Elsewhere — The Frost Orchid Garden
In the middle of a silent, snowy courtyard within one of the inner towers, a young girl sat beneath a frozen cherry blossom tree.
Her long silver-white hair was bound into a loose braid, and delicate tattoos of ancient script shimmered faintly against her porcelain skin. A small, rune-etched flute rested in her lap.
She was quiet.
Still.
Dressed in flowing blue robes of a style not seen in centuries—elegant, timeless, and subtly marked with a silver crescent sigil.
the Moon veil family crest.
Her name was Ilyra Moonveil.
She was twelve years old.
And she was a monster.
Not in form, nor in heart, but in power. In composure. In the way she walked the razor-thin edge between divine elegance and terrifying potential.
Her cultivation had already surpassed most core sect disciples.
Her dream core, an ethereal, transparent crystal shaped like a frosty lotus bloom, shone with five internal rings.
Five. At her age.
Where others struggled to comprehend the first stages of dream manifestation, Ilyra had already composed weapon arts, manifested elemental harmonics, and rewritten dream constructs with the ease of breathing.
A soft voice approached, whispering through the snow.
"Miss Ilyra. The Council has convened again. They spoke of a boy."
Ilyra didn't look up.
"The one who reads too fast?" she said in a voice that barely rose above the wind.
"Yes, him. Adrien. He created something at the forge."
Her pale eyes—moonstone grey with hints of sapphire—lifted at last.
"…Interesting."
"Shall I schedule a sparring match? Or a test?"
Ilyra tilted her head, gently brushing the snow from her flute. "No need. If he's truly gifted, the stars will align us without effort."
The servant hesitated. "And if he's not?"
Ilyra finally smiled.
A calm, quiet smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Then he's not worth remembering."
Back in the Outer Sector — Adrien's Courtyard
Adrien slept like a corpse on his floor, papers and fragments of dreamsteel strewn all around him.
Selyra stood over him, arms crossed, tapping her foot with increasing impatience.
"This idiot," she muttered. "He actually forgot to show up for training."
She glanced at his worktable. Schematics. Unfinished cores. Inscriptions of complex calculations beyond most inner disciples.
Then at the half-melted ore crucible beside his pillow.
Then at his open book, Dream Constructs and Fluid Binding Theory, marked on a chapter most elders considered unreadable garbage.
Selyra exhaled slowly.
"…He's going to cause trouble."
She reached down, ruffled his hair once, then turned and walked out.
Back in the Council Pavilion
Councilor Elandros sat alone after the meeting, sipping a cup of silverroot tea. The snow danced gently around him as his gaze drifted toward the eastern horizon.
A quiet chime echoed from the pendant at his belt.
It pulsed once.
The signal was clear.
"She is watching him."
He smiled faintly.
"…Let's see if your little fire burns bright enough, Adrien."
...
The Moonlight Sect's highest spire, known as the Skyglow Pinnacle, stood suspended above the clouds, held aloft by a circle of ancient moonsilver rings that never stopped rotating.
Inside, the air shimmered with divine presence, thick enough to make even seasoned elders bow without command.
Here resided Sect Master Caer Thalorin, an ancient man whose presence bent light itself, tall, silver-bearded, draped in flowing robes woven from celestial thread.
His eyes bore the clarity of distant stars, with irises that reflected the constellations visible only to dreamwalkers.
Before him, Selyra knelt in silence.
She rarely bowed to anyone.
But before Caer Thalorin, even an Asura lowered her head.
"Rise, child," the Sect Master's voice echoed gently, like wind over a mountain range. "You've returned from the Cradle. I trust the rot there has been dealt with?"
"Yes, Sect Master," Selyra said smoothly. "The corruption did not reach the deeper veins. The Moonroot remains untouched."
"Good," he said, nodding once. "With the festival near, the city of Lunaris must remain safe. We cannot have any darkness festering beneath our feet."
