In the extraordinary realm of Serentia, days stretched on for hundreds of hours, while nights could extend even further, creating a rhythm that defied conventional notions. The seasons themselves played a part in this wondrous rhythmic dance.

Spring arrived, painting the land in perpetual twilight. The sun's gentle touch bestowed an eternal glow, suffusing the world with hues of gold and amber. During this season, days seemed to last forever, granting respite from the rush of minutes and hours. Farmers tended to their bountiful fields, communities gathered in joyful camaraderie, and the skies shimmered with starry beauty throughout the lengthened dusk.

Summer emerged, bringing forth unyielding daylight that tested endurance. The sun blazed across the sky with relentless intensity, casting its unwavering brilliance upon the land. Days stretched to their limits, illuminating every corner. Fields shimmered with heat while cooling breezes whispered through shaded groves. As the sun finally dipped below the horizon, the nights unveiled a soothing moonlit respite, offering solace from the scorching day and a chance to embrace tranquillity.

Autumn's arrival signalled a transition, as days oscillated between lingering light and encroaching shadows. The sun, tired from its fiery reign, cast a softer glow upon the realm. Leaves transformed into vibrant shades of red and gold, gently falling to the ground. Days carried a touch of nostalgia, bidding farewell to the warm and welcoming the encroaching chill. Nights grew longer, the moon's silvery glow guiding wanderers through the gathering darkness.

Winter descended, its icy grip transforming the realm. Days slowed, stretching their arms like drowsy giants, their lengths diminishing as the sun's light waned. The land blanketed in frost and snow, sparkled beneath the ethereal moonlight. Days held a serene reverence, whispering secrets of the past. Nights expanded their dominion, cloaking the world in darkness. Stars adorned the wintry sky, illuminating the stillness with their celestial light. It was a season of introspection, where time embraced a deliberate pace, inviting contemplation and solitude amidst the frozen beauty.

Today was the first day of winter in Serentia. In the state of Qilin, in the southern tip of the realm, the winter cold was worse than all else.

In this icy cold, on the top of a marble tombstone, the first snows of winter began to fall on the body of a naked young man. He lay still, on the iced marble, for all intents and purposes, dead.

But this young man was not dead. In his mind, images swirled, morphing one into the next, hallucinations, and stories he had read, all blending into a fever dream. In this state of uncertainty, he unconsciously began to shift his body like a worm, trying to find warmth. His soft, papery skin scraped against unyielding marble stone, but if he felt pain, it did not manifest. In this dire situation, warmth became the singular focus, even if it meant embracing the heat derived from the blood that now coated his body. After hours of alternating between lucid consciousness and unconsciousness, his erratic movements carved a trail in the snow, marked by a bloody streak. The blood upon his skin no longer provided any warmth; it had frozen solid, encasing him in crimson armour.

Scrapes and gouges covered his body but they did not bleed anymore. His skin was turning black, his toes already frostbit.

The flame of his life was dangerously close to being extinguished. Amidst the vaporous haze of his fevered visions, a singular construct began to take shape. It was something alien, and yet, intimately connected to him. Something buried deep in his soul. A deep that called for something deep within the dirt.

He started to dig, deeper, closer, nearer, delving into the frozen earth. The closer he got to the source of this pull, the more desperate he became. His body was suddenly racked by sobs... tears that froze on his cheeks. The flesh on his toes and fingers, black with death began to flake off as he hit stone and dirt. Nothing seemed to distract him though... no fear of what he would look like if he survived, or feelings over the loss of his fingers. All that mattered was a deep sense of loss if he did not reach the source of the call. The more he dug, the more conviction he felt to press on.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the deep call to dig stopped. His conscious mind awoke. 'where am I digging to? I am dying, I know it! This is fever madness!' doubt entered his mind, and he paused for a moment. He couldn't feel his body, he had a memory of moving his limbs in certain ways, but he currently did not know their orientation, or if they were even attached to his torso. He could feel his heart beating though, and there it was again - his imagination? No, he felt it, a feeling deep in his soul calling to the deep beneath him. He concentrated on that feeling, trying to grasp it again... it was so strange, so surreal. It was like an agony to be made whole with whatever was below him in the dirt. Tears entered his eyes again as he begged to be united with that thing that felt like home. As he meditated and quietly wept, there came a resonant call out of the silence so strong, his limbs, regardless of whatever orientation they were currently in, began to pull him through the dirt.

Where before it took him minutes to dig a foot or two, now he positively pulled himself through the dirt like he was swimming through it, and yet it was not his strength that dug, it was the thing below that pulled him down, fueling him with him an energy he had never felt before. His conscious mind wondered if he was dreaming, this type of speed was impossible. He hadn't taken a breath in days, it must be a dream, he told himself. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he felt himself break free from the dirt below and then he realised he was falling through empty space.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

His eyes refused to open. his senses had stopped working, and yet the feeling of falling remained, coming from his soul coming closer to the thing below, the 'Deep' that called to him.

Finally, he made contact with that thing, and his world erupted in a kaleidoscope of light, warmth, concepts, and emotions he had never before encountered on this mortal plane. Visions unfurled before him, pushing the boundaries of his human experience. He witnessed the depths of love and the heights of hate, the embodiment of darkness and the purity of righteousness. Concepts flooded his being, spanning millennia within fleeting moments. He heard songs resonating from celestial heights and groans emanating from the depths of hell.

