As Tian's 15th birthday approached, the entire clan was increasingly anticipating the event.

  The testing ceremony would take place three days into the Spring Festival, when the dream qi would flow strongest through the mountain valleys. Representatives from other prominent clans throughout the region had asked to attend the ceremony, hoping to see the emergence of the prophesied Dreaming King.

  Tian viewed the preparation for the testing with his usual quiet resignation.

  Banners were hung, special food was prepared, the guest quarters were cleaned and assigned to the dignitaries coming to visit. His mother worried over his ceremonial robes, making sure everything was perfect for the big event.

  “How do you feel about tomorrow?” Liu Meiya asked during one of her family’s visits. She had matured into a beautiful young woman with extraordinary cultivation ability. At the age of 15, her dream qi manipulation ability was at the Thoughtshaper level.

  “Nervous,” Tian replied. They were walking in the garden, maintaining the appropriate distance expected of two betrothed young people. “What if I disappoint everyone?”

  “You won't,” she said with confidence. “The prophecy was clear. You're destined for greatness.”

  Tian stopped walking and turned to look at her directly.

  “What if the prophecy is not about me. What if I’m just an ordinary person with strange eyes?”

  Liu Meiya appeared caught off guard by Tian’s question.

  “That is impossible. Elder Lu’s prophecies have never been wrong.”

  “Elder Lu has been missing for years. Can he be trusted?”

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Liu Meiya asked, her voice beginning to show a little worry.

  Tian started walking again. His hands were clasped behind his back as he normally did, which gave him the appearance of being older than his 15 years. “Because I want you to be ready for disappointment. I don’t want you to spend years waiting for someone to be what he will never be.”

  At that, Liu Meiya grew silent, looking lost in thought.

  ***

  Testing Day was sunny and perfect for spring weather.

  The ceremonial platform was set up in the clan’s central courtyard, surrounded by long lines of seating for all the observers who came to watch the awakening of the Dreaming King.

  Yue Tianming was standing close to the platform. His declining health was being kept hidden under formal clothing and medicine. Next to him, Wu Yunmei radiated a great deal of nervous enthusiasm, her hands clasped tightly as she watched her son get ready for the most significant moment of his young life.

  The testing took place in order of age, with the youngest candidates testing first. Tian watched as each candidate went to the Dream Resonance Crystal, a huge formation that would identify the slightest presence of dream qi.

  Some kids got the crystal to glow softly, which indicated they had basic dream qi sensitivity. Other kids elicited more extreme reactions: spinning colors, harmonious sounds, or patterns of lights dancing around the crystal. Some poor kids did nothing at all, they had no future as cultivators, they were destined to live and die as a mortal.

  “Amazing,” one visiting elder said, watching as a 14-year-old girl caused the crystal to create haunting melodies. “The Yue clan’s blood line is incredibly strong.”

  At last, only Tian was left.

  He got up and walked to the platform with steady feet, paying no attention to the excited whispers or intense stares of the hundreds of observers. The formal announcement of his name and lineage took what seemed like forever to complete, creating an almost unbearable anticipation.

  The Dream Resonance Crystal awaited him, a perfect sphere of crystallized dream essence about the size of a man. For generations of Yue clan ancestors, this same formation had identified their spiritual potential and documented the results for history.

  “Put your hands on the crystal and let your mind go to the dream world,” Elder Feng instructed in a formal tone. “Just let your spiritual essence flow freely without forcing it or controlling it.”

  Tian walked up to the crystal and put his palms on the smooth surface. The material was warm, humming with potential energy. He closed his eyes and followed the meditation technique he learned and practiced years ago.

  A hush fell across the courtyard as everyone waited for the miraculous response that would confirm the prophecy and indicate the emergence of the new Dreaming King.

  The crystal was completely unresponsive.

  There was no light, no sound, no indication that the crystal had sensed even a glimmer of dream qi. Tian may as well have been a chair for all the spiritual resonance he produced.

  Minutes ticked by. Whispers began to circulate among the crowd about what could be wrong with the crystal itself. Elder Feng examined the crystal’s connections to verify that the crystal functioned properly.

