The sunlight shone through the window made out of a fine wooden frame and made the person sitting in front of the chessboard glow. His long, silvern hair fell over his shoulders and the golden robes, his long and thick lashes covered the pitch black eyes that looked at the black and white chess pieces. His long fingers played with a black chess piece before setting it down. Then he raised is eyelids to look up.
"It's your turn, Wan HuaFeng."
His voice was like his looks: Clear, refined, elegant and beautiful. More words weren't needed nor possible.
The man opposite of him yawned. He wore dark purple robes fit for athletic activities, his hair reminded one of a burnt bird nest and he almost seemed to disappear in the shadows. Propping himself up with his left arm and letting the white pieces fall into the small bowl beside him he looked like he didn't take things seriously. However, his extremely light green iris and the grey pupils were serious.
"I came here to talk, Ruo Qiu, not to play chess."
Ruo Qiu lowered his eyes, the pale lips forming a thin line.
Wan HuaFeng sighed. No matter what, his opponent would always look like a deity, loved by the sun and nature.
"Fine... Let's play, but just this last round. I have to return soon."
A pair of black pearl eyes stared at him, surrounded by silver. "Thank you."
The one in purple felt his body temperature rise as he saw the slight smile and gripped his collar in the futile attempt to loosen it a bit.
Ruo Qiu noticed all of this, but decided to say something else.
"We can talk while playing."
"Oh, yes..." Wan HuaFeng wiped the sweat off his forehead. Whenever he met the man in gold, he turned almost completely useless. Good thing he quit being an assassin before meeting Ruo Qiu.
"Ahem, so... This years competition..."
"My candidates?"
"Yes."
"It is too early to judge right now. Give them and us more time."
"True... Well, the fellows from Chrysanthemum Garden seem pretty good. Phoenix Pavillion too."
"Mn."
"Cloud Storm Peak is also good, Hollow Bone temple and the paradox palace are rather worrying..."
"The latter two are unrelated to us, different planet."
"I just wanted to mention it."
"Yes, yes."
"Have you heard anything about Ruan ShiXin?"
"I cut her off."
"Oh."
Wan HuaFeng sighed. He, Ruo Qiu and Ruan ShiXin had been disciples under the same master and spent a lot of time together, but Ruan ShiXin was interested in Ruo Qiu, who didn't like women. To really get rid of her, he formed a fake couple with Wan HuaFeng. Turned out, those two got along really well, and after pretending it became real.
Since Eridymeon was very accepting, gender and religions didn't matter for marriage. Racism had long died out on this magical planet. After rediscovering the tools of the old world, along with the wrongs the humans did and what they researched etc, they rebuild. They made space travel possible, found other species in the endless universe and began to interact with other planets and so on.
After this new era had stabilized, they decided to make a competition to show off, teach, learn and recruit. It would start in small circles like he sects or towns, then expand to the provinces, countries, continents, world, planets, galaxies and finally the universe. It also served to find these that were a threat to the peace between the people.
But there would also be masters watching, looking for disciples with talent and potential. In the earlier stages, this would be useless. There were too many people who just had luck and/or were too weak. Those "bad seedlings" had to be sorted out, and good ones had to be taken before they could be snatched by those masters that pretended to be good or just wanted fame and money.
The contestants would have a hard life, but so would their masters.
But currently, everything was calm. The competition hadn't started yet, and the masters could prepare techniques and other things.
"How many will you take?"
"Two at most."
"Me too, then."
Ruo Qiu sighed as he heard this. He felt that Wan HuaFeng didn't think enough for himself and just blindly followed everything Ruo Qiu did. It was somewhat annoying.
"Ruo Qiu WeiFeng."
"What."
Ruo Qiu didn't like his full name. Though "soft autumn breeze" sounded almost like a poem, it was simply too long. Wan HuaFeng, night of the flower wind, however, was short and easier to say. Though Ruo Qiu would never admit it, he was lazy. Being one of the last amber dragon cats of Eridymeon, one of the rarest beastmen specimen one could find, he was already over 420 years old and had seen many things. In fact so many, that he stopped caring for most of the things going on around him. He still cared for himself and Wan HuaFeng, of course.
Wan HuaFeng was human, but because of the marriage with Ruo Qiu, his lifespan had been extended, at the cost of Ruo Qiu's. This is very common on Eridymeon.
On Eridymeon, beastmen are known as darker, because of their supposedly dark energy compared to humans, which is complete nonsense. Darker came to being through a magic outburst similar to a volcanic chain eruption. The closer one was to an outburst, the stronger the effect of the magic. Unlucky ones were transformed into ferocious beast, with more luck into peaceful ones and with rare luck into protectors of the magic sources.
Others stayed "useless" humans, got magic and turned into sorcerers or morphed with animals, creating the darker species. Darker commonly refers to those half human, half animal beings that live on land, merfolk is everything inhabitant to water bodies and airborne anything that has wings and is therefor capable of flight. The addition of magic makes dragons and fairies possible, but also the fos, from outer space, which were originally humans catapulted away from Eridymeon because of the magic eruptions. They can survive in the vacuum of space and on planets that have very harsh living conditions.
