Chen Yè woke with the silence.
It pressed against him—absolute, unfamiliar, wrong. No distant shouts of vendors. No clatter of cart wheels. No cold seeping through cracks, no rats scratching in walls, no sounds of a city that never truly slept.
Just silence.
He lay still for a moment, letting memory catch up to consciousness. The drafting. The testing. The blocks. The bed beneath him, impossibly soft, still holding the warmth of his body.
He rose.
The bathroom was excessive—gleaming surfaces, water that came hot at a thought, space enough for a dozen people. Chen Yè washed quickly, his movements efficient, shaped by years of scarcity even when scarcity no longer applied. Old habits died hard.
The kitchen proved stranger.
He'd expected to find ingredients, perhaps. Something to prepare. Instead, he found a distortion in the wall—a shimmer in the air that marked where normal space ended and something else began. Dimensional storage. He'd heard of such things but never seen one.
He willed it to produce food, uncertain if it would work.
It did.
A meal materialized before him— Steam rose from the plate, carrying warmth and fragrance. Hot. Fresh. As if prepared moments ago, though no kitchen fire had touched it. He had spent ten minutes the first morning just staring at the phenomenon, watching the steam rise from food that had appeared from nowhere.
The convenience was just another bar on the cage.
A meal materialized before him—rice, vegetables, slices of meat glistening with sauce. Steam rose from the plate, carrying warmth and fragrance. Hot. Fresh. As if prepared moments ago, though no kitchen fire had touched it.
Chen Yè ate slowly, forcing himself to savor each bite rather than devour it like the starving creature he'd been for so long. The food was better than anything he'd ever tasted. His stomach, so accustomed to emptiness, almost ached from the richness.
When he finished, he dressed in the robes they'd been given and left his domain.
The foot of the mountain was where they'd been told to gather.
Chen Yè arrived and waited. The crystalline structures rose around him, catching light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Other children trickled in over the following minutes—some alone, some in small groups, all wearing the same uncertain expressions.
When the last of them arrived, a guard appeared.
"Good morning, sir," the children said in unison, voices thin and nervous.
The guard didn't acknowledge them.
He simply reached into his robes, withdrew a small stone, and crushed it in his fist.
Reality lurched.
Chen Yè felt it in his stomach first—a pulling sensation, like being grabbed from the inside and yanked in every direction at once. The crystalline structures around them blurred, colors smearing into streaks of light. The ground vanished. His ears popped. For an instant that felt like eternity, he existed nowhere.
Then solidity returned.
The pavilion materialized around them—vast, open, supported by pillars that rose toward a ceiling lost in shadow. Rows of cushioned seats faced a raised platform at the far end. The air smelled different here, cleaner somehow, tinged with something Chen Yè couldn't name.
Children stumbled. A few fell. Someone retched.
But Chen Yè's mind was already turning.
The stone, he thought. He crushed it, and we moved. Concepts can be imbued in objects.
He filed that away. Information was survival.
The guard pointed toward the seats. "Sit. Wait."
They sat. They waited.
The pavilion was neat and empty, the seats arranged in orderly rows facing the platform. Chen Yè found a place and settled in, his eyes moving across the other children, cataloging faces, postures, expressions.
"Take a seat. Wait for the Master," the guard grunted, before vanishing without ceremony.
The children shuffled in, the scrape of their sandals against stone the only sound. Two hundred children, and yet the silence was so complete that Chén Yè could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.
He found a spot in the back corner, as was his habit—a vantage point from which he could observe without being observed. His back pressed against the cold wall, grounding him.
He watched the others.
He saw Noah Wen near the front, the boy whose sister had been sorted into the "valuable" group. The boy was staring at his own feet, his shoulders slumped forward, his entire body a portrait of quiet devastation. Chén Yè wondered if he had slept at all.
He saw others forming small, protective cliques—nobles gravitating toward nobles, commoners toward commoners. The sorting had already begun, invisible lines being drawn in the air between them. Fear made people predictable.
Minutes passed.
Then a boy approached.
He was young—Chen Yè's age or near it—with a sleek build and features that bordered on feminine. Sharp cheekbones. Intelligent eyes. An almost unsettling prettiness that seemed designed to disarm.
He sat down beside Chen Yè without asking permission.
"Hello," he said. "My name is Bai Zixian."
Chen Yè looked at him.
He didn't respond.
