cold air biting his face.
"Race you to the tea house," he shouted.
He pushed his will into the wind, accelerating, leaving the weight of his future behind, if only for a few minutes.
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That evening, the Black family gathered at the Jade Pier to depart.
The sun was setting beneath the clouds, lighting the underside of the empire in hues of bruised purple and burning gold.
Arcturus looked satisfied, having secured a favorable trade agreement for dragon liver. Walburga looked desperate to be back in a country where the tea was black and the dogs were mortal.
"We are leaving," Walburga announced, herding Sirius and Regulus toward the Spirit Gate. "Say your goodbyes, Vega. Quickly."
Vega turned to Ming Yue. She was wearing formal robes now, stiff red silk embroidered with golden phoenixes.
"You blow things up well," she said, which coming from her was high praise.
"I had a good teacher," Vega replied.
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small object. It was a scale. Not a fish scale, but a dragon scale, iridescent black, warm to the touch, and hard as diamond.
"My grandfather gives your grandfather paper contracts," Ming Yue said, pressing the scale into his hand. "I give you this. It is from the Panlong you saw. It holds the charge of the storm."
"What does it do?"
"It reminds you," she said, her golden eyes serious. "When you are back in your grey castle, waving your little stick... remember that the sky is wide.
She leaned in, and for a second, Vega thought she might bow.
Instead, she bumped her forehead against his, a gesture of intimacy that felt more animal than human.
"Don't let the grey world eat you, Star-Child."
She pulled back and walked away, disappearing into the palace without looking back.
Vega pocketed the scale. It hummed against his hip, a warm, vibrant battery.
"Vega!" Walburga called, standing by the jade archway. "We are waiting!"
Vega jogged to join them.
"Did you have fun?" Sirius whispered, looking at the palace with longing. "I want a Fu Dog. I'm going to ask Father for one."
"Father will say no," Regulus said sensibly. "But maybe we can get a toad."
"A toad," Sirius scoffed. "Pathetic."
Arcturus placed a hand on Vega's shoulder as they prepared to step through the gate.
"You look different," his grandfather noted, eyeing him shrewdly. "More... defined."
"The air is clearer up here," Vega said, touching the warm scale in his pocket.
"Perhaps," Arcturus hummed.
They stepped through the archway.
The golden light of the empire vanished. The thin, sweet air was replaced by the damp, heavy fog of London. The silence of the clouds was replaced by the distant rumble of traffic.
They were back.
Walburga let out a long, shuddering breath, smoothing her robes.
"Finally," she muttered. "Civilization."
Vega looked at the grey sky of London. It looked low. It looked heavy.
He closed his eyes for a second, finding that cold, hard point of gravity in his gut—the Anchor Ming Yue had shown him.
Civilization, Vega thought, feeling the chaotic Hum purr in submission to his will. I have much to learn and much to see.
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The return to London was a shock to the system. The air in Islington was heavy, damp, and smelled of coal smoke, a stark contrast to the thin, sweet ozone of the Jade Empire.
Walburga had immediately retreated to her chambers, citing a migraine induced by "too much verticality and foreign tea." Sirius and Regulus had been dispatched to the nursery to unpack, though Sirius was loudly complaining that he wanted a Fu Dog for his birthday.
Vega stood in the center of the drawing room with Arcturus. The room was dim, lit only by the gas lamps and the fire that Kreacher had stoked into a roar. The portraits of ancestors snoozed in their frames, occasionally muttering about the draft.
"Well?" Arcturus asked, pouring two glasses of brandy. He looked tired but sharp, his grey eyes tracking Vega's movements. "You have been guarding that trunk as if it contains the Crown Jewels. What did the Emperor give you? A jade scepter? A silk tapestry?"
"Better," Vega said. "Or worse. Depending on how you feel about structural damage."
He knelt by his trunk and undid the latches. He peeled back the layers of heavy wool sweaters and the silencing wards he had woven around the center.
He lifted it out.
The Lei Shen egg was heavy, solid obsidian glass that seemed to suck the light out of the room. But as soon as it cleared the trunk, the blue veins beneath the shell pulsed.
Thrum-THUMP.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was deep. It vibrated the crystal decanter on the side table.
Arcturus froze mid-sip. He lowered his glass slowly.
"Vega," he said, his voice very quiet. "Tell me that is not what I think it is."
"It's a Lei Shen," Vega said, placing the egg on the low mahogany table. "A Thunder Spirit. Ming Yue gave it to me."
Arcturus walked around the desk. He approached the egg warily, like one approaches an unexploded bomb. He extended his wand, tapping the air above it.
"Revelio."
The spell triggered a static discharge. A spark of blue electricity jumped from the shell to Arcturus's wand tip with a sharp crack.
Arcturus hissed, pulling his hand back. He stared at the egg, then at Vega.
"A Lei Shen," Arcturus repeated. "The Storm-Eaters of the Kunlun range. Creatures that grow to the size of trains and consume lightning for breakfast."
He looked at his grandson with a mix of horror and grudging awe.
"Most people bring back tea, Vega."
"She said it likes me," Vega defended, touching the smooth, warm surface of the shell. The egg purred against his hand—a low, electric vibration. "She said it tastes the chaos in my blood."
"Of course it does," Arcturus muttered, pacing the rug. "It's a spirit of pure energy. It probably thinks you're a reservoir."
He stopped and looked at the egg again. The blue veins were pulsing faster now, reacting to the ambient magic of Grimmauld Place.
"This is an Imperial treasure," Arcturus noted. "Technically, you have smuggled a Class XXXXX Magical Beast and a stolen national artifact into Britain.
"It wasn't stolen," Vega said. "It was a gift. A debt."
Arcturus let out a short, bark-like laugh. He sat down in his armchair, swirling his brandy.
"Only a Black," he murmured, shaking his head. "Only a Black goes to the most secretive empire in the world for a weekend and comes back with a pet nightmare."
He pointed his glass at the egg.
"It cannot stay in the house. If it hatches here, it will eat the wards. It needs high altitude. Elemental exposure."
"I was thinking the Astronomy Tower at school," Vega suggested. "Or the roof."
"The roof," Arcturus agreed. "And heavy containment charms. I will give you a book from the library, The Care of Volatile Spirits. Read it twice. If this thing sets fire to my curtains, I am taking it out of your inheritance."
He took a sip of brandy, his eyes fixed on the pulsing blue light.
"A Thunder Spirit," Arcturus mused, a slow smile spreading across his face.
He raised his glass.
"Keep it warm, Vega. I have a feeling we're going to need a lot of lightning before this winter is over."
Vega smiled, resting his hand on the egg.
Thrum-THUMP.
"Don't worry, Grandfather," Vega said softly. "It's just sleeping."
"For now," Arcturus said darkly. "For now."
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A Lei Shen. Our MC gets a magical beast and gets a taste of the outside world. Please Like, Comment and Review if you're enjoying this!