The daughter received her name on the seventh day after her birth—or rather, on the seventh day after her emergence from the womb, for the concept of "days" in the Deva Realm was measured differently than in the mortal world. The sun that rose over Lian's garden did not move across the sky in a predictable arc; it pulsed, brightening and dimming in cycles that Nicholas had not yet learned to track.
Lian knelt before her daughter, her hands cupping the child's face, her eyes soft with a love that transcended the mere biological. "You came to me on a day when the clouds hung low over the mountains and the rain fell like tears from heaven," she said. "I will call you Yunyu. Cloud Rain."
Nicholas, hidden in the folds of the child's soul, scoffed inwardly. Cloud Rain. It was a name that belonged in a badly written romance novel, not on a being destined for immortal cultivation. But he kept his contempt to himself. Names were not important. What mattered was what came next.
And what came next, after a few days of mother-daughter bonding that Nicholas endured with the patience of a being who had waited decades for this opportunity, was class.
Yunyu was brought to a clearing in the garden where other children had gathered. There were seven of them, ranging in apparent age from four to ten, though Nicholas suspected their true ages were as deceptive as Yunyu's. A girl with hair the color of autumn leaves who moved with the grace of flowing water. A boy with eyes like chips of jade who seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. A pair of twins, a boy and a girl, who finished each other's sentences and moved in perfect synchronization. Three others—unremarkable, unimportant, their fates already written in threads that Nicholas did not bother to read.
They were children, but they were not ordinary children. Each one glowed with the same inner light that suffused Lian, the same Qi-saturated essence that marked them as descendants of immortals. They were the harvest of merits, the souls who had chosen reincarnation over the servitude of the Netherworld, and they had been born into bodies that would allow them to cultivate.
At the front of the clearing stood an old man.
He was ancient—not in the way that mortals grew ancient, with wrinkles and frailties, but in the way that mountains were ancient, in the way that the roots of the World-Tree were ancient. His hair was white as snow, falling past his shoulders in a cascade that seemed to float in an unfelt wind. His beard reached his chest, each strand glowing with a faint, silver light. His eyes were the color of old iron, and they held no warmth.
But it was his Qi that arrested Nicholas's attention.
The old man was a black hole.
Every other being Nicholas had encountered in the Deva Realm—Lian, the children, the servants who moved through the garden in silent efficiency—radiated Qi. It flowed from them like heat from a fire, visible to Nicholas's fragment-senses as a constant, gentle glow. They were candles, torches, bonfires of spiritual energy.
The old man was the opposite. He absorbed. Qi flowed toward him from the environment, from the air, from the very stones beneath his feet, and vanished into his body as if into an abyss. He was a sink, a drain, a void in the fabric of the Deva Realm's energy. Nicholas could sense the pull of him from across the clearing, a gravitational force that had nothing to do with physics and everything to do with cultivation.
This was a being of immense power. Not the raw, explosive power of the Olympians, not the refined, woven power of Nicholas's own authority. Something else. Something denser. Something that had been compressed over so many millennia that it had collapsed into a singularity of spiritual energy.
"Sit," the old man said, and the children sat.
Yunyu found a place on the grass between the autumn-haired girl and the jade-eyed boy. Her small hands folded in her lap. Her eyes fixed on the old man with an attention that Nicholas found gratifying. She was a good vessel—curious, disciplined, ready to learn.
"You are here because you were good in your past lives," the old man began, his voice soft but somehow carrying to every corner of the clearing. "You accumulated merit. You earned the right to reincarnate into the Deva Realm, into bodies that carry the blood of immortals. You should be grateful. Most souls are not so fortunate."
He began to pace, his white robes trailing behind him like a second beard.
"You are in the Grotto Heaven of the Qinfeng Immortal," he continued. "Qinfeng was a disciple of the Great Immortal Zhen Yuanzi, the Ancestor of All Earthly Immortals, the Master of the Longevity of Heaven and Earth. Zhen Yuanzi is one of the oldest beings in existence—older than the Yama Kings, older than the Jade Emperor, older than most of the gods you have heard of. His disciples are scattered across the grotto heavens, tending the worlds that grow from his authority."
At the mention of Zhen Yuanzi, Nicholas felt something.
A gaze. Not the old man's—this was something else, something vast and distant, something that descended on the clearing from a height beyond height. It was stronger than his attendants, stronger than the Yama King, stronger than any being Nicholas had encountered in the East so far. But compared to his own weight—the weight of the Dominator of Magic, the Weaver of Fate, the God-Emperor of the West—it was... less. Significantly less.
The gaze passed over the clearing, over the children, over Yunyu, over the fragment of Nicholas's consciousness hidden in her soul. It lingered for a moment, and Nicholas held his breath, his authority coiled tight around his scattered essence, hiding him in the spaces between her thoughts.
Then the gaze dissipated, as quickly as it had come.
The old man showed no sign that he had noticed anything unusual. He continued his lecture.
"You are descendants of immortals," he said. "Your blood carries the authority of beings who have cultivated for millennia. A path has been paved for you—a path that will lead you to join your clan, to serve the Jade Emperor and the Four Great Emperors, to help the countless beings in the various grotto heavens grow and prosper. This is your duty. This is your destiny."
Nicholas froze.
The words echoed in his consciousness like a bell struck in an empty hall. Serve the Jade Emperor and the Four Great Emperors. Help the countless beings in the various grotto heavens grow and prosper.
They had done it. The East had done what he was doing. They had built a multiverse.
How big was it? How many grotto heavens were there, scattered across the spaces between worlds, each one a pocket of cultivated reality? How many immortals dwelt in those heavens, how many disciples, how many servants, how many souls who had earned their place through merits and reincarnation? How long had this system been growing—a thousand years? Ten thousand? More?
Nicholas's mind raced, calculating, projecting. The West had the Atrium, the World-Mountain, the growing network of worlds seeded from his authority. But the East had been at this for longer. Much longer. If Zhen Yuanzi was as old as the old man claimed, if his disciples had been cultivating grotto heavens for millennia, then the Eastern multiverse might dwarf his own.
He needed to know more.
The old man continued, unaware of the seismic shift in his hidden observer's understanding. He explained what Qi was—the fundamental energy of existence, the breath of the cosmos, the substance from which all things were formed and into which all things would eventually dissolve. He explained how moving Qi in certain ways achieved certain effects, how the channels of the body could be opened and closed, how the dantians could be filled and compressed.
He explained the stages of cultivation. Spirit Condensation, the first step, where Qi was gathered and solidified within the soul. Yin Spirit, where the condensed soul could separate from the body and travel the realms. Primordial Spirit , where the Yin Spirit was purified and strengthened, becoming capable of interacting with the physical world. And beyond that—realms that the old man mentioned only in passing, as if they were not yet relevant to children.
Nicholas filed it all away. The information was useful, certainly. It would help him refine his own system, expand his understanding of how souls could be strengthened without faith. But it was not what he was looking for. Not yet.
What he needed was the bigger picture. The structure of the Eastern multiverse. The relationships between the grotto heavens, the immortals who ruled them, the cultivators who served them. The hierarchies of power, the lines of authority, the fault lines that could be exploited.
He would get it. He had time. He had patience. And he had a front-row seat, hidden in the soul of a child who was about to begin her cultivation journey.
The old man clapped his hands, and the children rose.
"Tomorrow, we begin the first breathing exercises," he said. "Rest well. You will need your strength."
Yunyu stood, brushed the grass from her robes, and walked back toward her mother's house. Nicholas, hidden in her soul, settled in to wait.
To be continued...
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