The chamber of the inheritance was not a temple or a tomb—it was a field of stars. I found myself standing on nothing, suspended in an infinite void where points of light swarmed like fireflies, weaving in constellations and breaking apart again in endless, gentle rhythm.
A voice, quiet yet eternal, whispered all around him:
"All flames die, all pools go dry. But light… light always returns."
The fireflies brushed against my skin as if testing me, leaving afterimages that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I reached out and one drifted into my palm, pulsing faintly like a captured spark of my own soul.
Then the trial began.
The fireflies darkened—snuffed out by waves of shadow that rolled across the void. From the darkness, shapes took form: skeletal beasts of black flame, each radiating hunger. Their teeth were carved from oblivion itself.
I felt an oppressive aura unlike anything before. This wasn't about strength. It was about endurance.
I flared my kingly intent instinctively, ready to meet them with brute vestigium force—but the light in my palm trembled, dimming.
"Not one blaze," the voice whispered, "but many."
listening closely I began to comprehend, than I understood. This was not about hoarding strength in my Dantian or spiritual lake. It was about scattering it.
Splintering my essence into countless sparks, entrusting each one with survival.
He inhaled deeply, than I let go. I allowed my vestigium force to unravel into tens of thousands of threads of light, those threads transformed into motes of light that spun around me. The shadow-beasts crashed down, and fireflies burst apart in dazzling flashes, reforming elsewhere, transferring me away each time from a blow that should have ended me.
I grinned, my eyes beaming bright.
"Persistence over brilliance, huh? I can do that. Let's see how long you bastards can keep up."
The beasts howled, but their darkness faltered before the flickering constellation of fireflies that refused to die.
And as I fought, I felt it—the Cycle. Each mote of myself was fragile, but together, they were endless.
The philosophy of the Eternal Firefly King had chosen me.
The void pulsed like a living heartbeat. The fireflies scattered, then gathered, painting temporary constellations in the endless dark.
The skeletal beasts of black flame stalked closer, their hollow eyes burning with hunger. Each step made the constellation shiver, each roar dimmed the motes around me.
The voice of the Firefly King echoed through the swarm, faint but steady:
"One flame dies. A thousand endure."
I clenched my fists. My instinct screamed to ignite my beast-cores and smash these things apart, but when I gathered my vestigium, the swarm faltered. The firefly in my palm guttered.
"Do not hoard it… spread it,"
The beasts attacked.
The first skeletal hound lunged, jaws wide enough to swallow me whole. I braced—but a cluster of fireflies leapt forward, bursting in a sudden flare. The beast reeled, blinded, its jaws snapping shut on empty air.
I blinked. "That… that was them defending me?"
The swarm pulsed in affirmation. The first art had awakened.
—Mote Swarm Veil.
I willed the fireflies outward, and the void lit up with a cloud of lights. The beasts growled, snapping at illusions, their divine senses tangled as the veil distorted their perception. Their claws carved through afterimages, never quite finding my true form.
But there were thousands of beasts and they were relentless.
"Alright," I said, my voice low but fierce. "Let's dance."
The trial became a blur of motion. I scattered myself into clouds of fireflies, weaving between attacks. Every time death came close, a spark flickered in my place, exploding in light while my body reappeared just out of reach. The swarm hissed and swirled, devouring the beasts' killing intent until their roars grew less certain.
Each time a firefly died, another rekindled at the edge of my awareness. I felt them not as "separate pieces," but as fragments of myself. Each one carried a whisper of my King level intent, ready to return.
The Firefly King's voice whispered again, stronger this time:
"You begin to see. Persistence over brilliance. One spark falters. The swarm endures. Be ungovernable."
I fought until my arms shook, until blood stained my lips. Yet for every wound, a dozen sparks lit brighter, carrying pieces of me forward.
At last, the skeletal beasts faltered, collapsing into dust and dissolving into the void. The swarm dimmed, then gathered, orbiting me in a slow, steady cycle.
I stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, eyes alight with defiance.