Then before his eyes, visions materialised—a celestial civilisation adorned in shimmering gold and silver, with rainbow lights dancing in the atmosphere, and a monstrous golden tree housing phoenixes and cultivators within its branches. He witnessed a city suspended in the night sky, a horned figure in black armour hovering mid-air, engaged in a fierce battle against a colossal celestial dragon the silvery colour of the moon. Next, a star-sized creature opening its maw to consume a sun, bearing a world upon its back, a six-armed humanoid being, planet-sized in its own right, astride its neck. Finally, he observed a young man meditating within a humble cottage nestled in a forest, his cupped hands containing an entire universe. The boundaries between reality and illusion blurred, for perhaps these visions were true, or perhaps they were mere manifestations of his addled imagination. Yet, vision after vision shaped Yip Chor's identity, adding complexity to the vibrations resonating deep within his soul.

For a fleeting moment, he beheld something that felt undeniably real. He saw his own body from a third-person perspective, covered in icy blood, lying contorted and broken on a large concave block of stone shaped like a shallow bowl. All around him, in this bowl was a white liquid. There were three corners to this block of stone, and at each corner resided a white flame that licked at this liquid as if it were a giant three-pronged lamp. Etched across the entire stone were minuscule inscriptions, a language to which he felt an innate affinity, yet could not decipher.

The thought entered his mind that this was an altar, and the life in the spilled white blood had brought him here to this strange place, awakening life within him. However, he comprehended that it was not his physical body that was being granted life but rather a construct within his soul—a seed, for lack of a better term—that had stirred to life. Its shape eluded description, for it represented a connection to something beyond the finite, existing within the infinite expanse.

Whenever Yip Chor was faced with an enigma, a question that needed to be answered, his mind would shape around the question and would digest it to deliver an answer. Now was no different. His mind began to shape around these infinite concepts to provide an answer, a model of what he was experiencing. Ordinarily, this would have been an impossible task, but as he did so, unbeknownst to him, the white blood from the altar began to stream up his body like little trickling streams as it was absorbed in his Dantian. Carried deep within this blood were concepts so heavy they transcended everything in existence.

---

Another vision materialized before his eyes, revealing a sight that left him awestruck. From the depths of the unseen, a searing blaze of light emerged, emanating from an intricate tapestry of interwoven branches, all stemming from a majestic entity that appeared to be a grand Tree. Yip Chor's entire being quivered with both fear and reverence as he beheld the colossal scale of this phenomenon. It dominated his vision, surpassing all boundaries.

This presence was imbued with a sacredness beyond his comprehension. It embodied Light, it embodied Life... and a single thought reverberated in his mind at the sight: This was the revered Tree of Life!

His consciousness wavered, caught between mortal limitations and an insatiable thirst for further revelation. It seemed as though this holy and sanctified entity tolerated his minuscule presence, yet his consciousness burned with a profound sense of unworthiness. As he explored the branches of this colossal tree, he realized that he stood at the terminus of a myriad of diverging paths, a small bud sprouting from one of these branches. Could his soul be a mere bud on this magnificent Tree of Life? Was he a part of this mystical tree?! What a profound realization!

After an indeterminate span of fleeting awareness, a new revelation dawned upon him. Each luminous bud in sight possessed its own unique radiance. The brighter ones emitted a pulsating halo of light energy and swirled like a serpent swallowing its own tale, akin to the fabled wheel of Samsara—a sacred cycle of life and death that sages believed accompanied every existence. Once again, Yip Chor's heart trembled in reverence, recognising the sacredness of this vision that surpassed mortal comprehension. He felt compelled to withdraw in awe and respect, yet his insatiable curiosity urged him to delve deeper into both himself and his surroundings, hungering for further insights. Perhaps this would be his final encounter with this enigmatic marvel!

As he blinked through the scorching brilliance of his own halo's light, another image took shape within the depths of his mind's eye—a second ring, situated diagonally to his wheel of Samsara. It swirled with a slow and erratic motion, sparks flickering from its edges like a sword being sharpened against a grinding stone. It hinted at a narrative, a resistance against something, progressing in sudden and fragmented bursts. Yip Chor struggled to grasp the significance of this secondary ring but sensed a fractured and languid connection between it and his innermost ring.

Thus, a wheel within a wheel, spinning in unison around the seed nestled within his soul.

---

As Yip Chor delved deeper into this ethereal vision, his astral body on the altar continued its absorption of the milky white blood-like substance it rested in. This went on for a while before it encountered a concept unlike any other—a pristine and translucent essence of profound significance. As his hungry body attempted to assimilate it, the concept stirred to life, recoiling and swiftly retreating down his body, into the depths of the liquid that had been its home.

Intriguingly, the concept resurfaced, displaying a curious behaviour. It slithered up the side of Yip Chor's astral form, its movements imbued with a sinister aura. With a sense of envy and hunger, it fixated its gaze upon a swirling maelstrom of concepts that gathered within Yip Chor's Dantian—a swirling vortex of knowledge expanding at an astonishing rate. Without hesitation, the concept lunged forward, its gaping maw devouring the entire contents of Yip Chor's Dantian in a single gulp.

The atmosphere grew thick with an eerie silence as the concept revelled in its newly acquired feast, assimilating the profound concepts that had once resided within Yip Chor's core. It exuded an unsettling energy as if revelling in its triumph over a piece of Yip Chor's very being.

---

As the alien consciousness consumed the delicate seedling, an eerie stillness settled upon the altar. At that moment, within his vision, Yip Chor made another discovery. Amidst the vast darkness enveloping his mysterious second ring, he discerned three faint pinpricks of light that seemed to float around aimlessly like motes of dust, perhaps attracted to the gravity of his inner rings. They felt younger than anything else in this vision, younger than the seed bud, younger than his rings and infinitely younger than the tree of life. Despite their youth, he felt a particular fondness for them, a kind of attachment.

As he observed them floating around in strange patterns, he noticed that these pinpricks of light seemed to be teetering on the brink of extinguishment... like a candle flame flickering in the wind.

They were about to die. Then, everything went black