Discimer: I do not own Soul Land or its associated characters

  On a warm summer night in West Lu city, a child's cries echoed in a bedroom in the Sea Cauldron Inn. The mother of this child, Lu Xia, was covered with sweat, with her bck hair sticking slightly to her skin. Her jade-white face reflected her tiredness, but her silver eyes were alight with joy, looking at the precious bundle in her arms.

  "What should we name him?", she asked, looking up at her husband.

  Lu Hao looked over at his wife, his short cropped bck hair rustling slightly as he did. His eyes, silver as was the signature in their cn searching hers, looking for the answer to her question. He then looked down at his newborn son, who had calmed down at the voices of his parents. His son looked up at him, seeming to imperiously decree that he was tired, and it was all Hao's fault.

  "Jian", he finally replied with a chuckle, "We'll call him Jian. Our little overseer."

  Xia looked down at her son, seeing the expression on his little face, and let out a light ugh as well.

  "You're right, he's doing his best to look regal even now", she commented with a tired smile.

  Hao caught the look on his wife's face and got up to help her, the mid-wife long since having left them to recover from the birth.

  "Why don't you get some rest, little Jian is all fed and rested now, so I'll put him down for the night and join you", he said, looking at his wife tenderly.

  "Sure", she replied, her eyelids twitching closed after having confirmed that her work tonight was over.

  Hao picked up the baby Jian, rocking him slightly to help him settle down. Jian's silver eyes locked onto his father's, and to Hao's surprise, he caught a hint of purple near the center of them, adding to his regal demeanor. After recovering his calm, Hao began to hum, soft and low, a lulby passed down from his own father. As he spun the tune, he rocked little Jian in his arms to lull him to sleep.

  Approaching the crib in the room set aside for Jian, Hao y him down gently and whispered, "Sleep well, sweet child, and welcome to our family."

  The first year of Jian's life passed by in a blur of nonsense and trying to determine what these strange giants were babbling about all of the time. At around 10 months old, he realized that the odd noises that they made were meant to mean something, and he also learned his own name. After that, he had to spend another month realizing that when they were shouting "Mama" and "Papa", they were trying to prompt him to speak to them. While he had no idea where these giants got the audacity to demand things of him, he decided that they were treating him well enough, and graced them with a gurgle in response. The sheer humiliation of not being able to make the same sounds that they did was enough to break his pride, and he cried for a whole night. After that set-back, with a whole lot of effort he began to try to repeat the sounds back at them, and this process took another 4 months. When he finally managed it, he was already gracefully walking around the house in a most imposing manner (read: crawling, and stumbling as any toddler might), and he decided to repay his mother for her most excelent care by saying "Mama" first. Seeing the crestfallen look on his father's face, he took pity on him and graced him with the word "Papa".

  The second year of Jian's life was spent learning how to really communicate with his family, and most of his previous baby pride was repced with love and devotion towards his parents and grandparents. There's only so long you can hold on to the belief that you're the most important thing in the room when you watch your family scramble to care for you, while also working hard to keep family affairs in order. Despite not knowing much, Jian was very sensitive to the look in people's eyes from trying to consciously figure out what people were saying and getting things wrong more often than not. While most babies seemed oblivious to the world around them, Jian had a gift of being able to understand what was going on around him once he was born. He might not really comprehend everything just yet, but he had an awareness that surpassed his age, and having a sense of object permanence beyond his years. Looking into the eyes of his parents when they came to get him from his grandparents every night, seeing how tired they were and how much they loved him and cared for him in this state of exhaustion, he tried to express his graditude with hugs and words that he didn't quite understand yet. He saw the surprise and joy in their eyes when he did that, and that seemed to be enough at the moment.

  The third year of Jian's life started with a really strange surprise. Once he went to sleep, with his father singing that lulby he always did, he found himself in a crib that felt much more comfortable than his usual one, in a strange room that he had never seen before. He tried to move around like he usually would, but found himself unable to do anything but watch. Eventually, whoever was controlling the body he was watching out of seemed to wake up and wiggle around, and Jian felt a strange sense of helplessness. The boy seemed to be treated as he would be by his parents, but these people were noticeably older than his parents were, and looked a lot like his grandparents instead. This was shocking to Jian, who had never had to consider life without the people who brought him into the world. He fell into introspection for a bit, before deciding that he had to treasure the people in his life more. It's not that he didn't love them, he had just taken them for granted a bit and that just wouldn't do.

  They say a child sees things the clearest, and a child with a sense like Jian's saw them even better. Without meaning to, he had begun to form a core of his identity around valuing his family. As Jian watched this child go about his day, he noticed that he couldn't understand what was being said, and resolved himself to learning what these noises meant all over again. The noises, while different, had a strange melodic timbre to it that was different than he was used to. While he couldn't control this strange body he was now attached to, he decided that learning new things hadn't led him astray so far and so he spend the next while immersed in listening to the new sounds and watching the eyes of the people speaking them and the responses of this strange child he was watching along with. Once night fell, and the child was put to bed, he thought he might fall asleep and wake up at home, but that didn't happen. Instead, he seemed to float away from the child a bit, and he could finally move on his own.

  Looking at the child that he followed around all day, he was shocked to be looking at his own face. In that moment, he began remembering things from the point of view of this child, but things that he hadn't seen that day. It was how he was born in a strange building with bright lights, many words in this strange musical nguage that he was beginning to understand, how his mother didn't hold him when he was born, but looked to be cold and unmoving off to the side. He remembered his grandparents consoling him with tears in their eyes, and he understood that he was alone in the world except for them. He remembered being cared for, and learning the sounds as he did today, but not quite being able to speak. He then remembered all of the events of that day, exactly as it happened, and came to a startling realization: This child is me. Somehow, he was both Lu Jian from his own world, and in this strange dream world he was also Lu Jian, but here he only had his grandparents. While they tried their best to care for him, they were old and could only do so much. He appreciated the effort all the same.