Connections that yielded no results, that offered no advantage—these were not things Chen Yè wanted to establish. He'd learned that lesson on the streets, learned it in blood and hunger and cold nights spent alone. Friendship was a luxury. Sentiment was a weakness. Unless someone could offer him something concrete, something useful, he had no interest in knowing them.
This boy—Bai Zixian—was a stranger. A fellow failure, sorted into the same pile of uncertain cases. What could he possibly offer?
Chen Yè remained silent.
Bai Zixian didn't seem bothered. If anything, he seemed to take the silence as acknowledgement. His smile widened slightly—an uncanny expression, too knowing for a child's face.
"Everyone seems to have paired up with someone," he continued, as if Chen Yè had responded. "Groups, alliances, whatever you want to call them. We're the only ones left without partners." He tilted his head. "I thought I'd introduce myself. We should look after each other, don't you think?"
Chen Yè studied him.
There was something behind those eyes. An intelligence that didn't match the boyish features, the friendly tone, the easy smile. This was someone who thought before he spoke, who measured and calculated, who wore openness like a mask.
Intelligence far above his years, Chen Yè noted.
But before he could decide whether to respond—before he could determine if this Bai Zixian was worth the effort of a reply—
A door opened.
The elder who entered did not appear from nothing.
He walked through a door at the side of the pavilion, his footsteps measured and unhurried. The children's reaction was different this time—less fear, more attention. Perhaps because he'd arrived like a normal person rather than materializing from void.
He was old in appearance, though that meant nothing among divine existences. White hair. Severe features. Robes of muted grey that conveyed authority without ostentation.
He reached the platform and wasted no time.
"My name is Elder Pei Leng," he said, his voice flat and matter-of-fact. "I will be guiding you for the next few months."
He paused, letting the silence press down on them like a physical weight.
"You have questions. Today, I will give you one answer. The only one that matters right now."
"Today, I explain only one thing: the stages of evolution among divine existences."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"First is the Awakened stage. This is the easiest stage. It is also the hardest. Easiest, because all you need is understanding. Hardest, because many of you will never leave it."
Silence. The children waited.
"Here is the truth," Elder Pei Leng continued. "All of you here have awakened. I know some of you believe otherwise. Your concept did not manifest in the testing cup. The stone did not react as expected." His eyes found the uncertain cases—Chen Yè among them. "This does not mean you failed. As long as you saw a representation of a concept, you awakened. You were tested beforehand; you would not be here otherwise."
He raised one hand.
"The simple truth is this: many divine existences share the same concept. Fire. Space. Gravity. What differentiates them is the representation. Two people may possess the concept of Flame, but one sees an inferno consuming a forest while another sees a single candle in darkness. Same concept. Different representations."
He lowered his hand.
"This is where understanding comes in. You do not need comprehension—not yet. What you need is pure understanding of your representation. Even if your connection is faint. Even if your concept does not physically affect reality. It does not matter."
His voice sharpened slightly.
"The moment you understand your representation—what it stands for, what it is trying to show you, what it wants to do—at that moment, you will have a hold of your concept. You may not understand fully at once. But knowing what your representation means is the start."
"Your journey now is not about power. It is about translation. You do not need to train your bodies. You need to sharpen your minds. You must hold the image of your representation—the glass desert, the crushing room, the silent music—and ask a simple question:"
He stopped again, his gaze sweeping across them with an intensity that made several children flinch.
"What truth is my representation trying to tell me?"
The silence that followed was absolute.
"The moment you translate that vision," Elder Pei Leng said, "the moment you achieve a pure, honest understanding of that single, personal truth, you will find your footing on the path. You will reach the Resonance Stage."
He straightened, clasping his hands behind his back once more.
"That is your lesson. Think on it."
And with that, he turned and walked out, leaving a room full of stunned, silent children in his wake.
Chen Yè sat motionless as the other children began to stir, murmuring among themselves, processing what they'd heard.
His mind was elsewhere.
If what the elder said is true, he thought, then I have a concept. I awakened. I saw a representation.
The infinite darkness. The millions of tiny lights, winged and dancing, beautiful and utterly unreachable.
But what the fuck was that?
He turned the memory over in his mind, examining it from every angle. Darkness so absolute that even the lights couldn't pierce it. Lights so strange that they defied description—not fairies, not sparks, something other. He'd tried to touch them. Failed. Tried again. Failed again.
What does it mean?
He didn't know.
What is it trying to show me?
He didn't know.
What does it want to do?
He didn't know.