Darker are the most common, but there are many different ones, sub species, variations and so on.
The magic eruptions also changes the form of the continents and oceans, burying the modern structures and devices.
It took the people of Eridymeon 1000 years to readjust. This period is called the apocalypse because of the intense fighting, establishing of territory and countries and the addition of deities from the old world that have awoken and new one created through the believes of the new species. It was a huge chaos.
But now, 5000 years after the apocalypse, the old technologies have been improved and contacts with other planets and galaxies have been established.
That is the world of Eridymeon.
A small 'beep' sound came from the armband on Ruo Qius wrist. He moved the wide sleeve away and read through the message. A slight frown appeared on the straight eyebrows.
"What is it?"
"It can wait a bit."
"If you say so."
They played a bit more, until another message interrupted them.
Ruo Qiu sighed and stood up, the golden robe reflecting the light and making him look like an exiled immortal from heaven. With one last look to the chessboard, he set two pieces down and turned around to take his leave.
"Hey, wait - my move... Ah, Ruo Qiu!"
The door closed. With a 'hmph' Wan HuaFeng sat back down. He felt stupid for jumping up. Then, his eyes fell onto the chessboard.
"Huh? What did he do, dosen't that make him lose...?"
He took a closer look. Then his eyes widened. The black cess pieces formed a character and an arrow pointing towards him. With a bit interpretation, Wan HuaFeng could figure out that it basically meant 'I love Wan HuaFeng'.
Said Wan HuaFeng shouted without words in excitement and ran outside as fast as he could to follow Ruo Qiu.
...
The floor was made out of a polished black material that reflected a pair of shimmering black leather boots. They were very quiet in the empty hallway.
The pair of boots stopped in front of a big glas window. They turned to let the owner look carefully at the endless number of stars in that dark space.
Then, he focused on his reflection. He wore a black uniform with red and gold, his short, silky black hair sticking out from under the hat, bronzen skin and full dark lips to eyes that looked like black pearls and held the stars inside them. His brows were fine and straight, the lashes long and the eyes big. On their own, his chin, jaw and nose looked a little crooked, but together they formed a very handsome, elegant yet still masculine face.
He had long legs, broad shoulders and a slightly slimmed waist. Everything was well proportioned, his posture was very straight and proper. He wasn't that tall, however, barely reaching 182 centimeter, 10 short of the standard height on the spaceship. But he was also the youngest with 16 years, so he had hopes of getting taller.
His armband beeped, reminding him of the time, and he continued on his way.
He entered his cabin and took off the hat, going through his hair with one hand and splashing a bit water on his face.
"You know you should be sleeping."
He looked up. On one of the beds in the cabin that also had two desks and some places to store clothes, books and such lay a youth with snow white hair made into a high ponytail with bangs covering the forehead. He wore white pajamas and had bright golden eyes that eyed his roommate with a curious look.
"You too."
"But Yue Xing, I can't sleep when you're gone."
Yue Xing didn't say anything, just changed his clothes. Though they were friends, he felt it was beneath him to bicker with his roommate.
"Go to sleep, Xia Yao."
Xia Yao smiled contently as he heard Yue Xings deep and vibrating voice. Many were envious of that 'manly' aspect of his roommate, but Xia Yao liked him and himself the way they were. He himself wasn't outstanding, more on the almost useless average side.
Yue Xing however was very intelligent and athletic. The only thing he was bad at was talking. His way with words would be best described as clumsy, he was shy and just wanted to do esports instead of anything else, listening to music from the old world and looking at the stars.
But on the spaceship of Phoenix Pavillion, that was a bit... difficult. The spaceship was made to train disciples between 15 and 20 years old and needed to be managed by these youths. The instructors communicated with them through the armbands and other devices, the resource ship came once a month and the spaceship only landed for emergencies or the competition every five years.
While Xia Yao intended to participate in the competition, Yue Xing just wanted to spend his days leisurely. But the sect leader had big hopes for the latter, encouraging him at every corner. He was after all an orphan 'that needed parental guidance'. Frankly, Yue Xing couldn't care less.
His sect leader was a brawny man with less brains and more muscles, swinging a sword that looked like an oversized butcher knife and staying far away from modern technologies. He left these modern things to his wife, who had a knack for those things and really loved it, though she was rather average at it.
In the time Xia Yao had spent thinking, Yue Xing had put on his dark red pajama and crawled into his soft bed.
"Good night Yue Xing." Xia Yao said cheerfully.
"Night, Xiao Yao..." mumbled Yue Xing, already drifting into the dream realm.
Xia Yao flinched as he heard his nickname. He knew that it was extremely easy to say his name the wrong way, but being called 'small' (xiao) hit a sore spot, being one month older than Yue Xing but one and a half heads shorter.
Following this train of thought, the white haired youth had a nightmare about being tiny and running through the spaceship while everyone made fun of him.