  Deciding to try something, he floated himself over to his body and settled back down, and felt himself being sucked back inside the body. He could now move around as he usually did and decided to read a bit with the memories he had gained from his other self. The book was simple, with funny characters and an amusing story, but he loved it. When he saw light beginning to shine in the room, he closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and crawled back into bed. When his other self stirred, he lost control of the body again, and he was starting to believe he might be trapped in this body, when he felt a strange stirring in his head, like he could float away, and a sense of safety like he was back in his house. Realizing that it meant he could go back when he liked, he decided to hang around his alternate self and learn as much as he could. One thing the memory dump noted for sure is that this strange other world is very safe, and people seem a bit cleaner and fatter than back home. He figured there might be a reason for it, and maybe by sticking around he could find out what that was.

  A week passed like this, before the sense of floating became urgent and he realized that his dream-stalking time was over, so he followed the feeling back to his true body and woke up, surprisingly well rested for someone who was awake for a week. Rushing to his parents, he detailed his dream of being in another world with buildings made of wood and stone and metal, and boxes of metal that flew along the roads like horses. His parents indulged him with listening before deciding that he must be missing his grandparents, and taking him to see them for the day while they went to work.

  Another half of a year in the real world passed like this, where every night he could spend up to a week exploring this strange other world. As the years passed in the dream world, he became more knowledgeable, especially after his other self started going to the academy and learning new things. One of the things they went over in their css was the gods, and how they were to be respected for their role in guiding people to their purpose. Jian found this strange, as in his world the only god people talked about was the Angel God, and even then only as some rumored mighty being that had reached Level 100 soul power and ascended, and watched over the world. Jian decided that he liked this world's way of handling things, and he had started to pray to Hestia, who watched over the home and families. He loved his family and decided if anyone would know how to guide him to help his family, it would be her. He hadn't recieved anything that felt like the guidance people talked about, but maybe their worlds were far away and his prayers took a while to reach her. He also realized that if she was watching over families, she must be very busy and a random prayer from another world was probably a little outside of her experience.

  He was also learning about strange concepts like electricity, that sounded like it was that lightning that the other kids talked about at home, and medicine, which made people feel better, which sounded amazing to him. He also learned about super heros and other things that kids liked to talk about, and finally about the elusive talks about cultivators, which sounded a lot like how common folk talked about Soul Masters. He decided to look it up one night and found this world's view on cultivation impressive. They had all this knowledge on these things called meridians, meditation, chakras, and how cultivators could open themselves up to the astral to learn about the ws of the universe, and turn that knowledge into fierce fighting techniques. He resolved to learn all about this in his dreams, so he could become a spirit master like his parents and protect his family.

  Finally, after the New Year's break, his father called the family to the living room in their house. He wore a serious face that made Jian nervous for some reason, but he brushed that aside and listened intently to what his father was saying.

  "Alright everyone, now that we're gathered I have an announcement," Hao begain, looking around and meeting everyone's eyes, "I've finally broken through to Level 50, and I'm going out to hunt for my next soul ring. I'll be taking Shuang Nezhi with me for protection, he's agreed to come out with me as he needs his Level 50 ring as well."

  Lu Xia looked worried that her husband was going out on a journey that would certainly be dangerous, but realized there was nothing she could do without leaving the Inn and Jian alone for a while, and she had the best cultivation in the Inn, not out in the wild fighting like her husband did.

  "Okay dear, but you make it back safely or i'll go marching into the abyss, grab your soul, and drag you back here just so I can kill you myself, you hear me?" Xia asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

  "Y-yes dear, i'll come back safe. When I come back, I'll be a Soul King, and it'll be a while yet after that before I make another breakthrough, and this way once you break through i'll be able to go with you to protect you!" Hao stammered in reply, hoping to appease his wife enough that he didn't get stuck cleaning the bathrooms again today.

  Xia kept her eyes locked onto her husband, looking for any trace of a lie, before nodding in satisfaction, understanding that her point has been made. It was at this moment when Hao realized where his son got his commanding presence from. Xia could probably make an emporer quiver in his boots with that stare of hers.

  Jian nodded as well, understanding that this world wasn't as safe as the one in his dreams, and deciding to move up his cultivation research pns so that he could help his family. He might not fully understand how to feel and move energies around like those cultivators do, but he could practice with his mind and try to learn about medicine and other things that might be useful to help around the tavern, like metal-working or carpentry. Jian knew that his family owned a carpentry shop in addition to the tavern so that the branch families could both contribute to the main business that got the family started, as well as build something that made them unique and feel needed. He figured bcksmithing and carpentry was good work, and if he could help out his family while he was at it, that was good enough for him.

  That night, as the Lu family fell asleep, they all felt that these next steps were the start of a much rger journey. Jian sent another prayer to Hestia, asking her to watch over his father on his journey and see that he could make it home safe.

  Elsewhere, in another universe, a short goddess with long bck hair and golden red eyes sat up in shock, as the first of many prayers flooded in from a very unexpected pce, and from a very unexpected person.

  "Interesting," she muttered, eyes gleaming with both curiosity and amusement, "A child from another universe, eh? Let's see what fate has in store for us, young champion."