How long has it been since the dragon veins of Lạc Việt last stirred? How long since the thunderous beat of bronze drums, which once shook the Nine Heavens, fell silent, leaving only mute patterns on cold metal?
Legend tells of a time when this S-shaped land was a place where heaven and earth converged, rich with spiritual Qi. In that era, people were born with the spirit of Dragons and Immortals. A single footstep could make mountains bow; a single shout could divert the course of great rivers. It was a glorious age when the sacred soul of the land was not hidden in mist but was present in every branch, every blade of grass, and in the eyes of every citizen of Đại Việt.
But it seemed that after endless wars and the turbulent tides of history, that stream of spiritual Qi had slowly run dry. The once-mighty dragon veins, exhausted, coiled into a deep slumber within the earth. The sacred soul of the land retreated into the deepest mountains and darkest valleys, leaving the mortal realm to its worldly troubles.
Glory became legend. And legend, over time, faded into fairy tales.
In Falling Leaf Town, a small, impoverished village nestled at the foot of the imposing Endless Mountain Range, these fairy tales were the most precious treasures. Every evening, as blue smoke drifted lazily from thatched roofs, carrying the familiar scent of straw and cooking rice, the village children would gather under the ancient banyan tree. Their greatest joy was listening to traveling merchants who stopped to rest and recount legends of a long-lost golden age.
Of all the tales, none made the children's eyes shine brighter than the legend of the "Four Great Artifacts of An Nam."
An old merchant, fanning himself with a simple palm-leaf fan, would begin in a voice raspy from wind and travel. "Once upon a time," he'd say, "our country possessed four national treasures, the very essence of heaven and earth. They were The Buddha Statue of Quỳnh Lâm Pagoda, six-zhang high, whose hallowed light could save all beings from suffering. There was The Báo Thiên Tower, which stood so tall in the capital of Thăng Long it touched the clouds, ensuring the land received favorable rain and bountiful harvests. There was The Quy Điền Bell, which, though silent, would cause golden turtles to gather from the fields as a sacred omen whenever invaders approached. And finally, there was The Phổ Minh Cauldron, so vast it could boil a whole buffalo without fire to feed an army, its steam creating a phantom mist to confuse the enemy."
The children listened, mouths agape, their wide eyes reflecting a world of fantasy. "So where are they now?" they would ask in a rush.
The old merchant would sigh, his gaze lost on the distant peaks of the Endless Mountain Range. "Gone. The northern invaders came. They destroyed and plundered everything. The Four Great Artifacts, and with them, the very soul of our nation, were stolen away..."
A heavy silence would fall. The joy in the children's eyes would vanish like soap bubbles. For them, and for the people of Falling Leaf Town, these stories were just echoes of a golden past that would never return. Their reality was a life of "selling their faces to the earth and their backs to the sky," a cycle of poverty and suffocating stillness that shrouded their forgotten village.
But among the silent children sat one teenager. He was thinner than the others, his skin tanned dark by the sun. He said nothing, merely clenching his calloused fists. While the other eyes filled with disappointment, his shone with an unnatural light. He wasn't just hearing a fairy tale; he was hearing a sacred vow. He didn't just see loss; he saw a rugged path stretching out before him. Within his calm, strangely mature gaze, a tiny flame flickered, sparked from the embers of myth. It was a stubborn, unyielding ember, waiting silently for a great wind to blaze forth and once more ignite the glorious torch of a nation.
When would the sacred soul of the land awaken from its thousand-year slumber? When would the bronze drums thunder across the heavens once more? The answer, perhaps, lay hidden in the bright eyes of an unknown boy in a forgotten village...
Dusk Over Falling Leaf Town
As dusk settled over Falling Leaf Town, the sky draped itself in a melancholic violet curtain. The tiny, silent village, like a secret forgotten by time, huddled at the foot of the mighty Endless Mountain Range. The blue smoke of evening fires did little to dispel the oppressive air of poverty that clung to the place.
For the villagers, tales of Lạc Việt's glory were mere stories. Their reality was a life of breaking their backs in the ore mines for a few meager coins. The world of immortal cultivation, with its powerful sects and heaven-shattering magical artifacts, seemed to have forgotten its Lạc Việt origins entirely.