  “Try again,” someone shouted. “Maybe the position of the hands was wrong.”

  Tian opened his eyes and looked at the silent crystal. There was no surprise in his expression. There was no shock. There was no disappointment. He looked like he was relieved that the charade was finally over.

  “It works fine,” he said quietly. “I have no spiritual sensitivity. I have no dream qi. I have no cultivation potential at all.”

  The crowd reacted with horror.

  Some gasped in shock. Others began whispering among themselves. A few visiting dignitaries rose from their seats as if getting ready to leave right away. The disappointment was thick and heavy in the air, moving through the crowd like a tangible wave.

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  “Impossible,” Elder Feng exclaimed, looking at the crystal with dismay. “You were described perfectly in the prophecy. Your eyes are like sapphires, shining as brightly as the dawn.”

  “Prophecies can be wrong,” Tian said calmly. “And maybe they were never prophecies in the first place.”

  He turned away from the crystal and walked toward his parents. Tianming’s face was pale with shock, while Yunmei looked as though she might pass out. However, both of them opened their arms to hug their son, and their love for him was unbroken, regardless of the public humiliation.

  “I’m sorry,” Tian whispered as they hugged.

  “No,” Tianming said firmly. “You should never be sorry for being yourself.”

  But the damage had been done.

  In the days that followed, as word of the failure of the testing spread far beyond the clan compound, the carefully crafted myth of the prophesied Dreaming King began to crumble.

  The next morning, Liu Weiming, leader of the Liu clan, along with his daughter and a delegation, showed up.

  “We are here to discuss the arrangements for the betrothal,” Liu Weiming declared.

  Tian sat between his parents, dressed in simple clothing instead of the elegant robes that denoted his former status as the prophecy child. Liu Meiya deliberately avoided eye contact with him, her face carefully composed, but there were hints of the worry and guilt she was trying to hide.

  “Considering yesterday’s… revelations,” Liu Weiming continued, “it appears obvious that the initial basis for our agreement is no longer valid. As such, a clan daughter of Meiya’s caliber cannot reasonably expect to marry a man with no cultivation potential at all.”

  “Our son is still the same person he was yesterday,” Yunmei cut in, her voice strained with suppressed anger. “His character, his intellect, his achievements; none of that has changed.”

  “But his opportunities have,” Liu Weiming said bluntly. “What kind of life could he give to our daughter? What children could they have together? Our agreement was made solely because of his predicted destiny. Without that…”

  He didn’t need to continue. Everyone in the room knew what he was implying.

  “It’s okay.” Tian spoke for the first time since the meeting began. “I understand.”

  He looked straight at Liu Meiya.

  “I told you to be prepared for disappointment. I’m sorry it had to happen so publicly.”

  Liu Meiya’s reserve finally broke. “I’m sorry too,” she said softly, as tears began to fall from her eyes. “I had... I had hoped...”

  “I know,” Tian said softly. “So did I for a while.”

  And just like that, the engagement had officially ended.

  The news spread quickly and helped solidify Tian’s transition from prophesied hero to cautionary story.

  In the weeks that followed, the backlash increased.

  Clansmen who had boasted for years about their association with the prophecy child now treated the family with embarrassment and barely veiled disdain. Scholars who previously requested meetings with Tian stopped doing so; his poems were removed from numerous prestigious anthologies; rumors spread that the entire prophecy was a fabrication devised by ambitious parents to further their own interests.

  “They’re saying we paid Elder Lu to make the prophecy, and when the ruse was discovered, we had him disappear,” Tianming said to his wife one evening as they sat in their private chambers.

  “Let them say what they want. We know the truth,” Yunmei said wearily, closing her eyes.

  But to Tian, who was overhearing from the next room, he wasn’t sure what the truth was anymore. His memories of his early childhood were fuzzy and weird. Most of them involved dreams that felt more real than his waking life. He sometimes thought he might have been an elaborate deception, not created by his parents, but by something else entirely. Something that had given him the appearance of being special, while keeping the reality of it from him.

  The loss of privilege was immediate and total.