I had grasped the principle of fragmentation. I had taken my first step on the Firefly path.
Suddenly killing will surged in like a tide, heavy enough to press me to my knees, to the void's surface. My chest constricted, my mind screamed that death was inevitable. I gritted my teeth, eyes darting through the dark. No beasts. No enemies. Just pressure, endless and formless.
"Just as the body falters against blade or blow," came the voice of the Firefly King, closer than before, "The soul falters against intent."
I gasped, clutching my chest as the pressure sank into my bones. All three beast core raged, but brute strength meant nothing here. The intent pressed deeper, probing my will to kill, my will to endure. I could feel my own soul fire beginning to flicker.
The fireflies around me wavered, dimming. One by one, they were smothered.
"No…" I whispered, eyes wide, defiance sparking in my core. "You can't… snuff me out!"
One firefly trembled against the pressure, then pulsed faintly, as if answering me. Its light shimmered not against the dark—but against the hostile will itself, feeding on it.
My breath hitched. "You… feed on killing intent?"
The Eternal Firefly King's voice echoed, low and steady:
"What is hostility, if not fuel? Flames devour air. Soul fire devours malice. Take what seeks to end you, and make it your lantern."
I closed my eyes, letting the intent wash over me again. This time, I didn't resist. I opened myself to it and the fireflies orbiting me, surged forward, drinking in the oppressive will.
The weight lifted—bit by bit—until the suffocating dark began to glow with soft warm light. The fireflies pulsed brighter, flickering like lanterns in the night, feeding not on my Kingly intent, but on the very intent trying to crush me.
I opened my eyes, my grin sharp and defiant.
"So your hate makes me stronger? Good. Hate me harder."
The fireflies swirled outward, dimming the murderous intent itself, drinking it in adding it to their floating number. Around me bloomed a soft glow, gentle but unyielding, a shield against the unseen.
—Soul Glow.
The Eternal Firefly King's shade flickered before me for the first time, a being of countless lights woven into the silhouette of a man. Its eyes shone like two eternal lanterns.
"Now you begin to endure, not only in body, but in spirit. Persistence is not mere survival—it is the refusal to let malice define you. With Soul Glow, even heaven's wrath can be dimmed."
I laughed hoarsely, shoulders still trembling from the ordeal, but my grin never faded.
"Persistence over brilliance… yeah. I get it now. You can try to break me, but I'll just keep lighting up again."
The fireflies swarmed, pulsing brighter, weaving constellations that seemed to welcome him deeper into the trial.
The path to the next trial opened.
The next gate opened—not into another void, but into a lantern garden.
Glass globes drifted like bubbles over a black lake, each holding a tiny firefly that pulsed in time with my breath. Windless bells chimed when none swung. In the middle of the lake stood a child in a coronet of woven gold and star gems, he walked barefoot on the water, a golden scepter in the fashion of a reed tucked under one arm.
His eyes were old. Older than the bells, older than the lake.
"I wondered when you'd stop trying to win by burning brighter," the child said. His voice was soft, perfectly matter-of-fact. "You finally learned to last."
I blinked. "You're—"
"The Eternal Firefly King," the boy said, as if introducing a playmate. He hopped once; ripples crossed the lake and every lantern brightened. "I chose to remain small, because pride listens to children better than kings. Come, I have much to tell you."
I stepped out, to my surprise the lake held my weight like a promise. Fireflies gathered to me, orbiting in lazy figures-eight.
"Lesson three," the King said, tapping my sternum with the reed scepter. A ring of light answered from within my chest. "You've learned to scatter and to drink intent. Now you learn to return. Now you will learn the Lantern of Renewal."
"You will designate lantern-bearers—motes that do not defend, do not veil, do not strike. They remember. Flesh patterns, meridian maps, soul-thread stitches. When you are broken, they become the loom."
I nodded slowly. "How many?"
"As many as you can spare without dying. These will live on for you later." the King said, amused. "Try nine for now. Anchor them to your heart-fire. You'll feel the leash."