Among the children who listened to these tales was a fifteen-year-old boy named Trần Kiên. His frame was lean, his skin sun-darkened, but his eyes held a calm and maturity far beyond his years. His parents had died tragically in a mine collapse, leaving him with nothing but a dilapidated hut and an iron will.
Kiên's daily job was breaking ore. But he did not work mindlessly. He observed. His eyes scanned each rough stone, not for size, but for the finest veins and tiniest cracks. He knew that if he struck the right spot, a single blow would be more effective than three or four struck at random. The sharp, decisive "Clank!" of his hammer was a testament to his method. He conserved his strength, and more importantly, he honed his sharp powers of observation. He wasn't belligerent; he simply believed that intelligence was the best tool for any task.
At twilight, after handing over his last basket of ore and receiving a few paltry copper coins, Kiên did not go home. He walked to the ruined shrine at the edge of town, where he used his meager earnings to buy two hot steamed buns—one for himself, and one for a skeletal old beggar who always sat motionless under the crumbling eaves. The beggar never asked for anything, his cloudy eyes fixed on the distant mountains. Kiên placed the warm, fragrant bun beside him, not out of pity, but out of a shared, unspoken resilience.
Today, the old man coughed violently, a crimson stain blooming on his cracked lips. He knew his time was short. He looked up at Trần Kiên, the only person in this town who had ever treated him as a human being.
"It's you again..." the beggar rasped. "I... have nothing left to give you."
"I don't need anything," Kiên replied, his voice as calm as a placid lake. "It's just the right thing to do."
A faint smile touched the old man's lips. With a trembling hand, he reached into his ragged clothes and pulled out a small object. It was a stone elephant statue, no bigger than his palm, made of grey-green mountain stone and marked with a long crack. Kiên instantly recognized it from the merchants' descriptions of the "Mortal Artifact: The Stone Elephant Statue."
"Take it, boy," the beggar urged, his hand shaking. "The world thinks it a mere Mortal Artifact, but they don't know... it is a key. My ancestors were soldiers in the legendary Iron Assault Army of the Lê Dynasty. Their secret... it is all in here. I have watched you for a long time. You have the patience of stone, a sharp mind, and a rare heart. This relic... is best entrusted to you. There is no one more worthy. Remember, the path to reviving our ancestors' legacy... will be arduous. But never forget your roots."
With those words, the old man's hand fell limp. The last light in his eyes faded. He was gone, leaving Trần Kiên with a burden and a promise. Kiên quietly buried the old man behind the ruined shrine, knowing only that he had received a debt he must repay.
That night, in his small hut, Kiên placed the stone elephant on his only wooden table. He examined the crack and realized it wasn't a crack at all, but a line of impossibly fine ancient script. He couldn't read the words, but carved on the statue's base were detailed diagrams of strange postures, breathing techniques, and pathways of energy flow within the body.
"This... is the body-tempering manual of the Iron Assault Army?" Kiên's heart pounded in his chest.
Without hesitation, he sat on the cold earth floor and assumed the first posture shown in the diagrams: a low horse stance, hands pushing forward, breath drawn deep into his dantian.
"Crack!"
Instantly, an agonizing pain, as if being torn apart, shot through every muscle fiber and joint. His body convulsed, and cold sweat drenched his patched clothes. This was not the familiar ache of labor; this was a deep, brutal agony, as if his very bones were being shattered and reforged.
But through the excruciating pain, Trần Kiên's eyes blazed even brighter. He gritted his teeth, the beggar's last words echoing in his mind: "Be rooted in the earth." He felt a thread of heat, a nascent life force, generate within his body. It was faint, as fragile as a candle flame, but it was fiercely resilient.
Outside, the silver moonlight filtered through the thatched roof, illuminating the thin but unyielding figure of the young boy. The journey to reclaim the lost glory of the Lạc Việt people, to restore the legendary formations and artifacts, had officially begun with this first, painful, but hopeful step. He did not yet know that the Stone Elephant Statue was but one of countless fragments of a grand heritage, waiting for him to find, to gather, and to piece back together, forging a new and glorious chapter in the history of his people.