He turned, walking slowly toward the edge of the pinnacle. A soft gust blew his robes like a comet's tail, revealing the glowing expanse of the valley far below.
There, nestled in the arms of the mountain's roots, shone Lunaris—a city of moon-glass towers, vine-wrapped walkways, and dreamlight lanterns that pulsed in rhythm with the stars.
"In less than two months, we will open the gates," he continued. "As is tradition, the people of Lunaris will enter the Sect's grounds to witness the Festival of Starlit Ascension. A celebration of peace… and power."
Selyra remained quiet, but her eyes narrowed slightly.
"You sound displeased," he said without turning.
"I am merely cautious," she replied. "You know how these festivals go. Beneath the music and the markets, it becomes a proving ground. The disciples use it to flaunt their talent. The elders parade their prodigies. The factions strengthen their politics. And the younger ones? They fight not for glory—but survival."
The Sect Master smiled faintly. "Indeed. But that is the way of things. Even in a sanctuary of moonlight… the shadows crave motion."
He turned at last, his eyes finding her once more.
"As is tradition, the Core Disciples will oversee the preliminary events and selections. You, Selyra, will assist as advisor to the Artisan Path."
She raised a brow. "You think I still have influence there?"
"You are still its highest-ranked guardian, even if you abandoned the forges," he said. "And you've taken on a student, I hear."
Selyra blinked once.
So, he already knew.
"Yes," she said carefully. "A strange one. Human. Found just outside Lunaris."
"Ah," the Sect Master mused, stroking his beard. "So the rumours were true. A child who survived a spatial rift… alone. The gatekeepers mentioned it in passing. His body and soul were intact. That alone is a miracle."
Selyra nodded. "His name is Adrien."
"A common name."
"But nothing about him is common."
She paced a little, hands behind her back.
"He has no core foundation, no prior cultivation. But he understands crafting principles beyond most outer disciples. His first attempt at Dreamsteel formation yielded a core with perfect spiral compression. No fractures. No residue."
The Sect Master's eyes twinkled faintly.
"Hmm."
"And in the library… he read over three hundred books in a single night. The librarian dismissed him as a show-off at first. But later confirmed, he was genuinely reading. Absorbing like a sponge."
Selyra crossed her arms. "He's arrogant, reckless, and stubborn. But I think… I think the world pulled him here for a reason."
Caer Thalorin's smile was thin, unreadable. "A lost human child who survived the rift and now plays in our forge."
He stepped toward his great celestial mirror, a vast circular panel suspended midair, its surface rippling with echoes of space and time.
With a faint gesture, it shimmered, and Adrien's sleeping form appeared, face down, drooling beside a half-etched rune plate.
"Let him join the festival," the Sect Master said after a moment. "Not as a contender… but as a witness. The Core Disciples should see him. So should the city."
"You want him… evaluated?" Selyra asked, eyes narrowing.
"I want him tested," Caer Thalorin replied. "By fire. By awe. Let him see what true genius looks like. Let him feel the eyes of the world. If he is worthy… he'll rise. Let us see what sort of fire will be lit up in him, whether he will light up existence itself of burn from the inside out, only time will tell."
Meanwhile — Deep Within Moonveil Tower
Ilyra sat in her meditation chamber, eyes closed as streams of moonlight formed spiralling dream patterns above her head.
She opened her eyes suddenly, as though sensing a shift in the wind.
"The Festival is near," she whispered.
Across the room, her grandfather, Councilor Elandros, stood watching.
"They say The boy will attend," he said.
"I know," Ilyra replied.
"They say he is… strange."
"I hope so," she said softly, almost sadly.
"Why?"
"Because everything else is boring."
...
"Ugh..." Adrien blinked awake, sitting up abruptly and knocking a stack of dream crystal shards onto the floor with a clatter.
His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his entire body ached from sitting in the same position for what felt like eternity.
He winced, cracking his back with an audible pop.
"Right... library… crafting… did I seriously read through all those?"