I closed my eyes and my constellation obeyed, nine motes slipping into a slow, solemn orbit over my sternum. A cool pressure clicked behind my ribs—like setting a lock.
"Good." The King turned his palm and the lake darkened. The globes dimmed to embers. "Now we give them something to sew."
A bell without clapper tolled.
Shadow cleaved through the world.
Pain came second. First was absence—his left side unmade from collarbone to hip, a wedge of him simply not there. The lake accepted the blood that fell, turning red; the fireflies shrieked without sound.
I stood there, swaying. Vision veined black. I tried to force my lungs to work, force my will to any of the nine. Anchor. Latch. Weave.
The lantern-bearers flared. Threads of pale gold shot from them, sketching a lattice through the emptiness where my body should be. The swarm fed the weave, motes dissolving into fine filaments—flesh patterns, qi channels, bone signatures. A scaffold first, then the meat of my flesh, then the glow of my meridians re-inking across new tissue. A heartbeat later my beast core pulsed and found pathways waiting.
He exhaled, tasting copper, and barked a laugh. "Still here."
"Almost clever," the King said cheerfully. He flicked the reed. A second toll. A profound blade of intent sheared through my spine.
The world wobbled.
Names fell out of my head. For a blink I could not remember who I was or where I was.
The nine lanterns pulsed like warning beacons.
The boy's voice cut through the fog, patient, and teacher-flat: "The Spirit is willing but it is the body that is weaker vessel. Let the lanterns sing you back."
I seized the rhythm. I didn't clutch at my soul; I gave it a beat. The nine took it up—faint, then clearer—humming the syllables of my being into the dark: breath-step-strike, promise-spite-refusal. The cut sealed with a shimmer like frost melting, identity knitting along the sound until my name sat in my chest again, solid as bone.
I sagged, grinning through sweat. "Alright. Again."
"Again," the King agreed, pleased.
The garden became a school of killing lessons.
A hail of needle-thin night tore new holes; lanterns sketched and sang. A gout of ruinous Vestigium burned my meridians to glass; lanterns rewove the channels, fed by motes willingly extinguishing to refill me. A barbed curse gnawed at my spirit; Soul Glow flared, the swarm drinking the malice, transforming it into power.
And the nine finished the stitch with a patient, luminous seam.
Between trials the King corrected me without scold or praise:
"Don't pour all light forward. Leave a rear lantern; death loves the blind spot."
"You're wasting motes to stop bleeding. Bind the artery rune first. Let the smaller threads catch up."
"Your hum is brave but sloppy. Name your anchors. Choose three you will never surrender."
I chose and named three mote without thinking: ''Return, Refuse and Remember.''
The next stroke shattered my crystal ribs. The lanterns answered faster.
Time flattened into a cycle: break—glow—weave—rise. The lake mirrored each repair with ripples that never reached shore. Lantern-bearers dimmed to embers as they spent themselves, then rekindled as stray motes drifted in to join the nine, learning the pattern by doing. I stopped counting the deaths. I counted only the returns.
At last the bells stilled. The lake brightened. I stood straight, shirt ragged, skin new where scars should have been, Vestigium flowing clean as a fresh spring through rebuilt channels. The nine hovered like patient fire-seeds over my heart, steady as the Morningstar.
"Better," the King said, tilting his head, small and sovereign. "Now you see the price. Renewal is not free. Each stitch consumes light. You must choose when to mend, when to endure the hurt, when to flicker elsewhere. Persistence is management as much as miracle."
I flexed my fingers. The constellation tightened, then fanned out at a thought. I looked down at the lake and saw my reflection as a ring of lights more than a man, and the sight didn't unsettle me.
"It's not cowardice," I said. "It's… investment."
The child-king's smile was quick and bright. "Endurance is the arithmetic of eternity."
He tapped the reed against my sternum again. A faint sigil bloomed under the skin: a small lantern glyph, nine-pointed. "I've inscribed in you the Lantern of Renewal. Next you will learn to spend a whole life to save the many—Flicker Exchange. But not today."
