January 21–February 5, 2015
The Search for Masters
The MC knew a normal construction company could never execute his vision.
He needed masters — artisans whose skills were rare enough that the world barely remembered they existed.
In the dim light of his study, he filtered through Aarya's compiled dossiers:
A stonemason in Rajasthan, descendant of craftsmen who once carved palaces for Rajput kings.
A Japanese joinery expert in Kyoto, whose family had built shrines for over four centuries.
An Iranian tile artist capable of producing patterns so intricate they seemed impossible to the naked eye.
A Moroccan glassworker, last in his line, who still shaped molten crystal with bare tools and steady breath.
> MC: "We'll bring them here, but quietly. No one outside the circle knows the whole picture."
Aarya: "Understood. Compartmentalization active. None will meet until the right phase."
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Recruitment by Shadows
The invitations weren't official letters. They were hand-delivered notes, each in the recipient's own language, sealed with an anonymous emblem — a golden crescent enclosing a star.
The words were simple:
> "Your work is needed. A commission unlike any you have taken before. No politics, no publicity — only the craft, at its purest."
Payment was mentioned only briefly, but the sum was so absurdly generous that most would have signed without asking questions.
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Arrival in Silence
They did not fly directly to India. Instead, each artisan's journey was split — a commercial leg to a neutral country, then a private flight to a remote airstrip. From there, unmarked SUVs took them to safehouses, not the construction site.
Inside those safehouses, they were given partial blueprints — only the section relevant to their craft.
> Aarya: "They suspect something unusual… but no one can connect the full design."
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The Rare Materials Operation
While artisans were settling in, the MC started sourcing materials that would be impossible to explain in a public ledger.
Some came from auctions:
Meteorite fragments for inlays.
Fossilized wood for the study's central desk.
Others came from hidden suppliers:
Stone quarried from Himalayan veins no longer accessible by law.
Sustainably harvested African ebony for certain load-bearing beams in the private wing.
The goods were never shipped directly to India. Instead, they moved through Aarya's network of shell companies, arriving in disguised crates — labeled as "machinery parts" or "scientific equipment."
Once in his possession, the MC would slip into the hidden dimension, open a portal barely wide enough, and pull the cargo inside, where it waited safely outside of time.
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POV: The Moroccan Glassworker
Hassan el-Farouqi arrived in his safehouse expecting a palace renovation.
But the blueprints made no sense — there were no support structures where logic said they must be. And the glass shapes he was asked to prepare… some curved in ways that defied standard engineering.
> Hassan (thinking): "Either the man behind this is a mad dreamer… or he knows something the rest of us don't."
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Building the Invisible Foundation
The MC began pre-assembling certain structures inside the hidden dimension, where no one could see. This allowed him to test weight distribution, light refraction, and airflow patterns without interference from weather or curious eyes.
Aarya handled real-time simulations:
> Aarya: "If we raise the west wall by half a meter, winter light will reach the inner courtyard without overexposing the archives."
MC: "Do it. Every adjustment here saves us twice the work out there."
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Closing Scene
By February 5, the world still believed the MC's public life was ordinary — just a young investor expanding his portfolio.
But hidden away, the greatest artisans of four continents were unknowingly shaping pieces of a house that no one yet understood, while tons of rare materials lay waiting in a dimension that could not be found on any map.
The House of Dreams was no longer just a design.
It had begun to exist.