His eyes landed on the note pinned to the wall, written in pristine silver ink:
"You are forbidden from re-entering the library today. Sleep. Eat. Rejoin the living. – Librarian Kaenya."
Adrien chuckled.
Even as he laughed, his mind flashed back to what he'd read: ancient records of crafters who forged weapons of apocalypse, soulbound artifacts, even living constructs birthed from starlight and raw chaos.
Stories of master smiths who bent the universe itself into form and etched their will into the bones of reality.
That... that's what I want, Adrien thought. Not just to fight. Not just to survive. But to make, to create.
With a new resolve building in his chest, he cleaned up the scrolls, rolled out his stiff limbs, and stepped out into the cool mountain air.
Lunaris was already stirring.
Adrien walked down from the outer quarters; he saw the preparations beginning in full force.
Disciples ran from one courtyard to the next, carrying training gear, ornamental robes, crates of glowing ingredients, and strange beasts confined in floating cages.
Even the wind felt different.
Excited.
Alive.
"The Festival of Starlit Ascension..." Adrien muttered, overhearing the name pass from student to student like wildfire.
He paused near a balcony and gazed down into the sprawling city below.
Lunaris was nestled in tiers, built in curved layers that spiraled down the mountainside. Roads glistened like rivers of molten pearl, and bridges arced gracefully between floating platforms.
Towers shaped like lotus buds loomed above plazas where vendors already set up early stalls—some selling dream petals, others bottles of floating stardust.
This was no ordinary sect.
This was an empire.
He looked up again toward the heart of the mountain, Moonveil Tower, where the Core Disciples and Councilors resided. That's where he'd eventually be invited, if he played his cards right.
But for now...
His stomach growled.
"...Breakfast first."
Later That Afternoon – Artisan Hall
The great dome of the Artisan Hall pulsed with golden light. Massive rings of arcane glyphs hovered above the forges, each glowing faintly with the warmth of cultivated will.
Adrien stood in awe. Smiths, alchemists, weavers, and inscribers moved with precise synchronization across various workshop pods. Here, a young girl molded dreamfire into filament threads. There, a masked alchemist suspended a compound mid-air with nothing but intent.
He didn't know where to start.
And yet, something called to him.
He wandered over to an old forge, mostly abandoned, its tools dusty, its workbench empty—except for a plaque embedded on the wall above it:
"The Ember Throne – Once Sat By the Dreamsteel King."
A thrill danced down Adrien's spine.
He reached forward… but before his fingers could touch the handle of the dormant hammer resting on the anvil, a voice broke through the din.
"So you're the outsider."
Adrien turned, brow raised.
The girl was barely taller than his shoulder. Pale-skinned, pointed ears tipped with moon-gold, and silver eyes like polished ice.
She was dressed in simple robes, but her aura flowed like a frozen tide—serene, commanding, detached.
Behind her stood two senior disciples and an elder, all wearing moon-crest badges.
Adrien tilted his head. "You lost, kid?"
The disciples behind her winced.
But the girl showed no reaction.
"My name is Ilyra. Core Disciple. Artisan Path. Moonveil Prodigy. Blood of Elandros." She said this like she was reading off a checklist, already bored.
Adrien blinked.
"That's… a lot of titles."
"You shouldn't touch that forge," she said, walking past him, brushing her fingers along its surface with reverence. "It only yields to those with vision. Or madness."
Adrien grinned. "Luckily, I've got both."
A pause.
For the first time, Ilyra's gaze settled fully on him.
And she smiled.
Just a little.
Like a ripple on still water.
"I'll see you at the festival," she said quietly.
Then she turned and walked away.
Back at Skyglow Pinnacle
Caer Thalorin watched the scene through his celestial mirror, sipping from a delicate crescent-shaped cup.
"She's curious," he murmured to no one in particular.
Behind him, Selyra spoke without turning. "She doesn't get curious."
"She does now."