A last bell chimed, not warning but benediction. The lantern garden unfolded, revealing a distant arch of night crowded with ten thousand dim stars waiting to be named.
"Walk," said the Eternal Firefly King. "Scatter wisely. Return often. And when they call your path a coward's light—outlast them until they are the ones begging for a spark."
I bowed—not low, but honest. "Teacher."
I knelt, the lanterns of the Eternal Firefly King casting a soft, undulating glow over my shoulders. My chest rose and fell in uneven breaths, the weight of the world pressing against me—not the weight of enemies or beasts, but the burden of hope.
"My friends," I whispered, voice tight with urgency. "Marla… Faeluxe… Hammerhead. The Beast Vein Continent is in peril. Freyjita grows stronger, and Lord Imperion's shadow stretches farther every day. Is there any… any way I can return to them? To protect them?"
The child-king's smile was small, like the glint of a firefly in a dark forest. He stepped closer, the water of the lantern lake rippling beneath him.
"Do you think I'm a 150 token inheritance for nothing?" he asked lightly, almost teasing.
I blinked, but didn't move.
The smile gave me pause—this was no ordinary teacher, no trinket of power to be grasped and discarded. I realized the weight behind the joke.
"I will grant you the form of your inheritance," the King said, voice soft but absolute. He gestured with both hands. "Kneel."
Without hesitation, I dropped fully to my knees, head bowed. The lanterns around me hovered closer, flickering in anticipation.
The Firefly King stepped forward, small hands rising to either side of my head. I felt the warmth of the King's palms like sunlight sinking into my skull, and then a subtle vibration—like the pulse of a thousand tiny lights threading through my mind.
"I will grant you a mental Pagoda," the King said. "A construct of will and memory, of qi and soul. You may enter it whenever you choose. Each floor is a lesson, each lesson a key. Comprehend one to unlock the next."
My eyes widened. "A tower…? How many floors?"
"Four," the King replied. "Four floors of resources, earth-grade spirit weapons, and the techniques I wielded in the mortal realm. This is my gift to you my student, Ash of the Beast Vein, for your persistence, for your hunger, and for your loyalty to the light that flickers and endures."
The Firefly King pressed gently, and I felt a cascade of images and sensations pouring into me—my inheritance being deposited within the core of my mind!
Weapons, armor, relics, forgotten constructs, battle forms, the subtle resonance of the Firefly King's cycle, even glimpses of the Eternal Soul Fire Mandala. I went weak slightly but held myself upright, the thrill of power and knowledge coursing through me.
My hands clenched at my knees. "Thank you… thank you, Teacher! But… can you send me back? To the Beast Vein Continent?"
The King's small frame seemed to grow larger for a moment, a vast presence in miniature, the crown of starlight on his head blazing like a beacon. A portal of shimmering gold and violet light unfolded before us, hovering over the black waters of the lantern lake.
"I can," the King said, his voice now deep and unyielding. "But not where you expect. You have never walked this portion of the Continent. You will emerge unseen, untracked, at a place unknown even to your friends. The tower will remain with you, and through it, you may grow stronger than any who would threaten the world you fight to preserve."
My heart surged. I rose to my feet, my new firefly Dantian circling me, their lights flickering with anticipation, as if echoing the heartbeat of the Firefly King himself.
The King's hands lifted, a signal. The portal rippled, widening. I stepped toward it, one last look at the diminutive monarch who had taught him to endure, to fragment, to return.
"Remember," the King said, voice softening again. "Persistence over brilliance. Each spark is a promise. Tend them well. Return often and let the lights guide you to eternity."
With a nod, I stepped through, the portal swallowing me up in a cascade of violet-gold fireflies. When I emerged, the Beast Vein Continent stretched before me, unfamiliar yet alive with potential. Somewhere beyond the horizon, my friends awaited—and I felt the first true spark of my inheritance glowing bright within me, ready to light the way.