Frustration coiled in his chest. The elder made it sound simple—understand your representation, and the rest follows. But how was he supposed to understand something that defied every attempt at comprehension?
He had no answer.
Just darkness, and lights, and the maddening certainty that something was there—something he couldn't grasp.
Across from him, Bai Zixian watched.
The pretty boy's expression hadn't changed—still pleasant, still composed. But his eyes lingered on Chen Yè's face, noting the furrow in his brow, the tension in his jaw, the subtle signs of a mind wrestling with something it couldn't solve.
The corner of his mouth curved upward.
Amusement.
— — —
While the Unfavored received their first lesson in the pavilion of black stone, on the other side of the pocket realm, in a chamber of pristine white, a different kind of awakening was taking place.
Xīng Hé opened her eyes.
She wasn't in her room.
That was the first thing she registered—the wrongness of the space around her. The ceiling was too high. The bed was too soft. The sheets were silk, whispering against her skin when she moved.
Where—
Pain.
It crashed into her without warning, a wave of agony so intense that her vision went white. Every nerve ignited. Every muscle seized. It felt like being whipped—not once, but continuously, mercilessly, the lash falling again and again across her entire body.
She couldn't scream. Couldn't breathe.
Somewhere distant, she heard movement. Tried to call someone but failed
Then more footsteps, approaching and receding
A scream, sharp and involuntary, was ripped from her lungs.
A young maid, who had been quietly cleaning the room, yelped in terror at the sudden noise. The cloth fell from her hands as she scrambled toward the door, her voice a panicked cry in the hallway.
"She's awake! The young miss is awake!"
Xīng Hé barely heard her. Her world had been reduced to a universe of pain. She was drowning in it, every thought fragmenting before it could fully form. She was vaguely aware of the door opening again, of two new figures entering the room, their presence a cool pressure against the searing heat of her agony.
Two figures entered the room. Divine existences—she could feel the weight of their presence even through the haze of pain. One of them moved to her bedside immediately, extending a hand.
The pain shifted.
It didn't vanish—she could still feel it, a dull roar beneath her consciousness. But the unbearable edge had been blunted, as if someone had reached into her body and lifted away the worst of the weight.
Her vision cleared.
A woman stood beside the bed, one hand extended, fingers splayed in a gesture that seemed to pull at something invisible between them. Dark hair, sharp features, the posture of someone accustomed to command. Behind her, a man lingered near the door—younger in appearance, watchful, his expression carefully neutral.
"Easy," the woman said. "Don't try to move yet."
Xīng Hé's throat felt raw, scraped. "Where... where am I?"
"Safe," the woman replied, which wasn't an answer at all.
The man stepped forward. His gaze moved over Xīng Hé with clinical precision, assessing. "She was healed," he murmured, almost to himself. "Her body stopped from breaking down. The burden lessened. She should have taken at least a month to recover."
He paused.
"It's been two days."
Two days. Xīng Hé tried to process that. The last thing she remembered was her room—destroying it, screaming, breaking herself against walls that wouldn't break back. Then nothing. Darkness. And now this.
"Natural awakeners," the man said, shaking his head slightly. "Truly monsters."
The woman shot him a look. He fell silent.
Xīng Hé's mind was racing despite the lingering pain. Natural awakener. The words landed with weight she couldn't yet fully grasp. She'd read about them in her family's library—the seven who'd come before, beings whose connection to their concepts was so strong that manifestation occurred without guidance or support.
Seven in all of history.
And now her?
"Why am I here?" she managed, her voice steadier now. "What happened?"
The man glanced at the woman. Some silent communication passed between them.
"You awakened naturally," he said finally. "Two days ago. Your body couldn't handle the burden, and you've been comatose since." He gestured to the woman. "This is Yao Xian. She's been healing you. We were assigned to watch over you."
Watch over. Not protect. Not care for. Watch.
Xīng Hé filed that away.
"What was my concept?" she asked.
Another exchange of glances. This time, neither of them spoke immediately.
"About that," the man said slowly, "you would need to go through the first test to see the representation of your concept. We cannot answer that question."
A pause.
"But you should rest first." He straightened, his posture becoming more formal. "I will inform His Eminence Heiyun that you are awake."
Eminence.
The word echoed in Xīng Hé's mind as the two divine existences turned to leave.
Eminence. The title used for transcendents.
She watched them go, her pain-fogged mind working to piece together what that meant.
End of Chapter 8