The Jar of Dust
Jade hated her Tuesday afternoon history rotation. The Ancient Cultures wing of the Metropolitan Museum was dusty, silent, and smelled faintly of formaldehyde and old silk. As a twenty-year-old history major, she preferred battles and treaties, not brittle artifacts.
She paused before the central exhibit: a magnificent, intricately carved jade jar, secured beneath thick glass. It depicted three snarling, coiling dragons battling a storm. The accompanying plaque was frustratingly vague: "Unknown dynasty. Believed to be a vessel for celestial alignment."
"Celestial alignment," Jade scoffed, adjusting her glasses. "More like a really expensive sugar jar."
She reached out, tracing the outline of the glass case. As her fingertip brushed the cold surface, the lights in the museum began to flicker. A low, resonant hum, far deeper than any museum ventilation, started vibrating through the floor and into her bones.
A thin, almost invisible crack webbed across the jade jar.
CRACK.
A blast of wind, smelling of ozone and pine forests, erupted from the case. The air shimmered, turning a dizzying, sickly green. Jade didn't have time to scream. The invisible force yanked her forward, shattering the glass and pulling her toward the imploding artifact.
The last sensation she registered was blinding pain and the sharp, metallic tang of dust and magic.
The Azure Sight
When the agony receded, Jade lay sprawled on rough-hewn stone. Gone were the sterile silence and fluorescent lights of the museum.
She was on a mountain peak. Below her stretched a vista of impossible beauty: jade-green mountains piercing a sky the color of liquid sapphire, and massive waterfalls plummeting into valleys shrouded in silvery mist. Everything was vivid, too saturated—alive with energy.
A voice, old and severe, echoed from the stone structure behind her.
"The Vessel is broken. The Host has arrived."
Jade scrambled backward, realizing her surroundings were a giant, moss-covered temple. Her body felt strangely light, but her vision had changed. When she blinked, she didn't see the world normally; she saw power.
Around every living thing, a faint aura pulsed. The moss glowed green, the air itself hummed blue, and the ancient man standing before her—a Grand Elder in simple, worn robes—radiated an intimidating, concentrated silver-white energy.
"Who—what is this place?" Jade demanded, struggling to her feet.
"This is Xianzhou," the Grand Elder, Lin, replied, his eyes piercing. "And you, mortal, have been chosen. Or, perhaps, cursed."
He raised a gnarled hand, pointing toward her. "Look into the water, Host. You have been gifted the Divine Eye."
Jade stumbled to a nearby stone basin filled with clear mountain spring water. She stared at her reflection. Her face was the same—the same messy brown hair and sharp jawline—but her eyes were radically different.
Her left eye was now a pulsing, vibrant, electric azure blue, shifting and moving as if gazing into the deep ocean.
"The Divine Eye of Azure Sight," Lin confirmed, his voice heavy with ancient weight. "It grants you the ability to perceive and command the Yaoguai—the spirit creatures of this realm. It is the only thing that can bridge the divide between man, monster, and Dragon."
The Shadow and the Roar
Before Jade could process the reality of controlling mythical monsters, the air above the temple fractured. The sapphire sky turned a bruised purple, and the serene silence was replaced by a guttural, terrifying roar.
A shadow, vast and winged, swept over the peak. It was a dragon, magnificent and terrible, but its scales were dull and its movements sluggish—it was clearly ailing.
"The Western King is weak!" Grand Elder Lin gasped, his silver aura sputtering with fear. "His weakness draws them!"
From the valley mists below, smaller, faster shadows ascended—creatures with snapping jaws and coiled tails, shrouded in shifting darkness. Jade's Divine Eye immediately classified them: High-Level Yaoguai. Classification: Seraphina's Enforcers.
The azure eye pulsed violently. Instinct took over, driven by the raw, inherent authority of the Divine Eye. She didn't speak; she willed.
They are too fast! I need something to slow them!
Suddenly, the moss on the stone walls around her began to move, rising up and hardening into rigid, protective spikes.
[Yaoguai (Level 5, Stone Moss) has been commanded by Host Authority. Skill: Earth Spikes activated.]
The charging Yaoguai were momentarily stalled.
Lin looked at Jade, his awe mixed with dread. "You are already using it! But the Divine Eye's arrival will not go unnoticed. The Western Dragon will sense your power, and the Eastern Dragon will see you as a weapon."
The great, ailing Dragon above let out a final, mournful roar. Then, a voice—icy, venomous, and feminine—echoed through the canyon, far louder than the storm.
"Such unexpected power, delivered right into my enemy's territory. Welcome to Xianzhou, little weapon."
The voice belonged to Seraphina, the Eastern Dragon Princess. Jade, the history student, was now the sudden, powerful target in a war of Dragon lineages.