Chapter Text
Near the peak of Mount Samara, where patches of snow still lingered despite the summer heat, and where the enormous halo of light seemed close enough to touch, there was a scattering of low stone buildings—the Heaven's Glory School.
Far above them, within a bubble of forged power stood Wei Shi Lindon, and the Heavenly Messenger Suriel. In the last few minutes Lindon had seen sights and powers beyond his comprehension, and before that—he had died. Now he waited, his hand firmly grasping the token Suriel had granted as she brought them lower and lower towards the compound.
Their target was unremarkable, stone and wood like the rest of the buildings, but Suriel brought them down with purpose, through its roof, through its floor and down into its basement, where a rough looking man paced.
Silver blades sprouted from his back like the legs of some mighty insect, flashing back and forth as they carved the most intricate script circle Lindon had ever seen into the floor.
[Timias, The Sword Sage, Path of the Endless Sword. Yerin, Disciple of the Sword Sage, Path of the Endless Sword] Suriel's ghost intoned.
Lindon pulled his attention away from the supposed Sage and saw the other inhabitant of the room, a girl his own age, sitting in meditation with a sword in her lap and a red belt wrapped around her waist.
"Might they be able to help me?" he asked, hopefully, after a moment of silence. They were certainly closer than any of the others that he had been shown.
Suriel turned to him with a hint of sadness on her face. "No. While a Sage is powerful indeed, even this man could not save your home alone." She turned back to watch the script circle that continued to grow in size and complexity.
"No." She repeated. "These two cannot help you, in that matter or in leaving this valley. Even were you to depart your home this very moment, they will be long departed before you would reach them."
Lindon hesitated before speaking.
"Apologies. But why then are you showing them to me?"
"What the strong may consider trash, the weak might find to be of exceeding value. What these two will leave behind is your only hope of survival outside of this valley"
Lindon nodded in understanding, and Suriel turned to him once more.
"I would impress upon you the danger of this path. It is not unlikely that you will perish before you ever leave this valley you call home, and the life you could live if you were to stay is not without honor."
Lindon swallowed harshly, but he couldn't allow himself to back down, not after learning what was out there.
"I will do what I must." he replied.
"Your will must be as tempered steel if you are to survive. Without it you will break like brittle iron. It will be the pillar of your foundation, but willpower alone will not see you survive."
The world blurred and they were suddenly back at the arena of the Seven Year Festival.
"Improve yourself, Wei Shi Lindon, through whatever means you have at disposal." She looked off into the distance as she spoke, to the mountaintop they had just stood upon.
"You have three days and then you must leave your home behind. Prepare well."
With that. She was gone, and Lindon stood once more before the Patriarch and the assembled sacred artists of the Seven Year Festival.