  All of the family’s special rights were revoked. Their guest quarters in the main compound were reassigned to relatives who were more deserving. With Tianming no longer able to keep his Oneiric Sovereign cultivation active, his positions on the clan council were gradually phased out, and his counsel on important decisions ceased.

  However, Tian was surprised to discover how liberating the change was.

  For the first time in his life, he could walk through the clan compound without feeling the pressure of everyone’s expectations weighing heavily upon him. The children no longer stared at him with wonder, nor did they whisper among themselves about his destined greatness. The adults no longer addressed him with excessive courtesy, tainted with fear of offending someone who was once so powerful.

  He was finally normal.

  “You seem happy,” his mother observed one afternoon as they worked together in the small garden behind their smaller, less impressive quarters.

  “Yes,” Tian replied. “I feel like I can breathe.”

  He was tenderly caring for a bed of dream-sensitive plants that were influenced by emotions. Beneath his care, they bloomed with softer hues of color, representing a sense of happiness rather than the anxious, brilliant colors they had displayed when he was the prophecy child.

  Yunmei stopped weeding. “Do you ever regret it? That you never had cultivation abilities?”

  Tian thoughtfully considered the question. “I regret that Father continues to try and find ways to awaken something that doesn’t exist. I regret that you both sacrificed so much for me. But, as for not having the ability to cultivate... How can I miss something I never had?”

  “But you used to have dreams, the idea that you forgot something important... Do you not want to remember?”

  “Every single day,” Tian said quietly. “But wanting something and being able to obtain it are very different things. Maybe some forgetting is permanent. Maybe some losses can never be recovered.”

  Although Tian accepted his situation, his father, Tianming, refused to accept defeat. He continued to seek alternatives for cultivating, contacting distant sects for assistance, spending their dwindling resources on rare books and experimental techniques.

  "There has to be something," Tianming would murmur as he poured over ancient texts late into the night. "Dream cultivation is merely one method of cultivation. Martial arts, alchemy, formation crafting; certainly one of these methods will prove successful."

  However, each of his attempts was unsuccessful.

  Tian’s spiritual channels proved to be completely non-responsive to every form of energy manipulation they tried. His body refused to develop the advanced physical capabilities that even the most basic forms of martial cultivation should develop. His mind was unable to achieve the focused mental clarity necessary to practice either formation work or alchemy.

  "Father," Tian said one evening as he entered the room where Yue Tianming was slumped over his research materials yet again. "Please stop. You are going to kill yourself over this."

  "I won't stop," Tianming replied weakly, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. "You are my son. I brought you into this world, and I refuse to allow you to face it defenceless."

  "I’m not defenceless," Tian said. "I have my mind, my hands, my heart. I can read and write, think and feel. Isn’t that enough?"

  "Not in a world of cultivators," Tianming replied bluntly. "Not nearly enough."

  Their argument was interrupted by urgent knocking at their door.

  Tian went to answer it to find Chen Hao, one of his few remaining friends, practically jumping with excitement.

  "Tian! You have to come with me right now. There is someone in the village square you need to meet," Chen Hao said excitedly.

  "Who?"

  "A traveling swordsman," Chen Hao replied quickly. "He is not a cultivator, just a martial artist. And he wants apprentices!"

  "Martial arts without cultivation?" Tian asked incredulously.

  “Exactly!” Chen Hao exclaimed. “He claims that cultivation is lazy and makes people rely on spiritual techniques instead of developing real skill. He is offering to train anyone willing to commit to studying the sword, and he doesn’t care about their spiritual potential!”

  For the first time in months, Tian felt a genuine spark of interest, no, more than interest. Recognition. It seemed as though the part of him that had been dormant for a long time was awakening.

  "Are you serious?" Tian asked.

  "Completely serious," Chen Hao replied. "His name is Master Jian, and he is supposedly incredibly skilled. Some people claim that he once defeated three Nightbound Adepts using nothing but swordsmanship and physical conditioning."

  Tian looked back at the study where his father was continuing to destroy himself with research that would ultimately fail. Then he looked at Chen Hao's eager face offering the first realistic alternative he had seen in years.

  "Okay," Tian said, grabbing his outer garment. "Let's go meet this Master Jian."

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