The city of the Spirit Pagoda never slept. By day, it bustled with scholars, merchants, and spirit masters. By night, lanterns floated on the wind like fireflies, illuminating streets where children played and old men drank themselves into forgetfulness. To Bai Chen, this endless cycle of noise and routine was a perfect cloak. A shadow could only thrive where there was light.
His days remained simple. He ran errands, scrubbed floors, carried parcels for small coin. The vendors knew him as that polite boy who worked quickly and asked for little. He slept in corners where the rain couldn't reach, sometimes in storage rooms merchants left unlocked. Every morning, he woke before sunrise to repeat the cycle.
Yet within this ordinary pattern, he grew.
Each night, outside the city, he wove. Small, harmless stories at first. He imagined a flower that never wilted, blooming even in frost. When he finished, the ground before him sprouted a single white blossom, stubbornly radiant against the cold. The next night, he envisioned a bird with no wings, yet able to glide as though carried by wind. A strange, chubby creature appeared, hopping gleefully before dissolving again at dawn.
Every creation drained him, leaving him pale and trembling. But his endurance increased with each attempt. His body adapted. His spirit adapted. He learned the delicate balance of weaving threads—how much energy each word, each image, each belief demanded.
The loom was not mindless. It resisted. Each story he attempted to weave had to follow the rules of existence, no matter how faintly. A bird could not be imagined as fire and then made of water the next second; contradictions unraveled themselves. Myths thrived on coherence, on the rhythm of cause and consequence. The stronger the story, the more easily reality bent.
So Bai Chen learned not only to imagine, but to narrate. He whispered tales to the stars as though reciting forgotten scriptures.
"There was once a seed that carried a sun in its heart. It fell to the earth and became a flower that glowed softly, warming those near it."
With each sentence, the threads resonated, responding. By dawn, a faintly glowing flower sat in his palm. He let it fade before anyone could notice.
Rumors trickled into the city soon after. Children swore they found glowing petals in the fields. A shepherd claimed his sheep refused to tread near certain wells. The stories were small, dismissed as fantasy, yet repeated often enough that they took root. Bai Chen never smiled outwardly, but in silence, he marked each whisper as proof. His myths were spreading—not as gods crashing from heavens, but as rumors hidden in the world's chatter.
Still, patience anchored him. To rush was to expose himself. He was a shadow, not a sun.
Weeks passed. On one of his errands to the Pagoda's lower halls, Bai Chen encountered something that shifted his perspective. He was carrying scrolls for a scribe when he passed a group of young spirit masters, freshly awakened, excitedly discussing their martial souls. One boy, his hair tied neatly, boasted of awakening a rare firebird spirit. Another, shy but proud, revealed a wolf cub soul. Their laughter filled the air, bright and sharp.
Then, one of the Pagoda's elders approached, robes flowing, his expression stern. He assessed each child with clinical detachment, noting their soul spirits' potential. Bai Chen, silent in the corner with his bundle, watched carefully.
The elder praised the firebird, encouraged the wolf cub's determination, but dismissed two other children outright—one with a common bamboo spirit, another with a small rabbit. "Mediocre," the elder said coldly. "They may live as ordinary citizens, but do not expect greatness."
Bai Chen's gaze lingered on the rabbit child, her eyes red as she tried not to cry. He felt a faint tug in the loom, threads vibrating as though yearning. Greatness, he thought, was never born from power alone. It was born from story. A rabbit was meek, fragile. But what if a story told otherwise?
That night, under moonlight, he whispered.
"There was once a rabbit that leapt higher than the stars, carrying fire in its paws to light the night. It became a symbol of swiftness and defiance, never bowing to predators."
The threads shivered, resisting at first, then softening. A faint illusion appeared before him—a rabbit, fur glowing faintly silver, eyes sharp with defiance. It vanished quickly, but the idea remained, etched faintly into reality's cloth.
Days later, rumors spread in the city of hunters spotting a strange silver rabbit darting through forests, faster than arrows, leaving sparks in its wake. The little girl with the rabbit spirit overheard, her tears forgotten, her eyes bright with fragile hope.
Bai Chen saw from afar, unseen, and allowed himself the faintest of smiles. Not because of her gratitude—she would never know his hand—but because his myth had taken root in a soul. A rabbit that once seemed worthless now carried a seed of legend.
He was not merely creating myths. He was planting futures.
The loom thrummed louder these nights, as though approving his path. But with each creation, he also sensed the cost. His dreams grew stranger, filled with echoes of voices he did not recognize. Gods murmuring. Oceans whispering. A great serpent coiling in depths unseen. The loom connected him not only to his imagination, but to the fabric of countless forgotten stories waiting to be born.
It was intoxicating—and dangerous.
One evening, he sat beneath the city walls, staring at the stars. His body ached from work, his spirit thin from weaving. He thought of Earth—of the myths and cultures he remembered. The Norse sagas, the Greek heroes, the Egyptian gods, the Indian epics of Vishnu and Shiva, the legends of Garuda and Nagas. Vast, timeless worlds, all brimming with power. If he wove them here, what would become of the Soul Land?
No. Not yet. The continent was not ready. A single misplaced thread could unravel the balance of ages.
For now, he remained what he had chosen to be: a background figure, unseen and unimportant. His name forgotten in crowds, his existence no more remarkable than dust. And yet, behind this mask of nothingness, he shaped legends.
One whisper at a time.
And though none knew it, the Spirit Pagoda era had already begun to change—not by decree of rulers or the clash of titans, but by the hand of a boy who lived in the shadows, weaving myths into reality.
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✅ Chapter 3 complete.